We have a winner! Bravo on the standards of evidence (though it still seems a little vague). May I ask the same standard of evidence in regards to
your God?
Thank you! I’ll try not to spend the reward all in one place
In reply to your question, I have only one “standard of evidence:” whether the the “proof” is relevant. For instance, if the purple alien proponent attempted to prove his point by patiently explaining that twinkies have yellow angel food on the outside but mysterious creme on the inside, I would not accept that evidence as proof of the suggestion, even if I ate the twinkie. But if he said, “listen to the birds closely, and you will hear them singing the alien’s name,” then I would accept that, because it seems logical that a creature would know its creator.
Therefore, potentially any evidence - even the word of a fool- can be considered. At least the standard is fair, as far as it goes.
But one thing alone does not convince. It is the quantum of evidence that ultimately convinces me.
Let’s agree to call this quantum “the burden of proof,” to borrow from the crime dramas.
For me, the burden of proof was high. The Church had to be able to reconcile its claim to supernatural origin and life as against myriad competing explanations and counter arguments.
A most capable administrator once asked “What is truth?” and I duly mimicked the query.
It would be tedious in the extreme for anyone to have to endure the story how my doubts were eventually resolved (very many personal stories tend to be tedious- rather like “let me tell you about my darling little boy and what he did in school today”).
But, in brief (and only because you asked!) I started from the Church more or less today and worked backward in time.
I reasoned, if the Church is wrong, then Maximillian Kolbe was wrong, and Himmler was right. Pope Benedict xV was wrong when he said WWI was the suicide of Europe, but the Kaiser, LLoyd George, Kitchener, the Tsar, Poincare were right; that Pope Paul VI was wrong, and the people who lectured us from Planned Parenthood were right.
This seemed odd, since I felt, based on other evidence (like the number of dead people or the fact that the simplest people were exactly the ones ignoring Planned Parenthood), that the men who opposed the Church were ridiculous non-entities who had somehow interjected themselves into modern life as against the efforts of all humanity to the contrary.
Mind you, I was generally skeptical, and the more I began to question, the more things came apart. You can imagine what happened when I scrutinized my patriotism, my politics, and so forth.
“Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.”
But something caught my attention in a Tom Stoppard play, of all places. It was a chance quotation, to the effect that people will reduce anything you say to the common denominator of what they wish to understand. I perceived an idea I could work with. I was quite surprised when I noticed that long before, a consonant idea had been expressed, that a man who rejects certain laws will not adjust even in the face of a miracle.
With those ideas, plus skepticism, I felt I had discovered a method I could use.
The rest was just a matter of running experiments, which is to say, a mere issue of time.
How is it possible that you have over 4,000 posts on here and are still making the worst argument for which you’ve probably been told hundreds of times is false, yet you still do it anyway? Who on this forum made the claim that there is no God? Do you not understand the difference between denying a claim (lack of belief) vs an outright statement of claiming that there is no God? Let me try and put it on your level. Do you believe in leprechauns? Well then why doesn’t the extraordinary claim that there are no leprechauns require just as much extraordinary evidence as the extraordinary claim that there are leprechauns?
**You are in a trap you can’t escape because you either…
