(July 30, 2012 at 2:58 pm)Carborundum Wrote:

(July 25, 2012 at 1:31 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote: The former has a connotation of fairy tales which to attach to God would seem to presuppose God is a fairy tale and thus be a sort of circular argument.

Why is it fair to presuppose that fairies are fairytales, but unfair to presuppose the same about gods?

No argument has successfully shown that the existence of God is in any way as likely as a fairy tale. I could turn the question around to you as well, why is it fair to presuppose that God is as likely to be true as a fairy tale.

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Quote:As has already been explained to you, personal testimony -regardless of whose it may be, mine, yours, your mother's- does not increase the likelihood of any given event or incident actually occurring. Personal testimony has nothing to do with the probability of anything at all, beyond the likelihood of undeserved credit being given to personal testimony by other human beings -a testament to how much we value social interaction if ever there was one-. It doesn't matter who told you pink elephants went on parade.......no matter how strongly you trust this person, no matter how certain they are of what they saw. Your confidence in their honesty, and their conviction -even if both were absolutely justified- still does not satisfy as a measure for determining probability or likelihood, and ignores a great deal of what we do know about how completely and utterly we are able to delude ourselves. Personally, I doubt that you would actually trust anyone who fed you the story you offered as an example, even your mother. I'd be willing to wager some sideways glances would be exchanged. Sorry to sound cynical, but that's just my opinion. I have more confidence in your ability to think clearly than you would seem to suggest with that example. I don't say this as an isult to your mothers honesty, or your trust in dear old mom, and I hope you don't take it that way.....but it does seem that this particular example was brinksmanship with absurdity-and even so, teenagers dressed as video game characters is not exactly an extraordinary event -you took efforts to make it ordinary almost immediately. If you want to keep it extraordinary, it wouldn't be teenagers dressed-as...it would be Mario and Luigi themselves mugging your poor mother. I have to call massive bs on both the example, and your continued defense of it.

You only gave an example of one instance where personal testimony wasn't enough to convince you of an event. However, from that it doesn't follow that personal testimony is irrelevant to the probability of an event. As for the mario example, I can't believe you wont consider this extraordinary. Fundamentally our difference seems to be that you consider God as extraordinary as a purple flying elephant with a fairy godmother while I do not. However, the case that God is so unlikely as that, I have never seen defended sucessfuly against objections which leads me to believe it is only perpetuated by appeals to ridicule, uncommon presuppositions (like the apparent "self-evidence" that there is no God), and irrational appeals to emotion. If your atheism must rely upon the assumption that your opposition is self-evidently irrational, you have built a tower on a sand dune and it will collapse.

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(August 1, 2012 at 9:12 pm)padraic Wrote:

(August 1, 2012 at 3:42 pm)Jeffonthenet Wrote: Hey everyone, I haven't been posting here recently because I am focusing on my formal debate in the philosophy section of this site. However, I think many of the things addressed here might be dealt with in a more in depth way there, so you are welcome to check it out.

Thank you for the offer,but having read some of your posts, I'd rather eat my own scrotum.

I wish you the best

(August 6, 2012 at 1:14 am)Jeffonthenet Wrote: You only gave an example of one instance where personal testimony wasn't enough to convince you of an event.

Because you only gave one example where you thought it was. We could wade through examples all day long and personal testimony still won't have any effect o the probability of an event. Since we're on the subject of what I personally find convincing (or in this case, completely unconvincing) I'll reiterate what I have already said. You probably wouldn't find this tale convincing either. You certainly wouldn't see the police investigating the incident if all we had was such testimony. There would have to be something else -you know, items missing, signs of struggle, damage to the premises or property, etc. Even so, I wouldn't hit the streets looking for mario and luigi, and neither would you, imho.

Quote: However, from that it doesn't follow that personal testimony is irrelevant to the probability of an event.

If you want to pretend that we're having a debate (so that you might mention that such does not follow such and such) then build an argument. At the moment you're simply pleading.

Quote:As for the mario example, I can't believe you wont consider this extraordinary.

I would, had you not taken steps to make it mundane almost immediately. Still, it being a case of teens dressed as video game characters is in no way equivalent to this god bullshit bandied about, and yet it still remains -less than likely-.

Quote:Fundamentally our difference seems to be that you consider God as extraordinary as a purple flying elephant with a fairy godmother while I do not.

A position assumed to evade cognitive dissonance, in all likelihood.

Quote:However, the case that God is so unlikely as that, I have never seen defended sucessfuly against objections which leads me to believe it is only perpetuated by appeals to ridicule, uncommon presuppositions (like the apparent "self-evidence" that there is no God), and irrational appeals to emotion.

I'm sorry, again, do you think we're having a debate? I hope not, because you'd have to argue for those objections (not just say they exist and are successful) else you're arguing by assertion. You must show "uncommon presuppositions" else it's a strawman, and you must show these "irrational appeals to emotion" -see above. None of this is a problem if we're having a discussion. In a discussion I simply call massive BS (and you get to call BS as well, if you like).

Quote:If your atheism must rely upon the assumption that your opposition is self-evidently irrational, you have built a tower on a sand dune and it will collapse.

Good thing my atheism isn't built on assumptions, eh? Nevertheless, aren't we discussing the likelihood of an event being affected by personal testimony? Whats wrong with exploring that? Would you care to give me a single example of a persons testimony influencing the likelihood of the event which they are relating by testimony? I wasn't aware that human speech had the power to bend the cosmos -after the fact- by the simple telling of a tale. You seem to disagree, so have at it.

Let me distill this for you. Essentially our conversation would seem to boil down to this (I'm leaving the probability of an event based on testimony aside because it is fucking ridiculous, go argue with a child about the magical power of words, I'm not interested)

-If you have reason to trust a person, you have good reason to believe that the events they relate in testimony actually happened-

No, you don't. At best, at the very best, you have reason to assume that they believe that their testimony is an accurate assessment of an event. I've already explained to you why this is insufficient, but if you need me to explain this again just say the word.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/understa...cation.php

Quote:Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in nearly 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.

While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

(August 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: http://www.innocenceproject.org/understa...cation.php

Quote:Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in nearly 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.

While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

Depends on how many eyewitnesses you have and how reliable these people are, and how close they were to the person they saw. I agree that it might need to be critically evaluated in some or all instances. But that doesn't make it worthless.

So, how many credible eyewitnesses would it take to convince you that werewolves existed Jeff? Alien abdusctions? The Lock Ness Monster? Bigfoot? Ghostly Apparitions? Witchcraft? Eyewitness testimony, in the absence of any other form of evidence -is worthless-.

The US court system would disagree with you. Your beef is not with me but with eyewitness testimony.

(August 7, 2012 at 12:24 pm)Rhythm Wrote: So, how many credible eyewitnesses would it take to convince you that werewolves existed Jeff? Alien abdusctions? The Lock Ness Monster? Bigfoot? Ghostly Apparitions? Witchcraft? Eyewitness testimony, in the absence of any other form of evidence -is worthless-.

What about your own eyewitness testimony?

(August 7, 2012 at 1:23 pm)CliveStaples Wrote:

(August 7, 2012 at 12:24 pm)Rhythm Wrote: So, how many credible eyewitnesses would it take to convince you that werewolves existed Jeff? Alien abdusctions? The Lock Ness Monster? Bigfoot? Ghostly Apparitions? Witchcraft? Eyewitness testimony, in the absence of any other form of evidence -is worthless-.

What about your own eyewitness testimony?

Now my wife is convinced that there are spirits that communicate with her.

She has seen things move and heard the knocking of the spirits.

She is a spiritualist medium and goes into altered state(whatever that is) her mum contacts spirits directly and "speaks their words".

I love my wife and her and trust her in many things but in this I feel she is mistaken.

As for me, could my senses fool me, absolutely.

That is why if I thought I saw something that seemed like a ghost or some other supernatural thing I would want to test it scientifically.

(August 7, 2012 at 1:21 pm)Jeffonthenet Wrote: The US court system would disagree with you. Your beef is not with me but with eyewitness testimony.

No, they wouldn't. If, for example, you claimed that someone had committed a murder, and you had no body to show for it, you're shit out of luck. If, for example, you claimed that someone had stolen something from you, but you could not produce evidence that the goods in question even existed...you're shit out of luck. I could go on and on and on. Eyewitness testimony is used to sway a jury (and only when that testimony can be substantiated). They have a word for "he said she said" bullshit. Sorry, try again.

(August 7, 2012 at 1:23 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: What about your own eyewitness testimony?

Unreliable, the credibility of eyewitness testimony (or in this case, the lack there-off) is not dependent on the individual. My testimony would be meaningless without substantiation, just like everyone else's. Any more questions?