Rapoport's Rules Meet the Outsider Test

Rapoport’s Rules for Debate

According to the English Wikipedia, Daniel Dennett (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) “was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.” Dennett was and remains well-known in atheist/freethinking/skeptical circles as one of the so-called “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, alongside Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

In this post I draw from Chapter 3 of Dennett’s book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (2013). The particular intuition pump, or tool in that chapter is what Dennett called “Rapoport’s Rules for Debate”. The Rules are Dennett’s suggestion for how to disagree with someone productively. In this article I’ll explore the practicality of the rules, and how one might apply them to John W. Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith.

Dennett’s version of Rapoport’s Rules attracted considerable commentary, as this DDG Web search shows. Quoting from Dennett’s original version: 

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An Excerpt From Chapter 2, From "The Outsider Test for Faith", pp. 33-44

Chapter 2: The Fact of Religious Diversity

This chapter supports my first contention—that people who are located in distinct geographical areas around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and justify a wide diversity of mutually exclusive religious faiths due to their particular upbringing and shared cultural heritage. This is the Religious Diversity Thesis (RDVT), and it is a well-established fact in today’s world. The problem of religious diversity cries out for reasonable explanation, something that faith has not provided so far. Attempts to mitigate it or explain it, as we’ll see, either fail to take it seriously or explain religion itself away.

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I've Written Three Books On How To Honestly Seek the Truth

[First Published August 2022] I've written three books to educate believers on how to honestly seek the truth and defend it: 1) The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True. In it I show honest believers how to approach their faith consistently without any double standards or special pleading.

2) How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. In it I show Christian apologists how to correctly defend their faith, if it can be defended at all. Apologists should read it before writing another sentence in defense of their faith. In it I challenge apologists to stop doing what they're doing if they're honest about defending their Christian faith. The risk is that if they stop it they cannot defend their faith at all. But the risk is worth it if they're serious about knowing and defending the truth.

3) Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End. In it I show philosophers of religion and other intellectuals how to properly discuss and debate religious beliefs. What I cannot teach however, is to desire the truth. That comes from within. Taken together these three books are the antidote to the faith virus. The problem is almost none of them desire the truth, comparatively speaking. Here's hoping a few honest believers are reading who desire the truth.

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Seeking to Confirm One's Faith is the Worst Method for Determining Which Religion is True, if There is One.

A Muslim named Bishr Nayal is commenting here at DC, which I welcome. He quoted Quran 30:58 which reads, "In the Qur'an We have explained things to people in myriad ways. But no matter what Sign you bring to them, those who are resolved upon denying the Truth will say: 'You are given to falsehood." But this quote can be used to say other believers in different sects within Islam are wrong too. Nayal, you are seeking to confirm your faith. Almost anyone can do that. Given the prolific number of religions and sects on the planet, you know that they do it. Yet you're doing the same thing! This is the worst method for determining which religion is true, if there is one.

I've written a book for you. It's called, "The Outsider Test for Faith." Read it. If you choose not to do so, then at this point you are not interested in knowing if your religious faith is true. It can be found here on Amazon. Go ahead. What have you got to lose? It's about methodology.

One thing is sure, whether your read my book or not, seeking to confirm one's faith is emphatically NOT the way to know if your religion is true. It's a known cognitive bias. Agreed? If not, why not? See this explained with regard to St. Anselm. Okay, now read the introduction to my book, to whet your appetite.

The Outsider Test for Faith: How To Know Which Religion is True

I'm done writing and editing books, so I'm highlighting each one of them in thirteen separate posts.

I had wanted the subtitle to be "How to Know Which Religion Is True If There Is One, since I don't think there is one. But that was rejected by my publisher for some ignorant reason I forget now.

Most of my books were conceived and tested on this blog in debates with believers. This is the case with this book more than any other. Here's the Amazon link to my book. In it I'm arguing for a fair test to help believers examine their own faith honestly, without any special pleading or double standards. I am arguing that every honest seeker should embrace it. This should be seen in the first few pages of my book. While I think the test leads to unbelief, that's a separate debate.

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Bill Burr Speaks the Truth About Religion

Sound familiar? This video has been watched 2.6 million times. Burr is reaching millions more people than I could hope to do. Here is a snippet to tease you into watching this 9:48 minutes of pure genius.

Everybody else's religion sounds stupid. The first time I heard the story of Scientology I was like, that is the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life...while simultaneously still kind of believing that a woman who never got f*cked had a baby that walked on the water, died and came back three days later. Yeah, that made total sense to me. So it just hit me one day. Why doesn't Scientology make sense and my shit does? I think it's because I heard their story when I was an adult. I heard my story when I was four years old. What was I going to do? I had to make a decision. Just let go of it. Let go of it like that creepy moment in curling... That's what I did with my religion. I just let go of it. It just floated away.

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"You Wouldn't Be An Atheist If You Were Born in a Different Time and Place."

Bonus: Quote from Robert G. Ingersoll below!!

If I had the time I would start a whole series of quotes with my responses to see how you would respond. Here's a Tweet by @EscapingAtheism · Apr 23:

Almost all atheists today wouldn't be atheists if they were born someplace else, in say, pre-Columbian America, or seventh century Africa.

My Tweet in response: 

This is true if we were indoctrinated in a religious culture without knowing any alternatives, and without being taught to think according to logic and reason based on objective evidence. Got it! Religious indoctrination that stifles doubt and eschews evidence is the problem.

A follow-up Tweet:

The sociological fact that we believe whatever religion we were raised to believe leads us to the null hypothesis of doubt. The burden is upon us all to follow the objective evidence wherever it leads if we wish to be honest seekers of truth. Most people are oblivious to this need.

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DON’T BE CLOSE-MINDED TO SCIENCE

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to my 2016 anthology, Christianity in the Light of Science, pp. 20-23. If you don't have it this is one of the best books I've ever published:

In this volume is found the evidence, the scientific evidence, the objective evidence that can convince open-minded people. Open-minded people will be open to the scientific evidence. Closed-minded people won’t be open to it, but will instead try to denigrate or deny it. To help believers be open-minded to scientific evidence I have argued quite extensively for the Outsider Test for Faith.5 Professor Jerry Coyne, a scientist specializing in evolutionary genetics at the University of Chicago, says “the wisdom of this . . . quasiscientific approach” is “unquestionable.”6 It asks believers to rationally test one’s culturally adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject.

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Dr. Matthew Flannagan Opposes Known Facts Requiring the OTF

Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly submit to you more in the case study of Dr. Matt Flannagan's view of the The Outsider Test for Faith. Here's an example of what cognitive biases do to someone's brain when rejecting the requirement for sufficient objective evidence. He's digging his heels in deeper and deeper into the muddy waters of his faith bias. [See Tag for earlier entries].

This exchange took place on Facebook. I had posted pictures of the Christian apologetics books I own and Flannagan commented.

Flannagan: I am pretty confident that during my education: through secular public school, a public university known for leftist leanings and activism and a secular philosophy department. I studied, read and listened to more atheists and secularists than the average atheist has to Christians. I certainly have read more atheists philosophers than any atheists I know has read Christians.

I had to pounce!

Loftus: You had me up until the bold claim of your last sentence. I think you may know of one such atheist. Even if what you claim is true, it only shows that cognitive biases run wild within your brain. I know this from your review of the outsider test for faith.

The goal of the OTF is to help indoctrinated people to require sufficient objective evidence for their own faith, just as they require it for the faiths they reject. You failed to properly object to the OTF because your brain wouldn't allow you to understand it. LINK.

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Dr. Chris Gadsden Obfuscates On The Outsider Test for Faith

Dr. Chris Gadsden

I must admit it's kind of gratifying when Christian philosophers take a look at the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF), which I've defended online and in my book. Recently Dr. Chris Gadsden decided to look at it. He has earned two master’s degrees and one PhD in philosophy (University of Missouri). He appears to be some sort of expert on proper belief formation, as seen in his PhD dissertation, Epistemic duties and blameworthiness for belief. He also appears as the kind of guy who doesn't hunker down in the trenches willing to die rather than admit he might be wrong about something. We'll see, because he begins with a misunderstanding by saying, "Lots of internet atheists promote the 'outsider test' (OTF) as a potent weapon against Christians. But how potent is it? Let’s have a look."

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The Conclusion Driven Arguments of Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" Regarding The Outsider Test for Faith, Part 2

Having previously commented on the kinds of important issues Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" failed to mention, let me deal with the substance of his criticisms of the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). To his credit he quotes me fairly as saying:

The outsider test is simply a challenge to test one’s own religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, as an outsider. It calls upon believers to “Test or examine your religious beliefs as if you were outsiders with the same presumption of skepticism you use to test or examine other religious beliefs.” Its presumption is that when examining any set of religious beliefs skepticism is warranted, since the odds are good that the particular set of religious beliefs you have adopted is wrong.

The amount of skepticism warranted depends on [1] the number of rational people who disagree, [2] whether the people who disagree are separated into distinct geographical locations, [3] the nature of those beliefs, [4] how they originated, [5] how they were personally adopted in the first place, and [6] the kinds of evidence that can possibly be used to decide between them. My claim is that when it comes to religious beliefs a high degree of skepticism is warranted because of these factors. SOURCE.

In his first post he loosely discusses numbers 1, 2, and 4 above, with a focus on #1, that "the amount of skepticism warranted depends on the number of rational people who disagree."

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The Conclusion Driven Arguments of Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" Regarding The Outsider Test for Faith, Part 1

It doesn't take much for people in the pew to mindlessly quote mine from the Bible and/or the apologetics based on it. But upon thinking just below the surface we find it's all a ruse, a sham. Christian apologists have a hidden agenda. Instead of getting better at arguing for their faith they are getting better at obfuscating (or obscuring) it from view. They have become experts in conclusion driven arguments. That's all they have. It's called special pleading, and it's all special pleading. It's special pleading all the way down. That means they base their arguments on double standards, one for their faith and a different one for other faiths. It's double standards all the way down since they would never allow other people of faith to do the same. It's faith-based apologetics, never reasoned-based apologetics; no matter what they say. It's always their faith seeking reasons, never reasons leading to their faith. It's all based on assumptions, all the way down. They never argue to their faith. They always assume it and argue based on it. All apologetics is therefore presuppositional. It's presuppositional all the way down.

Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" seems to be a good enough guy. He's a wannabe Christian apologist though, who has goaded me a bit to deal with his three part disputation of The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). He honestly admits he hasn't read my book on it, LINK, but that's where the intellectual honesty ends. In the Introduction to it I said it's "my final understanding" of the test up until it was published. He still hasn't read it, preferring instead what I wrote before I wrote my book.

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This Could Be Your Religion!

I've been sharing a weekly link of photos from Religion News Service that depicts people of different religious faiths from around the world. Some of them and their festivals are quite bizarre; the one highlighted here for instance [click it to read the caption]! The people pictured are sincerely and deeply committed to worship differently conceived religions and deities. They cannot all be right, although they could all be wrong. More pics here.

What does this global religious diversity say about a god who will judge us by what we believe (cf. John 3:16, Romans 10:9-10)? It makes a mockery of such a notion! No reasonable person can accept belief unto salvation. Only unreasonable people do. That's why Christians who worship such a god make all kinds of excuses for this statute of his. Catholics say it's not about belief but good deeds in keeping with belief. Some others say everyone will be saved in the end, while still others take the bite out of damnation by saying the final destination of unsaved sinners is not all that bad. Probably most Christians offer the excuse that God knows our hearts and is a merciful judge, with the implication that even I, a blaspheming apostate debunker, can and will be saved. But if so, such a judging god would be unfairly letting unsaved sinners into heaven who didn't obey this divine statute. Why did he state it in the first place?

If you still wish to maintain your god's stated policy of belief unto salvation from a terrible final destination, then think as you look at these photos. When you look at them ask yourself how your god is going to judge people who just happened to be raised to believe differently? What if they refused to be honest by re-examining their own inherited religion as outsiders do?

But more importantly, what if you're wrong and it's YOU who were raised to believe the wrong religion? What if YOU will face a future final judgment for not believing the true religion, if there is one? Wouldn't you want to know now, not later after you die?

Must Watch! This is Why Believers Refuse to Look At Their Own Religion As Outsiders Do!!

Congitive Biases, Fallacies and the Outsider Test for Faith

The Outsider Test is Necessary and Important For Honest Seekers

The Outsider Perspective Helps Believers in Two Ways

I am arguing for a test to help believers examine their own faith fairly and honestly, without any special pleading or double standards. I am not specifically arguing any particular faith is false, hence no rebutting defeater. Nor am I specifically arguing on behalf of a different religious faith, hence no undercutting defeater either. How, for instance, does a fair test for religious truth argue for or against anything? This should be seen in the first few pages of my book.

I do think the test leads to unbelief, but that's a separate discussion. I can't even help most believers agree to this fair test, much less help them to abandon their faith.

The outsider test is designed to help believers see the need for requiring sufficient objective evidence. Believers can play lip service to this requirement by saying they accept it. But what is meant isn't always readily apparent. So the test also helps them see what is meant by sufficient objective evidence. That's it. In other words, the outsider test helps believers twice-over. It's both a test and a teaching tool. The test helps believers to accept the requirement for sufficient objective evidence (all by itself a hard task!). But it goes on to teach believers what it means by forcing them to consider how they reasonably examine the other religious faiths they reject. It teaches them to apply the same single standard across the board to their own religious faith.

If someone already accepts the requirement for sufficient objective evidence that person doesn't need the outsider test. To the degree then, that belief is involved--especially the kind that blinds people from seeing the need to require sufficient objective evidence--to that same degree the belief should be subjected to an outsider's perspective. And there is no better way to know who needs the outsider perspective than the believer who adamantly refuses to require sufficient objective evidence for their beliefs.

In other words, to the degree believers reject the outsider perspective is to the same degree they are the ones who need it the most.

A Facebook Discussion On Who Has the Burden of Proof

Here's an insightful discussion with a young would-be apologist named Cameron Bertuzzi. It took place after I posted QualiaSoup's fantastic video on "Who has the burden of proof?" Note how many times Cameron says my criteria for knowing which religion is true, if there is one, are self-refuting. And what is my criterion? The criterion of sufficient objective evidence. The delusion is very strong with him to think this is a reasonable answer. Faith has a blinding effect on believers. It's plain and simple. It's clear and obvious. To see this portrayed in the best possible way watch the video I share below. It offers three tests for how well you can count. My bet is you will be wrong.

Introducing our discussion I had said: "I've long been a fan of QualiaSoup. This video is on who has the burden of proof. He nails it! Believers who make extraordinary bizarre supernatural claims do, that's who."

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Apologist Steve Hays On the Outsider Perspective and the Historian

I copied this debate we had on Facebook. I can't get the pages sized the same, oh well. I typed much of it on the fly using my phone, so I could have done a bit better if I had a computer. I think I did very well. There's new stuff here. It would be well worth your time to read it to better learn how to answer believers.

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"The brain treats questions about beliefs like physical threats. Can we learn to disarm it?"

From a recent article with the above title:

Jonas Kaplan is an assistant research professor of psychology at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute. He studies the human brain using fMRIs to observe how it responds to, among other stimuli, challenges to predisposed beliefs.

In a study that he and his research team published in Scientific Reports last year, they studied the scans of people undergoing simultaneous questioning, and demonstrated the physical effects that take place within the brain during periods when political beliefs were questioned.

The study uncovered a correlation: when a belief is directly challenged by new information, parts of the brain that typically show activity for physical threats expressed greater activity in people who tended to be more resistive to changing their minds.

“The brain can be thought of as a very sophisticated self-defense machine,” Kaplan told me. “If there is a belief that the brain considers part of who we are, it turns on its self-defense mode to protect that belief.”

Kaplan argues that this demonstrates that the brain reacts to belief challenges in the same way that it reacts to perceived physical threats. This would help explain why minds are so resistant to change the beliefs that form one’s perception of reality.

Can we learn to disarm it? The answer is Yes!

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