RE: Testimony: Are we being hypocritical?
November 19, 2017 at 1:12 pm
(This post was last modified: November 19, 2017 at 1:26 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
The quality of the testimony matters though.
Someone saying "I was raped" is not evidence of the truth that they were raped in and of itself. They usually give more details than that . . .
A testimony is more than a bare assertion, basically. And a legal testimony is not a religious testimony. "God did it" is not a testimony. And describing the details of something magical and imaginary is testimony to nothing more than a testimony of one's deluded belief.
IMO a lot of atheists aren't rigid enough. As far as I am concerned it's not only that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but it's also the case that when you define a god belief in such a way that their existence is indistinguishable from their nonexistence and they are completely unfalsifiable.... then it's not possible for there to even be evidence of God.
Even if God turned up, became visible, appeared before us and said "I am the Christian God" we still couldn't distinguish that from, for example, a superintelligent and superadvanced telepathic alien being fucking with us.
And in fact it's worse than that, because if a supernatural being is by definition outside of space and time and nature then if it appears before us it's by definition not God whatever it is.
^ This
It's important to remember that legal testimony is different to simply testimony. Actual legal testimony is more than simply "X happened".
Someone saying "I was raped" is not evidence of the truth that they were raped in and of itself. They usually give more details than that . . .
A testimony is more than a bare assertion, basically. And a legal testimony is not a religious testimony. "God did it" is not a testimony. And describing the details of something magical and imaginary is testimony to nothing more than a testimony of one's deluded belief.
(November 19, 2017 at 10:20 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: I'm just wondering if we've been unfairly rigid to our theists in these debates regarding the nature of evidence.
IMO a lot of atheists aren't rigid enough. As far as I am concerned it's not only that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but it's also the case that when you define a god belief in such a way that their existence is indistinguishable from their nonexistence and they are completely unfalsifiable.... then it's not possible for there to even be evidence of God.
Even if God turned up, became visible, appeared before us and said "I am the Christian God" we still couldn't distinguish that from, for example, a superintelligent and superadvanced telepathic alien being fucking with us.
And in fact it's worse than that, because if a supernatural being is by definition outside of space and time and nature then if it appears before us it's by definition not God whatever it is.
(November 19, 2017 at 11:18 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Testimony in itself is a claim, not evidence, but comparing different claims can yield evidence.
^ This
It's important to remember that legal testimony is different to simply testimony. Actual legal testimony is more than simply "X happened".
