Why be good?

[Esquilax]

But what I'm driving at is this: we DO believe people all the time based upon our inclination to accept what people say at face value unless we have some reason to doubt them.

Hey Randy? Supernatural claims are a reason to doubt somebody.

"I had lunch with my wife yesterday."

"I had lunch with Tom Hanks yesterday."

"I had lunch with the entire cast of the Avengers yesterday."

"I had lunch with a dragon yesterday."

Four claims. Please point to the claim on that list that is, as far as all the evidence you have shows, impossible. Now, let's take a step back: please point to the claim on that list for which you would require additional evidence before believing out of hand.

It's the dragon claim, right? You probably wouldn't even fully accept the Tom Hanks claim until you got a little bit extra, because I don't know Tom Hanks personally. I doubt you'd accept the third claim, because it has a lot more possible, yet unlikely, details in it. And the thing is, those claims that you'd, rightfully, be skeptical of, they are at least fully possible, in that all the people involved exist, and lunch is a thing that people do.

When the claim is impossible, the rational option is not to believe it. Resurrections, miracles... all impossible, according to the evidence at our disposal. At the very least, you'd require more evidence than a firsthand account, and with the bible you don't even have that, because you cannot confirm authorship, nor the firsthand nature of it. This is an important distinction.

Fair enough. But it was pretty obvious that not only you three but Stimbo and others were getting pissed that I asked if you would be willing to testify in court, etc. CD was very insulted and said so - if memory serves. The consensus of the group was, "Who the hell are you to question...". And no, that is not a quote...just my impression of the sentiment of the group earlier in the thread. 

Context is important: that part of the conversation came following a hugely presumptuous, insulting outburst from you, that you insisted was true even after we got mad. What you got was carry-over anger.

Parkers, I think that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would say they HAD documented their accounts pretty well. Luke is pretty emphatic about having researched the whole thing carefully, for example.

Which is a claim that you cannot confirm, that itself purports to confirm things that are supernatural. Therein lies the problem. [/quote]

I clearly stated, what seems like hundreds years ago now in the other topic, that I instantly disbelieve my own wife as soon as she mentions anything supernatural. I trust her more than I trust anyone in the world, and I can ask her questions about her experience. I believe she believes, but I don't believe her beliefs are accurate.

Same with my wife and ghosts- she's an atheist but she has this weird potential blind spot when it comes to ghosts. She tells me her firsthand account, I don't believe it. It's just too much of a claim to swallow on no evidence, no matter how generally trustworthy and intelligent I find her to be.