I mean, you don’t disagree that I’m more rational than most Christians and Muslims, right?
Actually, I do. You use the language that rationalists use. However, you don’t seem to have considered very many alternate hypothesis. And you don’t seem to have performed any of the obvious tests to make sure you’re actually getting information out of your evidence.
For instance, you could have just cut up a bunch of similarly formatted stories from different sources, (or even better, have had a third party do it for you, so you don’t see it,) stuck them in a box and pulled them out at random—sorting them into Bible and non-Bible piles according to your feelings. If you were getting the sort of information out that would go some way towards justifying your beliefs, you should easily beat random people of equal familiarity with the Bible.
Rationality is a tool, and if someone doesn’t use it, then it doesn’t matter how good a tool they have; they’re not a rationalist any more than someone who owns a gun is a soldier. Rationalists have to actually go out and gather/analyse the data.
(Edit to change you to someone for clarity’s sake.)
For instance, you could have just cut up a bunch of similarly formatted stories from different sources, (or even better, have had a third party do it for you, so you don’t see it,) stuck them in a box and pulled them out at random—sorting them into Bible and non-Bible piles according to your feelings. If you were getting the sort of information out that would go some way towards justifying your beliefs, you should easily beat random people of equal familiarity with the Bible.
No, I couldn’t have for two reasons. By the time I could have thought of it I would have recognized nearly all the Bible passages as Biblical and to obscure meaning would require such short quotes I’d never be able to tell. Those are things I already explained—you know, in the post where I said we should totally test this, using a similar experiment.
No, I couldn’t have for two reasons. By the time I could have thought of it I would have recognized nearly all the Bible passages as Biblical and to obscure meaning would require such short quotes I’d never be able to tell. Those are things I already explained—you know, in the post where I said we should totally test this, using a similar experiment.
If that’s the stance you’re going to take, it seems destructive to the idea that I should consider you rational. You proposed a test to verify your belief that could not be performed; in the knowledge that, if it was, it would give misleading results.
Minor points:
There’s more than just one bible out there. Unless you’re a biblical scholar, the odds that there’s nothing from a bible that you haven’t read are fairly slim.
‘nearly all’ does leave you with some testable evidence. The odds that it just happens to be too short a test for your truth-sensing faculty to work are, I think, fairly slim.
People tend not to have perfect memories. Even if you are a biblical scholar the odds are that you will make mistakes in this, as you would in anything else, and information gained from the intuitive faculty would be expressed as a lower error rate than like-qualified people.
If that’s the stance you’re going to take, it seems destructive to the idea that I should consider you rational. You proposed a test to verify your belief that could not be performed; in the knowledge that, if it was, it would give misleading results.
Similar test. Not the same test. It was a test that, though still flawed, fixed those two things I could see immediately (and in doing so created other problems).
People tend not to have perfect memories. Even if you are a biblical scholar the odds are that you will make mistakes in this, as you would in anything else, and information gained from the intuitive faculty would be expressed as a lower error rate than like-qualified people.
Similar test. Not the same test. It was a test that, though still flawed, fixed those two things I could see immediately (and in doing so created other problems).
I don’t see that it would have fixed those things. We could, perhaps, come up with a more useful test if we discussed it on a less hostile footing. But, at the moment, I’m not getting a whole lot of info out of the exchange and don’t think it worth arguing with you over quite why your test wouldn’t work, since we both agree that it wouldn’t.
Want to test this?
Not really. It’s not that sort of thing where the outputs of the test would have much value for me. I could easily get 100% of the quotes correct by sticking them into google, as could you. The only answers we could accept with any significant confidence would be the ones we didn’t think the other person was likely to lie about.
My beliefs in respect to claims about the supernatural are held with a high degree of confidence, and pushing them some tiny distance towards the false end of the spectrum is not worth the hours I would have to invest.
Actually, I do. You use the language that rationalists use. However, you don’t seem to have considered very many alternate hypothesis. And you don’t seem to have performed any of the obvious tests to make sure you’re actually getting information out of your evidence.
For instance, you could have just cut up a bunch of similarly formatted stories from different sources, (or even better, have had a third party do it for you, so you don’t see it,) stuck them in a box and pulled them out at random—sorting them into Bible and non-Bible piles according to your feelings. If you were getting the sort of information out that would go some way towards justifying your beliefs, you should easily beat random people of equal familiarity with the Bible.
Rationality is a tool, and if someone doesn’t use it, then it doesn’t matter how good a tool they have; they’re not a rationalist any more than someone who owns a gun is a soldier. Rationalists have to actually go out and gather/analyse the data.
(Edit to change you to someone for clarity’s sake.)
No, I couldn’t have for two reasons. By the time I could have thought of it I would have recognized nearly all the Bible passages as Biblical and to obscure meaning would require such short quotes I’d never be able to tell. Those are things I already explained—you know, in the post where I said we should totally test this, using a similar experiment.
If that’s the stance you’re going to take, it seems destructive to the idea that I should consider you rational. You proposed a test to verify your belief that could not be performed; in the knowledge that, if it was, it would give misleading results.
Minor points: There’s more than just one bible out there. Unless you’re a biblical scholar, the odds that there’s nothing from a bible that you haven’t read are fairly slim.
‘nearly all’ does leave you with some testable evidence. The odds that it just happens to be too short a test for your truth-sensing faculty to work are, I think, fairly slim.
People tend not to have perfect memories. Even if you are a biblical scholar the odds are that you will make mistakes in this, as you would in anything else, and information gained from the intuitive faculty would be expressed as a lower error rate than like-qualified people.
ETA quote.
Similar test. Not the same test. It was a test that, though still flawed, fixed those two things I could see immediately (and in doing so created other problems).
Want to test this?
I don’t see that it would have fixed those things. We could, perhaps, come up with a more useful test if we discussed it on a less hostile footing. But, at the moment, I’m not getting a whole lot of info out of the exchange and don’t think it worth arguing with you over quite why your test wouldn’t work, since we both agree that it wouldn’t.
Not really. It’s not that sort of thing where the outputs of the test would have much value for me. I could easily get 100% of the quotes correct by sticking them into google, as could you. The only answers we could accept with any significant confidence would be the ones we didn’t think the other person was likely to lie about.
My beliefs in respect to claims about the supernatural are held with a high degree of confidence, and pushing them some tiny distance towards the false end of the spectrum is not worth the hours I would have to invest.