Proof of Christianity

[John V]

It's kind of a fine balance; there's a metric involved with apportioning belief to various things.

Can you define this metric? Frankly, I'm suspicious that this line was just some bs trying to hide an ad hoc position.

Not testimony alone, or at least, not for every claim.

OK, which claims are good on testimony alone, and why? What additional support do other claims need?

Claims vary in terms of believability, in accordance with what we know about the universe.

This is circular. The blind man only "knows" that color is part of existence because he believes others' testimony.

If you believe people's claims that god exists, then god is part of known existence, and so claims regarding god are more believable. This is the same thing, and you presumably see the circularity in this case.

But at the same time, the reason I opted to go with the box test as opposed to just repeatable personal testimony was to remove as much subjectivity as I could; given enough time to familiarize themselves with the boxes by touch, any blind person could be shown that nothing differentiates the boxes aside from some additional perceptual thing they don't have, and the sighted person would be displaying knowledge that only the blind person should have, were they identical. It's a fairly objective test, and no, the blind person wouldn't be taking the sighted person's word for it regarding colors, because I propose using no references to color at all: just number the boxes. The sighted person will be able to identify what object is in what box by color, and relay that back using the numbers, or any other identifier one could imagine.

The blind person must indeed take the sighted person's word regarding color. Heck, the sighted person could claim to be blind himself and claim that the boxes give off sounds or smells that the blind person can't detect, then supposedly prove his claim, although he was really relying on visual cues.