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(October 18, 2018 at 10:08 am)Rahn127 Wrote: What is it do you think I'm denying ?
What evidence are you referring to ?
It appears, that you agree, that testimony is evidence. That a person can share their first hand knowledge of their observations, and that can be used to form a justified belief. Yet you seem to be making another standard (or special pleading), where the same reasoning is not applied, and it is not evidence to be evaluated towards knowing the truth.
Except you have no eyewitnesses for your god. Or jesus.
(October 18, 2018 at 7:56 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: 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.
Your thoughtful input is welcome. I'm going to disagree somewhat however. I don't think that the biases of the time play that big of a role in looking at the evidence (any more, than our bias's do; we are just less aware of them). That's because I'm going to make a distinction between the claim, and the evidence. The evidence is what is observed or otherwise experienced, they are the facts of the case. The claim is the interpretation and conclusions from that evidence. Sometimes in the account, these may be mixed, and we need to separate the facts (observations) from the opinions. I had a customer the one time, called me up, because their servo motor control was broken, they replaced it and it still did the same thing. After far too much time, for me to get them to give an account of why they thought the servo motor was broken (what the seen or heard), rather than the conclusion that the servo motor was broken. I was looking for the evidence that lead to the conclusion, not the conclusion. (For anyone who is interested, it wasn't the servo).
As to the claim, that I am using double standards when involving other things, I think that is a false assumption. Mainly that you are assuming that I am using the same bad reasoning (or rather bias and lack of reasoning) to dismiss them. Often though, I don't find that they have similar evidence and corroboration within history. Also, I don't have the a priori hang ups that you do, so I'm perfectly willing to admit, that they can be true. But once again, I think that you have to have a good philosophy (reasoning) in place, and then move to the application of it.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
(October 18, 2018 at 11:15 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: It appears, that you agree, that testimony is evidence. That a person can share their first hand knowledge of their observations, and that can be used to form a justified belief. Yet you seem to be making another standard (or special pleading), where the same reasoning is not applied, and it is not evidence to be evaluated towards knowing the truth.
Except you have no eyewitnesses for your god. Or jesus.
Yup there are no eye witnesses to Jesus
Seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.
(October 18, 2018 at 12:12 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: I'm not going through hypotheticals. I've been down that road before, and it leads no where. It's actually a heads you win tails you lose type of situation, and as I said before, doesn't justify or explain any logic to validate anything.
You are going to have to provide justification and reason for what you are saying.
So now you're asking for more than mere testimony.
You're asking me to justify my claims.
Sounds like you're using a double standard.
Testimony is ok for some things, but other claims require more justification.
I can offer you a video of me cooking breakfast this morning. That video is justification of my first claim.
What would you need for me to provide as justification for the second claim ?
Perhaps I could make another video ?
I could walk around on the land I was born in and tell you stories about my life in the late 14th century.
Please re-read.... you are mixing two separate lines of thought. I said specifically, that I'm not discussing your hypotheticals.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
(October 18, 2018 at 1:57 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Please re-read.... you are mixing two separate lines of thought. I said specifically, that I'm not discussing your hypotheticals.
These are not hypotheticals.
I did cook my breakfast this morning and I am 640 years old.
You have my testimony.
Don't you believe me ?
Why do you deny this ?
I have given you testimonial evidence.
Isn't that enough ?
Sorry, You are going to have to discuss the reasoning behind what you are trying to say. You should also re-read what I have said about corroborating evidence. Discuss your reasoning first, and then we can test it.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
October 18, 2018 at 2:28 pm (This post was last modified: October 18, 2018 at 2:32 pm by RoadRunner79.)
(October 18, 2018 at 2:23 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote:
(October 18, 2018 at 2:16 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: You should also re-read what I have said about corroborating evidence.
You keep on doing this. Pretending that you have evidence which you have presented.
But you have presented none. Ever. That qualifies your claims as lies.
That would be correct, but only shows, that you are not understanding the conversation and what is being discussed.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
(October 18, 2018 at 2:01 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: These are not hypotheticals.
I did cook my breakfast this morning and I am 640 years old.
You have my testimony.
Don't you believe me ?
Why do you deny this ?
I have given you testimonial evidence.
Isn't that enough ?
Sorry, You are going to have to discuss the reasoning behind what you are trying to say. You should also re-read what I have said about corroborating evidence. Discuss your reasoning first, and then we can test it.
It's not enough is it.
You require something more than my mere testimony.
Why ?
Is it because it's an extraordinary claim .
I claim to be 640 years old and you find it unbelievable because of the simple well known fact that human beings don't live that long.
You need evidence of this claim, but more than that you won't even entertain the idea of discussing because you consider it hypothetical.
According to your own standards, your entire religion is hypothetical.
My reasons for asking these questions are to get you to understand that all claims are not the same. You must present evidence that is equal in nature to the claim being presented.
This whole thread is about presenting evidence for a god.
We can't rely on testimony for such a claim.
We need something more.
Don't you agree ?
Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result
