If you were introduced to the notion of God today....

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Let's just imagine that we lived in a culture that did not belong to a religious tradition. Then one day, a person walked up and tells you that a miracle-performing man, who was God, living 2000 years ago, died and resurrected, and that his death as a sacrifice to his Father, who is him in some strange fashion, saved you from eternal torment in the afterlife.

Would you take this claim very seriously? Would you be justified in outright dismissing this as nonsense? I think a person would be utterly justified in dismissing this as nonsense and NEVER looking back a second. I mean, do we need to research all of the details for Scientology to be dismissive towards it? Not really. The same as an innumerable number of cults. We can't research every cult, but most people aren't going to seriously consider them.

Now, the question/concern is that if these ideas seem so implausible if introduced, is our current lack of openly laughing at these things really justified by anything but an excess of politeness?

I would assume he was schizophrenic or something.

I don't believe in scapegoats, even divine ones.

Wow, one person who would extensively research it. I am guessing this is also the person who looks at the ingredients of food containers and extensively researches what autolyzed yeast extract is, and all of those other things. I've never met a person like that. I've never met a person who really has the time to analyze every piece of bullsh** that people try to throw at them. I mean.... this dude must be a freaking expert on folk remedies and all of those other esoteric things as well.

That wasn't me, but I am the type who actually reads software license agreements.

I meant to click the second option, but I hit the first instead. The reality of my answer would probably lie somewhere between those two anyways. That said, whenever someone promotes a new religion at me, I usually spend at least some time, out of curiosity if nothing else, looking into it. I've done the same for homeopathy and a few other quack claims. And I know you had at least enough interest in a fringe health-related claim to do at least some cursory research on the subject of BPA in plastic.

I do agree with you that the person who claimed they would research extensively is probably lying. Or they have a very lax definition of "extensively."

Eh, part of that is due to a person I knew who was really hammering the issue.


Pretty much..... I mean, seriously, I've run into the KJV only crowd, and various conspiracies, and claims about magical powers, and so on and so forth, and I haven't researched all of this. I don't know anybody who has. And, anybody who has done this extensively... is well.... pretty darn impressive, as I've never met a person who seems to even be this way.

Right, someone else was promoting an idea, so you gave it at least cursory examination.


It would be more than impressive; it would be completely impossible. The closest you can get is finding some system for quickly evaluating the trustworthiness of sources, and then seeing what a source you deem trustworthy says for each topic without doing any detailed study of the issue itself.

I think the context is different if you actually know the person well. I mean, most people will take that much interest in such a circumstance, regardless of how stupid the idea is. And BPA is more sensible than the Bible.


You are quite possibly right. I suppose it depends on how often you encounter new ideas.

There are plenty of people I know well (even some who I consider friends) whose endorsement of an idea would not necessarily cause me to lend any additional credence to it.


Even applying such a mentality to the basic knowledge you already have and need in order to function would be infeasible. There is so much that we routinely take for granted. Critically examining even a small fraction of it would be a monumental undertaking.

Flawed premise - every culture has a religious tradition. Either one it holds to, or (as in the West) one it is reacting against.

What if the culture just doesn't have a concept of God? What if the category "religion" just wasn't something people were aware of? I mean, I'm not that concerned with the exact nature of the label you want to give, only that the idea is "new".

"Let's just imagine..."

It's called a hypothetical question.

Anyways, to AG, history tells us that new religious ideas have managed to gain traction, so... obviously some significant portion of people found them plausible. How much research they did before regarding those new ideas as plausible is uncertain.

Yes, but I wanted to smash his face in.


Well, but that's not required! All that's required is NEW information for this to work. Old information that we take for granted is fine. Even further, I'd imagine that "extensively" for most only entails a long undergraduate paper's worth of research, which... isn't that hard. Briefly, I'd imagine as just looking into wikipedia for a few moments. What were you thinking as the lines? I mean, certainly you weren't thinking much more than a typical but bright and motivated undergraduate's knowledge if this is in their discipline and coursework, despite your elitism.

I found it impossible to respond to the poll because of its illogical options ...

Personal anecdote:

My missionary-grandmother was one of many who used to do "cold-call" work such as so poorly caricatured in your opening post, and she did that in a locale where wives were considered "property" and young girls were summarily "circumcised". And of course, and under threat of whatever, she had to first get permission from the immediate "chief" before talking to/with anyone else at all.

In one particular case she told me about, the chief listened quietly as my grandmother said whatever she said ... and then with tears in his eyes, the chief welcomed her to talk with anyone willing to listen even though he was too old, he said, to "make the switch" himself.

I think your idea of what constitutes "extensive" research here is much too lax. I roughly agree with your definition of "briefly," though I would say it probably requires a little bit more than that, and can encompass up to a significantly higher amount of research (equivalent to, say, a short undergrad paper would still be researching briefly). "Extensively" to me implies a real mastery of the relevant subjects, beyond the scope of most undergraduate programs. Now, an undergraduate could still be capable of doing that kind of research. I would say a minimum level of research to be considered "extensive" would be at least as significant as an undergraduate thesis project, for people who have those. Much more than a long paper or a term paper. Heck, I do term papers and other long papers in under a day. I would not say that I have done extensive research on the governmental institutions of medieval Russia, but I have written a long undergraduate paper on them.

nice people bring others to their faith. If your a nasty bitter christian, atheist, jew, buddhist, or muslim, I won't give it any thought regardless of how great your case may be.

It's not what you say, but how you say it that wins converts.