Telling fact from fiction

[robvalue]

This is mainly aimed at theists, although atheists are welcome to chime in.

Imagine this scenario. You have been brought into a school as a special speaker. You are to run a class about how to tell fact from fiction. These children are approaching this stage in their cognitive development. I'm using fiction to mean "didn't happen as written". This may be due to it being totally made up, or it could be because the account is very inaccurate.

The children will be handed out some random stories/accounts to read. You have to give them a rough guide as to how they should analyze each part of the story. I'm not saying they need to decide if the whole thing is factual or else it's fiction; they will deal with each section of the story in turn. This is meant to be a first pass, a smell test. A way to look for obvious fiction. It's not meant to validate the accounts any further than that. We're just comparing believable to non-believable.

What principles would you teach them?

I'll start off then by giving my principles:

(1) Are the events being described consistent with what we know? Do they contain things we don't even know are possible? If they contain such things, it is probably fiction.

(2) How consistent is it? Does it make sense within itself? If it contains a lot of contradictions, then it is probably at least partly fictional due to inaccuracy.

Do people agree with these principles, and what others would you add?

EDIT: Alternate scenario below, for anyone who doesn't feel the above is a good question.

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I think some people are making this more complicated than I intended it to be.

Maybe I should simplify the scenario.

It's you giving your own personal advice to your own kid, say. The kid is getting to the stage of reading things, and you're helping it look for indicators that what they are reading is probably fictional. So the question you'd ask them is, "Do you think this story could really happen?". I'm not asking for you to help them fact check and differentiate plausible from factual.

Yes, the answer will probably be quite obvious for most people. But it's your kid. You're helping them. Can you give them any pointers? Just telling them it's obvious isn't going to help. If they asked you for help with this, what would you say? If you'd say nothing, fair enough. You don't have to, it's your kid. If you wouldn't give them any principles, that's up to you. I'm talking about very general rules of thumb here, to aid your kid's development.

I assumed people would talk to their kids about this stuff. Do they not?

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[Excited Penguin]

This is a very, very bad thought experiment. First of all, there need not be any discernible difference between fact and fiction, and so how exactly are you going to teach someone to be able to tell which is which without telling them?

'Cause this is what I imagined when I followed your instruction. Two different texts, one a description of real events that took place somewhere in the past, and another one a short fictional story entirely made up, but nevertheless not any different from the real one, barring details and such.

So what I'm saying is, you have to give us more to work with, or this is a very vague post that everyone's going to interpret in their own way and we're almost certainly not going to discuss what you had in mind.

[purplepurpose]

In hindu religions, which I was a part of, there are millions of demigods, who are being worshiped by indians for selfish reasons. Muslims as well accept all the saint prophets, no matter religion, if I remember correctly.

Hindu doctrine states that there is indeed one God, one souce, who spreads himself to each nation in the form of Jesus, muhhamed, buddha.

You ask why there isnt single religion established by God. Its the same reason people cannot form one world goverment. In EU, members start to exploit each other and union starts to fall appart.

Hindu doctrine authors are brave enough to claim that, if you serve any demigod diety in the world, generaldirector God, will repay you for your service.

[robvalue]

EP: All I'm asking for indicators that something is probably fiction.

For example, if I read a passage in a book and it involves a wizard raising someone from the dead, I'll conclude that is probably fiction. This is because it involves events that aren't known to even be possible. That would be one criteria I would teach.

If no such indicators arise, then it can be concluded that it could well be real. I'm not saying it is real, just that it's passed the smell test. It's the initial first pass.

[robvalue]

In hindu religions, which I was a part of, there are millions of demigods, who are being worshiped by indians for selfish reasons. Muslims as well accept all the saint prophets, no matter religion, if I remember correctly.

Hindu doctrine states that there is indeed one God, one souce, who spreads himself to each nation in the form of Jesus, muhhamed, buddha.

You ask why there isnt single religion established by God. Its the same reason people cannot form one world goverment. In EU, members start to exploit each other and union starts to fall appart.

Hindu doctrine authors are brave enough to claim that, if you serve any demigod diety in the world, generaldirector God, will repay you for your service.

Did you reply to the wrong thread? This doesn't address my post at all.

[purplepurpose]

In hindu religions, which a part of, there are millions of demigods, who are being worshiped by indians for selfish reasons. Muslims as well accept all the saint prophets, no matter religion, if I remember correctly.

Hindu doctrine states that there is indeed one God, one souce, who spreads himself to each nation in the form of Jesus, muhhamed, buddha.

You ask why there isnt single religion established by God. Its the same reason people cannot form one world goverment. In EU, members start to exploit each other and union starts to fall appart.

Hindu doctrine authors are brave enough to claim that, if you serve any demigod diety in the world, generaldirector God, will repay you for your service.

Did you reply to the wrong thread? This doesn't address my post at all.

If there are texts about worship and be good to gain this and that, according to hindu doctrine, Its  probably a true demigod religion.

[robvalue]

Really. Well, you failed again to address my post. Try reading it.

[Excited Penguin]

EP: All I'm asking for indicators that something is probably fiction.

For example, if I read a passage in a book and it involves a wizard raising someone from the dead, I'll conclude that is probably fiction. This is because it involves events that aren't known to even be possible. That would be one criteria I would use.

If no such indicators arise, then it can be concluded that it could well be real. I'm not saying it is real, just that it's passed the smell test.

So, you're basically asking us how would we teach the kids to understand which things are probably fiction and which are clearly possible, from a number of such things given as example. Is that it?

Again, extremely vague. In order for us to answer that question, we'd either have to run a simulation of it or actually do it. I'd have to imagine a specific story, fictional or factful, and then work with that particular instance. There can't be a general solution to this problem. There's no magical way to distinguish between reality and fiction on the spot. You'd just have to teach the kids critical thinking, science, and so on. Things that you learn for years growing up and then strengthen for the rest of your life(depending on how lucky you are, of course). That's the only real answer I can see to this question, so again, what is the point of this thread? A bunch of answers just like mine?

[Excited Penguin]

Did you reply to the wrong thread? This doesn't address my post at all.

If there are texts about worship and be good to gain this and that, according to hindu doctrine, Its  probably a true demigod religion.

[purplepurpose]

Really. Well, you failed again to address my post. Try reading it.

I have in mind only one criteria. If text demands from you to be more moral, then if you happen to have a faith in "magic", it wont hurt you, even if its fake story.

If text demands immoral or useless stuff, such stuff is fake.