(July 26, 2017 at 6:12 pm)shadow Wrote:

(July 26, 2017 at 2:46 pm)SteveII Wrote: First point. Of course someone being supernaturally healed or rising from the dead is an improbable claim. However, the improbability of this event could be counter-balanced by examining the evidence and simply asking the question: what is the probability of this evidence being present had a miracle not occurred? As this probability number goes down, the probability of the event having a supernatural cause goes up. Notice that there is no requirement that the evidence be 'extraordinary'.

Hi Steve. My understanding of what you are saying is, if you have highly concrete evidence something extraordinary as already occurred, you should need less evidence for proving its mechanism because you already know it is possible. Please correct me if my understanding of your argument is incorrect.

In response, a few questions I think you should consider:
1) Do we have highly concrete evidence of miracles occurring?
2) When choosing between many different explanations for an event, how do we distinguish between them to find the most valid one? For example, let's assume something seemingly miraculous did occur. How do we know which deity was responsible for it? How do we know that any of the ancient gods people have believed in throughout time are responsible for it at all as opposed to an unknown god? How do we a god did it at all? The whole purpose of evidence is to distinguish between competing theories. When it comes to explaining natural events, science has blown religion out of the water as humanity has learned more about the world when it comes to presenting compelling theories about natural mechanisms. This is why science offers a favourable explanation to religion.

Quote:Another point is that if the atheist equates supernatural with extraordinary claims (citing a lack of evidence), this implies that ordinary claims are ones that have good evidence to support it. To follow that line of thinking through, what is the good evidence for atheism? In fact, since there is zero evidence for atheism, the presence of the NT evidence and the fact that most people in the world intuitively believes in the supernatural, isn't the atheist making the extraordinary claim? If you go with the BS that atheists make no claims, then I would make the more modest point that atheist's 'extraordinary' assessment of NT claims are unfounded.

You say 'zero evidence for atheism'. Atheism is just the lack of a belief. This is akin to, when investigating a murder, saying that their is zero evidence that a random bystander had nothing to do with the crime. It is a true statement, but how would one attempt to gather evidence for a non-happening? Zero evidence is the natural state for claiming that something didn't happen. [3]

Kind of. While there might be such a thing as an extraordinary event, there is no such thing as a class of extraordinary evidence. There is no philosophical basis in which to demand more than regular evidence and assessment and so this whole enterprise is nothing more than special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism (thanks RR!). 

I can answer 1 and 2a together by explaining it is a cumulative body of evidence that, when considered as a whole, has been compelling to a significant amount of people.
- Documentary (both actual and inferred)
- The churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and how it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that.
- Paul and his writings on application--done before the Gospels were independently written. To have them work so well together is incredible.
- This one can't be stressed enough: the likelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard a alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have.


2b. Of course science explains natural events better than religion--because that is the very definition of science and not the purpose of religion. Science can help us discover what events have natural causes and which may have supernatural causes. What it cannot do is answer anything about the supernatural. 

3. So my point here is that that your position on the existence of the supernatural is not backed by even ordinary evidence. We can then weigh against the evidence I listed above (and much more) AND the properly basic belief of most of the population of the world (now and in the past) that the supernatural exists. The conclusion is that a demand for extraordinary evidence is unfounded (and a result of special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism).

(July 27, 2017 at 7:11 am)SteveII Wrote:

(July 26, 2017 at 6:12 pm)shadow Wrote: Hi Steve. My understanding of what you are saying is, if you have highly concrete evidence something extraordinary as already occurred, you should need less evidence for proving its mechanism because you already know it is possible. Please correct me if my understanding of your argument is incorrect.

In response, a few questions I think you should consider:
1) Do we have highly concrete evidence of miracles occurring?
2) When choosing between many different explanations for an event, how do we distinguish between them to find the most valid one? For example, let's assume something seemingly miraculous did occur. How do we know which deity was responsible for it? How do we know that any of the ancient gods people have believed in throughout time are responsible for it at all as opposed to an unknown god? How do we a god did it at all? The whole purpose of evidence is to distinguish between competing theories. When it comes to explaining natural events, science has blown religion out of the water as humanity has learned more about the world when it comes to presenting compelling theories about natural mechanisms. This is why science offers a favourable explanation to religion.


You say 'zero evidence for atheism'. Atheism is just the lack of a belief. This is akin to, when investigating a murder, saying that their is zero evidence that a random bystander had nothing to do with the crime. It is a true statement, but how would one attempt to gather evidence for a non-happening? Zero evidence is the natural state for claiming that something didn't happen. [3]

Kind of. While there might be such a thing as an extraordinary event, there is no such thing as a class of extraordinary evidence. There is no philosophical basis in which to demand more than regular evidence and assessment and so this whole enterprise is nothing more than special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism (thanks RR!). 

I can answer 1 and 2a together by explaining it is a cumulative body of evidence that, when considered as a whole, has been compelling to a significant amount of people.
- Documentary (both actual and inferred)
- The churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and how it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that.
- Paul and his writings on application--done before the Gospels were independently written. To have them work so well together is incredible.
- This one can't be stressed enough: the likelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard a alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have.


2b. Of course science explains natural events better than religion--because that is the very definition of science and not the purpose of religion. Science can help us discover what events have natural causes and which may have supernatural causes. What it cannot do is answer anything about the supernatural. 

3. So my point here is that that your position on the existence of the supernatural is not backed by even ordinary evidence. We can then weigh against the evidence I listed above (and much more) AND the properly basic belief of most of the population of the world (now and in the past) that the supernatural exists. The conclusion is that a demand for extraordinary evidence is unfounded (and a result of special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism).

"have been compelling to a significant amount of people".  It all comes down to this, doesn't it?  Oh, and "evidence that someone believed it to be true" is the same as "it's true", as long as you agree with it.  You have no evidence that only points to your god, but a pile of evidence that has so many other explanations other than the one you chose makes your choice no more valid.

(July 26, 2017 at 6:51 pm)chimp3 Wrote: To the pragmatist "extraordinary claim" does not mean "simply amazing" or "awesome". The phrase , as used in the thread title, refers to the concept expressed as Occam's Razor. We have no evidence that people can levitate and disappear above the clouds. We have no knowledge of any physical process that makes such an event possible. A claim that states "Person A" physically rose into the sky (without a JATO) is extraordinary. That claim demands not only evidence the event occurred but also an extraordinary overturning of the known laws of physics and biology. The OP is twisting the meaning of "extraordinary" the way that I.D.iots twist the word "theory".

This has nothing to do with Occam's Razor. 

Such events do not require "overturning of the known laws of physics and biology". As I said in the OP, a miracle is a physical event that has supernatural causation rather than natural. Nothing is overturned, suspended, or broken--a cause is simply inserted.

(July 27, 2017 at 8:23 am)SteveII Wrote:

(July 26, 2017 at 6:51 pm)chimp3 Wrote: To the pragmatist "extraordinary claim" does not mean "simply amazing" or "awesome". The phrase , as used in the thread title, refers to the concept expressed as Occam's Razor. We have no evidence that people can levitate and disappear above the clouds. We have no knowledge of any physical process that makes such an event possible. A claim that states "Person A" physically rose into the sky (without a JATO) is extraordinary. That claim demands not only evidence the event occurred but also an extraordinary overturning of the known laws of physics and biology. The OP is twisting the meaning of "extraordinary" the way that I.D.iots twist the word "theory".

This has nothing to do with Occam's Razor. 

Such events do not require "overturning of the known laws of physics and biology". As I said in the OP, a miracle is a physical event that has supernatural causation rather than natural. Nothing is overturned, suspended, or broken--a cause is simply inserted.

Ahhh...defining a word to meaninglessness.  Never gets old.

(July 26, 2017 at 10:11 pm)paulpablo Wrote: Every claim requires equal amounts of evidence.

If I say I went to the shops then we already know shops exist, that I exist, if you know me you know I have legs and could walk to the shops.

That gives my claim a head start from a claim like Jesus can miraculously come back from the dead, walk on water and heal the sick.

In the context of the bible, Jesus isn't a doctor, a magician or someone lucky enough to have been declared dead and then come back to life like some people sort of do.
All of those claims are claims of supernatural miracles, he's being helped by god to do what a normal human couldn't,  which we have no hard evidence of ever happening to Jesus or anyone ever.

So both claims require an equal amount of evidence but my claim is not extraordinary because there's already evidence backing up my claim of it being possible to begin with.

I don't disagree. So what then is "extraordinary evidence" and how is demanding it justified?

(July 27, 2017 at 8:30 am)SteveII Wrote:

(July 26, 2017 at 10:11 pm)paulpablo Wrote: Every claim requires equal amounts of evidence.

If I say I went to the shops then we already know shops exist, that I exist, if you know me you know I have legs and could walk to the shops.

That gives my claim a head start from a claim like Jesus can miraculously come back from the dead, walk on water and heal the sick.

In the context of the bible, Jesus isn't a doctor, a magician or someone lucky enough to have been declared dead and then come back to life like some people sort of do.
All of those claims are claims of supernatural miracles, he's being helped by god to do what a normal human couldn't,  which we have no hard evidence of ever happening to Jesus or anyone ever.

So both claims require an equal amount of evidence but my claim is not extraordinary because there's already evidence backing up my claim of it being possible to begin with.

I don't disagree. So what then is "extraordinary evidence" and how is demanding it justified?

I didn't demand or mention extraordinary evidence.

I said all claims require equal amounts of evidence.

What makes an extraordinary claim is that it has less evidence backing it up than a standard claim does to begin with.

A standard claim, such as I saw Alf today, I walked down the road, it rained.  

There's already evidence Alf exists (assuming there is), if you know me you'll know I have legs and can walk down a road, we know on this planet it can rain.

I might be lying about all these things but there's at least evidence of the possibility of these events.

If I say Zeus the god traveled faster than light through the halls of Valhalah, then the claim begins in a position of having less evidence backing it up.

Due to the fact we need evidence of Zeus, that anything can travel faster than light, and that valhalah exists.

(July 27, 2017 at 8:17 am)Harry Nevis Wrote:

(July 27, 2017 at 7:11 am)SteveII Wrote: Kind of. While there might be such a thing as an extraordinary event, there is no such thing as a class of extraordinary evidence. There is no philosophical basis in which to demand more than regular evidence and assessment and so this whole enterprise is nothing more than special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism (thanks RR!). 

I can answer 1 and 2a together by explaining it is a cumulative body of evidence that, when considered as a whole, has been compelling to a significant amount of people.
- Documentary (both actual and inferred)
- The churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and how it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that.
- Paul and his writings on application--done before the Gospels were independently written. To have them work so well together is incredible.
- This one can't be stressed enough: the likelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard a alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have.


2b. Of course science explains natural events better than religion--because that is the very definition of science and not the purpose of religion. Science can help us discover what events have natural causes and which may have supernatural causes. What it cannot do is answer anything about the supernatural. 

3. So my point here is that that your position on the existence of the supernatural is not backed by even ordinary evidence. We can then weigh against the evidence I listed above (and much more) AND the properly basic belief of most of the population of the world (now and in the past) that the supernatural exists. The conclusion is that a demand for extraordinary evidence is unfounded (and a result of special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism).

"have been compelling to a significant amount of people".  It all comes down to this, doesn't it?  Oh, and "evidence that someone believed it to be true" is the same as "it's true", as long as you agree with it.  You have no evidence that only points to your god, but a pile of evidence that has so many other explanations other than the one you chose makes your choice no more valid.

Go ahead--explain away all the points I made above. Make sure you don't leave any of them out--not explaining even one will knock your house of cards down in an instant. 

Until you do, I have a unaddressed body of evidence that BILLIONS (in case you were not clear on the size of the jury) of people have considered and determined that it meets the standard of proof they chose for themselves--whether that be "beyond reasonable doubt", "clear and convincing evidence", "preponderance of the evidence", "substantial evidence", or "some evidence".

---

(July 27, 2017 at 9:04 am)paulpablo Wrote:

(July 27, 2017 at 8:30 am)SteveII Wrote: I don't disagree. So what then is "extraordinary evidence" and how is demanding it justified?

I didn't demand or mention extraordinary evidence.

I said all claims require equal amounts of evidence.

What makes an extraordinary claim is that it has less evidence backing it up than a standard claim does to begin with.

A standard claim, such as I saw Alf today, I walked down the road, it rained.  

There's already evidence Alf exists (assuming there is), if you know me you'll know I have legs and can walk down a road, we know on this planet it can rain.

I might be lying about all these things but there's at least evidence of the possibility of these events.

If I say Zeus the god traveled faster than light through the halls of Valhalah, then the claim begins in a position of having less evidence backing it up.

Due to the fact we need evidence of Zeus, that anything can travel faster than light, and that valhalah exists.

Okay, so your position is extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence--just ordinary evidence of the components of the claim? Do you think that the NT fails to provide some level of ordinary evidence (even if you think that it does not meet your personal level of proof you require)? 

In case you are saying that the supernatural has to be proven before considering the evidence of the NT claims, then that's just question begging.

(July 27, 2017 at 9:27 am)SteveII Wrote:

(July 27, 2017 at 8:17 am)Harry Nevis Wrote: "have been compelling to a significant amount of people".  It all comes down to this, doesn't it?  Oh, and "evidence that someone believed it to be true" is the same as "it's true", as long as you agree with it.  You have no evidence that only points to your god, but a pile of evidence that has so many other explanations other than the one you chose makes your choice no more valid.

Go ahead--explain away all the points I made above. Make sure you don't leave any of them out--not explaining even one will knock your house of cards down in an instant. 

Until you do, I have a unaddressed body of evidence that BILLIONS (in case you were not clear on the size of the jury) of people have considered and determined that it meets the standard of proof they chose for themselves--whether that be "beyond reasonable doubt", "clear and convincing evidence", "preponderance of the evidence", "substantial evidence", or "some evidence".

---

Right.  How many are left after discounting the emotional need to believe, indoctrination, by force, didn't really look at the evidence, but everyone else around me says they believe, just claim to believe to have their prejudices and bigotry supported, etc.?  I would say precious few start believing after examining the evidence, because it just don't lead to anywhere. They decide they like the idea first, then go looking for support to prove themselves right, making the bar for the so-called evidence pretty low.  Or does the fact that more BILLIONS do NOT accept that the evidence meets their standard of proof just as convincing that it's NOT true?

---

(July 27, 2017 at 9:27 am)SteveII Wrote: Okay, so your position is extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence--just ordinary evidence of the components of the claim? Do you think that the NT fails to provide some level of ordinary evidence (even if you think that it does not meet your personal level of proof you require)? 

In case you are saying that the supernatural has to be proven before considering the evidence of the NT claims, then that's just question begging.

Do you even know what begging the question means, or do you have your own christian definition, just like "evidence", "fact" and "know"?

Theistic evidence for god is underwhelming at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

(July 27, 2017 at 9:27 am)SteveII Wrote:

(July 27, 2017 at 8:17 am)Harry Nevis Wrote: "have been compelling to a significant amount of people".  It all comes down to this, doesn't it?  Oh, and "evidence that someone believed it to be true" is the same as "it's true", as long as you agree with it.  You have no evidence that only points to your god, but a pile of evidence that has so many other explanations other than the one you chose makes your choice no more valid.

Go ahead--explain away all the points I made above. Make sure you don't leave any of them out--not explaining even one will knock your house of cards down in an instant. 

Until you do, I have a unaddressed body of evidence that BILLIONS (in case you were not clear on the size of the jury) of people have considered and determined that it meets the standard of proof they chose for themselves--whether that be "beyond reasonable doubt", "clear and convincing evidence", "preponderance of the evidence", "substantial evidence", or "some evidence".

---

(July 27, 2017 at 9:04 am)paulpablo Wrote: I didn't demand or mention extraordinary evidence.

I said all claims require equal amounts of evidence.

What makes an extraordinary claim is that it has less evidence backing it up than a standard claim does to begin with.

A standard claim, such as I saw Alf today, I walked down the road, it rained.  

There's already evidence Alf exists (assuming there is), if you know me you'll know I have legs and can walk down a road, we know on this planet it can rain.

I might be lying about all these things but there's at least evidence of the possibility of these events.

If I say Zeus the god traveled faster than light through the halls of Valhalah, then the claim begins in a position of having less evidence backing it up.

Due to the fact we need evidence of Zeus, that anything can travel faster than light, and that valhalah exists.

Okay, so your position is extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence--just ordinary evidence of the components of the claim? Do you think that the NT fails to provide some level of ordinary evidence (even if you think that it does not meet your personal level of proof you require)? 

In case you are saying that the supernatural has to be proven before considering the evidence of the NT claims, then that's just question begging.

I think the NT provides some level of ordinary evidence.  I'll talk about the sections talking about the life of Jesus just because I don't know about all of the NT and just for the sake of conversation to keep it easier.

Someone wrote a book about it, there may have been some witnesses.  That's about it.

There are many MANY things that can be considered to cast doubt on the claims of the new testament.

The fact that it does contain a type of religious leader who is able to perform supernatural actions in the form of miracles.

This isn't begging the question or circular reasoning.  I'm not saying supernatural things can't happen because they're supernatural.

I'm saying we have no evidence (beyond what I previously mentioned) of them (supernatural events in the NT) happening, we do have evidence of people being deceived into believing supernatural actions/events do happen.

There's the situation of the evidence and witness testimony being so old, combined with the supernatural actions.

If the claim was for example "Mary walked across the stepping stones on this river 2000 years ago" then it can be taken with a shrug.  You could think, ok maybe she did, who cares?  Her footprints are long gone, anyone who saw her is long dead, the children of whoever saw her are long dead and so are the grandchildren of her children.

If the claim is that "Jesus came back from the dead, had a chat with people, turned water into wine and walked on water over 2000 years ago."

We're in the same situation, plus supernatural events. The witnesses are long dead, the wine has been drank, no photos no film, nothing but what people said and wrote down.

So we have no evidence of people being able to use actual real magic and miracles to walk on water, come back from the dead, turn water into wine.

 Can people be tricked into believing this has happened?  Yes, we have evidence people can deceive other people into believing magic things happened, or just lying about it to begin with

 Do cult followers believe their leaders can do these type of things now? 

 Do cult leaders perform real magic supernatural miracles now, or is it true that there are people who are capable of deceiving other people into believing miracles and magic have been performed?

How reasonable is it that a cult leader 2000 years ago could have had witnesses claiming he did miracles when he actually didn't do them.

How reasonable is it to think that the cult leader 2000 years ago performed real magic miracles on the basis of whatever evidence we have.

I'm giving benefit of the doubt though, I'll be willing to go along with a hypothetical situation in which we know these witnesses were real people and this book was written by followers of Jesus, I know a lot of people doubt he even existed or that his followers did.