Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: September 30, 2024, 3:04 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?
#8
RE: Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?
(September 11, 2017 at 1:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: This charge comes up from time to on this forum. 

First, let's define our terms:

Special Pleading: Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason. reference

Evidence: Evidence is not proof. It is a fact that supports a conclusion. For the purposes of this discussion, eyewitness testimony (from any religion) is evidence.  

Central Question: Is it true that other religions have bodies of evidence that can be examined in the same or similar way as Christianity's is and therefore are legitimate comparisons in which special pleading can actually occur?

Is there any debate that no major religion that has a fraction of the amount of evidence of Christianity to even examine in support of its main claims? If other religions do not have a body of evidence or there only exists one piece of evidence, then how could there be any special pleading in favor of Christianity? 

If you are tempted to just answer there is no evidence for Christianity, they we are just arguing definitions of words. Whatever you call the material under consideration, there is more of it under Christianity and therefore no special pleading.

The problem with this is, eyewitness evidence, even if there was some for Christianity, is notoriously BAD evidence.

And I am talking about eyewitness evidence for crimes that can be proven to have taken place, in the present, with no alleged supernatural events taking place.

You don't have anything like that for Christianity. All you have is alleged eyewitness accounts, from texts written a generation or more after the alleged events took place, by non-eyewitnesses.

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.
Reply



Messages In This Thread
Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading? - by SteveII - September 11, 2017 at 1:41 pm
RE: Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading? - by Simon Moon - September 11, 2017 at 2:36 pm

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  How can a Christian reject part of the Bible and still call themselves a Christian? KUSA 371 97471 May 3, 2020 at 1:04 am
Last Post: Paleophyte
  Can someone show me the evidence of the bullshit bible articles? I believe in Harry Potter 36 5432 November 3, 2019 at 7:33 pm
Last Post: Jehanne
  If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary? Silver 181 41332 November 11, 2017 at 10:11 pm
Last Post: Cyberman
  Atheists don't realize asking for evidence of God is a strawman ErGingerbreadMandude 240 32303 November 10, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Last Post: Cyberman
Question Why do you people say there is no evidence,when you can't be bothered to look for it? Jaguar 74 22486 November 5, 2017 at 7:17 pm
Last Post: Pat Mustard
  Personal evidence Silver 19 6509 November 4, 2017 at 12:27 pm
Last Post: c152
  Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? SteveII 643 150355 August 12, 2017 at 1:36 am
Last Post: vorlon13
  Um, should we do anything special today (Maundy Thursday) ?? vorlon13 27 5638 April 14, 2017 at 8:57 am
Last Post: Harry Nevis
  Evidence: The Gathering Randy Carson 530 99464 September 25, 2015 at 5:14 pm
Last Post: abaris
  With Science and Archaeology and Miracle's evidence for God TheThinkingCatholic 35 11867 September 20, 2015 at 11:32 am
Last Post: Fidel_Castronaut



Users browsing this thread: 31 Guest(s)