Fluther: Would you like to take a test of the consistency of ...

The logic twists in this exercise broke my brain. I really didn’t understand it at all.

downtide (23815

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Congratulations!

You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only one bullet and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

ragingloli (51961

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aw yeah

Michael_Huntington (15982

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I got three hits and one bullet. Clearly logic is not my strong feature.

bea2345 (6251

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The idea that holding a belief considered strange would represent a flaw inthe consistency of your beliefs about God makes no flipping sense.

Philosophile (450

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The way the “author” of the “test” worded some of those questions made my brain itch. Overall, I did okay, but holy crap… the weirdness of it… <head asplosion>

WillWorkForChocolate (23163

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On a related issue: I just took a quiz about “Are you an atheist or a believer” and I scored as an “on the fence agnostic”. Interesting. Very interesting.

WillWorkForChocolate (23163

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I fell afoul of the Kierkegaardian heresy. Took one bite of a bullet. Whatever that means. I think my problem was that I was thinking from the point of view of an individual, and they wanted us to look at things from a social perspective, as well.

I’m not sure what is to be learned from this exercise, since it is about logic, not belief. Not only that, but it is about some fairly specific assumptions about logic that are not very clear.

wundayatta (58722

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I don’t like some of the questions and answers. Particularly the ones asking what a god could, would, or should do. Those aren’t simple true and false statements because no one knows, which makes it all speculation. Don’t ask me if it’s rational to not believe in god if there’s no evidence, then ask me what a god should do if there was one, because that is just me imposing my own morals on the rhetorically existing god.

Blackberry (33949

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Well, that was fun. You have to be very careful of the wording of each question. 1 direct hit and no bullets.

ETpro (34605

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You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates – and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement!

King_Pariah (11484

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Congratulations!

You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only one bullet and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

DrBill (16066

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Congratulations! You have made it to the end of this activity.

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets. The average player of this activity to date takes 1.37 hits and bites 1.09 bullets. 554442 people have so far undertaken this activity.

You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates—and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement!

SavoirFaire (28833

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I got only ⅓ of the way through before getting fed up with the strange phrasing. They are welcome to get an editor, and then I will retake it.

Aethelflaed (13752

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God struck my house down before I could finish this.

Berserker (33548

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@Aethelflaed I’ve written to that site several times about phrasing issues with their various tests. Unfortunately, they’ve never been open to any changes. This test is actually better than others they’ve hosted.

SavoirFaire (28833

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The phrasing of the questions is so confusing that I have no clue how I came out of the test with only one bitten bullet and the “TPM medal of distinction.”

The thing that confused me/pissed me off the most about the test was the same thing @Blackberry mentions. Here I am saying that I don’t think a God exists, but the test expects me to say what said God can and cannot do. How the hell should I know what a nonexistent God should be able to do?

Fly (8726

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I got the same as rags. I took a hit on the last question because I am fine if people believe in God without evidence. I just dont. I found the wording of the question flawed. Not my logic.

Rarebear (25192

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@SavoirFaire It’s actually a really cool idea, but horrible execution will get you every time.

Aethelflaed (13752

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I agree that the wording and interpretations do leave something to be desired. It is too bad, because the idea is pretty good and they obviously put a fair amount of effort into it.

LostInParadise (31906

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I enjoyed it. One direct hit and one bitten bullet, but I disagree on both counts that my answers are inconsistent. I think those questions were poorly worded.

FutureMemory (24753

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You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

I took one direct hit relating to the theory of evolution.

flutherother (34522

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Spelling mistakes and vagaries make me wonder just how well thought out this test actually is. I don’t like the idea that a god can make ‘square circles?’ WTF?

cazzie (24516

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I agree, some of the questions are pretty confusing…. also, I disagree with some of their reasoning.
“You answered True to questions 6 and 13.

These answers generated the following response:

You stated earlier that evolutionary theory is essentially true. However, you have now claimed that it is foolish to believe in God without certain, irrevocable proof that she exists. The problem is that there is no certain proof that evolutionary theory is true – even though there is overwhelming evidence that it is true. So it seems that you require certain, irrevocable proof for God’s existence, but accept evolutionary theory without certain proof. So You’ve got a choice: (a) Bite a bullet and claim that a higher standard of proof is required for belief in God than for belief in evolution. (b) Take a hit, conceding that there is a contradiction in your responses.”
So, ok, there is no ‘certain, irrevocable proof’ of evolution; but there is ‘overwhelming evidence’... Disregarding their somewhat contradictory reasoning, there is no ‘overwhelming evidence’ of the existence of God, which to my mind puts evolution in the lead. So I bit the bullet. Next:
“You answered True to questions 10 and 14.

These answers generated the following response:

You’ve just taken a direct hit! Earlier you agreed that it is rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist if there is an absence of strong evidence or argument that it does. No strong evidence or argument was required to show that the monster does not exist – absence of evidence or argument was enough. But now you claim that the atheist needs to be able to provide strong arguments or evidence if their belief in the non-existence of God is to be rational rather than a matter of faith.

The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not.”
I answered these the way I did because Nessie, by popular definition, would have to exist in a finite, measurable and searchable area. God, by popular definition, would not. We have the capability of searching an earthly body of water, but not the cosmos.
And yeah, what’s up with the square circles? lol

ccrow (8097

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@cazzie The square circles question was one of the two I got dinged on. Stupid question.

FutureMemory (24753

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You have been awarded the TPM service medal! This is our third highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
I bit a bullet and took 2 hits. (One of which I read wrong.) There were too many double negatives in the sentence and I lost patience.

LuckyGuy (43689

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I got no hits and no bites, which surprised me because I feel like people don’t understand my viewpoints a lot of the time.

Mariah (25883

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@Fly We need to have an idea of what God would be in order to reach a determination as to whether or not He exists. That’s why they ask those questions. Imagine that I ask you about Belmonians and ask what you think about them. You can’t give me any reasonable answer before first having some concept of what a Belmonian is.

@Aethelflaed I think the test suffers from making bad compromises between ordinary English and philosophical rigor. They want anyone to be able to take the test, but they don’t want to ignore certain important philosophical distinctions. But some distinctions require complicated background knowledge to understand. They try to cover themselves a bit with the FAQ and the rules, but I’m not sure how good a job they do.

Weirder still is that the various tests on the site are not consistent with one another. Most noticeably, the applicable definition of “omnipotent” is different for virtually every single one of the games in which it appears. Battleground God is also not nearly the worst offender. I find the Do-It-Yourself Deity game to be the worst. The game is meant to expose people to traditional philosophical problems, but the scoring seems to assume that there are no traditional solutions to those problems. It is also strongly slanted towards mainline Protestant interpretations of the Abrahamic God.

If anyone wants a completely unambiguous test, try the Wason Selection Task.

SavoirFaire (28833

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Congratulations! You have made it to the end of this activity.

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets.

And all I had to do was leave the Please Select… box alone and keep pressing submit. I beat everyone and outsmarted the inventor of the test… I am god.

lol

Keep_on_running (6759

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@Keep_on_running Well, you didn’t quite beat everyone. Two other people have managed to bite zero bullets and take zero direct hits. You certainly did outsmart the inventor of the test, however. I take my hat off to you!

SavoirFaire (28833

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Congratulations!

You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only one bullet and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

I did bite the bullet on holding the existence of a god to a higher standard than evolutionary theory being true. I guess I responded the way I did there because the only real evidence that there is a god is with assumptions because we can’t currently figure something out in science. Evolutionary theory already is a well established theory, and while that this doesn’t mean it is absolutely the truth, it does have a systematic pattern of evidence to directly support it.

It isn’t that in general that I would have a bias against something, but there is no god theory currently, unlike evolutionary theory. However, an untested hypothesis doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t true and worth researching though! Maybe looking at it in this way is a logical fallacy, but it’s the way that I look at it.

Paradox25 (10223

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