(March 8, 2014 at 11:00 am)discipulus Wrote: You seem to think that our debate is going to be revolving around a topic that is subject to the scientific method. Clearly this is incorrect. We are dealing with the accounts of historical events, i.e non-repeatable events that happened at some point in the past and not subject to direct observation and experimentation and therefore attempting to argue that we must extrapolate scientific methodology onto historiography is simply unjustified. Historiographers do not use the scientific method to determine whether or not historical accounts are reliable my friend which is what it seems to me that you are implying we should do.
When you dismiss anecdotal testimony as an "unreliable source for determining the deeper principle underlying the specific claims", it is clear that you are treating this matter with the scientific method in mind, not the historical method. This is indicative of a misconstrual of the historical method and such an understanding is simply incorrect.
If all you wish to argue regards what happened or what people claim happened, then historical methods are just fine. But if you want to make the jump from there to what exists or cosmology you'll have to bring more than that. I for one am willing to grant you lots of leeway as to what the historical record shows has been claimed to have happened. I'm only interested in how you move from there to any more general claim. I sure hope you don't base any such broader claims on an appeal to what-else-could-it-be?
