If theists understood "evidence"

[robvalue]

Even if we were to give the bible a free pass on every mundane claim that it makes, which is giving a hell of a lot more credit than it deserves, that gets us no closer to establishing anything extraordinary. Textual accounts are not enough to establish phenomena that haven’t even been shown to be possible before.

Relying on witnesses' ability to identify and categorise these things is just being credulous. It’s not how new findings are established, and even those who accept these kind of things are very selective and will raise their walls of scepticism against any accounts which offer results they don’t like.

Remember: whether someone believes they are telling the truth is irrelevant in these matters of extraordinary nature. They can be sincere yet mistaken. Being mistaken is monumentally more likely, and paying the price of ignoring the very occasional "correct" testimony in these matters is well worth ignoring all the rest that will have amounted to nothing. If there really is something to it, and it’s of any importance whatsoever to us now, there will be the chance to study it again.

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PS: This is one of my mantras-

Anecdotes can be used as a starting point for a scientific investigation. They just can’t be the investigation.