(September 20, 2015 at 5:45 pm)abaris Wrote:(September 20, 2015 at 5:26 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Since you keep harping on legal standards of proof, let's step back and consider standards of proof in the law and elsewhere.
Don't let yourself be drawn into his "legal" standards bullshit. We were over this before he was sent on his vaccation. Legal standards ain't worth shit when it comes to history. There's a very good reason why both disciplines are taught at different faculties. Both have a very different methodology and legal standards vary from country to country. Historical standards don't. They're the same all over the world. And what he considers evidence doesn't even rise up to the very basics of what is accepted by history.
Quote:Ancient history, rarely works in even near let alone absolute certainties. Often it doesn't even work in more probably than not but only in the most probable of several competing theories and even then there is room for argument as to which theory is most probable. Fleshing out a possible theory is a reasonable exercise even if it can't be proven. It's a good thing we don't generally have to even consider altering our lives over ancient history because so little of it can really be proven, though many things are highly likely and many more highly unlikely.
This is why, history is not a suitable tool for determining whether miracles, supernatural events, or god exist or have happened. The standard of proof in history never reaches the level necessary to prove extraordinarily improbable events.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.