Evolution, the Bible, and the 3.5 Million Dollar Violin - my article

[Jeffonthenet]

I couldn't live with myself if I wouldn't convict a man of a crime that there were 200 reliable witnesses to.

Which has exactly jack shit to do whether or not personal testimony is reliable in the first place. Consider what you've said here btw, that you would toss in the guilty verdict on charges of murder even if no crime had been established in the first place, so long as enough people said so. I really hope not. But hey, whats the worst that could happen right? It's not as though mobs of people might put the finger on someone for something they didn't do, or something that had never -in fact- been done in the first place......

This really isn't about my argument. Honestly, and I think most people would agree with me, it seems fair to convict a person of a crime where you have 200 reliable witnesses to this crime even if something like the smoking gun or the body is never found. You can play the skeptic till the cows come home but just because you can come up with some outlandish scenario in which an innocent person gets convicted doesn't mean that it doesn't fall beyond reasonable doubt that they are guilty.

The point for eyewitness testimony… not that I expect you to be interested in much truth other than that which makes you feel superior enough to mock me… is that we have one instance that eyewitness testimony is justifiably relied upon as the only evidence. Such could be the case for the existence of God where people experience Him and testify to it.

---

Isn't that something the court already has a procedure for?

Yes. It's called "corroborating evidence", precisely what you've been arguing against.

I'm no lawyer, but in your own life I'm sure you know reliable people and you also know how you know that they are reliable in telling the truth about a given instance. So you must admit that people are reliable and that this can be known.