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.
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.
