RE: Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
July 27, 2017 at 12:19 pm
(This post was last modified: July 27, 2017 at 12:21 pm by LadyForCamus.)
(July 27, 2017 at 9:27 am)SteveII Wrote:(July 27, 2017 at 8:17 am)Harry Nevis Wrote: "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".
(July 27, 2017 at 9:04 am)paulpablo Wrote: 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.
A large number (maybe close to a billion?) of people also believe the Mandela Effect is caused by a supernatural (or at the very least, natural but without a shred of evidence for it ) event. Does that mean we can reasonably conclude that doppelgänger universes are colliding with our time-space, and changing the spelling of "The Berenstain Bears?"
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Wiser words were never spoken.