Test Your Rational Consistency
Posted: 2010.08.06 (09:30)
Blizz has undoubtedly been wondering when the hell I'm going to make a post about this here, and I think I've kept him waiting long enough.
Battleground God is a series of questions about religion that focuses on your rational consistency (the test is not about your knowledge).
I managed to get through with only one "bit bullet," but I disagree on the grounds. I'll let Blizz explain his own results.
Email I sent to the webmaster:
Battleground God is a series of questions about religion that focuses on your rational consistency (the test is not about your knowledge).
I managed to get through with only one "bit bullet," but I disagree on the grounds. I'll let Blizz explain his own results.
Email I sent to the webmaster:
Mr. Stangroom,
I noticed that the Battlefield God FAQ was dated 2002, so I realize that the material I'm commenting about is rather dated, but I have enough pride in my general attempt at rational consistency that I'm writing you about it anyway. I hope you'll humor me.
To begin with, let me just say that I answered "False" to the first question ("God exists."), which should give you a general idea of my answers to the other questions.
Long story short, I bit a bullet where I didn't think I ought to have, and in another case didn't bite a bullet where I expected to.
Question #12:
"If God exists she could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable and everything that is now considered morally good becomes sinful."
I answered in the affirmative for the simple reason that false can imply anything, i.e. "if p then q" is always true if p is false, regardless of whether q is true or false, e.g. "if pigs can fly, then the moon is made of cheese" is a true statement.
I did not bite or take a bullet for this, nor do I believe that I should have.
When I was asked Question #16, however...
Question #16:
"If God exists she would have the freedom and power to create square circles and make 1 + 1 = 72."
I answered "False" for the "does God exist" question, therefore it is only rationally consistent for me to read this question, "If God exists then [blah blah blah, absolutely fucking anything; I'm not obligated to care]," i.e. "If [false] then [irrelevant]." So I answered "True" for the same reason as Question #12: false can imply anything. But I took a bullet because apparently I was conceding that any discussion of God "cannot be constrained by basic principles of rationality," which makes "rational discourse about God impossible." I don't believe that that's a fair conclusion to make about my views on religion or my rational consistency, given the motivation I had for answering the way I did.
(Incidentally, while I do believe that rational discourse about God is impossible (although rational discourse about whether it's a good idea to believe in God is certainly possible, and done frequently), I think it would be more accurate to say that a discussion of God is /banished from/ rational inquiry, rather than the true but misleading notion that it /transcends/ rational inquiry.)
As for the place I thought I ought to have bitten a bullet:
Question #9:
"Torturing innocent people is morally wrong."
I answered "False," which I knew as I made that selection was an "implication that most would find strange, incredible or unpalatable," but I was very surprised to find that I had not bitten a bullet for choosing this answer.
I can explain my answer, too. While I am convinced that torture is a terribly ineffective means of discovering the truth about anything, and while I am unable to imagine any circumstance in which torturing innocent people is morally acceptable, I concede nonetheless that I could be misinformed, naive, and/or unimaginative. There is, after all, no inherent contradiction I can identify in torturing innocents for justice, so in my mind there's a chance that such a circumstance could be possible. Because I, as an atheist, have no basis for believing in moral absolutes, I didn't think it would be rationally consistent for me to agree that the torture of innocents is _unconditionally_ immoral. I answered the way I did through clenched teeth. I really should have been hit with a "you bit the bullet."
In any case, this was a fantastic game. Thank you for making it and putting as much thought into it as you did. I've just sent the link to a number of my friends.