It seems to me one can do many thought experiments to cast doubt on the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (ignoring the obvious problem that what is extraordinary to one person is not so extraordinary to another).

For example, I can easily imagine a friend (male) who cannot get a woman to have sex with him. He could be 27, been trying to get sex for ten years, been turned down by literally thousands of women, and yet has never had sex, with no likely prospects.

If this friend were to come to me the next week and say that he had sex, it would be somewhat extraordinary, yet it would be odd to demand extraordinary evidence for his claim. His own word is good enough, especially if he is a close friend and has been for years.

Likewise, someone could claim that they won the lottery, which, based on odds, is an extraordinary claim, with their shot being 1 in several million (or more). Yet, as with the previous example, it would be odd to demand extraordinary evidence. In fact, it would be silly to do so. We only need one small piece of evidence: the ticket.

"Extraordinary" is only going beyond what is common, usual, or regular. That is, in a nutshell, what extraordinary means. Both examples (having sex and winning the lottery) are extraordinary for the two people, yet their claims do not require extraordinary evidence, and thus the argument has obvious counterexamples.

It is only by adjusting the meaning of extraordinary, such as claiming "only supernatural events are extraordinary", that one ends up with anywhere to go, in my opinion. Regardless, the whole argument is rather a lesson in masturbationg. The bottom line is we tend to need evidence to a degree that is satisfactory and reliable, whether it's an extraordinary claim or a not so extraordinary one.
Zen

johngalt

I guess an extraordinary claim for me would be a claim that happens rarely, and has been proved using logic or reason.

Plump-DJ

bd-from-kg,

In his article Lenardos makes a couple of claims which I think sums up your response.

He says...

and you say...

.

And he concludes

In otherwords you're basically agreeing with him. That we have no objective way, no objective cosmic yardstick that allows us to determine the quality and quantity of evidence for events we label extraordinary events over ones we label ordinary. That means we are engaging in mere subjectivism.

And after reading this paper i am now prepared to question my own requests for 'extraordinary evidence' on many things I find 'extraordinary'. I am certainly more agnostic and thoughtful about my requests, let's put it that way and while *I personally* may not be convinved of an events likelyness I cannot deny other's their own basslines. So his paper is highlighting the fact that despite how we feel about it, it's not 'self evident' once we really look into.

In regards to the examples you give let's take your "friend who can walk thru walls" example.

So maybe you can tell us what our basslins are for affirming the event took place? I mean let's be honest about this. If I think that this is unlikely yet someone provided me with say the eye witness accounts of 500 people and some footage on TV and there was no evidence showing that it was a 'trickery' (ie it wasn't a setup by David Copperfield or something) then isn't that sufficent evidence to warrant it's rational affirmation?

I mean despite how I feel about it (ie men waling through walls) and their likelyness (anything else is possible) I could not deny others their right to affirm it as a real event. So we all have our own basslines and those basslines are affected by our underlying philosophies.

In regards to the Rez, for the atheist or the naturalist, *no* amount of evidence could ever really be put forward in favour of the resurrection because their test for truth (naturalisim) won't allow it to begin with so because they hold to that *philosophy* (as Mr L points out) the chance of it occuring are basically Zero. So when we ask for 'extraordinary evidence' we are really just asking for more evidence for events our philosophies will not readily accept. That goes for you, me and everyone. That does not make it "OK" just because we do it everyday.

And if we have no objective way to do this, then why should they take what we say seriously when what we're really saying is we want more evidence for things *we* personaly find unlikely or that our philosophies of reality don't readily take to. That is subjectivsm.

I mean if instead of asking for 'extraordinary evidence for extraordinary events' I was more honest and said "I want more evidence for events my philosophy will not readily accept?" do you think people would be as taken in by that?

NHGH

I don't think that your conclusion that "we are engaging in mere subjectivism" follows here. Arguably, there is an unavoidable subjective element in evaluating claims, at least insofar as we have to decide how great the overall weight of the evidence has to be in order to accept a given claim. But Lenardos (and you) seem to be insinuating that, because we can't precisely specify that amount, we are choosing what to believe based merely on what we find emotionally satisfying. There's a wide gulf between critiquing claims using a precisely specified, pre-set threshold of evidence, with no element of human judgment anywhere in the analysis, on the one hand; and simply "believing what we want to believe, what makes us feel good, etc." on the other.

I also have to take issue with the implication that we simply "label" some putative events as "ordinary" and others as "extraordinary", as if this were a mere matter of personal gut feeling. I think we can specify some objective criteria which allow us to distinguish between the two. One such criteria would be "the event, if it occurred, would contravene known physical laws." That's the one I used in my previous post. Another would be "the event, if it occurred, would run contrary to generally known facts about human nature." That's the one bd-from-kg was referring to in his example of the man who mortgages his house in order to give $100,000 to his bitter enemy.

NHGH

I think it would be useful here to distinguish between extraordinary claims and unfalsifiable claims.

As I said in a previous post, the resurrection of a corpse is not inherently supernatural. I mean, I can conceive of logically possible worlds in which corpses could be resurrected days after their deaths, even though I find the evidence (e.g. the fact that cells die due to lack of oxygen within minutes of cessation of heartbeat/respiration) overwhelming that we do not live in such a world. Therefore the claim that a corpse was resurrected is extraordinary, which (to me) is just another way of saying that the evidence weighs heavily against it from the start. Accordingly, we should "ask for more evidence" for this claim, not because we hold it to a higher standard than usual, but because "more evidence" is needed to counterbalance the strong evidence against it.

However, the usual Christian claim is twofold: not only was the corpse of Christ resurrected, but it was resurrected by an omnipotent deity, not bound by natural laws, who allowed him to be killed in the first place as a substitutive sacrifice for our sins, etc. This second claim is an unfalsifiable claim. There's no way to test meaningfully a claim which pertains to an omnipotent deity, not bound by natural laws. Therefore, not only do we not "ask for more evidence" for the claim, but in fact the very question of "evidence" for or against the claim is simply beside the point.

Lenardos (and you) may object that our failure to accept the claim is simply a result of naturalistic bias, but I don't see how it helps us any to admit the possibility of supernatural events. If we accept the premise that natural laws are sometimes violated, that still doesn't provide us with any guidance in testing supernatural claims. I mean, even if we accept for the sake of argument that the evidence demonstrates that Christ was resurrected, why should we conclude that he was resurrected by the Judeo-Christian God, rather than some other putative deity? For that matter, why shouldn't we just conclude that he spontaneously came back to life, with no divine intervention of any kind?

Pyrrho

If I may add to what bd-from-kg has stated, the simple fact is that the people who believe in the miraculous stories are inconsistent with themselves. They ALL (except possibly those committed to a looney bin) require more evidence for more extraordinary claims in their own lives, yet they fail to follow their own principles when it comes to their religious prejudices. You can see this quite clearly when considering the outright rejection of competing religions, but the blind acceptance of claims in their own religion that they would NEVER accept in other matters. So the problem is, they don't consistently follow their own principles.

David Hume expressed this idea in "Of Miracles", which is Section X in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. (For anyone who actually takes a look at what Hume had to say, the "real presence" to which he refers is the doctrine that, during the Eucharist ceremony in Christianity, the wine and bread are literally believed to change into the blood and body of Jesus. This is the official doctrine of the Catholic Church to this day. Most Protestants regard it as symbolic rather than actual.)

In response to your question about the hypothetical video of someone running through a wall, NO, it absolutely would not give one a good reason to affirm it. The chances of fraud and error are too great for it to ever, by itself, be sufficient to warrant belief in such a thing. You may as well believe that The Matrix is a documentary.

Paul Doland

I have just posted on my site, www.caseagainstfaith.com, a rebuttal to the Christian article that started this topic. I borrowed the analogy of the runner from Uzbeckistan used by "bd-from-kg" which I hope he does not mind. I did give credit.

I hope that followers of this thread will enjoy my paper. It is top on the "what's new" column.

Paul Doland

OOPS!

No, I haven't got my new paper up on my site. And, not only tht, but my site for some reason is not accepting my updates. I'll be contacting my hosting service and see what the deal is, and then repost here when it is up.

Paul Doland

Okay, now its up: www.caseagainstfaith.com. Enjoy (I hope)

RED DAVE

The crux of the link that began this thread is the following:

There you have it. What we have is a clear denial of the notion that "extraordinay claims require extraordinary evidence." Xtians have been squiming since it got introduced into popular debate, and they'll try to get around it, or eliminate it, howsoever they can.

RED DAVE