Question For Fellow Atheists - Extraordinary Evidence

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

quatona said:
You made the claims - you substantiate it.

You denied the obvious. You tell us why. Surely you are not intending to say that none of us believe the reality of anything unless we've personally handled it, completely understand everything about it, and have made a conscious decision to accept it.

quatona · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
You denied the obvious.

Just because you say something doesn´t make it the obvious.

Surely you are not intending to say that none of us believe the reality of anything unless we've personally handled it, completely understand everything about it, and have made a conscious decision to accept it.

Surely I am not saying this. Why would I?

Since your initial statement was not "everyone of us believe the reality of something without having personally handled it, completely understand everything about it, and have made a conscious decision to accept it.", but something quite different, I must assume that you either misspoke or are backpedalling now.

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

quatona said:
Just because you say something doesn´t make it the obvious.

Just because you say you don't believe it doesn't make it erroneous.

Since your initial statement was not "everyone of us believe the reality of something without having personally handled it, completely understand everything about it, and have made a conscious decision to accept it.", but something quite different, I must assume that you either misspoke or are backpedalling now.

It's neither, and you know as well as I do that that is correct to say. The "fun" in bantering, ducking, denying, sneering, and all of that is just a game, I recognize. I've been indulging you in that because atheists and skeptics seem to be "into" verbal armwrestling on these forums, but I don't really think that "winning" is the object when participating on a "discussion board." It's discussion, so go ahead with your reasoning and offer it to me and others if you wish.

Dave Ellis · Jan 1, 2015

ChristCameBackFromTheDead said:
I will pray for those who do not see what God done with everything around you.

Can you give an example of what he's done?

Dave Ellis · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
Just because you say you don't believe it doesn't make it erroneous.

Any way you slice it, you're attempting to shift the burden of proof off of yourself.

You made claims, and you are refusing to substantiate them. Simply calling them "obvious" will not cut it. Also, seeing how more people disagree with your theology than agree with it, it's pretty clear your beliefs are not that obvious.

If you want to make a claim, be prepared to back it up. If you can't do so, then just admit you beliefs aren't backed by anything tangible.

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

Dave Ellis said:
Any way you slice it, you're attempting to shift the burden of proof off of yourself.

There's no burden of proof on me. If you or someone else wants to present your thinking, feel free.

bhsmte · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
There's no burden of proof on me. If you or someone else wants to present your thinking, feel free.

This is the nature of personal faith beliefs, one only has to reconcile the belief to themselves.

Of course, there are some on this board, who insist they can convince others that their personal faith belief is justified and others are missing out. When that occurs, I have yet to see anyone's personal faith beliefs stand up well to outside scrutiny.

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

bhsmte said:
This is the nature of personal faith beliefs, one only has to reconcile the belief to themselves.

Of course, there are some on this board, who insist they can convince others that their personal faith belief is justified and others are missing out. When that occurs, I have yet to see anyone's personal faith beliefs stand up well to outside scrutiny.

Maybe that's a failing on your part? I'm just asking, since you don't seem to hold that out as a possibility although you should not close it off if you are to approach the matter systematically and logically.

bhsmte · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
Maybe that's a failing on your part? I'm just asking, since you don't seem to hold that out as a possibility although you should not close it off if you are to approach the matter systematically and logically.

Could be a failing on my part and could be a failing on you're part.

I was a Christian for 40 years and I took a very systematic and logical approach to studying the historicity of the NT, which triggered my move to becoming an atheist towards the Christian God.

Now, I have yet to see you substantiate, that anyone else is wrong, who disagrees with your personal beliefs.

Dave Ellis · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
There's no burden of proof on me. If you or someone else wants to present your thinking, feel free.

Check out the quote below:

Albion said:
the evidence for a god is much stronger than it is for many other aspects of life that we all unquestioningly believe --even without evidence of the level that atheists demand for God.

You made a claim, you say the evidence for god is much stronger than many other aspects of life that we all unquestioningly believe. Since you made that claim, you have the burden of proof.

You have been challenged to back up that claim, because what you said is not "obvious" as you claim it is. So, provide your evidence. What is this strong evidence that you're referring to?

After all, if you have strong evidence, and it is indeed all around us, it shouldn't be all that difficult to provide us an example of what you're talking about. I'm not sure why this is such a problem for you.

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

Dave Ellis said:
You made a claim, you say the evidence for god is much stronger than many other aspects of life that we all unquestioningly believe. Since you made that claim, you have the burden of proof.

No. This is not an entrance exam or address to some jury. It's a discussion board, as I've said before.

bhsmte · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
No. This is not an entrance exam or address to some jury. It's a discussion board, as I've said before.

I would imagine then, you also understand why others don't put much credibility to you're claim, if you can not substantiate it with any objective support?

Dave Ellis · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
No. This is not an entrance exam or address to some jury. It's a discussion board, as I've said before.

Who cares if it's an entrance exam, address to a jury, or discussion board?

You made a claim, and the truth of that claim has been challenged. You can either defend your position, or withdraw your claim.

If you choose not to defend your claim, then we're completely justified in dismissing it out of hand as utter nonsense. As Christopher Hitchens said "that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".

In short, if you're going to make a claim, at least have the courage to back up your words. If you can't back up your claim, have the courage to admit as much. All you're doing right now is an act of intellectual cowardice.

Albion · Jan 1, 2015

Dave Ellis said:
Who cares if it's an entrance exam, address to a jury, or discussion board?.

I do. That's why I made that point. If I were in court or being questioned by the SS, I'd probably submit to the routine you are trying to impose. But here, we're all on an internet discussion board and I, for one, feel no obligation to treat it as anything other than what it is.

Dave Ellis · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
I do. That's why I made that point. If I were in court or being questioned by the SS, I'd probably submit to the routine you are trying to impose. But here, we're all on an internet discussion board and I, for one, feel no obligation to treat it as anything other than what it is.

Ok, fair enough.

Then your claim is wrong. There is no evidence for your god.

quatona · Jan 1, 2015

Albion said:
Just because you say you don't believe it doesn't make it erroneous.

That´s why I didn´t say it was erroneous. I asked you to substantiate it.

It's neither, and you know as well as I do that that is correct to say. The "fun" in bantering, ducking, denying, sneering, and all of that is just a game, I recognize.

I've been indulging you in that because atheists and skeptics seem to be "into" verbal armwrestling on these forums, but I don't really think that "winning" is the object when participating on a "discussion board." It's discussion, so go ahead with your reasoning and offer it to me and others if you wish.

Again: You made bold claims about my and others´ mindsets, and I am asking you to substantiate them. That would be the minimum requirement for even beginning a discussion.
If you don´t want to or can´t do it, that´s ok. But don´t blame your unwillingness or inability on me.
Goodbye.

Neogaia777 · Jan 1, 2015

quatona said:
Often in these discussion I see Carl Sagan´s quote:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I´m not comfortable with it.

I have no problem understanding what counts as "extraordinary claims": references to the "non-/extra-/supernatural" (basically everything that´s defined as being beyond human capabilities of investigation, of science etc.).

It is obvious (per their definition) that "ordinary" evidence wouldn´t be sufficient to substantiate such claims. Something else would be required.
We don´t accept claims regarding ghosts, gods, angels as easily as we´d accept claims about ordinary/earthly/physical stuff. E.g. the question whether a man named Jesus living 2000 years ago in the Middle East isn´t treated differently than any other claim regarding alleged historical persons, while the claim that he was God/working miracles etc. lead us outside the "ordinary".

My question: What would count as "extraordinary evidence"?
(And my thesis is: There isn´t and can´t be - per definition -such a thing as "extraordinary evidence". Thus, while I agree that we reject the idea that "ordinary" evidence is sufficient to support extraordinary claims, I don´t see much point in demanding "extraordinary evidence".)

I do not think, what you quoted is true

I would think that extraordinary evidence, would be mathematical impossibilities and/or miraculous or wonderous happenings...

poolerboy0077 · Jan 2, 2015

This pithy saying can actually be applied using Bayes Theorem.

From RationalWiki:

While the idea that a sufficiently outlandish claim requires a lot more compelling evidence is quite intuitive, it can be quantified nicely with probability theory in a Bayesian framework. In short, sufficient evidence must be capable of raising a highly improbable claim to be highly probable - and the more improbable the evidence, the better. By application of Bayes' theorem, it's possible to show this in action mathematically.

Assume, for instance, someone claims to be able to predict what way a coin will land almost perfectly. We know this is an extraordinary claim, so we'll say that just by guessing if the person is telling the truth or not that it's a million-to-one chance. In reality, the number would be even more improbable, but this can be used for illustration. So we ask them to demonstrate the skill. They're almost perfect, so let's assume they guess right about 90% of the time - this allows them the opportunity for their skill to mess up once in a while, but still prove to be pretty good. This gives us all the information we need to know to actually quantify how extraordinary the evidence must be.

Consider if they guessed a single coin toss correctly. The odds of guessing by chance is a mere 50%, or 50:50.

A single coin toss doesn't improve our odds very dramatically. The evidence just isn't extraordinary enough - you can correctly guess a single coin toss correctly 50% of the time with no special skills involved. It all rests on how improbable our evidence, P(B), actually is and a 50:50 chance isn't particularly improbable. For two coin tosses P(B) becomes 0.25, and for 10 coin tosses it comes to roughly 0.00097. Plugging those numbers in Bayes' theorem gives us a probability of genuine skill (given P(A) of a million-to-one) of around 0.0009, which although still small is a considerable improvement on that original million-to-one chance. By 20 or so correctly guessed coin tosses, the skill is starting to look a lot more genuine.

Conscious Z · Jan 3, 2015

quatona said:
Often in these discussion I see Carl Sagan´s quote:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I´m not comfortable with it.

I have no problem understanding what counts as "extraordinary claims": references to the "non-/extra-/supernatural" (basically everything that´s defined as being beyond human capabilities of investigation, of science etc.).

It is obvious (per their definition) that "ordinary" evidence wouldn´t be sufficient to substantiate such claims. Something else would be required.
We don´t accept claims regarding ghosts, gods, angels as easily as we´d accept claims about ordinary/earthly/physical stuff. E.g. the question whether a man named Jesus living 2000 years ago in the Middle East isn´t treated differently than any other claim regarding alleged historical persons, while the claim that he was God/working miracles etc. lead us outside the "ordinary".

My question: What would count as "extraordinary evidence"?
(And my thesis is: There isn´t and can´t be - per definition -such a thing as "extraordinary evidence". Thus, while I agree that we reject the idea that "ordinary" evidence is sufficient to support extraordinary claims, I don´t see much point in demanding "extraordinary evidence".)

The reason you don't agree with the quote is that you are placing too restrictive of a definition on "extraordinary." Extraordinary things need not be things beyond human investigation. If someone told me that there as a 40,000 pound land mammal living in the neighborhood next to mine, I would consider that an extraordinary claim, but it is still within the scope of human investigation. It would, however, require extraordinary evidence. That evidence could be multiple witnesses with video, tracks, hair samples, etc.

It is logically impossible to say that there could be evidence for something that is beyond human investigation, thus that notion would make no sense to anyone. Evidence can only exist if investigation is possible.

quatona · Jan 3, 2015

Conscious Z said:
The reason you don't agree with the quote

I don´t disagree with the quote. I disagree with it being used in response to claims regarding the allegedly supernatural.

is that you are placing too restrictive of a definition on "extraordinary."

I don´t think I placed any restriction on it.

Extraordinary things need not be things beyond human investigation.

I just don´t think there can be - per definition - natural/physical/... evidence for claims regarding the alleged supernatural. So what would be left would be "supernatural evidence" (and I can´t make sense of this term).

If someone told me that there as a 40,000 pound land mammal living in the neighborhood next to mine, I would consider that an extraordinary claim, but it is still within the scope of human investigation. It would, however, require extraordinary evidence. That evidence could be multiple witnesses with video, tracks, hair samples, etc.

Yeah, that´s not a claim regarding the supernatural, to begin with.

It is logically impossible to say that there could be evidence for something that is beyond human investigation, thus that notion would make no sense to anyone. Evidence can only exist if investigation is possible.

Exactly my point. So demanding ordinary or extraordinary or whatever evidence for the allegedly supernatural makes no sense.

Question For Fellow Atheists - Extraordinary Evidence

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