More On The Outsider Test for Faith

All a person has to do is make an interesting argument that provokes debate. If you have done that then you have done well. It furthers the discussion. The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is such an argument. Here is a recent email and my answers to the objections.

Mr. Loftus,

As a believer, I began first to read The Christian Delusion. Therein you responded to objections that had been raised against the OTF as you had presented it in WIBA--which I read following TCD. As a believer, these were some of the objections I raised regarding the OTF:

In response to the objection that the OTF's skepticism is self-defeating, I took issue with your claim that it was not because the OTF is not a belief system but, rather, an approach to truth.

Assuming you're right, the OTF is still self-defeating.
This is so because the OTF as an approach to truth can only be employed as an approach to truth by those who hold it as a true approach. But one can only hold it as a true approach by either assuming it's validity by petitio principii, or declare it is outside the bounds of its own demands--thus special pleading.

Remember, I have repeatedly said to believers to provide a better alternative. They have not done so. Therefore my approach to truth is a better one barring no other. You are arguing in a circle here, that people only choose the approach to truth that bolsters what they think is true. I would think anyone who argues this way is saying that religious truth, or truth in general, is in one's own head and what is true for one person isn't true for someone else because the standards of truth are different. How do you propose to get out of saying this?

And I am not assuming anything in specific with regard to the OTF. I've justified it by the sciences of psychology, cultural anthropology and the sheer demographics of religious diversity spread out into geographical zones over the earth. People who disagree cannot disagree with the evidence of the sciences. Given that evidence, what is the best way to approach truth and religious truth in particular? I propose that we follow the sciences. There is no other way. The OTF is based on science, and so when it comes to extraordinary miraculous claims the sciences take a skeptical approach to them, especially since there are so many extraordinary claims that support mutually exclusive religions.

My claim is two-fold with regard to the OTF: 1) Christians use it when examining other religions, which means they agree with it but are not consistent in using it; and 2) If a deity did not make a religious faith pass the OTF when there is a hell to pay for disbelief, then people will be condemned to hell by virtue of the fact that they were born in different religious cultures as outsiders.

My other qualms with the OTF were the ambiguities involved in passing the OTF:

At what point does the evidence outweigh the skepticism?
Is the skepticism we employ our own subjective skepticism that needs to be outweighed by the evidence, that of another's, or some skeptical standard above us all?
If each individual varies in their level of skepticism in relation to various doctrines, is the OTF only meant to satisfy our own skepticism? If not, what is the objective standard that makes up what you are referring to as skepticism?

An argument can be sound without it being convincing. What is convincing is person-related. It always is. Keep that in mind.

I do not need to specify what should turn a believer into a skeptic. I am proposing a methodology for getting at the truth, one that believers themselves use, one that has no rival, one that is supported by the sciences, and one that would call into question a good loving God if a religion was not made to pass that test when there is a hell to pay. And I say that if one's religion passes the test then have at it.