Testimony is Evidence

[Neo-Scholastic]

Maybe I DO have a point, and I'm not being a dick for no reason.  I'm being a dick because it's the most concise way to make obvious what should already BE obvious.

You could just as easily have said that Judas was the real hero or something like that. Either way it's not like I've never been a complete ass so I cannot fault you too much for using hyperbole now and then. You're one of my favorite members and I hate to see you start treating believers with contempt like so many do. Roadrunner has been taking the high road on this one.

Now even if this is a general conversation about testimony, everyone knows that tacitly we are talking about the NT accounts of Jesus Christ. It is a legitimate question for skeptic to ask if Christians would accept the veracity of testimony about other people and events using the same standard. I can imagine that some do and others don't. Personally, I'm a bit more open to so-called paranormal stuff based largely on testimonials but only to a point. I think psi is probably a real but very low-bandwidth with minimal physical effects like uncanny premonitions and synchronicity. I don't go for the dramatic stuff like MK Ultra, etc. I think alien abductions are a real phenomena but I don't think anyone knows what they actually are or what they mean. Probably not nuts-and-bolts spaceships in cahoots with the CIA but more than just hallucinations. I also think NDE's do suggest some kind of after-death survival but I don't think that necessarily support all the mystical or religious interpretations about them. Maybe they are just a short term afterglow. None of these necessarily have anything at all to do with whether or not God exists. There is value to having a range of skepticism. To much or too little and we wouldn't learn anything. I don't see why it is necessary to always seek signs of nefarious ulterior motives in people with different degrees of skepticism. I'm not saying you do but there are AF member that always do just that and then times when even the best fall into that trap.