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steven0461 comments on Theism, Wednesday, and Not Being Adopted - Less Wrong
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If everybody outside your state believed you were adopted, wouldn't that make you want to reconsider? That's one point where I don't accept the analogy.
Less than a quarter of all Mormons live in Utah, and less than half of them live in the United States. They're just very thick on the ground in that one location.
OK, not literally everyone. Point stands, though -- you cannot rationally treat your family's beliefs as more informative than the beliefs of strangers on the other side of the planet with the same relevant characteristics.
Nobody except my parents has the same relevant characteristics with respect to my being adopted, and as far as the Mormons are concerned, nobody except the current Prophet (Thomas S. Monson at the moment) has the same relevant characteristics with respect to the correct beliefs about theism.
What are they? Lots of people call themselves Prophets, claim to be divinely inspired, etc. Surely you don't believe people born in Japan should look to Monson for epistemic authority. Whether God exists and what he's like doesn't have anything to do with whether you were born in Japan or Utah, so why should your beliefs as to whether God exists and what he's like depend on whether you were born in Japan or Utah?
They shouldn't, if your goal is to be right - my point is that Wednesday's goal does not necessarily have to be being right.
If that is your point, then I don't see what work the adoption analogy is doing.
I could demand a DNA test, if I valued being right about my not having been adopted over not annoying my parents/insinuating that they are liars, or over not spending money on the test. I don't have that value ordering, so I just trust them when they tell me so (and consider my other evidence adequate support, although as I mentioned, I wouldn't say I need it.)