The Bible is the claim, not the evidence

[orangebox21]

If you say you can only speak for yourself you imply that standards are relative, that they are not absolute. Do I have that correct? And if the standards for evidence/proof are relative how could a person prove anything to you? If you accept "relative" standards then you would have to accept anyone's proof/evidence so long as they fit within their own set of standards for evidence.

I'd suggest that the standards I'd given, things that are demonstrable and repeatable and so on, are absolute in that they're objectively verifiable, and objectively real: things that exist exist, and if you can show them to exist you've proved that they exist. Good job.

But the question you asked was, what is the atheist standard for proof or evidence, and that's ill-formed in some ways, because atheists are only unified in their acceptance of a single position: disbelief in god claims. Other than that, their standards can vary, but that's not an exclusively atheist thing, everyone does that; even among the religious, you have people accepting their religion on faith, and those who go looking for evidence first. Hell, there are christians who believe in alien abductions, and also those who don't because their standard for evidence is different enough to exclude those accounts from the category of believability. And that's ignoring the obvious differences between biblical literalists and those who take the less believable stories to just be metaphor. To say that atheists therefore have relative standards is to ignore the fact that everyone has an internalized standard of what's believable to them.

I agree that varying standards are not exclusively an atheist thing. So given that everyone has an internalized standard of what's believable to them don't we need something outside ourselves to be the standard. Because if we don't, how do we know who's right and who's wrong? Or I suppose two other options would be everyone's right or everyone's wrong.

I'd say that the standards I gave are the minimum threshold for evidence: if something exists and you can demonstrate it, what's the problem? Where do the further questions come in? If something exists and is demonstrable, it would be crazier not to believe it's there, no?

At face value yes. If something exists and is demonstrable, it would be crazier not to believe it's there. Since I don't know where you stand on this argument I'll ask (and this is where the further questions can come in): some people have argued that we could be living in some kind of alternate reality (like the matrix movies). If a person subscribes to this argument the conclusion is how can we prove something exists? Do you believe this is a valid argument? If not what is your counter argument?

Also, I take issue with your claim that accepting the idea that people bring their own standards of evidence to the table requires me to accept everyone's evidence as sufficient so long as it's sufficient to them: that doesn't follow at all. Why would you think that?

This stemmed from the concept of relativity. You accept things as true if they fit your criteria. Someone else accepts something as true as it fits their criteria (though differing from yours). Is the truth relative (to the differing criteria)? Or is one set of the criteria right and one wrong? And if so who decides? If I subscribed to relativity as such I would be much more concerned about people being consistent within their own standards and would thus allow their evidence as valid if it follows suit because after all it's relative (to the individual's criteria). If I subscribed not to relativity I would be more concerned about who is right and who is wrong and how to know which is which.

Edited to add: Oh, and when I say I only speak for myself, that's me being polite. I don't want to put words into anyone else's mouth. You didn't need to spin my polite invitation for anyone else to chime in with more into this whole thing about relative standards, that's just silly.

I"m sorry. It was not my intent to demean your politeness.