Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[SteveII]

But your entire premise of all the NT players being fooled has absolutely no evidence except people were fooled before and since. In the absence of any real evidence of deceit it seems that is just an assumption entirely based on the supernatural content of the accounts. If that is so, you are question begging: the events are not evidence of the supernatural because the supernatural does not exist.

It's the Bayesian probability that you claim to be employing. We KNOW people have been, can be, and will continue to be deceived. We don't know that miracles are possible. Therefore, it will take more to establish that miracles are possible than stories about miracles by people for whom it is a FACT that they may have been deceived. [1]

In my story about putting on my pants and then hovering over my house via telekinesis, did you have trouble telling which component of my story was more likely to be a deception?

The extraordinary evidence that is referred to is the sort of evidence that would make it more likely for a reasonably skeptical person to conclude that I actually did the telekinetic hovering than that I just made up a story where I have powerful psychokinetic gifts. Does telling another story about my ability to fly with no visible means of support constitute more evidence? What about me getting a friend to support my claim?

Or do all those constitute claims, with no evidence yet presented? [2]

1. I understand you point. However, the NT series of events and body of evidence does not indicate in any way that the people were deceived. So how do you justify keeping that as a live explanatory option? I am not saying you have to find the face-value evidence compelling, but this deceit theory requires you assume things, jump to unwarranted conclusions and ignore other things to make it work. 

2. The problem of these simple analogies is that they are never complete enough. In the NT, we have multiple years, involving thousands of people, with hundreds of unique events and, often overlooked, a coherent message that make sense of what we see from beginning to end. I have never seen one of these analogies even try to cover some of this ground. 

BTW, thanks to the respectful dialog. It is refreshing in a sea of...well, the typical AF experience.