do religious people really believe?

[paulpablo]

i dont understand why youre making this statement, of course evidence is evidence no one would argue with that, and of course if evidence isnt judged correctly then its bias, but whats your point?

The point is we hear it all the time on these forums: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I'm saying that is simply not a good way to conduct an honest inquiry.

Allow me to use an example without taking any position on whether I believe in the paranormal or not. The "extraordinary evidence" requirement placed on paranormal research represents a clear bias against those types of claims. Now, I have heard but have not looked into it, that the results of some psi studies have as much statistical significance as studies showing the efficacy of aspirin to reduce heart disease. If that is true and if a person accepts the results of the aspirin study but dismisses the results of the psi study then they aren't being honest about following the evidence wherever it leads.

the point is moot because both of those claims are quite important so both would require lots of evidence to be believed, psi is important, getting rid of heart desiese is important also, but aspirin isnt that difficult to get hold of and as far as im aware isnt very toxic so it doesnt surprise me that people just take aspirin anyway even though they dont know if it reduces heart disease or not.
its a bit of a different situation from someone saying they know which god is the right one to worship and how to worship him and that he was born of a virgin and so on, those claims require lots of evidence because of the drastic impact the results have on day to day life