(February 8, 2018 at 4:36 pm)SteveI Wrote: Sure. That's why I don't take stranger's experiences as proof of anything. It is entirely rational to take one's own experiences and of those he trusts as evidence. You have no logical grounds to deny this. When you go from the position of "I don't know" to "you are delusional" and "brain-fart" you have assumed the burden of proof by making a positive claim of knowledge. You have no evidence to help shoulder that burden. Instead, your argument seems to amount to "some people are obviously wrong, therefore everyone must be wrong". Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
If you, as an eye-witness, claim something happened that directly contradicts known laws of physics that have been extensively tested, I will justifiably conclude you are mistaken and misinterpreted your experience. Unless you have *very, very* good evidence, enough to show the otherwise testable results are wrong, I will make that conclusion. If you persist, I will conclude you are delusional.
And yes, that is fully justified.
And that goes tenfold for writings from a superstitious culture, where the provenience of the writing is unknown, and the claims are 'miracles'. Even if Matthew was an eye-witness, my conclusion is that he was mistaken in his interpretation and/or elaborated on the story for effect.
Now, for areas that have not been extensively tested, or where results are ambiguous there are allowances that can be made.
But that is not the case in Biblical myths.
