http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.php

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.

If you’re ready to start, click here.

1 hit, 0 bullets. More because I should have looked up a word instead of being lazy and answering without fully understanding the question though.

Sort of boring, zero hits, bit zero bullets.

Why is every answer the same instead of randomized?

I got hit because I accepted the basic premises of what "the concept" of god should be, and used the catholic concepts, and those concepts contradicted themselves, but it wasn't exactly fair when the questions were about oughtness, not what I deem to be isness.

You may have just taken a direct hit!

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:

Bite a bullet and claim that a higher standard of proof is required for belief in God than for belief in evolution.

Take a hit, conceding that there is a contradiction in your responses.

I think I'll bite the bullet.
My reasoning being that the more fantastic the notion, the more fantastic the evidence required.

You have reached the end!

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 1.39 hits and bites 1.10 bullets. 484772 people have so far undertaken this activity.

Plus (fucking Woot)

Congratulations!

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!

You have reached the end!

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 1.39 hits and bites 1.10 bullets. 484778 people have so far undertaken this activity.

Click the link below for further analysis of your performance and to see if you've won an award.

Congratulations!

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!

So there.

I usually end up thinking myself out of the box. I've given up on these sort of questionnaires.. :'(

veniqe wrote:Of course, you may go along with thinkers such as Kierkegaard and believe that religious belief does not need to be rationally consistent.

I was unaware that being rationally consistent was even an option for religious beliefs.

jaredennisclark wrote:

You may have just taken a direct hit!

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:

Bite a bullet and claim that a higher standard of proof is required for belief in God than for belief in evolution.

Take a hit, conceding that there is a contradiction in your responses.

I think I'll bite the bullet.
My reasoning being that the more fantastic the notion, the more fantastic the evidence required.

DITTO... I got the same.

If my boss says I'm getting a raise, it is not foolish to believe him based on the fact that I do brilliant work, and people do get raises!

If my boss says there's a two-headed unicorn with one head sitting in the meeting room, I think it would be rather foolish to believe this without conclusive proof.

I got a hit because i first said that anything worthy of being called a God should be able to do anything. Then later down the track there is no way out of being stopped. But anyway, i guess defining a God is stupid in the first place.

You have reached the end!

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 1.39 hits and bites 1.10 bullets. 484801 people have so far undertaken this activity.

That said, I think the test is a bit off because it relies on providing definitions for something you don't believe in. Why would I bother to have a strict list of attributes for a thing that I lack belief in?

And honestly, the only reason I got through without hits is because I arbitrarily decided to make my hypothetical god omniscient but not omnipotent, and then answered the questions according to that wholly arbitrary decision.

But I guess that's the point of the exercise...i.e. rational consistency. Can you keep your answers straight when you've laid x foundations.

keypad5 wrote:

You have reached the end!

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 1.39 hits and bites 1.10 bullets. 484801 people have so far undertaken this activity.

That said, I think the test is a bit off because it relies on providing definitions for something you don't believe in. Why would I bother to have a strict list of attributes for a thing that I lack belief in?

And honestly, the only reason I got through without hits is because I arbitrarily decided to make my hypothetical god omniscient but not omnipotent, and then answered the questions according to that wholly arbitrary decision.

But I guess that's the point of the exercise...i.e. rational consistency. Can you keep your answers straight when you've laid x foundations.

I think you might have missed the point. I agree it's flawed (what isn't) but the test looks for consistency - once you take a position, will you answer consistently? Your position of the value of evidence must be the same for say evolution vs cretinism

keypad5 wrote:But I guess that's the point of the exercise...i.e. rational consistency. Can you keep your answers straight when you've laid x foundations.

Yip, that's the goal. I took one hit and had to bite a bullet.

0 hits 0 bites. And I think that evidence that seems to be correct in most situations doesn't require as high a standard of evidence as hypotheticals and unobtainium

ahh... also, this test requires to to presuppose this universe and have a basic knowledge of it. While I can't imagine what a universe that is capable of making a square circle etc, I can imagine that someone else may. I think q6 was dependent on this in particular. Can't remember what q6 was, just remember noting its presuppositions.

0 hits, 0 bullets.

pawiz wrote:
I think you might have missed the point. I agree it's flawed (what isn't) but the test looks for consistency - once you take a position, will you answer consistently? Your position of the value of evidence must be the same for say evolution vs cretinism

Yeah, I realise that. I guess my gripe is that it relies on being consistent with beliefs that you are potentially making up on the spot for the purpose of showing that you can be consistent.
e.g.; (I've put this in spoiler tags in case people don't want to see my vulgar paraphrases of some of the questions).
Q. Can God do anything?
A. How the hell should I know? God isn't my invention!
Q. Can God make square circles?
A. Well, I guess I'll just answer this in accordance with the completely arbitrary answer that I gave to the first question.

If anything, this test is telling you if you have the skills required to make a convincing liar, because that's what liars are good at: making stuff up that is logically consistent and keeping track of their fabrications along the way so that they don't get caught out later on. Then again, I'm an appalling liar but did well on the quiz.

My point is, I think it would be more challenging if it questioned whether you are consistent with the beliefs that you have rather than whether you can be consistent with beliefs that you're making up.

Just my 2 cents.

keypad5 wrote:If anything, this test is telling you if you have the skills required to make a convincing liar, because that's what liars are good at: making stuff up that is logically consistent and keeping track of their fabrications along the way so that they don't get caught out later on. Then again, I'm an appalling liar but did well on the quiz.

I like this theory.

According to this test I am a good liar!

jaredennisclark wrote:

You may have just taken a direct hit!

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:

Bite a bullet and claim that a higher standard of proof is required for belief in God than for belief in evolution.

Take a hit, conceding that there is a contradiction in your responses.

I think I'll bite the bullet.
My reasoning being that the more fantastic the notion, the more fantastic the evidence required.

This is probably the best indication that whoever wrote the test doesn't have their head screwed on fully, as it's not a question of proof at all.

Evolution has not, and never will be, proven. Rather, it's a falsifiable scientific theory backed up by masses of evidence. So much so that, whatever theory was to replace it, would presumably have to explain a lot of the same things in the same fashion.

The existence of God isn't something that can be proven either. Well, you'll still get a few batty theologians trying to pass off word salad as a priori proofs of the existence of their gods, but none but the terminally gullible would believe them. Unlike evolution, there's also bugger all evidence for the existence of god, at least of the sort that backs up evolution. Rather, it's purely a matter of faith, and not having faith should not require you to bite any bullets or take any direct hits at all.

Matt_B wrote:

jaredennisclark wrote:

You may have just taken a direct hit!

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:

Bite a bullet and claim that a higher standard of proof is required for belief in God than for belief in evolution.

Take a hit, conceding that there is a contradiction in your responses.

I think I'll bite the bullet.
My reasoning being that the more fantastic the notion, the more fantastic the evidence required.

This is probably the best indication that whoever wrote the test doesn't have their head screwed on fully, as it's not a question of proof at all.

Evolution has not, and never will be, proven. Rather, it's a falsifiable scientific theory backed up by masses of evidence. So much so that, whatever theory was to replace it, would presumably have to explain a lot of the same things in the same fashion.

The existence of God isn't something that can be proven either. Well, you'll still get a few batty theologians trying to pass off word salad as a priori proofs of the existence of their gods, but none but the terminally gullible would believe them. Unlike evolution, there's also bugger all evidence for the existence of god, at least of the sort that backs up evolution. Rather, it's purely a matter of faith, and not having faith should not require you to bite any bullets or take any direct hits at all.

I disagree, I think the test is fine on this point.

Absolute proof of god is not required for belief in god to be legitimate. Just as absolute proof is not required for evolution, or my belief that England won't win the next world cup.

Demanding absolute proof for god's existence is indeed a double standard, demanding a high evidentiary standard (e.g. that the existence of god-like entities has occured before and thus is possible) is sufficient.