The TPM "God Game" is such a stupid program!
PZ Myers brought to my attention a page on the web called Battleground God. I won the game, but it didn't make me feel good.
1. God Exists.
Easy: Don't Know is the only legitimate answer. You can have faith that He exists, or you can be certain that not believing in Him is your best move as a citizen of modern society-but neither of these proves anything.
7. It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of these convictions.
Only True or False are permitted, but both answers should be acceptable. This is basically asking, "Was it Plato or Aristotle who was completely correct about the nature of the universe?" To humour the program, I chose False but any resulting inconsistencies would have been the program's fault for requiring a forced choice here.
8. Any being that it is right to call God must know everything that there is to know.
What does "there is to know" mean? Does this include the phase angle for a pair of entangled photons? I would have preferred "God knows everything knowable" because it may be (indeed, seems quite likely nowadays) that God's universe includes facts that are not knowable, even to God. So I chose False.
10. If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist.
Yes, but this says nothing about whether Nessie actually exists. For two thousand years it was impossible to prove the atomic theory of matter, but "absence of proof is not proof of absence". For two hundred years it was impossible to disprove Newton's F=ma equation, but the equation was still wrong all that time.
11. People who die of horrible, painful diseases need to die in such a way for some higher purpose.
Another question with a forced true/false answer. Since I answered Don't Know for the first question, I should answer the same here, but the program doesn't allow that.
13. It is foolish to believe in God without certain, irrevocable proof that God exists.
This could only be true if people were abstract thinking machines without physical bodies. If your brain contains various pieces that evolved separately for separate reasons and work better together if you have an overall belief in God, then your justification is based on utility and you don't need "irrevocable" proof. (And how can you "revoke" a proof? How could a real-world proof of anything ever be "certain"? There is always room for error!)
14. As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality.
I do think that atheism is a matter of faith, but not for the reason given, so I answered False. Atheism is the answer No for the first question, whose correct answer is unknowable.
15. The serial rapist Peter Sutcliffe had a firm, inner conviction that God wanted him to rape and murder prostitutes. He was, therefore, justified in believing that he was carrying out God's will in undertaking these actions.
This is apparently one of the "gotcha" questions designed to make you "bite a bullet" by adopting an unpopular position. I answered False to dodge the bullet, but really I do think he was "justified", just as the police were "justified" in stopping him. What does justification have to do with anything?
16. If God exists she would have the freedom and power to create square circles and make 1 + 1 = 72.
There's a whole bunch of these "my God can beat up your god" questions. There's no way to know what God can or can't do. Suppose God changed the value of π. How could we detect that? After God made the change, it would seem to us that π had always had the value we now perceive it to have because otherwise nothing in the universe would make any sense. And everyone who's anyone knows that 1+1=10 in binary.
17. It is justifiable to believe in God if one has a firm, inner conviction that God exists, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of the conviction that God exists.
No, it is justifiable to believe in God because that is how our brains work. This is the same reason why it is justifiable to believe that the Earth is flat while planning a car trip across town-but if you're crossing the continent then you really do need to use the fancy math to avoid wasting fuel. So I answered False because the question contains an invalid subordinate clause.
1. God Exists.
Easy: Don't Know is the only legitimate answer. You can have faith that He exists, or you can be certain that not believing in Him is your best move as a citizen of modern society-but neither of these proves anything.
7. It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of these convictions.
Only True or False are permitted, but both answers should be acceptable. This is basically asking, "Was it Plato or Aristotle who was completely correct about the nature of the universe?" To humour the program, I chose False but any resulting inconsistencies would have been the program's fault for requiring a forced choice here.
8. Any being that it is right to call God must know everything that there is to know.
What does "there is to know" mean? Does this include the phase angle for a pair of entangled photons? I would have preferred "God knows everything knowable" because it may be (indeed, seems quite likely nowadays) that God's universe includes facts that are not knowable, even to God. So I chose False.
10. If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist.
Yes, but this says nothing about whether Nessie actually exists. For two thousand years it was impossible to prove the atomic theory of matter, but "absence of proof is not proof of absence". For two hundred years it was impossible to disprove Newton's F=ma equation, but the equation was still wrong all that time.
11. People who die of horrible, painful diseases need to die in such a way for some higher purpose.
Another question with a forced true/false answer. Since I answered Don't Know for the first question, I should answer the same here, but the program doesn't allow that.
13. It is foolish to believe in God without certain, irrevocable proof that God exists.
This could only be true if people were abstract thinking machines without physical bodies. If your brain contains various pieces that evolved separately for separate reasons and work better together if you have an overall belief in God, then your justification is based on utility and you don't need "irrevocable" proof. (And how can you "revoke" a proof? How could a real-world proof of anything ever be "certain"? There is always room for error!)
14. As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality.
I do think that atheism is a matter of faith, but not for the reason given, so I answered False. Atheism is the answer No for the first question, whose correct answer is unknowable.
15. The serial rapist Peter Sutcliffe had a firm, inner conviction that God wanted him to rape and murder prostitutes. He was, therefore, justified in believing that he was carrying out God's will in undertaking these actions.
This is apparently one of the "gotcha" questions designed to make you "bite a bullet" by adopting an unpopular position. I answered False to dodge the bullet, but really I do think he was "justified", just as the police were "justified" in stopping him. What does justification have to do with anything?
16. If God exists she would have the freedom and power to create square circles and make 1 + 1 = 72.
There's a whole bunch of these "my God can beat up your god" questions. There's no way to know what God can or can't do. Suppose God changed the value of π. How could we detect that? After God made the change, it would seem to us that π had always had the value we now perceive it to have because otherwise nothing in the universe would make any sense. And everyone who's anyone knows that 1+1=10 in binary.
17. It is justifiable to believe in God if one has a firm, inner conviction that God exists, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of the conviction that God exists.
No, it is justifiable to believe in God because that is how our brains work. This is the same reason why it is justifiable to believe that the Earth is flat while planning a car trip across town-but if you're crossing the continent then you really do need to use the fancy math to avoid wasting fuel. So I answered False because the question contains an invalid subordinate clause.