Larger claims require large evidence?

[Lily_Bernans]

To paraphrase what Hitchens once argued: I’ll grant you all of the miracles, but that doesn’t prove your claims. Perhaps Jesus was just a sorcerer, how could you tell? Are you so adept in the ways of magic that you can look at his work and tell it’s coming directly from God?

Furthermore, if Satan presented himself to you now in the guise of Jesus and performed some magic tricks for you, how would you know he’s not the real deal?

I would know them by their fruits. Ultimately, Satan would not want me to do good. Jesus would never ask me to do anything but good. And, I’ve spent my life in prayer. I’ve established an intimate personal relationship with Jesus.

 

[Oreoracle]

I would know them by their fruits. Ultimately, Satan would not want me to do good. Jesus would never ask me to do anything but good. And, I’ve spent my life in prayer. I’ve established an intimate personal relationship with Jesus.

But God works in mysterious ways, right? You can’t expect to know that the ends will be good based solely on his instructions. If you were instructed by the apparition to kill your child, you might become a pawn of Satan or a modern Abraham. Who’s to say?

 

[Lily_Bernans]

But God works in mysterious ways, right? You can’t expect to know that the ends will be good based solely on his instructions. If you were instructed by the apparition to kill your child, you might become a pawn of Satan or a modern Abraham. Who’s to say?

The days of blood sacrifice are over. They ended in the first century. I would know that would not be God. I know him. I know him as well, or better, than one knows a spouse, so I would not be fooled. Better, because spouses can, and some do, lie.

I’m not saying Satan can’t fool people; he fools many. He just can’t fool those of us who are in intimate relationship with Christ. Saying we can be fooled is like saying you don’t know your spouse at all.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Sagan’s “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a statement that can be parsed in several ordinary or extraordinary ways.

The claim that there is a God is a claim that some extraordinary being exists unlike anything on earth. But what extraordinary evidence would support that claim? The most extraordinary evidence would be the visible presence of the Deity witnessed by many. This is not likely since the Deity is spirit. The more ordinary evidence would be the personal testimony of the experience of God in a very spiritual relationship that many claim to have had with God. This ordinary evidence cannot be discounted as irrelevant nor can it be thus argued that the claim of experiencing God is refuted. This does not prevent an atheist such as Sagan from saying the evidence is not convincing, but it’s clear he has demanded extraordinary evidence that God will not provide without the condition first of an open heart as well as an open mind.

On the other hand, the claim that there is no God is an extraordinary claim without either extraordinary or ordinary evidence. The lack of extraordinary evidence is self evident and does not need to be explained. The lack of ordinary evidence is in the fact that disbelief in and of itself also does not qualify as evidence. Atheism means that one has closed one’s heart (and therefore one’s mind) to the possibility of God. In that instance, the atheist might well say regarding the extraordinary claim of the existence of God, “Case closed.”

 

[Bradski]

To me, a fairy is the tiny Disney Tinker Bell, but there are many other species. In medieval times fairies were larger and stole babies to replace them with changelings. Do you know what species she saw? (I too would not accept that she actually saw one, just interested in how she managed to know it was a fairy).

And when anyone gets a visitation or a vision of Jesus, who do they see? I will almost guarantee that the majority of people would see a tall, slim, handsome, hippy looking dude with long straight light brown hair, fair complexion, trimmed beard and a long white smock type cloak. Probably speaking English.

I wonder how many have seen a very short, dark complexioned bald guy. Maybe looks a bit like Ghandi. Not many…

 

[inocente]

And when anyone gets a visitation or a vision of Jesus, who do they see? I will almost guarantee that the majority of people would see a tall, slim, handsome, hippy looking dude with long straight light brown hair, fair complexion, trimmed beard and a long white smock type cloak. Probably speaking English.

I wonder how many have seen a very short, dark complexioned bald guy. Maybe looks a bit like Ghandi. Not many…

Don’t know, Catholics would know more about that kind of vision. Isaiah, of course, describes the Messiah as marred - “For he grew up before him like a tender plant, and like a root out of a dry ground; he had no form and he had no majesty that we should look at him, and there is no attractiveness that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others, and a man of sorrows, intimately familiar with suffering; and like one from whom people hide their faces; and we despised him and did not value him.”.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

And when anyone gets a visitation or a vision of Jesus, who do they see? I will almost guarantee that the majority of people would see a tall, slim, handsome, hippy looking dude with long straight light brown hair, fair complexion, trimmed beard and a long white smock type cloak. Probably speaking English.

I wonder how many have seen a very short, dark complexioned bald guy. Maybe looks a bit like Ghandi. Not many…

What is missing, so that you can guarantee it?

St. Paul reports a revelation he had from Jesus Christ, but he doesn’t mention how Jesus looked like, nor the language in which he received the revelation. What makes you think it was probably in English?

 

[neophyte]

But it wouldn’t be prudent to demand greater certainty in line with the implications of the claim?

Special pleading is irrational, and it’s never prudent to engage in irrationality.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

And when anyone gets a visitation or a vision of Jesus, who do they see? I will almost guarantee that the majority of people would see a tall, slim, handsome, hippy looking dude with long straight light brown hair, fair complexion, trimmed beard and a long white smock type cloak. Probably speaking English.

I wonder how many have seen a very short, dark complexioned bald guy. Maybe looks a bit like Ghandi. Not many…

Actually in early Christian art, Jesus is portrayed as a beardless, short-haired young man.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Good_shepherd_02b_close.jpg/220px-Good_shepherd_02b_close.jpg

The bald guy you mention sounds like St. Paul to me.

 

[lynnvinc]

In the example I gave, that is the case. But in general, inaction may not be the safest route. Consider the climate change debate. The reforms that would reduce our carbon output and emphasize cleaner technologies are minor inconveniences in the short-term and promising investments in the long-term. Even if climate change had sparse evidence to support it, attempting to solve the (possibly non-existent) problem anyway has few drawbacks if the environmentalists are wrong, but not doing anything would be disastrous if the deniers are wrong.

I do believe the evidence for climate change is adequate just to be clear, but hopefully this example got my point across.

Actually – and this is the craziness of it – we started out with that thinking back in 1990 with the idea that even if there were some minor costs, we’d be willing to bear these to do things that mitigate what could turn out to be a terrible harm on humanity and others of Gods creatures.

Over the 25 years since then we have found out 2 things:

1. We are actually saving $thousands without lowering our living standards by reducing our contributions to GHG emissions by over 60% below our 1990 emissions levels. It just makes a lot of economic sense to become energy/resource efficient/conservative; and we’ve also been saving wrt our solar panels and EV. If more people would follow that, the whole economy would perk up and people would be living better, more healthy lives, also reducing local pollution and other concomitant harms.
2. The problems associated with and projected into the future from GW are much worse than they thought back 25 years ago AND the evidence has just gotten stronger than stronger.

There is another consideration, and that is our immortal souls…

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Actually in early Christian art, Jesus is portrayed as a beardless, short-haired young man.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Good_shepherd_02b_close.jpg/220px-Good_shepherd_02b_close.jpg

The bald guy you mention sounds like St. Paul to me.

Since he was a carpenter, he would have worked in general construction, too. I think he would have been a lot more muscular than that drawing.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I would know them by their fruits. Ultimately, Satan would not want me to do good. Jesus would never ask me to do anything but good. And, I’ve spent my life in prayer. I’ve established an intimate personal relationship with Jesus.

Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.

Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.