Witness Evidence

[bennyboy]

This whole thread is an argument from ignorance, I have concluded.

I just met Allah! He's the one true God! Yahweh doesn't exist, Allah told me!

Now, any Christian will instantly dismiss this as a complete lie, because they consider my motivation to be in question. However, the claim should instead be met with the same scepticism as any other claim, and it should fail for that reason, since I'm providing no evidence.

That's right.  If testimony is evidence, then whichever cultural institution grows faster, and has more adherents, will have the greater supporting evidence.  In a couple decades, we will all need to take the perfectly logical step of becoming Hindus, or maybe Buddhists, or maybe even Muslims.

And this is the problem which Christianity, as well as with Pascal's wager.  With a global world full of so many ideas, it's not a matter of evidence for God or not-- it's a matter of the weight of evidence of dozens of major religions, thousands of minor sects, major philosophical positions etc.-- all of whom have members providing "testimony."