We experience the world every day, and form a mental pattern of the way it behaves and how we can expect it to continue to behave. Occasionally we meet events or phenomena which do not fit that pattern.
That, of course, doesnât mean they are unbelievable, merely that they do not fit the pattern we have come to expect. We need a reason why that should be so, some evidence that will allow us to fit them into our worldview.
Or, in other words, you do not like them.
For that just is an explanation
why you do not like those claims.
Or do you imagine you are going to
like claims that do not fit your beliefs?
If you want to show that liking a claim as such does not play any part, you have to show what happens when claim is liked with evidence playing less of a part.
You did not offer any such example. So, letâs look at an example I see:
You have no other choice really. When someone is making a claim about their own thoughts, believing them is simply a sign of respect.
First, letâs note that he did not point to any evidence that people in general (or he in particular) never lie about their thoughts or motives, and are never mistaken about them.
In fact, one could collect overwhelming evidence against this claim using just fictional detective stories alone (with addition of âart imitates lifeâ).
Second, the mention of ârespectâ shows that he really likes the claim that people in general (or he in particular) never lie about their thoughts or motives, and are never mistaken about them.
So, does he treat this claim as âordinaryâ or âextraordinaryâ?
If he treated this claim as âextraordinaryâ, he would have had either to present some evidence (and to claim it is âextraordinaryâ), or to admit that I am withing my rights in rejecting that claim.
But he did neither thing.
And thatâs one simple way in which we see that, for people who use this principle, âan ordinary claimâ is âa claim I likeâ.
Now, of course, you could say that in this case the principle was forgotten, misapplied, abused. That, had it been applied properly, âan ordinary claimâ would have been âa claim strongly supported by old evidenceâ.
But then this principle becomes something like âDonât ignore old evidence when looking at new one.â. A much better advice, but not the one that would help you to justify laziness. It would mean that you still have to look at
all evidence, investigate. You would not be able to just keep your beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence, after dismissing it as ânot extraordinaryâ.
An alternative is to say that âan ordinary claimâ is âa claim that fits old beliefsâ. But then it becomes a bit too obvious that such principle is just a cover for closed-mindedness. Which is inconvenient, given that atheists like to claim that they are very open-minded.
Feel free to look for still other interpretation.
