Outsider's Test of Faith (OTF)

[xpastor]

I'll be happy to take your test. I like tests.

Do I write the questions myself?

Yes, you write the questions yourself. If you don't question the pillars of your faith, then you are only fooling yourself.

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It does not say cultural conditions are the cause of your religion but rather that they are in large measure the cause of your adopting that particular religion....

Still not getting it are you?
The point is that if I lived in in Ur/Iraq or Bethlehem/Palestine in that case THEN I might be accused of adopting the culturally relevant religion.

But Jews in New York and Jews in Palestine live in vastly different cultures and yet they have the same ancient neolithic religion.

I didn't 'adopt' Abrahamic monotheism.
ABRAHAM did!
He is the cause and he is about as far away from me in distance and antiquity as you can get.

In terms of post modern culture - media, music, cuisine, Internet, commerce, zeitgeist, etc. - I am culturally closer to the atheists around here, than I am to Isaac or Ishmael.

You are still obfuscating ... or maybe obtuscating. Loftus does not say that people adopt a faith because they live in cultural conditions replicating those of the early days of that faith. How silly can you get? BTW, as for "neolithic religion" the conventional dates for Abraham and Moses put them well within the Bronze Age, if they existed.

Here is how Loftus expands upon his second point:

... 95 percent of people born and raised in Saudi Arabia are Muslim, while 95 percent of people born and raised in Thailand are Buddhist. If you were born in India, you'd likely be a Hindu. If you were born in Mexico, you'd likely be a Catholic. In fact, we were all raised as believers to a large extent. We were taught to believe whatever our parents told us. If they said there is a Santa Claus, then he existed until they said otherwise. [Actually, as I recall my childhood, there were "atheist" kids who debunked Santa. - xpastor] If we were told there was a god named Zeus we would've believed it. ... when it comes to religious faith, an overwhelming number of believers adopt and defend what they were raised to believe by their parents in their respective cultures.

Loftus has also written extensively on the OTF on the internet. This page from Debunking Christianity contains links to most of what he has written on the subject.