The Glade 4.0

What exactly is "sufficient" evidence?

Here's a clue - intelligence has nothing to do with what positions a person holds. Just deciding people who hold positions you don't see how they can hold are "stupid" indicates you are intellectually lazy and childish to boot.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed to see both of these posts. It's extremely gratifying to see some honesty and fairness for a change, instead of just the combination of snark and question begging that dominated the earlier parts of the thread. I appreciate what you both said very much!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Your emphasis is on the wrong word. Try focusing on what a good definition of evidence is. As you're in law enforcement, you should have a strong understanding of what is solid, objective or verifiable evidence vs. what is subjective, speculative or circumstantial. Further, you should also know from your police work that eye witness testimony is some of the weakest evidence there is.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... it/?page=1

The bible is a collection of multiple "eyewitness" accounts, may of which were written down years after the events. This should cause you a great deal of concern over the accuracy of the accounts.

Except that I'm not, and I have en excellent understanding of evidence. Eyewitness testimony is only weak in relation to physical evidence collected using modern techniques. It is not actually "weak" in an absolute sense. You are claiming I'm not focusing on "a definition of evidence", then switching to "solid, objective, or verifiable" versus "subjective, speculative, or circumstantial". In other words, there's nothing wrong with the definition of evidence at all, it's the type of evidence. The only area of those where there's legitimate room for criticism is "verifiable", as it's hard to verify eyewitness accounts from thousands of years ago. "Solid" is subjective, Biblical evidence is definitely "objective" (all evidence of anything is always "objective", there is no such thing as "subjective evidence"), and the latter 3 all don't apply either.




No, it really shouldn't. The events in question happened in an era where literacy was a true luxury, and often amidst circumstances (wars and the like) where recording it would have been impractical at best.

Oral histories are to be expected, and the rarity of and delay in documentation is to be expected given the extreme length of time since the events in question and the general problems in that era of creating and preserving documentation. The comparison to law enforcement evidentiary techniques is a very weak one because we are not in a position to apply those techniques in the first place, nor could they have been applied at the time.

While it's legitimate to point out the lack of physical evidence of many specifically supernatural events in the Bible, there's plenty of physical evidence of the more mundane ones, and the supernatural events were generally quite rare compared to everything going on in the world around them, and were often not of a nature to leave physical evidence for us to find anyhow.

Therefore, there's no reason to think any better evidence ought to be available. There's also no reason anyone is "focusing ont he wrong word". The emphasis should be on "sufficient", because what complaining about people believing something based on "insufficient evidence" really means "not enough evidence to convince me." The only "subjectivity" involved is people's personal assessment as to what they find convincing. I don't think you realize how unbelievably silly I find it to NOT be convinced by Biblical evidence, especially in light of the nature of the latter New Testament books and the availability of allegory as an explanation for most of Genesis, but there's no point in even going into it. I see no reason to think that it would be received with anything even remotely approaching detached consideration.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Maybe because the latter NT books were revised to fit the actual evidence to match better?

Its all anecdotes and ridiculousness. But then, so is pretty much all of religion.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Sweet. Something positive.

/highfive Amanar

/grabs Lenas' arm during the high five, twists it behind his back, and breaks his elbow.

I'm disappointed in you Lenas, showing weakness like that. We're sworn adversaries here, don't you forget it.

=P

Excellent. /rubs hands together.

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Holy shitsnacks!

No they weren't. The later New Testament books (except for Revelation) are letters. They're advice, and contain absolutely no evidence at all. You can stew that around in your head for a while.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's one key problem - nobody's claiming there is proof of the existence of God, nor are they ridiculing anyone for not believing. On the contrary, countless atheists claim belief in God is ridiculous, and claim there is proof of this.

You really don't understand the argument that atheists are making then.

Belief in a God is an act of faith. Faith, by nature, does NOT require proof.

Where atheists get their panties in a wad (understandably so) is when theists attempt to pervert science, twist it, misinterpret it, or otherwise bend it to fit the narrative they want to tell.

Tell someone you have a sincere belief in a God; that you have no need for proof, that you have true faith, that no amount of science will convince you otherwise and you'll be left alone.

Tell someone how all their science that doesn't fit your narrative of the world and God, and so their science must be wrong; then you have a problem.

By the time that happens, atheists already have their panties in a wad that theists are expressing belief, having faith, or pointing out that there's evidence for what they believe, even when we're not claiming that evidence constitute proof - which is exactly what's happened in this thread.

He understands the atheist argument just fine. What you are doing is taking only the most reasonable portion of it, made in response to only the most extreme and unreasonable believers, and pretending that's all that annoys atheists, when in fact they regularly demonstrate that they



No, you generally won't be left alone, especially since this argument really isn't complete or acceptable. Get it out of your head right now that atheists are ok with people believing as long as they base it only on faith. As a general rule, they aren't. It drives them crazy and they just can't let it pass.



Duh.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

To the first part, of course. If all you can come up with to justify your belief is a gut feeling (faith) or a magic book, especially when that gut feeling/book is counter to HUGE volumes of scientific data that shows that your beliefs are at least partially incorrect, one should expect to be thought ridiculous.

As to the second part, no one is claiming there is proof there isn't a god. What people are claiming is that the current evidence that is used to justify the belief in a god is terrible and that anyone who believes based on that is misguided at best.

It's threads like this that help me understand why the X-Files was such a popular show. People just WANT to believe in something extraordinary. I get that the simple answers aren't as fun, but they do have the benefit of generally being real.

The evidence is quite good - as long as you look into it a little more deeply than "supernatural, therefore not true" and don't make excuses like "extraordinary claims." In point of fact, you aren't in a position to decide anything is "misgided." Thats a reflection of the fundamental atheist arrogance that unbelief puts one in the position of deciding what beliefs are credible and which not.



More question begging. You dont know whats real and what isnt. There is nothong simple about the atheist answer either, unless by simple you mean "just tossez aside uncomfortable questions as not in need of an answer

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No. the Evidence is NOT good. That isn't even the issue though.

As soon as you bring the concept of 'evidence' into a discussion of faith you create the presumption in your audience that there is some level of empirical data that could sway your final belief one way or another. By arguing by claiming to use evidence, the theist attempting use use the language of science without understanding that same language. The structure of scientific discourse includes with it the implicit understanding that the preponderance of evidence will determine the final decision, and that parties can be swayed one way or another. Science REQUIRES that observations be subject to re-interpretation. The theist philosophy does not. If science was NOT subject to constant re-interpretation we would never have developed our current theories of gravity.


Furthermore, science and faith have different purposes. Science is not looking for Truth. Science seeks to create and understand the mechanisms and then provide predictions.

Faith has proven a poor prognosticator, and science makes for some lousy Truth.

Neither side is speaking the same language, and have different goals, and so will continue to conflict unless the theists agree to stop trying to 'talk science' where none actually is occurring.

By the same token, there aren't currently a lot of atheists supporting, assisting and funding governments and organizations dedicated to imprisoning and/or murdering people who violate the tenets of atheism. And, no, I'm not just talking about Islamists; I'm also talking about American evangelical groups advocating for the violent repression of homosexuals in places like Uganda.

I disagree. I think calling a claim extraordinary and requiring extraordinary proof before accepting it is just another way of saying that there's a significant amount of "background" evidence (for lack of a better word) against it that must be overcome if the claim is to be believable. For instance, if I say that I ate oatmeal for breakfast yesterday, that's a fairly mundane claim that's well within the range of "ordinary" activity people engage in, so there's no background evidence against it. As a result, some simple corroborating evidence - like my fiancée's testimony that she saw a pot with leftover oatmeal in it - should be sufficient to convince people that there's a pretty good chance I really did eat oatmeal for breakfast. On the other hand, if I claim that after eating my oatmeal, I spontaneously began to float about the room, surrounded by a translucent, pink bubble, whilst ethereal choir music played in the background, well, that's not at all within the range of ordinary experience for people - indeed, it's quite contrary to normal, everyday experience, not to mention pretty much everything we know about physics. So, in light of that contrary background evidence, my fiancée's testimony about some corroborating evidence like pink scuff marks on the ceiling or her having heard choir music coming from the part of the house I was in shouldn't be anywhere close to enough to convince people that I really did float around the room in a pink bubble. Hell, even if she testified that she actually witnessed it, that wouldn't be enough. Basically, nothing short of consistent reports from multiple, impartial eyewitnesses (and maybe even video with no sign of manipulation), followed by a shit-ton of analysis that fails to turn up any motive or mechanism for a potential hoax, is going to be enough to convince people that there's even a chance it really happened. And rightly so.

In other words, it's an extraordinary claim, so it requires extraordinary proof in order to overcome the contrary background evidence from normal daily experience and our baseline scientific knowledge.

From non-pricks, sure. But there's quite a few who respond along the lines of:

Unfortunately, it is, in fact, pretty good.


Which there is.


That depends on the person in question, but the fact is that many theists understand "evidence" as well, or better than many atheists. With NO empirical evidence at all, we wouldn't have any coherent beleifs - no one would have any idea at all what to believe in.



It is not at all true that theism does not allow observation to be re-interpreted. This is a common straw man aimed at taking the worst sort of literalist and propping them up as representative of believers in general.



True, but irrelevant.



Also true but irrelevant - and not as true as you might think. The Genesis story bears a striking, if highly allegorical, resemblance to the Big Bang theory.



Thesists do not need to stop "talking science" at all. On the contrary, atheists need to stop demanding "proof" (nothing is ever proven in science), stop treating different questions as the same (age of the Earth/universe versus the existence of God in the first place) and stop pretending that things are "not evidence" just because of the nature of the claims they are making.

Your fundamental thesis is wrong - Theists, by treating the documentary evidence they have as evidence are not somehow intruding on the territory of science. All they're doing is saying "we have reasons for our belief based on actual events that, as far as we can tell, happened as described." Arguments that they must not have happened simply because they would involve things outside the ability of science to observe except when and if God wished to be observed rely on either A) begging the question ("supernatural events cannot happen therefore this is not evidence of them. We know that they do not happen because there is no evidence") or simply changing the properties of God so as to require Him to submit to human observation to exist - i.e. arguing about a different god altogether.

You're sort of on the right track insofar as yes, faith and science exist to answer different questions, but that that does not mean there are not areas of overlap, most of which revolve around "why do we believe A and not B". There's also the fundamental fact that atheists frequently do try to intrude on the realm of truth, either through philosophies based on observation (utilitarian ethics, for example) that demand adherence to a truth that exists only for the sake of its own internal consistency, or simply louding insisting that there's no need for Truth at all.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So, if I understand you correctly, it's ok to ridicule the beliefs and lifestyles of at least a billion people because some of them do something you don't like?

Belief in God is ridiculous because groups of believers persecute others? So, if some geologists went out and persecuted some people, geology would become ridiculous?

Deflect much?

Oh, and check out North Korea's stance on religion sometime. Atheists do it too.

Unfortunately, there's generally even more "background" evidence in the other direction.. That's actually one of the problems with Biblical evidence - it carries a great deal of "background evidence", mostly in the form of "If X isn't true, then where did Y, later on, come from". "Background" evidence is highly indirect and very difficult to understand - and it also tends to only carry weight with people that already believe the claim or are undecided and have it pointed out. That works both ways, though. Either side is unlikely to give a great deal of weight to the other's "background" because it's so intangible and therefore easily dismissed.



For claims happening right now, that's reasonable. It's not reasonable for claims happening thousands of years in the past when the means to either easily record things in such a manner, or to record them.

It also still begs the question. You are essentially saying your later claim is extraordinary because it's extraordinary. You seemed to think that the idea that George Zimmerman was defending himself was pretty extraordinary, and continued to insist that he must not have been because you "bet dollars to donuts" - even when overwhelming physical evidence backed up his story.

That. right there, is the problem with most complaints about "Evidence". It wouldn't matter what evidence there was, because a lot of people simply do not believe in God, and won't right up to the point they're unavoidably confronted with it. If people can't even believe physical evidence of a crime, why should anyone be terribly concerned with complaints that evidence of a God that can choose, if, when, and where He chooses to make himself known is not readily available?

In other words, it's an extraordinary claim, so it requires extraordinary proof in order to overcome the contrary background evidence from normal daily experience and our baseline scientific knowledge.[/quote]

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What proof would you accept that there is no God then? What would convince you?

Only removed from PRC list of mental illnesses in 2001, does not acknowledge same-sex marriage. Also does not allow foreign adoption of Chinese babies by same-sex couples.

Homosexuality was illegal in the Soviet Union, and despite claims that this was to "improve relations with the Church" the Orthodox Church was treated nearly as badly as the homosexuals were, and being religious was at least as big a no-no as being gay. More likely, since the Nazis had even worse attitudes towards gays and Stalin's government portrayed homosexuality as associated with facism both sides were trying to use it to denigrate the other.

The types of atheists hostile to homosexuality are generally those that lost a war already, hot, or cold, or ended up trapped in their little hermit country after an armistice.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You wouldn't prove that, you would disprove it. I don't know how one would go about doing it. and you are in Tu Quo Que territory.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's the point you're missing. There is no level of evidence that can prove there is no God. That means evidence is meaningless in this context. Yet its continually brought into the discussion by theists.