Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[RoadRunner79]

It seems that you are asking if there is good evidence, then would I change my preconceptions, and believe something that I didn’t previously. The answer is yes. If you are asking if I think that testimony can be good and sufficient evidence for a justified belief (or change in one) then the answer is yes. How your story fits into that, I don’t know.... it really lacks details.

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Do you disagree?
If so why?

I disagree
When we can't verify the truth or accuracy of a story, especially a story that makes an extraordinary claim, then we cannot justify believing the story.

The story itself cannot be verified to be true.
The story is not evidence. The story is the claim.

Why would you want to believe a story in which you can't verify it's truthfulness ?

We shouldn't believe extraordinary stories until we have a good reason to justify belief.

I don't believe in Bigfoot. I don't believe in the Loch Ness monster. I don't believe in werewolves or vampires or demons or angels.
I've read lots of stories about them and testimony from people who say they have seen these things, but there is no evidence that they exist.

I'm sorry, a story isn't enough.
We have a word that describes people who believe things without a doubt based on nothing more than a story.

That word is gullibility.

Don’t you use evidence to verify a story? If you have good and sufficient evidence, then would that make you the unreasonable one to deny it. I’m skeptical if there is a single item of evidence, but when multiple independant lines of evidence point to a conclusion, and then I believe the evidence of anothers personal feelings or disbelief. I would differentiate that the evidence is what a person testifies to, as having seen or experienced, and not necessarily the conclusion. I also think that one needs to give good reason, if they are promoting a conspiracy theory, or that multiple pieces of evidence somehow all point to the wrong conclusion.

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There is no justification to slide the scale and require a different standard above reasonable evidence.

[Rahn127]

I disagree
When we can't verify the truth or accuracy of a story, especially a story that makes an extraordinary claim, then we cannot justify believing the story.

The story itself cannot be verified to be true.
The story is not evidence. The story is the claim.

Why would you want to believe a story in which you can't verify it's truthfulness ?

We shouldn't believe extraordinary stories until we have a good reason to justify belief.

I don't believe in Bigfoot. I don't believe in the Loch Ness monster. I don't believe in werewolves or vampires or demons or angels.
I've read lots of stories about them and testimony from people who say they have seen these things, but there is no evidence that they exist.

I'm sorry, a story isn't enough.
We have a word that describes people who believe things without a doubt based on nothing more than a story.

That word is gullibility.

Don’t you use evidence to verify a story? If you have good and sufficient evidence, then would that make you the unreasonable one to deny it.

Yes we use evidence to verify stories, but what if all we have is the story and no way to verify it.
If we have good and sufficient evidence, then that is all we need to justify belief.

Do we have any evidence ?

No, we don't. Not one bit.

All we have is a collection of stories that we can't verify, from people who may or may not have even existed, because we can't even verify if they are fictional characters or if they actually lived.
The stories in my hypothetical book are from supposed family members and friends of people we can't confirm even existed in the 14th century.

When you have no evidence and testimony that you can't verify, about a procedure that is extraordinary in nature, like regrowing an arm or leg, you should not believe the story.

Belief is only granted when evidence can be presented that can verify the truth of the claim. You must be able to demonstrate that the evidence is factual and true.

[robvalue]

Will heaven be the same, I wonder: no sign of god anywhere, just people claiming to speak for him and waving books around.

[RoadRunner79]

Don’t you use evidence to verify a story?  If you have good and sufficient evidence, then would that make you the unreasonable one to deny it.

Yes we use evidence to verify stories, but what if all we have is the story and no way to verify it.
If we have good and sufficient evidence, then that is all we need to justify belief.

Do we have any evidence ?

No, we don't. Not one bit.

All we have is a collection of stories that we can't verify, from people who may or may not have even existed, because we can't even verify if they are fictional characters or if they actually lived.
The stories in my hypothetical book are from supposed family members and friends of people we can't confirm even existed in the 14th century.

When you have no evidence and testimony that you can't verify, about a procedure that is extraordinary in nature, like regrowing an arm or leg, you should not believe the story.

Belief is only granted when evidence can be presented that can verify the truth of the claim. You must be able to demonstrate that the evidence is factual and true.

It seems that you have a couple of double standards here, which I don't think that you can justify.    First is the continual reference to "extraordinary" things, which you appear imply some vague extra standard for.   I don't think that you can justify this, and in my experience people usually cannot explain or define what the standards and epistemology which is the basis for this.  It a catchy saying, which sounds good, but has no foundation for acquiring knowledge.  I would say, that you just need good and sufficient evidence, to make evident what is being claimed.  The second one, is that you keep referencing the time in the past that this occurred.  If the claim was made in the present, would you track down, and gain this information.   My guess is that you probably wouldn't have to meet a scientist or the people making the claim.   I don't think that it is reasonable for them to have to meet everyone who is going to believe the claim

I can agree, that you need multiple independent corroboration, of evidence, in order to rule out mistakes or fraud. And different parts of evidence can be verification for each other. There may be evidence against to consider as well.  And I think that it makes a difference if the claim was public, or happened somewhere, where even the people of the time, could not verify. 

When you say things, like you have to verify that they existed, it makes me question what exactly you mean by that?   Are you getting back to having to see something for yourself, in order to believe it?   Do you have to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less?   It would seem that your requirements would make most of history relatively unknowable.   I don't see that these double standards are justified epistemically, or that they are used normally by you or anyone else.   If your standards can be used to reasonably deny that Sweden exists, then I am suspect, that it is little more than selective hyper-skepticism.

edit:   Once again, you seem to be getting to testimony is not evidence, which gives knowledge and makes evident what is true.

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To test your methodologies and reasoning, it's not just about those things that you want to deny.  You also test it against those things that you know to be true, things that you believe are true.  What are the consequences if this epistemology is followed out on them.  How small does your reasonable knowledge of the world get, if you follow these practices?  Is your epistemology open to evidence for new ideas, or does it just re-enforce your bias's and worldview.

[Rahn127]

I'll keep this simple because apparently, my words are not reaching you.

I believe in things that can be demonstrated to be true.

[RoadRunner79]

I'll keep this simple because apparently, my words are not reaching you.

I believe in things that can be demonstrated to be true.

Wouldn't evidence demonstrate something to be true?  Or are you saying that you need to see for yourself?  There are a lot of things, that I have not seen for myself, that I think I have justified belief in (electrons, protons, germs), but I rely on others for that knowledge.   Also, if you are asking for repeatability, then many of the claims of evolution are out the door by default, because we can not repeat them.     And if you are just making assumptions on the claims that it can be demonstrated (and have not seen for yourself), then you really haven't added much by way of knowledge, just a claim, that it can be demonstrated. 

It doesn't seem to be a matter of evidence for you, as you remove any evidence, that doesn't fit your preconceptions.

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I think that you would run into a lot of problems, if you used these standards everywhere, and you cannot justify a reason for these double standards.  The whole point of evidence, is to give knowledge about something that was previously unknown.

[Rahn127]

Nothing you've said is correct.
You keep making up these strawmen.
I feel sorry for your brain.

[OakTree500]

At the end of the day, these two berks havn't provided anything other than "Well the bible says" or "the new testamant says" or "[insert passive aggressive bullshit here]", whilst claiming we're the ones having something to prove to them, despite atheists [and for VERY good reason] not believing in any of it, because there is, and I repeat:

NO EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING YOU'VE SAID OUTSIDE OF THE BIBLE, WHICH ISNT EVIDENCE
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ]

 

The thing I genuinly hate about trying to reason with theists the most, is because, and I'm not even sure they are aware of it, discussion just breaks down into some sort of metaphysical discussion that makes no sense.

I say "The bible is a poorly written, highly debated book, because of all the actual evidence we have to suggest this", and in return I get "But I can say that about anyhting. How do you know the moon is real, have you been there".  All because you're trying to get me far away from the subject that you yourself have nothing other than "but my magic book says so". Yeah well I have the harry potter collection, and that's full of equally magically bullshit, so good job mate.

You say I "can't not prove something". That's illogical in itself, but ok sure. you still are UNABLE to prove the thing you said also, so forget my supposedly flawed reasoning, just get onto the subject of the thing MULTIPLE people have asked you to do, and prove it to us. Lets face it, Atheists are natural skeptics, but we value real indisputable evidence. You give us that, and you'll have yourself a huge gaggle of converts right now.

As you cant' do that, I'll be waiting until you do. 

[Angrboda]

It seems that you have a couple of double standards here, which I don't think that you can justify.  ... The second one, is that you keep referencing the time in the past that this occurred.  If the claim was made in the present, would you track down, and gain this information.   My guess is that you probably wouldn't have to meet a scientist or the people making the claim.   I don't think that it is reasonable for them to have to meet everyone who is going to believe the claim

I can agree, that you need multiple independent corroboration, of evidence, in order to rule out mistakes or fraud. And different parts of evidence can be verification for each other. There may be evidence against to consider as well.  And I think that it makes a difference if the claim was public, or happened somewhere, where even the people of the time, could not verify. 

I don't want to step on your conversation here, but it appears that one of the reasons for concentrating on the era during which such testimony occurred is that we have reason to push the probability that the testimony is unreliable given the period in question. It's well know that magic and miraculous heros were not simply a fringe belief held by a few at the time of the bible testimony, but that such accounts were widely believed and skepticism towards them largely absent. That affects the credibility of such accounts in a way that similar modern accounts are not likewise impugned. In this era we have tales of Vespasian healing people and statues of Aesclepius doing likewise, and so on. If we are going to assign a high degree of credibility to the testimony in the bible then, in order to be consistent, we have to assign a high degree of credibility to these other accounts as well. Otherwise you've accepted that the testimonies in the bible don't have high credibility. So the alternative is to justify treating the testimony in the bible as highly credible while at the same time claiming that similar reports outside the bible are not highly credible. In my experience, people typically do this by resorting to special pleading or other illegitimate means. If you have a counter-argument for why we should hold the testimony in the bible as likely credible when our evidence from the period is that such testimony, in general, is not highly credible, I'd like to hear it.

For reference I'll cite a paper by Richard Carrier on the type of tales that regularly went unquestioned during this time period. I say "unquestioned" but that's not entirely accurate. The reality was that people didn't question the things that they believed or were taught by their particular group; regarding the remarkable claims of others and other groups, people had plenty of disbelief. A similar situation existed in India at this time, but with a twist. Different strands of Hinduism believed differing things, yet pluralism was more the norm, so Hindu scholars and theologians would write treatises acknowledging the multiple beliefs, but they always found some reason for putting their specific brand of Hinduism top in the pecking order. In India, as well as Greece, people's skepticism and disbelief was very selective, only applying to the things those other people believed. (And there's evidence that Christians were not above the mess at this time as we have testimony from critics of Christianity during this period about how much differing sects of Christians detested one another, presumably to the point that they hated fellow Christians more than non-Christians.)


Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels by Richard Carrier

We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers. Thus, this essay is not about whether Jesus was real or how much of what we are told about him is true. It is not even about Jesus. Rather, this essay is a warning and a standard, by which we can assess how likely or easily what we are told about Jesus may be false or exaggerated, and how little we can trust anyone who claims to be a witness of what he said and did. For if all of these other stories below could be told and believed, even by Christians themselves, it follows that the Gospels, being of entirely the same kind, can all too easily be inaccurate, tainted by the gullibility, credulity, or fondness for the spectacular which characterized most people of the time.

[RoadRunner79]

Nothing you've said is correct.
You keep making up these strawmen.
I feel sorry for your brain.

I'm trying to understand, and make sense of what you are saying.   Perhaps the problem is that I don't believe in one set of reasoning for one thing, and another set of reasoning for another (without justification).  I don't think that you have provided that, and so your reasoning can be applied (tested) with other things.  We can agree to disagree, but I think that you should at least be consistent with your reasoning.  When your standards are applied elsewhere, you think it's ridiculous... which I agree.   I don't think that your subjective feelings or knowledge makes it any less so, and that you just seem to want to deny the evidence for things that you don't already believe.  It doesn't appear to be about the evidence.