Telling fact from fiction

[robvalue]

Generally they've been doing stuff to irritate me. Yet here I am organising imaginary classes to help them.

[robvalue]

OK, so still only one reply from theists, and it didn't address the question.

Am I to conclude that our theists can't tell fact from fiction, even in theory? Do they not cover this with their kids?

[robvalue]

Another five hours and nothing. My concern continues.

Maybe a theist lurker would like to sign up and answer this question.

I think I've shown this topic is far from pointless, considering how stumped theists seem to be.

[Angrboda]

Fair enough.

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.

You're comparing believable to non-believable, and your fist criterion is whether or not the events the narrative recounts are believable? That seems rather circular. It also begs the question when applied to religious texts. If you're an atheist, you might see this as a win. If you're a theist, you might see this as biased instead. So it is a politically loaded principle.

There are no general indicators that something is fact. Only negative indicators that something doesn't comport with reality as we know it, which may be very different for different people. Your principles are geared toward identifying something as fiction, only. They say very little about whether or not an account is fact. That requires a different approach. Looking up independent attestations. Comparing our acceptance of events to our acceptance of other similar events. And so on. So you're not really teaching how to tell fact from fiction, but rather fiction from bad fiction.

[The Grand Nudger]

I doubt that one could really determine, internally, the difference between good fiction and non-fiction.  That's how a lie works in the first place, and they do work, lol.

[Ravenshire]

EP, are you being an obnoxious cunt again for no reason?

Yep.

Rob, I understand your premise, It's not ambiguous at all.
That's a good question to ask theists.
It will no doubt test them!

I don't think it will test them much, if at all. Most theists have no trouble discerning fact from fiction. They simply accept that gawd is capable of the magical things described in their holy texts.

[Silver]

Fiction is easily differentiated from fact.

I write fiction, and clearly bad fiction according to those who have read my writing.

Does that mean my writing should become fact because religion is badly written?

I believe so.

[ignoramus]

The problem with the bible is that they've inserted the bullshit magic bits in with the regular narrative.

Who cares if most bits in it are true.
If the magic bits aren't, then it prolly isn't inerrant.
Which makes it just another book.

So no afterlife! Shock, Horror!

[robvalue]

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?

[robvalue]

I've added this simplified alternate scenario into the OP.