Are you religious beliefs logically consistent?

**Leader** · 17 Oct 03,, 22:44

Battleground God

Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground?

In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet.

Click here for more on the criteria for hits and bullet-biting

Of course, you may go along with thinkers such as Kierkegaard and believe that religious belief does not need to be rationally consistent. But that takes us beyond the scope of this activity, which is about the extent to which your beliefs are rationally consistent, not whether this is a good or a bad thing.

What happens when you don't agree with the analyses!?

Have a look at our FAQ. It'll give you some idea of our thinking, even if we have got things wrong. I'm afraid that we can't reply to email about this activity - we just get way too much and the issues are frequently quite involved. Sorry! This is purely a question of time, nothing else. [Don't look at the FAQ before you play, that'll spoil the game.]

Don't cheat!

We can't stop you resubmitting your answers, but if you do the game will know - and your scores will not be counted. If you're intrigued by the possibility of different answers, just finish the game and then play it through again.

Click here for the Game

These are my results. (They will be displayed at the end of the test.)

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets. The average player of this activity to date takes 1.38 hits and bites 1.11 bullets. 123700 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!

If you get any wrong you are shown the reasons why.

How did you do compared to other people?

123700 people have completed this activity to date.
You suffered zero direct hits and bit zero bullets.
This compares with the average player of this activity to date who takes 1.38 hits and bites 1.11 bullets.
7.37% of the people who have completed this activity, like you, emerged unscathed with the TPM Medal of Honour.
46.56% of the people who have completed this activity took very little damage and were awarded the TPM Medal of Distinction.

**Ironduke** · 17 Oct 03,, 23:10

Battleground Analysis
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 being hit only once and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are well thought out and almost entirely internally consistent.

The direct hit you suffered occurred because one set of your answers implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. At the bottom of this page, we have reproduced the analyses of your direct hit and bitten bullets.

Because you only suffered one direct hit and bit very few bullets, you qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

Click here if you want to review the criteria by which hits and bullets are determined.

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How did you do compared to other people?

123708 people have completed this activity to date.
You suffered 1 direct hit and bit 1 bullet.
This compares with the average player of this activity to date who takes 1.38 hits and bites 1.11 bullets.
46.56% of the people who have completed this activity, like you, took very little damage and were awarded the TPM Medal of Distinction.
7.37% of the people who have completed this activity emerged unscathed with the TPM Medal of Honour.

**Praxus** · 17 Oct 03,, 23:43

I got the Medal of Distinction.

I said that "Evolutionary Theory is essentially true" and they claim it "logicly contradicts" with me believing that it is foolish to believe in God without any irrevocable proof. There is objective evidence of Evolution, they have found bones of primitive man and have tested DNA that proves we have evolved from other animals. This is obviously not the case with a God, there is no objective evidence jhust "faith".

**Leader** · 18 Oct 03,, 00:54

Originally posted by Praxus
I got the Medal of Distinction.

I said that "Evolutionary Theory is essentially true" and they claim it "logicly contradicts" with me believing that it is foolish to believe in God without any irrevocable proof. There is objective evidence of Evolution, they have found bones of primitive man and have tested DNA that proves we have evolved from other animals. This is obviously not the case with a God, there is no objective evidence jhust "faith".

You can't prove evolution beyond any possible doubt. You can just prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. Therefore it is logically inconsistent to say that one must prove the existence of God beyond any doubt.

**2DREZQ** · 18 Oct 03,, 20:04

On the surface it looks like logical questions, but ignores certain stated characteristics of God. There are no inconsistancies in my beliefs. Evolution may be accepted, but it is FAR from indesputable. Any test concerning such things which ignores God desire that we accept His Son as a matter of FREE WILL is inadequate.

There are things that I allowed my children to go through, which I might have prevented, but I did not. I allowed the exercise of free will. This does not demonstrate any lack of love on my part.

**Praxus** · 18 Oct 03,, 20:14

You can't prove evolution beyond any possible doubt. You can just prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. Therefore it is logically inconsistent to say that one must prove the existence of God beyond any doubt.

There is tons more evidence of evolution happening then God exsisting.

Evolution has been proved, the belief in the exsistence of God is based on faith.

There is not a single peice of evidence supporting the exsistence of God.

**bigross86** · 18 Oct 03,, 23:29

Bit 1 bullet, thats all I remember...

**Leader** · 19 Oct 03,, 01:06

Originally posted by Praxus
There is tons more evidence of evolution happening then God exsisting.

Evolution has been proved, the belief in the exsistence of God is based on faith.

There is not a single peice of evidence supporting the exsistence of God.

That's not what the argument is about. You are holding people who believe in god to a higher standard then you hold yourself. It's inconsistent to say that you believe in evolution even though you cannot remove any possible doubt, but you can believe in God unless you have absolute proof.

**Praxus** · 19 Oct 03,, 01:43

I guess, but there is FAR more evidencee that evolution happened and there is NONE that God exsists.

**Officer of Engineers** · 19 Oct 03,, 02:40

I say the Big Bang Theory pretty well confirms the existence of God. What else would you call all that energy, mass, space, time, and thought in a single point?

**HorriBelle** · 19 Oct 03,, 06:30

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

The fact that you have progressed through this activity without suffering many hits suggests that whilst there are inconsistencies in your beliefs about God, on the whole they are well thought-out.

The direct hits you suffered occurred where your answers implied logical contradictions. You did bite a number of bullets. These occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. At the bottom of this page, we have reproduced the analyses of your direct hits and bitten bullets.

The fact that you did not suffer many hits means that you qualify for our third highest award. Well done!

**Ray** · 19 Oct 03,, 09:25

Oh God!

**Leader** · 21 Oct 03,, 01:42

Originally posted by Praxus
I guess, but there is FAR more evidencee that evolution happened and there is NONE that God exsists.

There is no real knowledge about the existence of God only Notional Knowledge. Such as if the Universe wasn't created it would be the only thing in the Universe with out a cause. It does make since that every thing contained with in a thing has a cause as a rule but the container itself has no cause.

**Bill** · 21 Oct 03,, 03:03

Religion is anything but logical or consistent.

I want to know how churches take it upon themselves to alter 'the words of God'.

What, do they get memos from God????

To be a 'true' christian you must follow the word of the bible(Old Testament) to it's word- not to the latest interpretations that happen to fit more neatly with societies evolving ideals of what is 'acceptable behaviour'.

As moral fibre declines, so to does the entire point of religion.

As science advances, more exposed become the lies of religion.

All religions fall into the same trap.

It's a joke.