Does Statement Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Well.. Lets Find Out

[disillusioned]

Seriously, 1AAT1, give your head a shake.

 

Nobody here except for you is saying that a supernatural exists. If you want to say that the supernatural exists, then you first need to define what you mean by "supernatural". Defining this term is not our responsibility, as we are not the ones making any sort of claim. Unless and until you provide us with a coherent definition, the conversation is utterly meaningless.

 

If "supernatural" is to be treated literally (ie, that which is beyond the natural) then we first need to know what is meant by "natural". But let's leave this aside for the moment, since most of us probably have a fairly good notion of what the natural world is. If this definition is accepted, then I will happily cede that science cannot shed light on the supernatural (being, as it is, the study of the natural world). But again, no scientists are claiming that it can. All they claim is that they don't know about such things. It is up to those who wish to claim knowledge of the supernatural to substantiate their claims. There is no way around this.

 

To the question of what evidence will suffice, I reply that I don't know. The claim being made is not yet clear, and no evidence at all has been presented. Clearly state your claim, and then clearly present your reasons for accepting this claim. The evidence you present will then be judged to be either acceptable or not. If no evidence is presented, at least we will be able to tell you what you would need to produce in order to substantiate your claim. But if your claim is not well-defined, then no amount of evidence can substantiate it. Defining your claim is your responsibility. This problem must be dealt with first.

[DoubtingNate]

no maybe yall should stop askign questiosn you already knwo the answer to lol

Dude, do you even Socratic method???

[Deidre]

 

To reiterate:

 

We don't need to enter the world of hard scientific evidence when it comes to the god of the Bible.

 

To me, sufficient evidence would be if that deity fulfilled his promises, answered prayers, wrote a book that was not internally contradictory, if there were any contemporaries documenting the stories, if his word was in harmony with observable reality.

 

good good Fair enough appreciate that, sry missed that had alot of posts coming in

 

 

fulfill promises

answered prayers

book not internall contradictory

contemporaries

word in harmony with reality

 

Good good. i like that i will try to provide some of that for you brb

 

Unfortunately, your 'proof' of these things, will at best be what you view as evidence, not necessarily evidence. Based on what the Bible has taught you to look for, in terms of 'proving God' to others.

 

Doubting Thomas comes to mind, in reading through this thread.

 

But, such is faith.

[sdelsolray]

no maybe yall should stop askign questiosn you already knwo the answer to lol

I have asked no question.  I asked you to define "supernatural" before going any further, as have some other posters.

 

Define "supernatural".  After that, you can define "natural".

[Orbit]

A1 this is all very simple. The supernatural is by definition undetectable, even if it exists. There is simply nothing to argue about there. Evidence for the supernatural does not exist. Nothing to argue about there. If you claim it exists, you need to find proof it exists. Proof is verifiable, and the Bible does not count as proof. But, as mm says, the Bible is all fiction anyway so you're wasting your time.

[moanareina]

OK...lol is a pretty fancy expression for you to use on here...

 

no maybe yall should stop askign questiosn you already knwo the answer to lol

 

I guess you still don't understand why people ask you questions they know the answers to? That's insane...I mean, you should understand by now that if you state weird stuff that people will ask you not because they seek to know but because they want you to see how weird your claims are too...Kind of like you ask a child that insists that apples are blue to find you a blue apple...not because you think there really are blue apples out there but to make your child understand that there are no blue apples.

 

And the reason why people have different definitions what the supernatural is supposed to be should give you a hint...that it is actually invented. Things that are invented can have all kinds of definitions. It is called imagination. The human mind is able to imagine everything, that is why it is awesome. We can create the most fantastic stories and dwell on them. That does not make supernatural true, it only defines it if there was such a thing as the supernatural. We can tell stories of supernatural happenings, but just because lots of people have done so does not mean a supernatural exists.

 

Now why should anyone believe in anything that has not been proven by evidence to exist? I believed in a supernatural and I tested it as much as I could...and guess what! No supernatural to be detected. And you can test it too. Go out and pray for people who have no arms so their arms will grow back. You can start with fingers too, if that is less scary. Or go to a place where people have no food and bring some bread and maybe...ehm...fish with you. Pray for that stuff and distribute it and see what happens. Ah, and please if you do so...take a camera with you and some independent observers. So you can post your results here for us to see .

[mymistake]

 

 Supernatural is make believe.  Supernatural is fiction.  It is imaginary.  You will never find any objective evidence that conflicts with this definition.

 

All attempts to use science to detect the supernatural will get results consistent with supernatural is imaginary.

 

 

 mymistake just said the definition is "make believe" or "imaginary" thats not a definition thats a description or opinion or adjective. If that is a definition then Obama is not president he is a person with eyeballs and a mouth

 

lol so as we proceed...so with our definition that fits popular consensus from everyone else "not natural, outside the natural etc"

 

With this definition If science only detects the natural, and supernatural is "NOT natural" Then.....Science could never observe or test it, as i said ebfore it defines supernaural out of existence it doesnt allow supernatural proof to even occur in the first place. Its like asking for a plate of cheese from a barn full of only animals meat. If you cant test something with one methodology should you use another? using science to detect the supernatural is a category error

 

So false anaylisis keeps gettign applied Provide evidence for supernatural people will say...but the evidence they are looking for is Natural, So if supernatural is NOT natural, they will never accept my evidence, and they know they wont accept it before they even ask me...So why ask? just for giggles?

 

 

The definition is outside of natural.  I told you what it is.  Don't blame science.  Blame spiritual leaders for defining supernatural as something that is not possible.  There is no other methodology that can successfully test for supernatural.  We ask in case Christians want to be honest and admit they have no evidence.

 

 

 

its like a scientist asking why is the sky blue when he knwo full what the answer is, one would have to question his motives. asking for evidence you know beforehand you wont wont accept nor change your mind upon obtaining it.

 

You are being disingenuous.  It is not that we know that we won't accept evidence or change our minds.  Of course we would accept evidence and of course if the evidence is decisive we would change our minds.  What we know is that there is no evidence.  We ask the questions already knowing that Christians won't have the evidence so that Christians have the opportunity to admit their imaginary world is imaginary.

 

 

 

To reiterate:

 

We don't need to enter the world of hard scientific evidence when it comes to the god of the Bible.

 

To me, sufficient evidence would be if that deity fulfilled his promises, answered prayers, wrote a book that was not internally contradictory, if there were any contemporaries documenting the stories, if his word was in harmony with observable reality.

 

good good Fair enough appreciate that, sry missed that had alot of posts coming in

 

 

fulfill promises

answered prayers

book not internall contradictory

contemporaries

word in harmony with reality

 

Good good. i like that i will try to provide some of that for you brb

 

 

And when you fail then what?  I can tell you right now that you will fail.  Are you going to be like the rest and keep believing your religion must be right even though you can't show any evidence?

[sdelsolray]

Arguably, the term "non-natural" should be preferred over "supernatural" because it is more accurate, less judgmental, less overused and is devoid of biases.

 

Of course, that requires a definition of "natural".

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

 

To reiterate:

 

We don't need to enter the world of hard scientific evidence when it comes to the god of the Bible.

 

To me, sufficient evidence would be if that deity

 

fulfilled his promises,

 

answered prayers,

 

wrote a book that was not internally contradictory,

 

if there were any contemporaries documenting the stories,

 

if his word was in harmony with observable reality.

 

 

 

 

fulfilled promises, just 2 out of 1,000 of prophecies

1 God promises that the land of Israel would be restored in Genesis and Isaiah. In 1948 Israel was returned back to the Jewish people for the second time in history. This may not seem so astonishing until you realize that no nation in the history of the world has been scattered from its homeland and then returned! Israel has done it twice

 

2 Another Prophecy In Ezekiel 26 we can see in astonishing detail how the city of Tyre was to be destroyed, how it would be torn down, and how its debris would be thrown into the sea. When Alexander the Great marched on that area, he encountered a group of people holed up in a tower on an island off the coast near there. He could not cross the sea, so he could not fight those in the tower. Rather than wait them out, the proud conqueror had his army throw stones into the sea to build a land bridge to the tower. It worked. His army crossed the sea and overthrew the occupants of the stronghold. But where did he get so much stone? The rocks that were used for the land bridge were the leftover rubble from the city of Tyre . . . its stones cast into the sea!

 

answered prayers

"Coma"

is the broader term used to describe a prolonged state of unconsciousnesOutwardly, it resembles sleep. patients can fully regain consciousness

persistent vegetative state.

Someone in a persistent vegetative state has lost most higher cognitive function, but his or her brain shows some activity. The patient may open their eyes or exhibit small movements, but cannot speak or respond to commands. Patients can recover from this state

Both these situations are different from brain death, when brain dead they cannot recover regardless of all scientific resources it is irreversible.

Prayer answered

Doctors dont have the final say

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23768436/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/dead-man-recovering-after-atv-accident/

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ny-woman-declared-brain-dead-woke-up-moments-before-organs-harvested

 

there are over 100+ cases of brain dead recovered patients these are just 2

 

book not internally contradictory

not sure what you mean by internally contradictory, you mean stories or translations? this will be a big one to address but i can easily point out many ASSUMED contradictions put down a couple verses and i will see what i can do my friend

 

Contemporaries

i give you this one, there are no contemporaries accepted by the scientific communities but there are contemporaries of course such as some authors of certain books in the bible but again those arent ACCEPTED but they ARE contemporaries. just not accepted contemporaries. There is a difference between NO contemporaries and NOT ACCEPTED contemporaries. Furthermore both you and i agree that if we use this line of logic that no contemporaries mean there is no truth and that something invalid then that would be using genetic fallacy. Scientists would then need to trabel billions years back to BE a contemporary of the big bang to secure validity, but we both know NOT being an eye witness does not eliminate validity

 

Word in harmony with reality

 

there are 10,000 plus scientific facts that match reality with the bible this is Just 1..jsut 1 and this 1 is just scratching the surface in its own category about it

 

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2357-sig05-012-Planets-May-Leave-Tracks-in-Dust

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope probed the dusty disks that surround young stars, to look for the earliest signs of the formation of planetary systems According to the data scientist gathered from this telescope, planets like the Earth are formed from leftover waste and debris from their central star and surrounding it was also a cloud of dust

 

Genesis 1:2

Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep"

also in early earth it was surrounded by a cloud of dust

 

the cloud of dust is also mentioned in Job 38:9 "When I clothed it with clouds And wrapped it in thick gloom"

to see pics go to google type in space dust cloud

[mymistake]

Jesus must be real!  I'm going to ask him back into my heart right now!

[1AcceptingAThiest1]

those responses wont prove a GOD exist alone i knwo i was jsut responding to florud. Work shift ending will have to kcatch up with you guys monday. i will try to respond to you all specically if i can or MASS message if im running out of time. gtg ttyl

[mymistake]

those responses wont prove a GOD exist alone i knwo i was jsut responding to florud. Work shift ending will have to kcatch up with you guys monday. i will try to respond to you all specically if i can or MASS message if im running out of time. gtg ttyl

 

at all.  

 

 

Ezekiel 26

⁷ For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

 

 

The Bible doesn't say that Alexander or the Greeks will attack Tyre.  It says that Babylon will do it.  Oops.  The prophesy was only off by about 200 years, the wrong guy and the wrong army.  Can you say fail?  

 

Bonus points to Ezekiel for giving a "title of Christ" to Nebuchadnezzar.  Maybe it slipped God's mind that Christ was going to come to Earth for Calvary and the rising from the dead thing.  Or maybe Christians in the Second Century AD would look back through Ezekiel and hijack any religious phrases they wanted and simply make up whatever new meaning that would fit their agenda.

 

 

 

Furthermore:

 

Ezekiel 26

 

¹⁹ For thus saith the Lord God; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;

²⁰ When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;

²¹ I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God.

 

 The Bible says that Tyre will never be inhabited again.  This is a failed prophesy.

[Orbit]

fulfilled promises, just 2 out of 1,000 of prophecies

1 God promises that the land of Israel would be restored in Genesis and Isaiah. In 1948 Israel was returned back to the Jewish people for the second time in history. This may not seem so astonishing until you realize that no nation in the history of the world has been scattered from its homeland and then returned! Israel has done it twice

 

The people who did this were Christians. it wasn't a random happening; the creation of Israel was a political thing; it wouldn't be the first time the USA has drawn on Biblical beliefs in its foreign policy. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog, as is continues to do in the US's support of Israel in foreign policy because of the Christian beliefs of the population.

 

2 Another Prophecy In Ezekiel 26 we can see in astonishing detail how the city of Tyre was to be destroyed, how it would be torn down, and how its debris would be thrown into the sea. When Alexander the Great marched on that area, he encountered a group of people holed up in a tower on an island off the coast near there. He could not cross the sea, so he could not fight those in the tower. Rather than wait them out, the proud conqueror had his army throw stones into the sea to build a land bridge to the tower. It worked. His army crossed the sea and overthrew the occupants of the stronghold. But where did he get so much stone? The rocks that were used for the land bridge were the leftover rubble from the city of Tyre . . . its stones cast into the sea!

 

​These things were written into the Bible after the fact in many cases, so what you are seeing as prophecy is actually an after-the-fact interpolation

 

answered prayers

"Coma"

is the broader term used to describe a prolonged state of unconsciousnesOutwardly, it resembles sleep. patients can fully regain consciousness

persistent vegetative state.

Someone in a persistent vegetative state has lost most higher cognitive function, but his or her brain shows some activity. The patient may open their eyes or exhibit small movements, but cannot speak or respond to commands. Patients can recover from this state

Both these situations are different from brain death, when brain dead they cannot recover regardless of all scientific resources it is irreversible.

Prayer answered

Doctors dont have the final say

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23768436/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/dead-man-recovering-after-atv-accident/

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ny-woman-declared-brain-dead-woke-up-moments-before-organs-harvested

 

There have been a few peer-reviewed studies of the effectiveness of prayer and none of them found evidence of it being effective. Medical "miracles" are due to unusual but explainable physiological factors, not god.

 

there are over 100+ cases of brain dead recovered patients these are just 2

 

book not internally contradictory

not sure what you mean by internally contradictory, you mean stories or translations? this will be a big one to address but i can easily point out many ASSUMED contradictions put down a couple verses and i will see what i can do my friend

 

You've been on this site long enough to see that there are dozens of contradictions in the bible. Do you really want them all pointed out to you again?

 

Contemporaries

i give you this one, there are no contemporaries accepted by the scientific communities but there are contemporaries of course such as some authors of certain books in the bible but again those arent ACCEPTED but they ARE contemporaries. just not accepted contemporaries. There is a difference between NO contemporaries and NOT ACCEPTED contemporaries. Furthermore both you and i agree that if we use this line of logic that no contemporaries mean there is no truth and that something invalid then that would be using genetic fallacy. Scientists would then need to trabel billions years back to BE a contemporary of the big bang to secure validity, but we both know NOT being an eye witness does not eliminate validity

 

None of the NT was written by contemporaries of christ. Josephus, who many point to, has interpolations (forged elements added to the text later by those with a xtian axe to grind)

 

Word in harmony with reality

 

there are 10,000 plus scientific facts that match reality with the bible this is Just 1..jsut 1 and this 1 is just scratching the surface in its own category about it

 

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2357-sig05-012-Planets-May-Leave-Tracks-in-Dust

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope probed the dusty disks that surround young stars, to look for the earliest signs of the formation of planetary systems According to the data scientist gathered from this telescope, planets like the Earth are formed from leftover waste and debris from their central star and cusrrounding it was also a cloud of dust

 

Genesis 1:2

Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep"

also in early earth it was surrounded by a cloud of dust

 

the cloud of dust is also mentioned in Job 38:9 "When I clothed it with clouds And wrapped it in thick gloom"

to see pics go to google type in space dust cloud

 

This is just silly. The bible mentions dust, therefore god?

[mymistake]

 

 

Contemporaries

i give you this one, there are no contemporaries accepted by the scientific communities but there are contemporaries of course such as some authors of certain books in the bible but again those arent ACCEPTED but they ARE contemporaries. just not accepted contemporaries. There is a difference between NO contemporaries and NOT ACCEPTED contemporaries. Furthermore both you and i agree that if we use this line of logic that no contemporaries mean there is no truth and that something invalid then that would be using genetic fallacy. Scientists would then need to trabel billions years back to BE a contemporary of the big bang to secure validity, but we both know NOT being an eye witness does not eliminate validity

 

 

 

Nope.  You can't name a single contemporary of Jesus who testified for Jesus.  The closest you have is Paul who describes seeing Jesus in what sounds like a hallucination.  It would help if you could find any contemporary testimony because there is no evidence for Jesus.

 

Meanwhile we do not need contemporaries of the BB because because there is a great quantity of physical evidence for the BB.  Physical evidence is far more reliable than testimony. 

[sdelsolray]

A1 Steaksauce is spending time trying to graduate from Dumbass First Class to Troll Third Class.  He's actually getting there.

[mymistake]

 

Word in harmony with reality

 

there are 10,000 plus scientific facts that match reality with the bible this is Just 1..jsut 1 and this 1 is just scratching the surface in its own category about it

 

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2357-sig05-012-Planets-May-Leave-Tracks-in-Dust

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope probed the dusty disks that surround young stars, to look for the earliest signs of the formation of planetary systems According to the data scientist gathered from this telescope, planets like the Earth are formed from leftover waste and debris from their central star and surrounding it was also a cloud of dust

 

Genesis 1:2

Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep"

also in early earth it was surrounded by a cloud of dust

 

the cloud of dust is also mentioned in Job 38:9 "When I clothed it with clouds And wrapped it in thick gloom"

to see pics go to google type in space dust cloud

 

 

Neither verse says dust.  Fail.  But even if they had said dust so what?  The Genesis account of creation is clearly a fail.  Any resemblance it has to reality is pure coincidence.  The heavens and Earth were not created on the same day.  Light was not created a few days before the sun was created.  The primitive, ignorant men who wrote it thought the morning on Earth tells the sun what to do.  That is why they had evenings and morning happen before the sun was created.  It would never dawn on them that the tiny yet bright light in the sky was calling the shots and we revolve around it.

[florduh]

Thanks for responding, A1. Others have already replied on the subject so I don't need to repeat. Be aware that many of us were rather well versed in apologetic techniques and made the same erroneous arguments in our Christian past.

[Ravenstar]

"Contemporaries

i give you this one, there are no contemporaries accepted by the scientific communities but there are contemporaries of course such as some authors of certain books in the bible but again those arent ACCEPTED but they ARE contemporaries. just not accepted contemporaries. There is a difference between NO contemporaries and NOT ACCEPTED contemporaries. Furthermore both you and i agree that if we use this line of logic that no contemporaries mean there is no truth and that something invalid then that would be using genetic fallacy. Scientists would then need to trabel billions years back to BE a contemporary of the big bang to secure validity, but we both know NOT being an eye witness does not eliminate validity"

 

 

Equivocation.  Scientific evidence on the Big Bang does not require an eye-witness… there is much more at play here…like, evidence. (Not near as learned as BAA, but background radiation, Hubble Pics, red shift, mathematics, physics, etc… all points to the BB as being the way it happened… and even in science no one will say it is a fact - it is the best working explanation [Theory] we have for the evidence and it corresponds to the laws of nature as we know them) However.. in all of history and in modern medicine NOT ONE person has ever come back from the dead… not verifiably. The gospels were not written by Jesus' contemporaries, and most certainly not by his disciples. They were  written way after his alleged life and demise. It's second hand news… hearsay. That won't stand up in a court of law, much less in science.

 

There were many good historians in and around Israel at the supposed time of Jesus, yet not one of them mentions Jesus. Does that not seem odd to you.. f he did what is claimed you would think one of them would have gotten wind of it. There are NO records from the Romans about him… there was never a census requiring people to return to their place of birth... what a logistical nightmare - no, the Romans were far to organized for that nonsense.. pay your taxes and shut-up. Do your homework.. the evidence is just not there… other than in a collection of books/letters etc... that have been heavily edited, badly translated and hand-picked by a Council (300 or so years later) that was trying to unite the people into one Empire. (Politics) Then edited heavily again by the RC's for centuries.

[Neverlandrut]

 

 

If it is not absolute like you want it to be then its subejctive and if its subjective it doesnt apply to everyone right? and again....extradoinary claims need extraordinary evidence is itself an extraordinary assertion claim so one must ask what Extraordinary evidence of you have to back up this claim?

If someone is not interested in accepting something then they require extraordinary evidence. :-) If it's something they like then their evidentiary requirement is less extraordinary. :-)

1AA1, your assessment of "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" being, itself, an extraordinary claim commits the logical fallacy of reductio ad infinitum. Because I can turn right back around and say the assessment you just made is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. Then you could do the same again, and so on into infinity. Therefore, your assessment is a tautologic, fallacious, and meaningless jumble of words.

[skepticalme]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence....Is this a opinionated, subjective, and relative statement? or is it absolute 100percent irrefutable statement?

 

We do not apply oberservation, experimentation, and repetition to the subject of Napoleons existence. The genre, history, does not fit that methodology. Yet i see Atheists sometimes require that experimentation and repetition to something that only occured once and cant be observed that is misapplying evidential and logical analysis when they apply it to jesus existence. Historical method is different from the scientific method

How often is the outcome of a battle or war left left to casual debate?  You don't see many historians asking "Who won the World Wars" or "Did Hitler really exist?"  They are by there nature extrodinary events with global consequences.  The question of whether or not I am a subject of the Furher is pretty testable and repeatable(Matter of fact I just checked and I still wasn't, I can check and run the experiment again in another 10 seconds if you like). If you want me to believe the son of God existed thousands of years ago, I except it with as much credibility as I except the son of Zues, or the son of Odin; as you should.  They are stories more fit for a comic book or video game/movie than a history text book. 

 

You ask if Atheist are holding the same standards; well are you?  Do you except all those mythological gods because there are stories about them?  There are alot of stories about alot of fake gods, why is yours the exception?

[Neverlandrut]

 

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence....Is this a opinionated, subjective, and relative statement? or is it absolute 100percent irrefutable statement?

 

We do not apply oberservation, experimentation, and repetition to the subject of Napoleons existence. The genre, history, does not fit that methodology. Yet i see Atheists sometimes require that experimentation and repetition to something that only occured once and cant be observed that is misapplying evidential and logical analysis when they apply it to jesus existence. Historical method is different from the scientific method

How often is the outcome of a battle or war left left to casual debate? You don't see many historians asking "Who won the World Wars" or "Did Hitler really exist?" They are by there nature extrodinary events with global consequences. The question of whether or not I am a subject of the Furher is pretty testable and repeatable(Matter of fact I just checked and I still wasn't, I can check and run the experiment again in another 10 seconds if you like). If you want me to believe the son of God existed thousands of years ago, I except it with as much credibility as I except the son of Zues, or the son of Odin; as you should. They are stories more fit for a comic book or video game/movie than a history text book.

 

You ask if Atheist are holding the same standards; well are you? Do you except all those mythological gods because there are stories about them? There are alot of stories about alot of fake gods, why is yours the exception?

Is the Christian tradition objectively true? *rhetorical question* Well, no one has ever, independently, without any outside biased influence, come to the conclusion that a god exists and Jesus is his son, and believing in him is the only only way to eternal life. Beliefs in these notions are always the result of indoctrination or at least exposure to the idea from those who already believe it. That is to say that these notions are not independently verified to be true. They are passed along via tradition.