Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[SteveII]

Kind of. While there might be such a thing as an extraordinary event, there is no such thing as a class of extraordinary evidence. There is no philosophical basis in which to demand more than regular evidence and assessment and so this whole enterprise is nothing more than special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism (thanks RR!). 

I can answer 1 and 2a together by explaining it is a cumulative body of evidence that, when considered as a whole, has been compelling to a significant amount of people.
- Documentary (both actual and inferred)
- The churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and how it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that.
- Paul and his writings on application--done before the Gospels were independently written. To have them work so well together is incredible.
- This one can't be stressed enough: the likelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard a alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have.


2b. Of course science explains natural events better than religion--because that is the very definition of science and not the purpose of religion. Science can help us discover what events have natural causes and which may have supernatural causes. What it cannot do is answer anything about the supernatural. 

3. So my point here is that that your position on the existence of the supernatural is not backed by even ordinary evidence. We can then weigh against the evidence I listed above (and much more) AND the properly basic belief of most of the population of the world (now and in the past) that the supernatural exists. The conclusion is that a demand for extraordinary evidence is unfounded (and a result of special pleading/moving the goal post/hyperskepticism).

"have been compelling to a significant amount of people".  It all comes down to this, doesn't it?  Oh, and "evidence that someone believed it to be true" is the same as "it's true", as long as you agree with it.  You have no evidence that only points to your god, but a pile of evidence that has so many other explanations other than the one you chose makes your choice no more valid.

Go ahead--explain away all the points I made above. Make sure you don't leave any of them out--not explaining even one will knock your house of cards down in an instant. 

Until you do, I have a unaddressed body of evidence that BILLIONS (in case you were not clear on the size of the jury) of people have considered and determined that it meets the standard of proof they chose for themselves--whether that be "beyond reasonable doubt", "clear and convincing evidence", "preponderance of the evidence", "substantial evidence", or "some evidence".

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I don't disagree. So what then is "extraordinary evidence" and how is demanding it justified?

I didn't demand or mention extraordinary evidence.

I said all claims require equal amounts of evidence.

What makes an extraordinary claim is that it has less evidence backing it up than a standard claim does to begin with.

A standard claim, such as I saw Alf today, I walked down the road, it rained.  

There's already evidence Alf exists (assuming there is), if you know me you'll know I have legs and can walk down a road, we know on this planet it can rain.

I might be lying about all these things but there's at least evidence of the possibility of these events.

If I say Zeus the god traveled faster than light through the halls of Valhalah, then the claim begins in a position of having less evidence backing it up.

Due to the fact we need evidence of Zeus, that anything can travel faster than light, and that valhalah exists.

Okay, so your position is extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence--just ordinary evidence of the components of the claim? Do you think that the NT fails to provide some level of ordinary evidence (even if you think that it does not meet your personal level of proof you require)? 

In case you are saying that the supernatural has to be proven before considering the evidence of the NT claims, then that's just question begging.