Why be good?

[Esquilax]

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?

Notice how the nature of your conditional acceptance changes the moment you reach the supernatural claim; for all the mundane claims your solution is "if I have additional knowledge that corroborates the initial claim," but for the supernatural one suddenly it's "do a lot of people make this claim?"

Why are you expecting more evidence for the claims you at least know are possible, but less evidence- no evidence at all, in fact- for the claims you have every reason to think are impossible? Could it be that a consistent application of requiring evidence in accordance with the nature of the claim would mean your god claims do not have sufficient evidence backing them up?

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

You may recall that I and others have rejected this fiat, simplistic assertion from you, and explained that the metric involves more calculus than just "are they reliable?" and "can I prove them wrong?" You may also recall what the burden of proof is, and in doing so, recall that you're trying to reverse it.

The fact that you continue to assert the same refuted point does not suddenly make you right.

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.

So the commonality of a claim influences its truth value? The existence of other gods are common claims elsewhere in the world; if you're privileging your god over theirs you must have some additional premises involved that you're trying to hide.

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.

So what you're saying is, you'll believe a claim that all the evidence available shows to be impossible, if you trust the person making the claim? If your dad converted to islam, you'd accept the existence of Allah as true?

You don't, for a moment, want to consider how much a nebulous concept like what you personally find to be reliable can be altered by how much what the claimant is saying matches the things you already believe to be true? Because we have a term for that: it's confirmation bias.