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Originally Posted by chrisengland
Hello
First I like to ask' Huon I take it your mention of Francois bovon was a reply to my post asking people to try to back up their claims with some schoalry support
Next I think people need to be clear when they say extraordinary claims require extraodinary evidence.
The premies is deffinately true' but you have to explain what is so extraodinary about a supernatural event' I don't think you rule out miricles without good reason.
I'd like to give my thoughts on the matter.
I think alot of it depends on whether you beleive in alot of other supernatural events or not. If you don't then your admitting that most of the time when someone claims to see a ghost or a ufo or have esp that their either mistaken or lying.
Wich meens that if every other supernatural claim is wrong then we should be very careful when we assess evidence for supernatural events and not except them without very good evidence.
Also its important to remember that their have been probably hundreds of thousands of religions throughout history' wich proves that humans make up religions'and so if you claim your religion is the right one you need to back it up with good evidence.
Also remember the fact that theres no reason why they can't all been wrong' know ones proven God must exist and even if they did there could be a distant God.
I think those are quite good reasons as to why supernatural events require more evidence' any comments welcome.
chris
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Chris -
I agree that supposed supernatural events in general, and Biblical-style miracles in specific require very strong evidence.
In the case of Biblical miracles, the only corroboration comes from within the narratives themselves. That's not really any stronger evidence for their occurence than the descriptions of vampires in
Dracula are evidence for the existence of demonic blood-sucking fiends.
You may have noticed the brief exchange that Roger Pearse and I had earlier concerning, in part, this same thing. Here's my example:
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If you read a report in the newspaper this morning that said a large flock of starlings were roosting in a local park, you might be inclined to accept that report without checking for a lot of corroborating evidence. Starlings roosting in (trees in) a park is, after all, a relatively common event. (NB - I added trees - it makes the image more vivid. NJ)
If, however, you read a report in the newspaper this morning that said a large flock of velociraptors was hanging about in a local park, and, oh, by the way, they were putting on a damn fine performance of Macbeth for the local schoolkids, I'm fairly confident you'd want to check that out for yourself, or at least investigate the sources of the report, because such a remarkable event is well beyond the normal day to day experiences that people have.
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My position is that in the first instance, since it's a common event that's well within the realm of experience for many people, and there's nothing in it that violates the observations that people in general make every day (i.e. that there are birds, that birds roost, and that birds often roost in trees in parks parks are all routine observations), one need not spend a lot of time looking for independent verification of the report. (To Roger's point, yes, this is technically a belief, but it's a belief based on direct observation.)
In the second case,
nobody has ever seen a flock of velociraptors in a park, let alone performing Shakespeare. That's so far out of our realm of experience that we are, in my opinion, well-justified in seeking independent confirmation of the event. I'd personally travel a great distance to see such a rare and unusual event, and would be willing to pay quite a bit to do so. To believe in this event based on a single report, absent any other corroboration, seems (in my opinion, anyway) to be intellectually lazy (that's about the most charitable term I can come up with.)
To bring this round to miracles, I see the second case as being analogous to accepting the miracles in the Bible based only on the accounts within the Biblical narrative. It's really as simple as that. I have no problem in general accepting the Biblical miracles as literary devices intended to illustrate various concepts and values, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go with them.
regards,
NinJay
11-20-2007, 02:44 PM
