RE: Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
August 2, 2017 at 5:02 pm
(This post was last modified: August 2, 2017 at 5:03 pm by Simon Moon.)
(August 2, 2017 at 4:00 pm)SteveII Wrote:(August 2, 2017 at 3:05 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Sorry, but there is no amount of textual material that can ever be good evidence for miracle, supernatural, god claims. [1]
And of course, you are guilty of special pleading by not allowing for the same kind of evidence for other religions texts, besides your own. [2]
I can interview living people, some that have written books, that will attest to their alien abduction experiences. Most of them are honestly and sincerely reporting what they believe is the truth. [3]
Should I believe them? Do you?
I am not saying they are lying, they are probably misinterpreting some other experience.
Now, why when you move other supernatural stories 2000 years into the pre-scientific past, written decades or more after the alleged experiences, by non eyewitnesses, do supernatural stories become more credible? [4]
Welcome to the party Simon.
1. First, 'good' as it applies to standards of proof is subjective, so that sentence is your opinion. Second, what type of evidence for first century miracles, supernatural, God claims would be 'good' evidence? If this 'good' evidence is not possible, then you are just question begging: miracles can't happen so the NT can't be evidence of miracles.
I have never claimed that miracles can't happen. Only that I have not been presented with the type of evidence that would convince me.
My claim is that texts, written by scientifically illiterate people, decades or more after the alleged events, by non eyewitnesses, is not good evidence. Anyone that considers themself a critical thinker but then lowers their bar for evidence for miracle claims to texts, is doing it wrong.
Quote:2. Not at all. Unlike all of the atheist who make the claim of "no evidence", I am willing to look at the evidence presented from other religions and tell you precisely why I don't find them compelling. Go ahead...present some evidence for another religion and I will tell you why we have apples and oranges and definitely not special pleading.
And of course, you will use your religious texts as the ruler, in order to make the judgement on whether they are or are not compelling. While, what you should actually be comparing them to is the "null hypothesis". The same ruler I compare ALL religious texts to.
Quote:3. I'm sure they are. What we don't have is other people describing the same single event -- the abduction of one single person. All we have is self-reporting. Here is the real problem with this analogy: if Jesus had written his claims down, you would argue that it needed to be witnessed by others for us to believe!!
Actually, this is not true. There are quite a few experiences with mass sightings and multiple abductions.
Quote:4. It is your claim they were not eyewitnesses! They claimed they were. Competing claims...I go with them.
Not my claim. The claim of the majority of Biblical scholars, including Christian scholars.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
