Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

If I were trying to be completely sure, I would require additional proof for ALL of them. After all, you might be single and lying about a wife or about having lunch at all. How do I know? It's more common, of course, but people lie for all sorts of reasons.

Sure, but we don't often wait for certainty before we formulate our beliefs; reasonable probability is enough. You could, for example, accept the claim about my wife without looking like a complete lunatic; it's a mundane claim, it doesn't conflict with what we know about reality, and so on. Meanwhile, accepting the dragon claim at face value would make you look insane, because it's a fantastic claim that contradicts readily with what we currently understand about reality. Additional evidence is needed there.

The question is where one places the boundary, between claims that it's reasonable to entertain on their own, versus claims for which it is not reasonable to entertain at all, and frankly, you probably have a line in mind for every other claim bar your particular religious beliefs; you belong to one specific religion, after all, the supernatural claims of all the other religions somehow miss this "you should believe claims unless you have a good reason not to," schtick you've been pulling, so chances are their supernatural nature, from an entity you haven't presupposed to exist, is a good enough reason to reject those claims... it's just your specific god beliefs that get a pass, that are subject to far softer scrutiny than all other supernatural claims. That special pleading is the weakness of what you're talking about.

BTW-Is this a standard argument from an "Atheist-in-a-Box" kit or something? It's been posed about four times.

It's kind of an important distinction, dude. If you're going to have a conversation about the nature of claims, then discussion of the factors that go into how we accept claims is a big part of that. If you're getting a repeated theme, obviously it's something we find important.

The nature of the claims IS significant.

If you claim to have had lunch with your wife, and I know you are married, no biggie.
If you claim to have had lunch with Tom Hanks (or President Obama depending upon the version), I might believe you if I also know you work in the film industry.
If you claim to have had lunch with the Avengers, see point #2 above.
If you claim to have had lunch with a dragon, then I have to evaluate this based on other information. Have similar claims been made about dragons eating lunch with humans before (and not having them FOR lunch)? What about other creatures - are they known for sharing a meal with humans?

You may recall that I said we accept what reliable and knowledgeable people have said - in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Now, many in this forum have suggested that they would not believe their ten best friends or their wives, etc. if they were told about an extraordinary encounter with God. Well, I suppose skeptics do exist. Maybe they are all atheists.

But I think that there is a greater likelihood that someone could see Jesus than that they could have lunch with a dragon for the simple reason that seeing Jesus or hearing from God is a common claim. Having lunch with a dragon is not.

A common claim can still be mistaken...it is not proof of anything. But my own experience and that of people who I know well leads me to believe that "lunch with Jesus" is far more likely than lunch with the Avengers or a dragon.