This post is in response to The Conservative Skeptic’s “Being Skeptical: Where Does Bias Begin?”– part of an ongoing attempt to clarify modern skepticism for our readers.
Being Skeptical: Where Does Bias Begin? – Conservative Skeptic https://consskep.com/2019/05/15/being-skeptical-where-does-bias-begin/
Religious skepticism is only one aspect of skepticism, but is extremely important. I also believe you can be a skeptic but not be an atheist.
Jim asserts that we are influenced by our upbringing in how we believe, what our parents teach us, but that we can, as adults, revise our beliefs.
I do have more to say on belief in another post, but on this topic I’d like to bring up the work of John W. Loftus in his 2013 book titled The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True. (Loftus also discusses confirmation bias extensively.)
Per Amazon: The book The Outsider Test for Faith description:
Fostering mutual understanding by viewing religion from an outsider perspective
Depending on how one defines religion, there are at least thousands of religions in the world. Given such religious diversity, how can any one religion claim to know the truth? Nothing proposed so far has helped us settle which of these religions, if any, are true–until now.
Author John W. Loftus, a former minister turned atheist, argues we would all be better off if we viewed any religion–including our own–from the informed skepticism of an outsider, a nonbeliever. For this reason he has devised “the outsider test for faith.” He describes it as a variation on the Golden Rule: “Do unto your own faith what you do to other faiths.” Essentially, this means applying the same skepticism to our own beliefs as we do to the beliefs of other faiths. Loftus notes that research from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuroscience goes a long way toward explaining why the human race has produced so many belief systems, why religion is culturally dependent, and how religion evolved in the first place. It’s important that people understand these findings to escape the dangerous delusion that any one religion represents the only truth.
At a time when the vast diversity of human belief systems is accessible to all, the outsider test for faith offers a rational means for fostering mutual understanding.
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The following is a quote from Loftus summarizing the Outsider Test for Faith in simple terms:
“With the OTF I’ll argue that we should adopt a skeptical predisposition as best as possible prior to examining the evidence, if we adopt any predisposition at all.
My argument is as follows:
1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis.
2) Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis.
3) Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.
4) So the best way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This expresses the OTF.
The OTF is primarily a test to examine religious faiths […] The OTF is no different than the prince in the Cinderella story who must question forty- five thousand people to see which girl lost the glass slipper at the ball the previous night. They all claim to have done so. Therefore, skepticism is definitely warranted.”
(The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, 2010)
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In Street Epistemology, a movement inspired by Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists, Anthony Magnabosco, a veteran in this field, employs the Outsider Test for Faith quite skillfully in this short video:
Loftus has a website and blog available at http://www.debunking-christianity.com/