Kosh

You're more than welcome to use your own standards, so long as you don't then try to push your beliefs, based on those standards, on other people.

See the difference?

edited to change "force" to "push"

[ July 03, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by NOGO: Was the coran written by God and handed to Mohammad by angel Gabriel?

No.

Did Mohammad split the moon into two?

No.

Did the Buddha bodily rise to nirvana?

No.

Quote:

If you consider these claims to be extraordinary then tell us why? If you don't consider these claims to be extraordinary then tell us why the evidence provided does not convince you? Then tell us why your faith is special and that the same rules of extraordinary claim and evidence that you used above do not apply?

I believe these are extraordinary claims because the evidence in favor of them is insufficient to justify belief in them. You see… People don’t form their beliefs based on whether we can prove our beliefs to another person. Surely we can agree that you believe many things that you could not prove to me. Right? Likewise, I don’t believe ONLY the things that I can prove to you. I think this has been made apparent in the fact that skeptics do not even agree amongst themselves as to what constitutes an “extraordinary claim”.

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by Kosh: You're more than welcome to use your own standards, so long as you don't then try to push your beliefs, based on those standards, on other people. See the difference?

Which of the following people have you witnessed trying to push their beliefs on other people?

CX
Vorkosigan
Polycarp
Toto
Meta
Nogo

madmax2976

What I can't fathom is why you would think all skeptics, or "all" of any other group, would agree amongst themselves as to what consistitutes an extraordinary claim. I'm sure Christians wouldn't all agree on it either and would be just as varied in their opinions as any other group.

As making these determinations is a subjective judgement call, we shouldn't expect any other state of affairs.

Again Polycarp, whats your point?

NOGO

Good. So you too understand and have your own definition of what an extraordinary claim is.
You also understand what insufficient evidence is as well. This leads me to conclude that if there was sufficient evidence for say the splitting of the moon bit THEN you would believe. (I am assuming here but it is a safe bet).

THEN

You understand what
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
means.

Very good. We are progressing.

The word "prove" is too vague for me to answer any of these statements. I prefer to put it as I did in another post. I believe in X to the extend that X has evidence. If the evidence is lean then so is my belief ... and so on. If you look at that post again ... Items 1,2 and 3 you can get a feel as to what I consider when evaluating envidence.

What this means is that if I have no evidence then I do not believe. PERIOD.

Are you implying anything more than this in the statement above. Do you believe 100% when the evidence is nill? Obviously you can believe what you want but are you saying that you do not need to justify your beliefs in a forum like this one?

That is fine too but then there is no debate possible. You are simply preaching.

[/QUOTE]
I think this has been made apparent in the fact that skeptics do not even agree amongst themselves as to what constitutes an “extraordinary claim”.
[/QUOTE]

I would hate to think that all atheists agree on what constitutes an extraordinary claim. This is very unlikely since there is no organization out there which promotes atheism and demands belief in one specific definition of "extraordinary claim".

However since you understand the concept and have your definition then we do not need to agree on an exact definition of extraordinary claim.

Now tell us what in Christianity do atheists consider extraordinary and you don't?

This should be very interesting indeed.

[ July 03, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

You are implying that if two or more people give a different version of something then only one of them can be right and the rest must be wrong.

Do you apply such logic to the bible?

Skeptical

I think CX and Vorkosigan had it about right in their ealier posts, but the problem is that what constitutes an extraordinary claim is a little difficult to frame into a few sentences. As the Supreme Court said about pornography, they couldn't define it, but they knew it when they saw it.

While skeptics may disagree on the wording of particular definitions about what is extraordinary, I believe everyone was in agreement when asked specifically whether a claim was extraordinary in the list you presented.

I think it is safe to say that any claim that violates known laws of nature would be considered extraordinary. Examples of claims such as this would be:

-Levitation
-Teleportation
-Rising from the dead

Beyond this, any claim that is completely contrary to accumulated evidence would be extraordinary. Examples of this would be:

-If someone claimed that there were thousands of species of Bigfoot creatures living in Smoky mountain national park
-If someone claimed that Alexander the Great actually lived in the 1st century CE

Given the evidence we have to the contrary, these claims would definitely be extraordinary since so much of what we know would have to be wrong.

To try and get this back on a BC&A track, the claims that I would consider extraordinary about Jesus and the NT, at a minimum, would be:

-Walking on water
-Feeding of the thousands with a few pieces of fish and a few loaves of bread
-Raising of the dead
-His own resurrection

I personally don't consider the "healings" extraordinary, many psychosomatic illnesses can be cured through belief and this is seen even today. I don't think many skeptics would disagree that at least this list would meet "extraordinary" criteria, although some may want to add to it.

If the question is then "what evidence would be required to believe these things", I think it's safe to say Jesus would have to appear right now and perform these acts under strictly controlled scientific conditions (Perhaps the Amazing Randi could monitor). Barring this, no skeptic is going to accept anecdotal evidence about an extraordinary claim.

Skeptical

I'm curious, what, in your mind, would be enough evidence to convince you of, say, Buddha's being physically raised to heaven? If we had 4 written records believed to have been written about 40-60 years after his supposed "raising" by 4 people who supposedly actually witnessed it?

If not, what additional evidence would be required? My guess is that no evidence would be enough for you, although I fully admit that I might be wrong.

I thought that the whole point of your "evidence" thread was that in reality the evidence of the NT is far too scant to convince anyone who doesn't already want to believe it? Or did I miss the point?

Kosh

Nit. IIRC, it was a congressman, not the SC, that said that.

Vorkosigan

Where do we contradict each other? Some lists of criteria are more exhaustive than others. Offhand I don't see any out and out contradictions.

Vorkosigan