Testimony is Evidence

[bennyboy]

1. Atheists have decided to be theists.
2. Such decision requires a major change to world view.
3. People don't make decisions that require major changes to world view without a clear metric to evaluate evidence.
3. There's no evidence for religious beliefs other than testimony.
4. Therefore, testimony is evidence which can be evaluated by a clear metric.

I've already answered this, but since you haven't responded to it, let me also try a point-by-point approach:

I'd agree with (1) and (2), and while I think there may be other kinds of religious evidence, let's take only testimonial evidence for now.

(3) is false. People very clearly make major decisions about reality without a clear metric to evaluate evidence (or philosophical arguments, or any other persuasive vehicle). I don't think it's safe to proceed beyond that assertion until it can be demonstrated to be true.

It seems to me that both scientific and just common sense observations will show that people make crazy decisions all the time, even life changing ones-- they clearly do NOT have a sensible metric in place when making decisions affecting the world view. Do we even need to give examples? Cuz I can list about 100 in an hour if you want.

[downbeatplumb]

1. Atheists have decided to be theists.
2. Such decision requires a major change to world view.
3. People don't make decisions that require major changes to world view without a clear metric to evaluate evidence.
3. There's no evidence for religious beliefs other than testimony.
4. Therefore, testimony is evidence which can be evaluated by a clear metric.

I've already answered this, but since you haven't responded to it, let me also try a point-by-point approach:

I'd agree with (1) and (2), and while I think there may be other kinds of religious evidence, let's take only testimonial evidence for now.

(3) is false.  People very clearly make major decisions about reality without a clear metric to evaluate evidence (or philosophical arguments, or any other persuasive vehicle).  I don't think it's safe to proceed beyond that assertion until it can be demonstrated to be true.

It seems to me that both scientific and just common sense observations will show that people  make crazy decisions all the time, even life changing ones-- they clearly do NOT have a sensible metric in place when making decisions affecting the world view.  Do we even need to give examples?  Cuz I can list about 100 in an hour if you want.

If in my youth a particularly sexy girl said "I'd sleep with you if you became a Christian" I would have instantly became the bestest Christian you could have imagined, on the outside. There is no way I would actualy believe that shit, but I could sure fake it to get laid.

[bennyboy]

If in my youth a particularly sexy girl said "I'd sleep with you if you became a Christian" I would have instantly became the bestest Christian you could have imagined, on the outside. There is no way I would actualy believe that shit, but I could sure fake it to get laid.

hehe, you and everyone who ever met a Catholic schoolgirl!

To be fair, though, I don't think alpha's talking about when people would be willing to say they were Christian. He's talking about the fact that some non-Christians do in fact become Christians, and he thinks there's a rational reason for it.

I, personally, think there's almost NEVER a rational reason for a conversion. There's friendship and community, comfort for loss, bolstering against fear, a sense of hope for the future. There are plenty of reasons why suspension of disbelief might have real emotional or social benefits for a person. And to be fair to you, I think it's not really that uncommon for either sex to convert to ANY religion if it will satisfy the requirements for marriage and potentially spending a life with someone they appreciate.

But I think there are almost zero people sitting around with a Bible thinking, hmmmmm. . . I'm curious, but is there sufficient evidence for the ideas and stories told in this collection of texts? And if there is, I don't think the enthusiastic testimonials of existing Christians are likely to persuade them much.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let me get this straight.......testimony has to be evidence..because there's nothing else...and if it weren't evidence then it would just be people doing silly shit with no clear metrics?

Yeah...no shit. 

[John V]

1. Atheists have decided to be theists.
2. Such decision requires a major change to world view.
3. People don't make decisions that require major changes to world view without a clear metric to evaluate evidence.
3. There's no evidence for religious beliefs other than testimony.
4. Therefore, testimony is evidence which can be evaluated by a clear metric.

I've already answered this, but since you haven't responded to it, let me also try a point-by-point approach:

I'd agree with (1) and (2), and while I think there may be other kinds of religious evidence, let's take only testimonial evidence for now.

(3) is false.  People very clearly make major decisions about reality without a clear metric to evaluate evidence (or philosophical arguments, or any other persuasive vehicle).  I don't think it's safe to proceed beyond that assertion until it can be demonstrated to be true.

It seems to me that both scientific and just common sense observations will show that people  make crazy decisions all the time, even life changing ones-- they clearly do NOT have a sensible metric in place when making decisions affecting the world view.  Do we even need to give examples?  Cuz I can list about 100 in an hour if you want.

I agree with you on 3 - I said it first - but it contradicts your previous position:

We make decisions all the time without a clear metric to evaluate evidence. 

Not decisions that require major changes to our world views, we don't.

---

And while we're at it:

I'd agree with (1) and (2), and while I think there may be other kinds of religious evidence, let's take only testimonial evidence for now.

Previously:

1)  Testimony is NOT taken as evidence.  Christians, having no other kind of evidence, therefore have no basis on which to base their beliefs (or to transmit them)

[bennyboy]

It's a pretty unquotable post, so let me try to respond without quotes:

re: needing a metric or not
Yeah, those quotes seem contradictory out of the context of the flow of discussion.  In the first, I was arguing from "we" as in critical atheists considering religious evidence.  In the second, I was arguing that people in general are not guaranteed to BE critical, and may therefore take as evidence that which really isn't evidence at all.  Careful with context, please.

Let me make my position crystal-clear, and I'll retract all of what I've said before, right or wrong, in favor of this position:
1)  People who are considering religious ideas CRITICALLY will be unswayed by testimonial arguments-- at least partly on the basis that the testimony of members of different religions is at odds, and no clear metric exists in which to decide which are true or false.
2)  People who ARE NOT considering religious ideas critically may accept persuasive techniques rather than objective evidence-- things like emotional anecdotes "I felt Jesus touch my soul, and I broke down and started crying." Nobody can prove that they really felt this way, and they certainly cannot prove that if they did really have the feeling, their attributions were correct. But some people will recognize in the testimonial a mind-set which they consider better than their own: hope vs. hopelessness, comfort vs. terror, etc.

In other words, it is the irrational state of some people which allows them to take as evidence what a rational person would not.  The statement "testimony is evidence" is truth-dependent not on the nature of testimony, but on the highly variable subjective standards of the individual considering it. It's evidence for those people which don't require evidence to separate material truth ("Jesus was a real person who actually walked on water, with witnesses") from abstract "truth," ("If you believe in Jesus, your life can be saved.")

re: kinds of evidence
"Other kinds of religious evidence" should, if God is omni-potent, include all of physics: the hand of God could be writ at the QM level and perhaps at every other level of physical organization as well.  I'm one of the (very) few in this forum that might consider some of the squirreliness of QM interactions evidence for a kind of panpsychic "deity."  But this would be a God idea so foreign to yours that you should count it as pretty strong evidence against your views.

Your view is that God is a person who interacts in the lives of people, who rewards faith and sacrifice, and who loves all.  This idea is so inconsistent with itself and with objective observations that pretty much all material observation stands as evidence against it.

[Astonished]

Okay, apparently after 19 seasons of South Park, there have been too many episodes that have contained references to molestation and being arrested, so I can't find a clip of a particular episode I wanted to use here, but I'll just describe it; the kids in town are fed up with their parents lying to them and not letting them do things they've earned, and so they concoct a scheme to lie to the police about their parents molesting them, eventually culminating in the entire adult population of the town being incarcerated for the imaginary crime and the children taking over the town and, in less than a week, turning it into an almost Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic society in which a daily human sacrifice to a statue of John Elway is the only way to ensure their continued survival.

Yes, it's hyperbole, but it's exactly why testimony is not evidence. It's a claim or assertion that needs independent verification. No amount of testimonial support can logically be considered evidence because that merely extends the string of assertions.

[Minimalist]

It was called The Wacky Molestation Adventure

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-south-park...2dac666870


I found it and I don't even watch South Park.

[Astonished]

It was called The Wacky Molestation Adventure

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-south-park...2dac666870


I found it and I don't even watch South Park.

I knew it had some weird title that I couldn't recall just off the top of my head. All I really wanted was the montage of arrests to the song "Old Time Rock and Roll".