Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[LastPoet]

But your entire premise of all the NT players being fooled has absolutely no evidence except people were fooled before and since. In the absence of any real evidence of deceit it seems that is just an assumption entirely based on the supernatural content of the accounts. If that is so, you are question begging: the events are not evidence of the supernatural because the supernatural does not exist.

In the absence of REAL evidence, deceit is the more likely explanation.  Fixed that for ya.

When you disguise it as an unpassable moving goal post, just bury it under many words devoid of meaning, just to keep that goalpost alive. Then act like you have won the debate when just about everyone is confused.

Playing chess with a pigeon. He strout, shit all over the board and fly away victorious.

[Succubus]

This shite is hard enough to digest as it is, so will you "all" please just fuck off with these block quotes. The bearings are gone in my mouse wheel.

[shadow]

This shite is hard enough to digest as it is, so will you "all" please just fuck off with these block quotes. The bearings are gone in my mouse wheel.

Haha, sorry, this is probably me. The mafia player in me feels obliged to give huge amounts of context for everything.

[pocaracas]

[Pat Mustard]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

Steve, face facts here. Nobody is going to suddenly turn around and suddenly start believing your unevidenced assertions. The fact of the matter is that even if we allowed your premise that you don't need extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim you still lose because a) you've no evidence for your god assertions, and b) every single thing you attribute to god has a more rational naturalistic hypothesis with, most importantly, evidence behind it.

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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.

Did you ever meet Baldrick?

[Pat Mustard]

My sentiments to a T.  Rather than argue for the superiority of your epistemic position, the essence of faith would be to admit its frailty and persist nonetheless.  If you have so little faith anyhow, why is it important to convince us?  Convince yourself.

I think that you have a different understanding of faith than I do.  And I don't consider my faith weak, but strong because of the evidence.

You cannot have faith when the evidence is strong. When the evidence is strong what you have is knowledge. Faith only happens when there is no evidence, or in the case of holy ghost believers like yourself, when the evidence says, definitively, no. It works the same as belief as faith is simply belief in a religious context.

[downbeatplumb]

Still waiting for an intelligent discussion? Anyone?

Steve, face facts here. Nobody is going to suddenly turn around and suddenly start believing your unevidenced assertions. The fact of the matter is that even if we allowed your premise that you don't need extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim you still lose because a) you've no evidence for your god assertions, and b) every single thing you attribute to god has a more rational naturalistic hypothesis with, most importantly, evidence behind it.

---

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.

Did you ever meet Baldrick?

Romane eunt domus!!!

[Pat Mustard]

There is one last thing I wish to say in this thread. Why does Steve not put other religions to the same three "tests" he subjects christianity to. Why does he not apply his pseudo-Bayesian equation to Nordic paganism, why does he not use the same "the claims are so out there that those who made them couldn't possibly have lied" to the claims made about Vishnu (whic are equally as fantastic as those made about Jesus), and why does he not accept the weight of numbers argument to accept the truth of the claim for Mohammed's night journey?

Because when it comes to religiouns he doesn't believe he uses the same tools we do to dispassionately evaluate them and logically conclude's they don't represent reality. What when applied to the new testament is hyper-pseudo-sceptical becomes only right and proper when applied to the qu'ran or the bhagavad ghita.

[Jackie]

[Aroura]

There is one last thing I wish to say in this thread. Why does Steve not put other religions to the same three "tests" he subjects christianity to. Why does he not apply his pseudo-Bayesian equation to Nordic paganism, why does he not use the same "the claims are so out there that those who made them couldn't possibly have lied" to the claims made about Vishnu (whic are equally as fantastic as those made about Jesus), and why does he not accept the weight of numbers argument to accept the truth of the claim for Mohammed's  night journey?

Because when it comes to religiouns he doesn't believe he uses the same tools we do to dispassionately evaluate them and logically conclude's they don't represent reality. What when applied to the new testament is hyper-pseudo-sceptical becomes only right and proper when applied to the qu'ran or the bhagavad ghita.

This.

I'd honestly like to hear Steve (or anyone liking Steve's posts) to address this.