What is Reddit's opinion of The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True?

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Yes, Loftus says that in Outsider Test for Faith. The other thing he says is that empirically, we observe that most people share the religion of their parents and the people immediately around them, even though numerically most religions must be false. Therefore we know empirically that there is a process by which religion spreads that has nothing to do with it being true.

It won't hurt your feelings to hear you weren't the first to think of this, but it is a good question. John Loftus has cast this same issue as "The Outsider Test of Faith" in a book of the same name. He challenges Christians, or really any believers, to examine their own creed in the same way they examine other faiths.

Okay, there are two things to get right there:

• The facts. That's relatively easy -- the only way to stay Christian is to ignore lots of things, and I and lots of people here can point you at those things. The most glaring thing is described in Loftus' Outsider Test for Faith, that is, the idea that it is numerically certain that most people believe in the wrong religion and it is not clear why a God would set things up that way.

• The emotional situation. That's more important to get right, otherwise all we can hope for at the end is a miserable atheist. In practice people tend to reject things that feel bad so even that doesn't really work. The emotional situation is well described in Lindsay's Everybody is Wrong About God. Briefly, there are 13 or so things people need that they expect to get from a religious belief. The most important thing is probably having a bunch of peers that you trust. I can't recall the rest off the top of my head.

My intent is not to throw some books at you and walk away. I'm busy now and will get back to this this evening PST.

This would be good: John Loftus, The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True.