Is it wrong to demand evidence?

ananda · Apr 2, 2015

Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

TillICollapse · Apr 2, 2015

I wouldn't use the word "wrong" or "right" for that matter ... I would use the word "reasonable" and I think it's reasonable to ask for and seek evidence, as well as rational. I don't know that I would use the word "demand" though either lol. Has the connotation of entitlement to it.

TillICollapse · Apr 2, 2015

Of course a question that arises is: is it reasonable and/or rational to withhold evidence ? I would say yes ... thoughts ?

ananda · Apr 2, 2015

Why is it reasonable to withhold evidence of the divine or supernormal?

ananda · Apr 2, 2015

TillICollapse said:
I wouldn't use the word "wrong" or "right" for that matter ... I would use the word "reasonable" and I think it's reasonable to ask for and seek evidence, as well as rational. I don't know that I would use the word "demand" though either lol. Has the connotation of entitlement to it.

OK ... how about "Is it reasonable for an individual to require personally verifiable evidence for a faith system before believing"

Ana the Ist · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

I suppose it depends upon the truth claim being made. There are some claims for which there is no evidence, nor should we expect any. This doesn't make the claim any less true though.

TillICollapse · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Why is it reasonable to withhold evidence of the divine or supernormal?

I was actually making all my statements in broad terms, not to the "faith system" aspect of the OP specifically. My bad there. I was being general and playing off some of the concepts of the OP as it regarded context beyond faith systems, etc.

Having said that, I could see instances where with-holding evidence of such things would seem reasonable in certain contexts, as with anything really. Knowledge has an impact on us in various ways, for various reasons, and there are often and arguably times and places to learn things, understand them, etc. Consider a child ... we withhold evidence of things from children all the time. We do the same with adults in certain contexts, depending on what we want to protect, reveal, the way we want events to unfold, etc. Context plays a key.

ananda said:
OK ... how about "Is it reasonable for an individual to require personally verifiable evidence for a faith system before believing"

I think that's reasonable and understandable.

Deidre32 · Apr 2, 2015

If someone wishes for another to believe that his/her religion/faith is based on objective evidence, then yes. But, faith is not based on that...otherwise, it wouldn't be called 'faith.' I can't prove that a God exists, and I no longer try to prove that. I was an atheist, so I know that there will never be enough 'proof' to cause an atheist to change his/her stance. Again, if that were the case, then it wouldn't be called faith. I have 'faith' or hope that there exists One, True God.

Received · Apr 2, 2015

Nobody applies the rule of the burden of proof being on the person making the claim to the the burden of proof. What's the justification for this?

Albion · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
OK ... how about "Is it reasonable for an individual to require personally verifiable evidence for a faith system before believing"

True faith is based upon something other than wanting to believe it. But the way you've worded this question seems to make it a quid pro quo--i.e. give me the proof and THEN I will agree. That's a bit different and I wouldn't be sympathetic to that approach to faith.

juvenissun · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

It is not only right, but is necessary.
However, I would change the verifiable to viable. One usually can not verify any evidence easily, if all possible. To faith, evidence is good enough.

RDKirk · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

Christianity does not require faith without evidence. In fact, it requires Christians to be witnesses to what they've personally seen, heard, and experienced that causes them to believe.

To be sure, a lot of modern-day Christians conflate "witness" with "evangelist" and fail to understand that if they're talking about something they did not personally experience, it's not "giving witness" in the biblical sense.

Now, as is the case with any personal witness to an event, the audience of that witness can take it or leave it. People go to prison every day on the testimony of witnesses without "personally verifiable evidence," whatever that actually is.

agua · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

It's not wrong to demand evidence, but it is problematic to place a burden of what type of evidence is sufficient. imo. ie. We can say we do not believe or accept a piece of evidence ( our burden of veraciousness ), but we cannot suggest that it isn't actually evidence.

My faith is experiential, as descibed in Hebrews 11.

Tree of Life · Apr 2, 2015

ananda said:
Most faith systems demand blind obedience and blind trust in its god, precepts, doctrines, and commandments ... would you say it is wrong for an individual to demand personally verifiable evidence for a faith system?

Christianity at least does not demand "blind obedience" or "blind trust". At least that's not how I would describe it. What do you mean by these terms?

agua · Apr 2, 2015

RDKirk said:
Christianity does not require faith without evidence. In fact, it requires Christians to be witnesses to what they've personally seen, heard, and experienced that causes them to believe.

To be sure, a lot of modern-day Christians conflate "witness" with "evangelist" and fail to understand that if they're talking about something they did not personally experience, it's not "giving witness" in the biblical sense.

Now, as is the case with any personal witness to an event, the audience of that witness can take it or leave it. People go to prison every day on the testimony of witnesses without "personally verifiable evidence," whatever that actually is.

Yes I agree. The witness burden for Christians seems to be based upon personal experience, which serves to enhance their own faith mostly, and hopefully give evidence of their faith to observers. ie. See their good works and praise Yahweh. This is how Rahab began to believe.

TillICollapse · Apr 2, 2015

RDKirk said:
To be sure, a lot of modern-day Christians conflate "witness" with "evangelist" and fail to understand that if they're talking about something they did not personally experience, it's not "giving witness" in the biblical sense.

Now, as is the case with any personal witness to an event, the audience of that witness can take it or leave it. People go to prison every day on the testimony of witnesses without "personally verifiable evidence," whatever that actually is.

It was a learning curve for me to have to change the way I think about words in order to converse with many Christians. The term "witness" was one of them. When I would hear them use that word, I would think, "Okay I get to hear what they saw and witnessed," but then they would go into scriptures and what they read and believed about what they read. I would think, "I wanted to hear what you SAW, not what you read and what someone else saw from 2000 years ago ..."

The way they often use the word "faith" is akin to "denial", and that was a learning curve as well. It's like speaking another language, where the way we use words typically takes on different definitions of what they actually within the culture.

What's interesting about the witnessing thing ... is I would think that when asked for evidence, it would be a believers time to shine if they so chose lol. It's an opportunity to actually give an account of what you've personally seen or experienced, and then go from there. I've not totally understood why believers get frustrated or angry and defensive ... unless they simply have nothing to offer. Or they go into scriptural references and doctrinal positions. It seems more rare to actually hear what was *witnessed*, if anything.

agua · Apr 2, 2015

TillICollapse said:
...
What's interesting about the witnessing thing ... is I would think that when asked for evidence, it would be a believers time to shine if they so chose lol. It's an opportunity to actually give an account of what you've personally seen or experienced, and then go from there. I've not totally understood why believers get frustrated or angry and defensive ... unless they simply have nothing to offer. Or they go into scriptural references and doctrinal positions. It seems more rare to actually hear what was *witnessed*, if anything.

Yes this is interesting TillICollapse and aslo problematic because I think many Christian witness accounts are dubious, and therefor detrimental to the Christian model. imo.

RDKirk · Apr 2, 2015

agua said:
Yes I agree. The witness burden for Christians seems to be based upon personal experience, which serves to enhance their own faith mostly, and hopefully give evidence of their faith to observers. ie. See their good works and praise Yahweh. This is how Rahab began to believe.

Or look at the example of the Samaritan woman at the well. That story displays the simple difference between evangelism and witnessing: The evangelist tells people what Jesus did for them; the witness tells people what Jesus did for him.

In the case of the woman at the well, Jesus evangelized, then the woman witnessed:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?

Notice that the woman's grasp on the theological aspect was even still tenuous--she wasn't sure Jesus was the Messiah. But she could definitely testify to what Jesus had actually said to her, which was the reason for the belief that she had.

Then:

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the womans testimony, He told me everything I ever did."....They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

So the hearing of the woman's testimony was only the beginning of their own belief, but it was through their own experience with Jesus that they themselves fully believed.

agua · Apr 2, 2015

RDKirk

Or look at the example of the Samaritan woman at the well. That story displays the simple difference between evangelism and witnessing: The evangelist tells people what Jesus did for them; the witness tells people what Jesus did for him.

In the case of the woman at the well, Jesus evangelized, then the woman witnessed:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?

Notice that the woman's grasp on the theological aspect was even still tenuous--she wasn't sure Jesus was the Messiah. But she could definitely testify to what Jesus had actually said to her, which was the reason for the belief that she had.

Then:

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the womans testimony, He told me everything I ever did."....They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

So the hearing of the woman's testimony was only the beginning of their own belief, but it was through their own experience with Jesus that they themselves fully believed.

Yes good stuff thank you RDKirk. So a person is evangelised usually by accounts from someone else, and then develops personal faith ( I call this exerential faith ) over time imo. To me this is a solid way to progress and leads to strong faith, because it requires interest/searching/effort.

Stellar Vision · Apr 2, 2015

Ana the Ist said:
I suppose it depends upon the truth claim being made. There are some claims for which there is no evidence, nor should we expect any. This doesn't make the claim any less true though.

Do you have an example of that?

Is it wrong to demand evidence?

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