Philosophy.

[swestrup]

I went to the Battlefield God site, and took their silly quizzle, and I got:



Which indicates that they think my ideas on God are self-consistent, but strange. In particular, their analysis says:

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!

Bitten Bullet 1

You answered "True" to Question 16.

This answer generated the following response:

You've just bitten a bullet! In saying that God has the freedom and power to do that which is logically impossible (like creating square circles), you are saying that any discussion of God and ultimate reality cannot be constrained by basic principles of rationality. This would seem to make rational discourse about God impossible. If rational discourse about God is impossible, there is nothing rational we can say about God and nothing rational we can say to support our belief or disbelief in God. To reject rational constraints on religious discourse in this fashion requires accepting that religious convictions, including your religious convictions, are beyond any debate or rational discussion. This is to bite a bullet.

While I can't readily fault their analysis given the answers I gave to the questions, the problem was that my answer to some of their questions wasn't on the test. I don't think that any 'standard' definition of God is logically consistent, and so questions about the existence/non-existence of God are meaningless. This doesn't mean I reject all logical debate on the subject. It means I demand an a-priori definition of God which is non self-contradictory in order for the question of God's existence to be meaningful. I further require that the definition of God be one such that the existence is scientifically testable (ie falsifiable) in order for the question to be relevant.

I should also point out that they didn't notice that the whole quiz only took me 30 seconds to complete. Most of their questions had long since been very thoroughly thought about. In fact, most of my time was spent on question 1: "Is there a God?", because "Thats meaningless" wasn't an answer.