I think the premise that claims require evidence is biased toward a naturalistic view of the world that says empirical, testable knowledge is the only real knowledge or is superior to other kinds of knowledge. We can make claims or assert knowledge about unprovable things and we do all the time.
If we are talking about whether or not to believe extraordinary claims, then I think the real issue is not evidence but trust. Either we have confidence in the “claimer” or we don’t. Obviously people making scientific claims with no evidence aren’t playing by the rules to be considered trustworthy scientific sources. But for example, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss an “extraordinary claim” of sexual abuse or witnessed war crimes because of a lack of evidence. I would evaluate how trustworthy the source was. Same for people who claim miraculous things have happened to them. I don’t think their beleivableness depends of evidence, as much as trust.
I do exactly that with looking at references–if it’s by an author who routinely makes significant errors, almost never cites his own mistakes, and passes unfounded speculations of his off as confident conclusions (yes, I am thinking of someone specific), then I will assume that he is wrong unless I can get corroboration. If, on the other hand, this is from someone with a very good track record of accuracy, accurate confidence levels in conclusions, and error checking; then I will assume that the author is right until I find very good evidence to the contrary.
I think it’s interesting to see all the different ways we are imagining this dictum applied. I first assumed it was something from the mouths of science deniers, and some corner of the Internet confirmed that. But it seems that it has many possible applications. Or rather misapplications.
how about 100% of atheists deny that Christ was incarnate through impregnation of a virgin by the Holy Spirit?
Wouldnt that be an extraodinary claim that science cannot reconcile? And yet, the Christian believes it right?
What would be the extraodinary evidence for the incarnation and virgin birth? (we dont actually have any…so there’s that!)
Hopefully that puts a little perspective on your comment as it fails to consider the implications of a far bigger scientific problem for ALL Christianity!
Any Christian maintaining strict adhearance to the principles of your claim above falsifies said Christians own belief in the incarnation and virgin birth! Thats problematic if for no other reason than the bible tells us most will be decieved and only the few will be saved…so its the 1%er’s who win the game biblically (which is the complete opposite of what you are saying)
My evidence…Abraham, when trying to save Sodom and Gomorah gave up on trying to bargan with God because even he knew the stats werent great. The world hasnt improved.
I can’t follow you the whole way here. The recognition of the truth of the message/‘claim’ plays an important role for me. No matter how much I trust someone my trust is not limitless if what is claimed seems too far a reach.
At university people stopped inviting me to movie nights if there was going to be a horror film, because I almost always regarded them as comedy. I guess laughing during a horror film is unsettling to some folks.
I saw one of those Tesla ones the other day. My mind first said, “Federation shuttlecraft” before context hit and I recognized it.
As a real estate salesman my dad was always very honest about problems with any piece of property. It gave the agency he worked for a reputation for honesty . . . right up until he found the two partners were embezzling, they went to prison, and the agency shut down.
Thanks for your response Adam. I was hoping you’d chip in on this discussion—we may not agree on the age of the earth or evolution, but when you stick to discussing Christ and Him crucified some of the things you have to say turn out to be very, very helpful. And these questions you’re raising here are the questions I’ve been wrestling with myself when considering this question.
The Incarnation and the Resurrection and central tenets of Christianity like that are indeed extraordinary claims, but they are historical in nature rather than scientific and as such they can not be reproduced either in a lab or by comparison with any other naturally occurring process. This being the case I wonder if perhaps “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is an impossible standard here (@klw expressed this point pretty eloquently in post number 15 above). After all, the only way you’re going to get the kind of extraordinary evidence that would satisfy people would be by going back in time and keeping Mary and Joseph under constant and intrusive surveillance the entire time. Even then, you’d probably end up with people claiming that the footage had been faked or that they’d used actors. So things such as that are things that we have to accept by faith on the basis of trust.
It’s a different matter for questions such as the age of the earth and the relationships between species. These are things that are amenable to scientific investigation because we are dealing with phenomena and conclusions that can be tested through observation and measurement of physical evidence according to repeatable principles. It’s situations such as this where the maxim “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” applies. The way that I interpret it is that if you want to overturn a conclusion that is based on evidence and measurement (e.g. our measurements of radioisotopes indicate that the Earth is 4.54±0.05 billion years old, and our measurements of genetic sequences indicate that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor about 6 million years ago) then the evidence you present in refutation of that conclusion needs to be of comparable quality to the evidence in support of it, for example by having higher precision measurements, tighter error bars, or robust evidence for some other phenomenon yet to be considered.
The more people are into horror the more you’ll hear laughter. Depending on the film. The comedy gore-*hore film “Terrifier 3” is coming out this year and it’s trying to be the goriest film this year, even redoing scenes to not get out done by “In a Violent Nature” and there will definitely be tons of laughter. It’s already rated R but they are having a special 21+ showing where it will be like at Rocky Horror Show playing with popcorn being tossed and so on.
I have lots of friends who do SFX practical effects and sometimes I see them making stuff for films. One of my friends helped do scenes for some
cool stuff. It’s really funny when actress and actors don’t know how much will be squirting and they are trying to keep a straight face while corn syrup is shooting 10 feet away.
Sure, I agree. I might lose confidence in a person if they are claiming something too crazy. I think maybe this just points to the idea that some things aren’t going to be believeable unless you have personal experience of your own to corroborate testimony or the necessary background to evaluate whether or not another person is a reliable source. And a lot of times we can’t, so remaining skeptical is an option.
I don’t so much lose confidence in them as I just figure they conceptualize the sacred differently. I don’t think that category is subject to empirical criteria, how it appears to us is subject to what we’ve become conditioned to expect. And that isn’t a defect. The modern mindset conditions us not to see anything at all in the sacred. I can wrap my head around God - indeed I neither can nor want to deny it. But a transcendent man who becomes God is out of my reach, at least for now.
@SkovandOfMitaze:
“I guess to me it’s weird for me to try to classify evidence as extraordinary or not. Not really sure what it means. To me there is either evidence or not evidence.”
@jammycakes:
" If you want to claim that an evidence-based conclusion is wrong, then the evidence that you present against it must at the very minimum be of similar quality to the best evidence that is presented in support of it."
In these points I agree with @SkovandOfMitaze and @jammycakes.
Claims may not always need strong evidence but they do not gain wide acceptance before there is sufficient evidence to support the claim.
Trust is a double-edged sword. If I trust someone, I am more likely to believe what (s)he told me.
On the other hand, trust is the cause why many start to support false beliefs. If a trusted Christian - preacher, pastor, priest - tells something as being the truth or the correct interpretation, many will believe. If the teaching of a trusted person and an unknown person conflicts, trust makes people to believe the trusted person without checking the facts.
I am an atheist, and I don’t make that denial. Rather, I have yet to be convinced that it is true. Could be true, I guess, but I see no reason to believe it.
I think there are two buckets of claims here.
First, we have claims that should have left evidence that we can observe today. For example, if someone claimed that an asteroid 1 mile across landed in New York yesterday you should be able to find some evidence to confirm it. These are what I call matters of fact.
Second, we have claims that wouldn’t have left any evidence. These include many of the supernatural claims found in the gospels. These I would consider matters of faith since they can neither be confirmed nor contradicted by evidence.
As an atheist, the best explanation I have come across is that it is really, really hard to convince yourself to believe in something you don’t believe. I think this is true of everyone. For example, it would probably take something extraordinary for most Christians to convert to Hinduism.
The diversity of the evidence is also important. In the sciences, the consilience of many independent lines of evidence is something you look for in a good theory. @Kendel mentioned fossils which are great pieces of evidence. Independent of the fossils are igneous rocks that contain unstable isotopes and their daughter products. Amazingly, we can use one to predict the other. When you find a T. rex fossil you can predict that it is below the K-Pg boundary which is marked by igneous rocks with very specific ratios of U/Pb (two isotope pairs), K/Ar, and Rb/Sr, to name three. On its face, it is pretty extraordinary that we can predict ratios of isotopes in rocks based on the fossils we find above and below them. Another oft cited example is the divergence of DNA sequence correlating with phylogenies based on morphology. Or you can combine all three, using fossils and rocks to estimate time since common ancestry and then predict DNA divergence between two species.
Unpacking this further with that atheist friend of mine, it seemed like a chicken-and-egg problem. It seemed automatic and innate for him (a philosophical naturalist) to approach a problem or event with the assumption that the supernatural did not exist. Therefore, any natural explanation for a natural event, no matter how seemingly odd or contrived that explanation, would a priori always be more probable than anything involving the supernatural (e.g. explaining Jesus’s empty tomb). In contrast for me, a theist, supernatural causes were within my realm of possible causes and so an explanation for a natural event (e.g. the empty tomb) that did involve the supernatural did not a priori seem as impossible to me as it did to him. (In evaluating supernatural causes against candidate natural explanations the supernatural did not rank as inherently improbable for me as it did for him).
I’m not disparaging athiests here…the conversation just made me realize that everyone’s openness to evidence (scientific or historical) involves a degree of personal subjectivity, i.e., the worldview that one comes to the table with. Sometimes we are consciously aware of the assumptions behind our worldviews, other times we may just have “gut feelings” of what we find believable or not. Is it possible to “step out” of one’s worldview to really think and perceive things from a very different view? I’m not sure how easy it is to get out of that chicken vs. egg loop.
I see no disparagement in your posts, so all is good. At times it is difficult for believers and non-believers to find common ground, and that applies as much to myself as anyone else.
One other factor that I can’t help but see is culture. How else are we to explain the geographic distribution of different religions? What we find more believable can be influenced by the culture we grow up in. If memory serves, the largest factor for someone being a Christian as an adult was being raised in the church. Our views of science within Western culture also differ from other cultures across the world.
Thanks, I appreciate the generosity of your conversation too!
Yeah, I think culture and rearing-environment plays a big role in the worldviews we develop, and the religion one holds, as if by osmosis. I also think (as a libertarian free-will advocate), that it is good for each one, as we grow out of parental influence and control, to rationally evaluate what we believe as we come into contact with other religions and worldviews. And I think we have the power to change. People do change religions and worldviews, but not at a high rate. It is easier, of course, just to blend in with the surrounding culture of people and conform to “the prevailing tribe” . And cognitive dissonance is never fun for anybody.
interpretation, many will believe. If the teaching of a trusted person and an unknown person conflicts, trust makes people to believe the trusted person without checking the facts.