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While spelunking alone, you happen to discover several ancient manuscripts detailing events regarding the origins of Abrahamic religions. Because you are a Hebrew and Greek speaking spelunker, you fully understand the nature of these documents and have discerned that they will have widespread ramifications should they reach the public eye, essentially being able to disprove the "divinity" of these religions and rendering them obsolete. However, you also find yourself with a broken leg; while you are able to use your advanced medical knowledge to set the wound so it won't cause your death, you are nonetheless immobile, and are thus trapped in a cave. It's the middle of winter, and you don't have enough material to get a fire going. Unless, of course, you burn the manuscripts. A search party won't be able to find you for quite some time, and if you do not make a fire you will surely freeze death. If you burn the pages (you must use all of them), you will survive, but if you don't you will die; the search party will still find your body, as well as the manuscripts. Do you keep yourself alive, doomed to an existence where you know the absolute truth without evidence? Or do you die, but not knowing where the manuscripts will end up? Your move.

I metaphorically burn the pages all the time in these instances.

So in effect, the binary is: A, die, B, discover some historical evidence about the Abrahamic religions.

And the answer is burn the pages. People only accept things that fit into their worldview anyway.

Besides, it's rather well-known among academics that Judaism wasn't what people claim it was in the early days: it started out as a polytheistic religion which was later heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, eventually adopting many core doctrines. But lies are halfway around the world by the time the truth puts its boots on.

On the bright side, you'll probably die of thirst anyway.

After thinking, I shall DESTROY THE PAGES. I might change my mind if I was actually in this situation though. The reason is that even if you came out triumphant like "In your face, you believers!" they still won't believe you. You can't change faith.

Burn the pages, of course. scythe is quite right, logic has very little effect on believers. There's plenty of evidence as there is. Even if saving the pages was guaranteed to cause everyone to drop their religions and become reasonable people (which, paradoxically, would be nothing short of supernatural), I wouldn't do it because I am sensibly selfish. It's the rest of the world's problem, not mine.

You all are approaching it from the "theists wouldn't believe me/change anyway" side of the argument. I would still burn the pages, most likely, but the way I look at it is the sacrifice of a priceless artifact -- regardless of its religious impact. It's like finding the Rosetta stone and tossing it off a cliff.

boustrophedon wrote:You all are approaching it from the "theists wouldn't believe me/change anyway" side of the argument. I would still burn the pages, most likely, but the way I look at it is the sacrifice of a priceless artifact -- regardless of its religious impact. It's like finding the Rosetta stone and tossing it off a cliff.

this

Regardless of it's philosophical ramifications, it's still knowledge, and I view the waste and misuse of knowledge as the biggest evil of all.

noops wrote:Regardless of it's philosophical ramifications, it's still knowledge, and I view the waste and misuse of knowledge as the biggest evil of all.

Hm. Could one not memorize the pages, or scratch it into your clothes, so one could reconstruct the proof when out of this wretched hole?

ENT474 wrote:

noops wrote:Regardless of it's philosophical ramifications, it's still knowledge, and I view the waste and misuse of knowledge as the biggest evil of all.

Hm. Could one not memorize the pages, or scratch it into your clothes, so one could reconstruct the proof when out of this wretched hole?

Well sure, but that's just circumventing the point of the question. Cheating.

Lets say it is 10000 pages of manuscript (or more). You'll freeze to death before you memorize that. So you effectively choose option 2.

On that note, I'd burn them. Read them first, of course, but move closer to the entrance and begin burning them as needed, starting with the beginning, hoping that I don't need to burn it all.