Anecdotal Evidence

[Angrboda]

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I would say that the best evidence we have of Christian beliefs is the Bible, and I find it inconsistent and hostile.

The thing about archeology is that it is really said that "this is so," as religions say.  This is important to me-- the more confidently you make your claims, the greater your reason for confidence should be.  After that, the next best evidence, it seems to me, is subjective revelation-- but it is not specific only to the Christian religion.  Therefore, I'd say that religious experiences are not of religion, but of human nature, and that they cannot therefore serve as evidence in favor of this or that religious tradition.  This, I think, has been your problem throughout this discussion-- you want to include religious testimony in our consideration of what is true, but surely you would not accept Hindu, Buddhist, or pagan accounts as evidence in favor of the actual existence of Krsna, an enlightened Buddha, or Thor.

Your post is to far after the one you're responding to.  I don't really understand what you are saying right now.

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I was listening to a podcasts the other day, which seems relevant to this conversation.  The caller was a geocentrist, and further believed that the earth was stationary (does not rotate on an axis).  The hosts quickly pointed out, the observations made, which easily disprove this including the observation from space of the earths rotation, and the fact that satellites in a synchronous orbit need to have their time calibrated for the difference in speed  because of their greater orbit.

The caller immediately dismissed this; similarly to what I see here, as anecdotes, and having to believe what others tell you.  Now to me, he is denying the evidence, based on what their a priori knowledge states (I would say that this man, couldn't be reasoned with).  Do you think that he was correct in his method?

I have only to appeal to the test of Occam's razor to support my point here. Named after William of Occam, a 14th century English logician who first enunciated it as a valid rule of evidence, Occam's razor states that when there exist two or more explanations for an occurrence, especially an unusual one, the least incredible one is most likely to be the right one. So in this matter which is more likely? Did a prophet actually foresee the reign of a king and call him by his name 300 years before he was even born, or did the writer of 1 Kings, after the fact, merely write this "prophecy" into his historical narrative? There is no doubt which of the two explanations is the more likely one, so until Bible fundamentalists can prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the more likely explanation could not have occurred, they do not have any proof at all in this "prophecy" that God inspired the writing of the Bible.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/farre...phecy.html

In a similar vein, the appeal to anecdote must be measured against Occam's razor. If a claim appears unrealistic or extraordinary given the background knowledge of the case, then it perhaps should be disbelieved in favor of the more plausible explanations of lie, mistake, or error. The caller's method was flawed because he was not making a reasonable appeal to an examination of the weight of evidence of scientist's testimony but simply cleaving to a predetermined supposition that all such testimony was unreliable.