Telling fact from fiction

[robvalue]

Thanks guys I hadn't been clear enough, I'm glad it makes more sense now.

That looks very good to me Boru.

I don't know if any theists are going to try this, but I take their refusal to participate in my threads as a sign that I've come up with a reasonably thoughtful question.

[robvalue]

As an extreme example of my own second principle of consistency:

A man walks into a room and sits down on a chair. He eats his lunch. There are no chairs in the room.

There is an obvious red flag here that this story has been corrupted, if it was ever initially truthful. Spotting such things is something I would encourage children to do.

[Excited Penguin]

I would advise them to research. They have the internet now, so they can look up anything fishy and see what it's all about. Of course, you'll have to either give them reliable sources or teach them how to find them.

[robvalue]

Are there any other general principles people can think of further to plausibility and consistency?

Of course advanced studies could look at writing styles, motivations and such things, but I'm thinking more generally and simplistically.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]
A man walks into a room and sits down on a chair. He eats his lunch. There are no chairs in the room.

There is an obvious red flag here that this story has been corrupted, [...]

No, there isn't. Clearly - the man ate his chair for lunch. Seems legit.

[robvalue]

Ah! Well spotted sir

You are well versed in the art of weaselling

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

The road to perdition is paved with good intention.  Conversely, immorality or uselessness do not comment upon whether or not something is real or fake.

[Athene]

Are there any other general principles people can think of further to plausibility and consistency?

Of course advanced studies could look at writing styles, motivations and such things, but I'm thinking more generally and simplistically.

Yes.

I made a conscious and continual effort to encourage my children to employ the application of such principles, in order to prevent them from being afraid of things that go bump in the night.

It was the first time I'd consciously dealt with a conundrum that my religious beliefs presented: How to explain to my children that my children that monsters, ghosts, witches, spells, and various other Big Bads weren't real, or more specifically, why they were impossible, without Magic Jesus becoming a casualty? 

No, son. There's no monster under your bed that wants to shrink you; that's impossible. But, there is a man in the sky. He walked on water. And he can hear your thoughts. 

It seemed fair to reason that one of lines of thought was bound to lose some serious credibility. I believed that my children needed their faith in Jesus. I believed that teaching them to separate fact from fiction was absolutely critical as well, so I vacillated between worrying that they would lose their faith, or become gullible idiots for a period of time. Turned out, all that worrying had been for naught.

Silly me. I'd grossly underestimated the mighty, mighty powers of compartmentalization. My kids were fully capable of putting Magic Jesus in his own special box marked "Other" and tucking it away, just like their mommy and daddy.  

THE END

[ignoramus]

Do science teachers in the bible belt invoke special pleading on a regular basis?.

No, it will sink in water because it is denser, except jesus, he was an exception to the rule as we all know.

[vorlon13]

Ewwwwww, children.

They are always sticky, and you never know where they've been.

No thanks.