What Does it Mean to Take and Pass The OTF?
Believers are scrambling to find a way of escape from the Outsider Test for Faith(OTF), which calls upon them to test what they were led to believe from an outsider's perspective with the same level of skepticism used to reject all other religions. All that believers need to do is consider how they evaluate the other religions they reject. Once they do they'll see quite plainly what is required of them. They merely assume these other religions are false. That's all it takes. Just assume they are false.
As human beings we are not like the Spock in Star Trek. We don't think logically. This is the human condition. But precisely because of the human condition we should try to be as objective as possible with what we think is true.
If human beings reason so badly that we implicitly adopt what we were taught to believe in our respective cultures so much that they become like blinders on our eyes, and if we’re that bad at weighing the claims of beliefs that have little or no evidence for them to decide between differing ones, then we cannot offer a milquetoast test that asks people to be objective, fair and openminded about that which they were raised to believe and defend. What we are enculturated with is who we are. We cannot see the water we swim in. We cannot pluck our eyes out and look at them. So we cannot simply ask people to be objective, fair and openminded. Believers already think they are being objective because they can't see that they are not! Just look at how confident some Muslims are that they are being objective. Some of them are so certain they're objective about their faith they are willing to fly planes into buildings. Ask them if they’re objective and it would be a no brainer for them. But ask them to subject their own faith to the same level of skepticism they use to reject other faiths and THAT will get their attention. Since we cannot pluck out their eyes we must offer them a shocking test, one that may help get them out of their dogmatic slumbers like nothing else can do. And they will object as strenuously as they can to the OTF because they know their faith does not pass that test.
Who should take the OTF? Anyone who has faith must take the OTF.
You see, it's faith that trumps evidence for most people and it's faith I deny. Faith concludes more than what the evidence leads us to accept. An outsider must only go with what the probabilities are and never go beyond them, as much as humanly possible.
It's the standard for whether to accept what we do.
So if you assume your own religion is false at the outset and the evidence can still lead you to accept it, your religious faith has passed the OTF.
As human beings we are not like the Spock in Star Trek. We don't think logically. This is the human condition. But precisely because of the human condition we should try to be as objective as possible with what we think is true.
If human beings reason so badly that we implicitly adopt what we were taught to believe in our respective cultures so much that they become like blinders on our eyes, and if we’re that bad at weighing the claims of beliefs that have little or no evidence for them to decide between differing ones, then we cannot offer a milquetoast test that asks people to be objective, fair and openminded about that which they were raised to believe and defend. What we are enculturated with is who we are. We cannot see the water we swim in. We cannot pluck our eyes out and look at them. So we cannot simply ask people to be objective, fair and openminded. Believers already think they are being objective because they can't see that they are not! Just look at how confident some Muslims are that they are being objective. Some of them are so certain they're objective about their faith they are willing to fly planes into buildings. Ask them if they’re objective and it would be a no brainer for them. But ask them to subject their own faith to the same level of skepticism they use to reject other faiths and THAT will get their attention. Since we cannot pluck out their eyes we must offer them a shocking test, one that may help get them out of their dogmatic slumbers like nothing else can do. And they will object as strenuously as they can to the OTF because they know their faith does not pass that test.
Who should take the OTF? Anyone who has faith must take the OTF.
You see, it's faith that trumps evidence for most people and it's faith I deny. Faith concludes more than what the evidence leads us to accept. An outsider must only go with what the probabilities are and never go beyond them, as much as humanly possible.
It's the standard for whether to accept what we do.
So if you assume your own religion is false at the outset and the evidence can still lead you to accept it, your religious faith has passed the OTF.