Ancient people were just as skeptical with the key difference of having virtually no information, relative to what we do today. If I hear about something happening in Africa, I can go to the internet, or go to any of a dozen news sources to try and find out how true what I heard was. If someone 2000 years ago in europe heard about something happening in africa, they would have none of these options. People made things up, misinterpreted things heard from other languages and cultures, and just plain didn’t understand all sorts of things. Consider Herodotus, to all accounts a man who intended to write true stories of different countries and events, and yet whose accounts are littered with what we now know to be untruths and misrepresentations. We know that there were apocryphal gospels that never made it into today’s bible, so at some point historically things were selected by people in power, presumably because they furthered their agenda. You’re trying to argue that it’s implausible that the bible is one giant lie, and I agree, but it’s very likely to be a hundred different lies or distortions from a hundred different eras piled on top of each other. If everyone believes some simple claim, then then next censorship or invention is not the giant lie you make it out to be.
Why do you (and the author of the grandparent) think ancient people were just as skeptical as us? I’m not even sure that different cultures today are equally skeptical.
Perhaps if you do the radiator experiment where you have turned the metal plate round, you will find that in different cultures (or even situations) people will be more or less likely to be skeptical of the situation in front of them.
I’m agnostic as to whether or not they were, but I was granting the claim for the purposes of the debate. Whether or not your base level of “skepticism” is the same, the amount of knowledge you have influences what you are skeptical of. Ie, a child may be innately as skeptical as an adult, but has less information.
Ancient people were just as skeptical with the key difference of having virtually no information, relative to what we do today. If I hear about something happening in Africa, I can go to the internet, or go to any of a dozen news sources to try and find out how true what I heard was. If someone 2000 years ago in europe heard about something happening in africa, they would have none of these options. People made things up, misinterpreted things heard from other languages and cultures, and just plain didn’t understand all sorts of things. Consider Herodotus, to all accounts a man who intended to write true stories of different countries and events, and yet whose accounts are littered with what we now know to be untruths and misrepresentations. We know that there were apocryphal gospels that never made it into today’s bible, so at some point historically things were selected by people in power, presumably because they furthered their agenda. You’re trying to argue that it’s implausible that the bible is one giant lie, and I agree, but it’s very likely to be a hundred different lies or distortions from a hundred different eras piled on top of each other. If everyone believes some simple claim, then then next censorship or invention is not the giant lie you make it out to be.
Why do you (and the author of the grandparent) think ancient people were just as skeptical as us? I’m not even sure that different cultures today are equally skeptical.
Perhaps if you do the radiator experiment where you have turned the metal plate round, you will find that in different cultures (or even situations) people will be more or less likely to be skeptical of the situation in front of them.
I’m agnostic as to whether or not they were, but I was granting the claim for the purposes of the debate. Whether or not your base level of “skepticism” is the same, the amount of knowledge you have influences what you are skeptical of. Ie, a child may be innately as skeptical as an adult, but has less information.
I agree. Perhaps I should have put this as a reply to the grandparent instead?