Anecdotal Evidence

[RoadRunner79]

I would agree that we may be willing to make more assumptions or concessions, for a number of reasons.  However, I don't think that others are required or expected to make the same allowances, for lack of reasonable evidence. I believe that what is reasonable in one case, is reasonable in a similar case.  I am also open to new ideas, and believe that we should look at the evidence.  Perhaps it is just me, but I think that sticking your head in the sand, and ignoring evidence that doesn't conform to your a priori beliefs is a good epistemology.

Do you think that the reason I'm not Christian is that I ignore evidence?

The fact is that very many people here were once Christian.  In my case, I lived in poverty, read the Bible several hours each day, had Revelations-type dreams, and made inquiries into joining a monastery.  But in the end, I looked around at the world, and then at the world as described by the Christian dogma, and I decided that the religion was severely at odds with reality.

I don't know why you are not a Christian, it may have nothing to do with evidence.  I do think that the excuse of flat out denying testimony however isn't very consistent or well thought out.
Also, if you are defining evidence, as you have previously (as what persuedes you), then I don't think the statement even makes since.  That is an issue I have with that definition, you can't ignore evidence, because it is subjective.

Well your results seem to be better than the results of the poll of Scientists who responded  in the Journal Nature I cited. But it probably depends on what you are doing.  And I do think that the method of science has produced a number of great things.  

It depends what kind of science you're doing.  You are thinking of science as a coherent institution.  You say "Scientists" but I think you are really thinking of "Scientism"-ists.  Let's make this clear-- Science is NOT a world view, and has no dogma, other than a refined method of inquiry investigation.  Though not all would agree, I think I can make a strong claim that science is not at odds with religion at all, and does not even require a material world view.

You'll have to describe exactly what science the pollsters are talking about, or your citation doesn't really shed much light on your position.  I can think of one branch of science which very clearly is NOT reproducible and cannot be experimented on: the idea of the multiverse.

It was a poll of subscribers to the journal, and to be fair; I got the feeling, that it was a volunteer response, so those who have had issues, or think that there is an issue, may have been more likely to complete the survey.  It included scientist reporting their experiences, and involved difficulties in repeating peer reviewed experiments.  Some of the social sciences, or psychology, I don't think are that surprising, but the natural sciences, such as physics, and chemistry where.  I would agree, that science and religion are not adversarial.  I also agree, that not all areas of science are directly repeatable.  I may quibble on calling the multiverse science, but there are a number of investigative sciences, which are purely inferential such as archeology, where you are looking at the evidence, and  making a determination to the best conclusion.

My experience differs, and I find that if I take a presuppositional approach, that a large number of things are better explained through theism.   However I fail to see, what this has to do with testimony.   In fact this seems to be one of a number of things, which you offer through testimony in this post, which you seem to be giving as justification or reason for your beliefs (evidence).  I find this somewhat self defeating.

Really?  You are unconvinced by what you see as my own testimony, and so you find this self-defeating of the idea that testimony is a poor source of evidence?

If you want to claim hypocrisy, then you've completely accepted my position: one man's "testimony" is another man's BS.

I think that you misunderstand.  I don't just dismiss your testimony.   And I try to follow a principle of charity, which means that I don't immediately second guess it, or question your motivations without reason.  I think we are again running into a difficulty in definition again.  Just because I am not convinced, does not mean that mean that it is not evidence.  The content (of which yours was lacking detail) however does make a difference.

So would you like to address, that you are offering testimony as evidence?