Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[SteveII]

1. No, earlier is not better. If God revealed himself in the person of Jesus, then that is the best source of information. Other religions are less evidenced than Christianity. You are describing people having faith without evidence. I am describing faith with evidence. 

That's a mighty IF you got there...

If mankind evolved from unthinking animals (and this is not a mighty if), then at some point in that evolution the concept of god was introduced. How?
Either god presented itself, or it was made up - either through senses or through imagination.
If a god presented itself then clearly such presentation was faulty, given that, by the time we develop writing, there was no hint whatsoever of the original presentation, but there were stories pertaining to other deities... and different stories in different regions! Such faulty presentation automatically tells me those early humans were not dealing with a real god, as we'd define it today.
From this alone, it is reasonable to assume that mankind made up the concept of god. How that may have happened, I'll leave to another speculative thread.

Jesus comes along in a particular city in Israel and quickly churches sprout up in different places... places where Jesus never went.... places that had only access to the tales. People with faith without evidence, only tales. Sure, the message is one that resonates with the poor and oppressed peoples of occupied Roman territories, so it makes sense that it would spread out quickly.

One of the things that keeps surprising me is that believers seem unable to see the big picture. There were people before belief. There were beliefs before gods, there were polytheist religions before monotheist ones came up. This historical sequence is also evidence. Why don't you people factor it in... like... NEVER?!!

2. No Essenses. Read Paul's letters. Just about every letter starts with agreeing with/referring to their beliefs. 

No Essenes?
Paul's tale reeks of Essene. Look at a map, even on Google maps. Look where the road to Damascus is. Note how close it goes to the Essene community's main "base", Qumran.

3. No, they cannot all be right. Only one or none. The NT is clearly not meant to be fiction and there is no explanation for the large number of believers that appeared before any of the books we have were written.

No explanation? I've provided you with one: they were Essenes.
For some undocumented reason, that name must have become taboo or undesirable and the christian moniker became an acceptable replacement.
Feel free to say there is no evidence for this. There isn't... at best, it's circumstantial...

4. This is more theories that are not supported by the evidence or does not explain the evidence. The teachings of Jesus and his being the messaih were 180 degrees the opposite direction of what the Jews beleived. 

Define Jews, here.
There were several diverging sects worshiping Yahweh, the god of Abraham. It is known that at least one of those sects did have a philosophy that was more or less in line with what became the Christian teachings.... can you guess who those were?

---

The Essenes!!

---

5. There is no evidence anywhere that the message of redemption and restoration of a relationship with God was not unique. 

Not exactly what was being addressed...
This is what I was addressing: "He claimed to be God and be the only way by which we can be saved from judgement--a unique formula never seen before on earth. "

A human claiming to be god - Ever heard of a Pharaoh?

The second bit... about judgment... can also be applied to the Pharaohs. People were to worship and obey the Pharaoh... and be judged by him.

7. Sure, it has to do with standards of evidence. You cannot deny that Jesus existed. You might find that the other evidence is not compelling. The Teacher of Righteousness=Jesus is not a thing with reputable scholars.

Let me put it in another way. The historical Jesus could have been some bloke that preached the message that the Teacher of Righteousness had also preached... a message that this Jesus guy decided to expand a bit.
Some of the previously existing mythology surrounding the Teacher would then also get attached to this new figure... a resurrection of that old character, if you will.
How often does Jesus get addressed as Teacher in the NT?

8. Well, to have a Paul, you needed Jesus. So...I would have to go with Jesus being the greater influence overall (especially since there were churches throughout the empire prior to Paul.

And to get Paul on the side of Jesus, you needed a certain roadside conversion... That same road I mentioned above...

1. I'm not sure that some having a faulty idea of God is evidence of anything other than having a faulty idea of God. How far back is the oldest known religion (4000-5000 years) ? Not that far in the grand scheme of things. If you believe any parts of the OT, then there is a remnant/thread that did have specific knowledge that persisted until this day. 

2-4. I'm reading the words man...they are not Essenes communities. Even Bart Erhman thinks the NT is 99% what it was originally. Paul wrote mainly to gentiles. 

7. Sure, there are going to be similarities between Jewish teachers in that era. I am looking at the differences. The series of events that Jesus kicked off plus the content of his message (including who he claimed to be, miracles, being the atonement for our sins) set him off quite a bit. Remember, the Jews were looking for a political messiah so speculation was easy when a prominent political figure arose.

---

My question, is what do you base this conclusion on (without begging the question)?   I would think that this type of post-facts approach could be used to re-frame any number of things, and while it may be useful in a culture that want's things tailored to what they already believe, I don't think it is objective.

I base this possible conclusion (it's just an example, as was requested, there are many other possible interpretations of the contents of the NT) from my frequent readings of the gospels. Even that conclusion is very tentative, as there's virtually nothing in terms of corroborative evidence of the events in the gospels outside of the gospels except more fanciful gospel texts that the Council of Nicea rejected for inclusion it the Bible, but textual analysis leads me to lean towards there having been a real person behind the legend of Jesus, whose baptism by John and whose crucifixion and circumstances of birth required explaining. For the record, I was a true believer when I first read the gospels, if I had any bias, it was towards it being true; but I noticed inconsistencies and I had been raised to be a literalist, so I did more research, which didn't make it seem any more likely to actually be a true and objective account of events in the first place.

Do you know how to make a post without referring to the motivations you imagine other people have for not posting what you think they should?

Please be specific: How is it begging the question? How is it a 'post-facts' approach?

---

Thank you! Something to discuss!

Bold added. It seems you are going with myth. However, as I think I defend below, there was not sufficient time to be myth. It would have to be a lie on some people's part.

I didn't go with myth. I went with an historical Jesus.

Yes, but I assumed you did not go with the version that does miracles, forgives sins, claims to be God, and died for our atonement and rose again. How would you characterize all those things? Myth? Lies?

---

As I said to Harry, if you say my list is not evidence, you are making a claim that you have knowledge of an alternate explanation to everything I listed

I'd like to expand on my response to this.  You are attempting to shift burden of proof here.  I do NOT need a verified alternative explanation for any of the supernatural claims made within the pages of the Bible in order to reject them.  No one is obligated to offer defeaters.  A jury deliberating over a man accused of murder does not need to know who the actual murderer is in order to reach a verdict of "not guilty."   All they need is reasonable doubt.  

"The claims in my book are true because the characters in my book claim that they're true," is, at best, a circular argument no matter how you slice it.  You're right, Steve.  The Bible IS evidence of something.  It's evidence of the claims.  But, that doesn't tell us very much now, does it?

I did not shift the burden of proof. You did when you said there was no evidence in the face of some evidence. In your analogy, that would be you stating that the accused murderer did not do it (rather than you do not know). 

The fact that you call it 'a book' shows you don't know what you are talking about.

[Minimalist]

The fact that you call it 'a book' shows you don't know what you are talking about.

I call it a pile of shit.

[Foxaèr]

The fact that you call it 'a book' shows you don't know what you are talking about.

Sorry, it's not just a book.

It's a work of fiction.

[LadyForCamus]

Call it whatever you want, Stev-o. Doesn't change the faulty reasoning.

[*Deidre*]

You only need evidence, if you want others to believe what you believe, which isn't necessary for your own belief. If you are happy as a believer, if you don't require extraordinary evidence, than you should be content with that.

[LadyForCamus]

I did not shift the burden of proof. You did when you said there was no evidence in the face of some evidence.

And I'm still waiting for you to explain how the Bible stands as evidence that a god exists.

[Minimalist]

The Damascus Road bullshit story appears only in Acts and Acts is, well.....

THE EVIDENCE OF ACTS
1 . Acts as Historical Fiction
The book of Acts has been all but discredited as a work of apologetic historical
fiction. 1


Pg 359  On The Historicity of Jesus, Richard Carrier

Before some jesus freak shitwit jumps up screeching about how Carrier "hates" god I left the footnote in and print below the text of the note.

1 . See Richard Pervo, The Mystery of Acts (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2008);
and Richard Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009),
for the most thorough accounting of this fact (see especially the latter, pp. 17-18),
with substantial support in Thomas Brodie, The Birthing of the New Testament: The
lntertextua/ Development of the New Testament Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix,
2004), esp. pp. 377-445 (on Acts specifically); Dennis MacDonald, Does the New
Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2003); and John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable:
How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 201 2),
pp. 196-217. See also Clare Rothschild, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History: An
Investigation of Early Christian Historiography (TDbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004);
Loveday Alexander, 'Fact, Fiction and the Genre of Acts', New Testament Studies 44
(1998), pp. 380-99; and P.E. Satterthwaite, 'Acts against the Background of Classical
Rhetoric', in The Book of Acts in its Ancient Literary Setting (ed. Bruce Winter and
Andrew Clarke; Grand Rapids, Ml: Will iam B. Eerdmans, 1 993), pp. 337-80. There are
conservatives who protest, but not with logicaJiy valid arguments.

So, sorry assholes.  It is not just one guy telling you that your book is a pile of shit.  There are many.

[SteveII]

I don't need evidence for my atheism, because the only claim it makes is about my belief state. I do not say "there is no god." There may be. But I've yet to see any evidence for any god.

I agree, I find it frustrating that Steve thinks he has this though.

If his bullshit was so obvious we would all believe. So he either thinks we are in wilful denial or that we are fibbers. Or, and he won't accept this, he may be wrong.

You repeatedly miss my point. I don't care if you don't find the evidence compelling. I argue against those who are confused about what a claim of "no evidence" means and I discuss things with those who want to discuss the evidence there is. As it pertains to this thread, there is no such thing as extraordinary evidence. Only evidence.

[pocaracas]

I agree, I find it frustrating that Steve thinks he has this though.

If his bullshit was so obvious we would all believe. So he either thinks we are in wilful denial or that we are fibbers. Or, and he won't accept this, he may be wrong.

You repeatedly miss my point. I don't care if you don't find the evidence compelling. I argue against those who are confused about what a claim of "no evidence" means and I discuss things with those who want to discuss the evidence there is. As it pertains to this thread, there is no such thing as extraordinary evidence. Only evidence.

What is extraordinary evidence?

If I claim I just finished lunch, would you require any further evidence than my say so?
Ah, but wait, would you know that I'm in Western Europe, you could easily reason that I should have just finished dinner, not lunch... so my easily believed claim turns out to be false.
An ordinary claim falls by the wayside with ordinary information.

Now what if I claim I just had dinner? There's no reason to doubt me - it's the right time for it, people in Europe usually have dinner every day, the World Health Organization advises people to have 3 meals a day and one of them is dinner. You yourself have dinner almost every day. Nothing in your experience, nor in the information you have of other people's experiences, is informing you that this claim should be doubted. Hence you are automatically led to believe it.

But what if I add some elements to my claimed dinner?
I just had dinner with my sister. Also no reason to doubt me, huh? Loads of people have sisters and having dinner with them is completely natural. Well... knowing that I have only one brother would put a damper on that, but without that precious piece of information, you'd have every reason to believe me just for saying it.

I just had dinner with Angelina Jolie (damn, I'm getting old for referencing once-hot babes). Would you believe it just based on my say so? Would you accept that claim as true and maybe someday tell the tale of how you know a guy who had dinner with Angelina? Or would you doubt me and require further evidence of that claim? The famous internet adage of "pics or it didn't happen"! Since the advent of Photoshop, even pics can be doubted. Let's say I provided a pic where I and Angelina are seated on opposite sides of a table, all set for a meal. Would you believe that pic at face value? Or would you pour over it in search of evidence of photoshopping?
A photo... that's it. That would probably convince that I, at least, had some meal with Angelina... You'd look for evidence of it being nighttime... and would, if I gave you a digital copy of the photo, look into the EXIF metadata to ascertain that it had been taken today... and maybe get lucky with some GPS data embedded.

A photo and some more info. Info you know I'd have to be very knowledgeable to alter just for the sake of a claim.
That's the extraordinary evidence that would be required for you to believe in my claim that I just had dinner with Angelina Jolie. It's extraordinary because it's not the sort of evidence you'd require for a similar claim (dinner with sister).

And what's the believer's claim? First, there is a god, an entity that sits outside of the Universe and that is capable of creating Universes. My first knee jerk reaction is, of course, How would you know about that?! How did that information reach you? From where did that information come? How was it conveyed?
What sort of evidence do you expect to provide to answer these questions?
For all these knee jerk questions, the believer, at best, can tell me something along the lines of "divine inspiration". That's covering up a plot-hole with another hole. How do you know it's divine inspiration and not imagination? How can you distinguish the two?
Some will go further and point to the absence of knowledge concerning the origin of the Universe and then present their solution, as if it doesn't have to answer those first questions. Many, many, many alternatives can be presented for the origin of the Universe... How to discern the correct one?

Even without these questions answered - questions that pertain only to the information conveyed to you concerning this god - I can go to questions about the god itself. What is it? How does it generate Universes? Does it control the Universes it creates? Does it have companion gods? How can I interact with it?
None of these is satisfactorily answered by any religion.
The last question is asking about evidence... how can I gather my own evidence about this entity, without having to resort to you as a gateway? I don't even want you to give me evidence for that entity, I want to do it myself. Actually, I just want to know how to do it myself. Once that mechanism is understood and considered trustworthy, then I can accept your interactions with said deity.

Is this taken care of?
Of course not!!
Still, you then go on to claim stuff about a person who lived 2000 years ago. Centuries after my knee jerk reaction failed to be answered. Even without it being answered, tons of people became believers in some form or other of deity.
Having a population of believers, it's not a stretch to make them believe in something further about the same deity they already believe in... and thus evolve the religion.

[Minimalist]

He does not have to worry about extraordinary evidence.  At this point he needs to worry about ANY evidence.  All he can offer is the absurd bleating of ancient believers.

It isn't nearly good enough.

“We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.”

― Robert G. Ingersoll,