Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[LadyForCamus]

Same problem with every follower of every religion. NO EVIDENCE!

We cant dumb it down any further for you. 

"Because I say so" is not an argument.

There is only ONE method that is universal in settling disputes between competing claims and that is scientific method.

I disagree with your assertion that the scientific method is the only method of settling disputed claims.  I'll wait for you to settle it, using the scientific method!

Actually, the way he's talking; I don't even think he read the OP, lol.

[TheBeardedDude]

Same problem with every follower of every religion. NO EVIDENCE!

We cant dumb it down any further for you. 

"Because I say so" is not an argument.

There is only ONE method that is universal in settling disputes between competing claims and that is scientific method.

I disagree with your assertion that the scientific method is the only method of settling disputed claims.  I'll wait for you to settle it, using the scientific method!

A claim remaining unsettled to an individual, doesn't mean the information derived from scientific inquiry isn't sufficient to settle the claim. Stubborn and ignorant people are not likely to accept that they are both stubborn and ignorant. 

[vorlon13]

why is evidence even a 'thing' in the Christian orbit anyhow?

The main event regarding Salvation is belief, not fucking proof. I'm starting to see the idea behind the Scientologists just not engaging in public on some of their beliefs because they grasp the BELIEF angle, perhaps, and do so in a way that seems to be escaping the Christian apologists being tormented here. I'd almost assert Christian Apologetics is heresy. The discouraging of questions and inquiries is the way to go, and above all else, proffering feeble and twisted explanations only hurts the cause.

Coming full circle to so many other threads we've seen here:

Why is it so hard for the believers to B-E-L-I-E-V-E ????


and yet another thread where your vorlon notes "they ain't doing it right !!!!"

[Minimalist]

After this many posts.... I'm still trying to figure out where this supposed special pleading is occurring?

You gave a stunning example of it yourself, RR, when confronted with the 'miracles' of Vespasian you claimed you had to "look into it more" as opposed to the supposed miracles of jesus which you would never think to question.

THAT is special pleading.  YOUR shit is wrong but MY shit is right.

[vorlon13]

and dismissing the volumes of testimony the Mormons are able to trot out . . . .

[RoadRunner79]

After this many posts.... I'm still trying to figure out where this supposed special pleading is occurring?

You gave a stunning example of it yourself, RR, when confronted with the 'miracles' of Vespasian you claimed you had to "look into it more" as opposed to the supposed miracles of jesus which you would never think to question.

THAT is special pleading.  YOUR shit is wrong but MY shit is right.

I don't think that your false assumptions constitute special pleading. You seem to be constructing an argument that I don't make in order to knock it down without difficulty.

[SteveII]

I don't know if it happened. I doubt because of 1) the lack of context of every other miracle ever performed (they had a specific purpose), 2) there are some rebuttal witnesses that said no, it did not happen, and 3) there was nothing on the line when people said "I saw it"--it did necessitate a call to action or any required change of belief.

Because of course, 1000's of people that can be interviewed moments after an event, are no where near as reliable as, 500 anonymous people, whose stories are not recorded for decades or more after the alleged events.

Move those stories 1800 years in the past, and somehow they become even more reliable.

That is a textbook example of special pleading. What is the title of this thread again?

Intellectual honesty is not quite your thing, is it Steve?

Except you didn't address my second and third justification for treating the testimony different. Why is it that everyone misses that part of the definition of special pleading. I'll highlight it for you. 

Special Pleading

Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification.  Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason. Link

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

I don't know how else to say it to you RR.  To ask your interlocutors to 'assume for the sake of the argument that there is evidence for my religion' so that you can say, 'therefore, it's not special pleading because my religion has evidence,' is entirely circular.  He's failed to make a case for excusing Christianity from special pleading, which is what he set out to do.

With this reasoning, anyone would be equally valid in saying that you are special pleading, merely on the basis of disagreement.  You demanding that your interlocutors deny testimony as evidence is special pleading.  And thus the whole claim is subjective.

If you look at the definition for special pleading [here]
You will see that special pleading involves a person asserting a standard or principle, and then making an exemption to that standard without adequate justification for that exemption.  Not that you assert the standard, and they disagree with it.

This is also, why I have sought to go back to basics about what is evidence and similar posts, rather than talking about specifics based on the principles.  And this (combined with lack of time, and overall being tired) is why I was ignoring your question about the quality of the testimony in the scriptures.  Because in the end, you can just dismiss it anyway, and go back to testimony is not evidence.

RoadRunner, out of curiosity, I'm somewhat confused by apologetics.  Specifically, god belief is unfalsifiable, yet from my observations, there are apologists who will use tools of falsifiability, such as reason and logic, to establish that their unfalsifiable claims are true (which can often give the appearance of mental gymnastics, rationalizations, circular reasoning, etc).  Could you please clarify how this is not a contradiction? Also, when taking an apologetics approach toward one's belief system, to what degree are the truths of that belief system faith-based? Does it make sense to engage in rational discourse over truths that are faith-based?

With that said, is it completely sensible for an individual to accept the claims of his or her belief system based on faith/belief? Also, rather than asserting that one's belief system is the truth in our reality, is it more sensible and open-minded to keep one's belief system in the domain of faith/belief? Thanks

[SteveII]

"For the sake of the argument, let's assume The Bible is evidence.  Therefore: no special pleading," is one of the laziest arguments I have seen put forth by an apologist on these forums in two years.  Why did he think that we were simply going to grant him that assumption, unchallenged?

While I am going to let you have the last word in our back and forth, I AM going to clear this little misunderstanding up. 

In my OP, I said "For the purposes of this discussion, eyewitness testimony (from any religion) is evidence." under the section where I was defining my terms.  This is because we just came off a rather long thread where some of you, despite logic and the reality that we as a society do accept testimony as evidence, actually have the position that testimony is NOT evidence. I was not going to rehash that nonsense. 

YOU have to read in a lot of extra meaning to those words to come up with "For the sake of the argument, let's assume The Bible is evidence". Read more carefully. Ask for clarification if you don't know what I mean. Don't launch into smug attack mode--that's not a discussion.

[The Grand Nudger]

A competent apologist can diffuse special pleading objections by reminding his interlocuters that he has come to his religion by faith, he didn't argue himself into it.  It's only special pleading when you actually -do it-, and the nature of some statement as a component in a special pleading argument does not actually make the conclusion of that argument inaccurate.  A christyian believes their stories are true despite the similarities, and believes that others stories are false despite the similarities. They cannot rationally argue this case...but they don't need to, because they have faith in their stories..and none in the stories of others. That leap is, supposedly, theologically important. The difficulty and even inability of rationally distinguishing true and false prophets is strongly supported by scripture. Many will be lead astray, after all.

Too bad we don't have any competent apologists....you'd think that the "faith" skyhook would be obvious to the simpletons just the same....but apparently it isn't.