Testimony: Are we being hypocritical?

[WinterHold]

Testimony is only evidence in tribal societies. Humans still use this method because they lack ability to see all and hear all: in other words; witness on all.
There is evidence,and there is talk. Talk is cheap, because humans proved to be capable of lying.

To me; it's a never ending riddle. Ultimate justice will never be served on earth. We lack the natural gifts to execute it, and using technology is wasteful of resources and also very hard on the person.

Some women will be raped in the dark. Graves are full of murdered people without a story on their tombstones. The best we can do, is fix the court system as much as we can.
And yes: people are being hypocrites, with double standards, and they are full of shit as a general rule.

[LadyForCamus]

I'm sorry Atlas, but truthfully, I never know what you're talking about. There is often so much purple prose in your text that whatever point you are intending to convey is totally lost on me, lol.

[Mister Agenda]

And I have explained why, despite legalistic definitions, testimony is NOT evidence. It isn't evidence of anything but that the person giving it claims a particular thing. The evidence part is what is used to determine whether their claim is credible enough to justify finding someone guilty or not guilty, as the case may be.

You think 'evidence' is a synonym of 'fact'. But the definition of evidence is facts or information... Someone saying they were sexually assaulted is information by any standard. 

ev·i·dence
ˈevədəns/
noun

[ul]
[li]1.
the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.[/li]
[/ul]

It's absolute proof that they claimed they were assaulted. It isn't evidence about whether what they claim is true. To evaluate the likelihood that the claim is accurate and truthful, we use evidence. There's a reason we don't convict based on accusations alone. They're a good reason to look for evidence to investigate the validity of the claim, but they aren't evidence in themselves of the accused person's guilt or innocence.

The accusation is the belief or proposition, not the body of facts or information indicating whether it's true or valid.

[WinterHold]

I'm sorry Atlas, but truthfully, I never know what you're talking about.  There is often so much purple prose in your text that whatever point you are intending to convey is totally lost on me, lol.

I'll say it in "other words"; the testimony of somebody is always subject to be either false or true. You cannot decide the authenticity of the claim unless you have total knowledge of what happened.

Let's say somebody wasn't raped. But she claimed she was raped. She brought witnesses who gave false testimonies. The court believe her. The claimed rapist got a prison sentence and an empty pocket as a result.

What kind of justice is that? Actually; is justice even possible when all we have is testimonies and words of so called "witnesses"?
Yes; justice can be served sometimes, but the system of life does allow for humans to do crimes without nobody knowing; and testimonies composed by lies to be issued.

To achieve justice, you must see the crime. Humans don't have the ability to see all crimes.
So; women will be raped; kids will be killed and abused; whole nations will be massacred. So the best thing to do is to just try to fix what we have now; and assure the best form of law execution.

[Edwardo Piet]

Sound does not mean true . And your idea's are not even sound .

I agree his ideas are not sound.

However soundness does imply truth.

A sound argument is an argument with both true premises and a conclusion that is logically entailed by those premises. A valid argument is an argument where the conclusion is also logically entailed by the premises but the premises themselves are not necessarily true.

Steve has said elsewhere (after making an invalid argument when the conclusion didn't even follow from the premises) that his argument was sound because the conclusion followed from the premises. Not only did his argument fail to even be valid, let alone sound, but a sound argument requires more than a conclusion that follows from the premises. A sound argument requires that the premises also be true. An argument where the conclusion follows from the premises is merely valid and not necessarily sound at all.

An example of a valid argument:

"All horses have 6 legs,
I am a horse
Therefore I have 6 legs"

This argument is valid because it is true that if all horses have 6 legs and I am a horse then I have 6 legs. However it's not sound at all because there is no reason to think that I am a horse or that all horses have 6 legs. The conclusion is follows from the two premises and is therefore valid because if all horses did have 6 legs and I was a horse then I would have 6 legs but the argument is unsound because the two premises are bullshit because I am not a horse and I don't have 6 legs.

This argument is sound:

"A bachelor is an unmarried adult
I am an unmarried adult
Therefore I am a bachelor"

Not only does the conclusion follow from the two premises, but the two premises are true. A bachelor is an unmarried adult and I am an unmarried adult. That makes this argument both sound and valid (or simply sound, since a sound argument is also valid) while the previous argument was valid but not sound.

[WinterHold]

I'm sorry Atlas, but truthfully, I never know what you're talking about.  There is often so much purple prose in your text that whatever point you are intending to convey is totally lost on me, lol.

Wait wait wait wait; so I googled "Purple Prose" !
I don't write "Purple Prose" or Orange Poetry; I'm not a word hustler!

In other words, I don't try to sell you shit and lies; LFC. Really ! If my speech is a little bit "Prosy", maybe you're not reading between the lines. You have my non-Purple Prosy word that I don't sell lies. There's a reason behind what I say.

I'm not a hustler !

[Martian Mermaid]

I wasn't quite sure where to put this.

In light of everything going on in the county right now with powerful men and sexual assault/harassment, it got me thinking about our past discussions regarding testimony as evidence.  Though there were some nuanced differences of opinion among the atheists who participated in those discussions, on the whole it seems most of us hold the position that testimony is not evidence, and that quantity speaks nothing of quality.  Are we being hypocritical then, in accepting these allegations at face value?  If we're being true to our stated position, then we're either:

1. Accepting a serious claim as true a despite total lack of evidence 

Or

2. Accepting the testimony as evidence 

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't believe these women.  I'm also not conceding that the Bible qualifies as eye-witness testimony.  I'm just wondering if we've been unfairly rigid to our theists in these debates regarding the nature of evidence.  

Thoughts?

A testimony is not evidence, testimonies only help tell the story of the evidence. Testimony should not be taken as evidence because anyone could lie, or be crazy, or remember something wrong. Testimony isn't evidence.