Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Jesster]

Nice try, Steve. I see that others have already appropriately torn your thread up at this point, so I'll just give them a thumbs up and move on. There's nothing more for me to add here.

[Brian37]

Nice try, Steve. I see that others have already appropriately torn your thread up at this point, so I'll just give them a thumbs up and move on. There's nothing more for me to add here.

Wait? Is this the point where I pull a Trump and take credit for everything in this thread, and the invention of the moon and water? What? You mean I didn't invent physics? Such a killjoy. I DID IT I TELLS YA, NOT NEWTON! (Grabs a Fig Newton to stuff my pie hole)

[Pat Mustard]

First point. Of course someone being supernaturally healed or rising from the dead is an improbable claim. However, the improbability of this event could be counter-balanced by examining the evidence and simply asking the question: what is the probability of this evidence being present had a miracle not occurred? As this probability number goes down, the probability of the event having a supernatural cause goes up. Notice that there is no requirement that the evidence be 'extraordinary'.

Oh, and to this point I say, people make extraordinary and ridiculous claims all the time, even ones which are obviously true. For example there are catholics who believe that a statue of Mary in Medjugorje sweats, even though it's been proven without doubt that it is a result of a very high water table in the area coupled with many small cracks in the statue created due to shoddy workmanship which allows ground water to be sucked up by capillary action until it exits the statue.

Oh and I also note that you place a much more stringent and sceptical evidential requirements on the gods of other religions. I wonder why that is? It couldn't simply be because you don't believe in them, because that would make you a massive hypocrite and an utter shit of a man, not worthy of anybody's respect.


Oh wait, yes it is, you utterly reprehensible and immoral person you!

[SteveII]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

[Succubus]

What ancient event is verifiable?

[Brian37]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

Actually just the opposite, we are living in the present and you are living in the past. We don't base our lives on books with claims of men popping out of dirt, women popping out of ribs, talking snakes, magic babies or zombie gods. 

Try offering us something modern not antiquated.

[JackRussell]

Many. As an archaeologist speciialising in Roman Britain, I can say we have learnt lots.. But I know you will want absolute certainty, that's one thing I can't give you, but one thing you want to me to accept from your spurious claims.

I am happy to admit my studies are tentative, but they are well evidenced and ultimately unimportant.

Your studies are poorly evidenced but apparently world changing.

The ball is in your court, unless you think the minor Roman roads of Britain are the key to humanity's salvation.

We are not talking about piecing things together from broken pottery. We have dozens of period documents that almost all scholars believe are 99% they way the were written. Nothing to piece together--either it happened or it didn't. Please explain to me what verification is possible in 2017 of any series of specific events in ancient times? Otherwise, it is a case of special pleading.

Well I am a Romano_British archaeologist, and I think pottery is pretty cool, but if old words impress you, look up the Vindolanda tablets, now fully published.

The Bloomsberg tablets are only partially translated and published, but they are even older.

Nought to do about Christianity, but the environmental, dendrochronological and physical evidence is amazing.

Roman Britain is cool and evidenced.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

Ok, I'll discuss this intelligently:

Well, I've never met an extraordinary clam, but I've met a few outstanding oysters and a remarkable shrimp.  I have good evidence for these.

Boru

[Astonished]

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

It seems that the word 'extraordinary' is highly subjective based on a person's knowledge or experience. As an extreme example, wouldn't everything be extraordinary to someone who knew nothing? So, what makes a claim extraordinary? Uncommon or rare things happen every day. What is the threshold from crossing from ordinary to extraordinary that triggers this supposed need for a special class of evidence? And what constitutes this special class of extraordinary evidence? Is is a quantity thing or a quality thing?

While we could apply this discussion to a wide variety of claims, my interest  in the question is does it apply to supernatural/NT claims and if so, how?

For the purpose of this discussion, I define a miracle as a supernatural causation of a physical event, happening in time to physical objects. It is not a suspension of the laws of nature--rather inserting a cause from outside nature. 

First point. Of course someone being supernaturally healed or rising from the dead is an improbable claim. However, the improbability of this event could be counter-balanced by examining the evidence and simply asking the question: what is the probability of this evidence being present had a miracle not occurred? As this probability number goes down, the probability of the event having a supernatural cause goes up. Notice that there is no requirement that the evidence be 'extraordinary'.

Another point is that if the atheist equates supernatural with extraordinary claims (citing a lack of evidence), this implies that ordinary claims are ones that have good evidence to support it. To follow that line of thinking through, what is the good evidence for atheism? In fact, since there is zero evidence for atheism, the presence of the NT evidence and the fact that most people in the world intuitively believes in the supernatural, isn't the atheist making the extraordinary claim? If you go with the BS that atheists make no claims, then I would make the more modest point that atheist's 'extraordinary' assessment of NT claims are unfounded.

First, why wouldn't you use something like 'is it reasonable to believe X claim' rather than 'is claim X extraordinary'? You avoid this problem you're inventing out of thin air as a red herring. Then the extraordinary nature of any claim X is irrelevant because it's then entirely dependent upon evidence to determine the reasonableness of the claim and those claims with no evidence or bad evidence, extraordinary or not, can be dismissed without a thought. Nice way to cut down on paperwork. Your 'varying degrees' of extraordinary also has a fatal flaw. If something occurs outside the established body of knowledge we've accumulated, not only is this typically going to be unverifiable and therefore as useless a concept as geese laying golden eggs, but how would you even go about determining that it is, in fact, supernatural? If something is outside the natural realm and is therefore unverifiable and unable to be tested, how would one determine that simple fact that it is, indeed, supernatural? The very term is self-refuting. Other extraordinary claims that can be studied are uniformly debunked as hoaxes because of everything we've come to learn about physics and biology.

If the supernatural does come to interact with the natural, by definition it is no longer supernatural, so why don't we stop this nonsense and call them unexplained phenomena? Because I just like that it takes the piss out of your fervor.

Stop strawmanning atheists, while you're at it. Your credulity is your own problem, not ours. Those making positive claims about the non-existence of specific gods are right in that they do not behave nor have the properties as described by their adherents. A nebulous deistic god concept or one that behaves and interacts with the world in a way that is indistinguishable from one that does not exist obviously can't be disproved but the lack of evidence speaks for itself and you still look like a jackass.

Let's examine your claim that a person rose from the dead, shall we? First off we don't even know if this person existed. At least, not as described. Maybe it was a composite of numerous characters from that epoch, like Confucius. That alone makes the foundation of this claim shaky. Secondly, that was during an age where ignorance and superstition were rife. How bad were we at smarting 2000 years ago when we were still burning and hanging witches less than 400 years ago? If they couldn't accurately tell if a person was indeed dead (Typhoid fever victims, for instance), or that person had an identical twin or lookalike mistaken for him, or if he wasn't the one killed but someone pulled a Sydney Carton instead, or if the event was staged as a fake to get supporters on his side, or whatever the fuck would have either been able to be honestly mistaken or intentionally pulled as a ruse, every last one of those things is infinitely more likely than something unknowable and impossible to investigate actually happening. Third, all the contradictory accounts of this story and the unbelievable lack of reaction to them (he wasn't the only zombie, apparently; I would think that would cause quite a stir beyond the small tribe that made it up) would cast doubt on any story, regardless of how badly the more outlandish claims stood up to the rigors of science and history. I could go on but I'm getting pissed.

You honestly have zero grasp of what evidence actually means. How else could you make the statement that the improbability of this event could be counter-balanced by evidence when there IS NO FUCKING EVIDENCE?! Personal experience, passed along generations via the telephone game before it's even written down, written by those with an obvious agenda to push, and not even authors who bother to scrutinize their internal continuity, and THAT is considered not only something believable, but to be the most absolute truth ever put to words? You officially have no right to reproduce, buddy. That shit has to die and disappear from this world with you, not infect another generation.

[Brian37]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

Ok, I'll discuss this intelligently:

Well, I've never met an extraordinary clam, but I've met a few outstanding oysters and a remarkable shrimp.  I have good evidence for these.

Boru

I'll take the shrimp but you most certainly can keep the oysters. Beer is provable too, goes well with shrimp.