Just because a type of evidence isn’t scientific in nature doesn’t mean it’s not evidence. It may be subjective or circumstantial evidence, but it’s still evidence.
For example: Do you love your kids? Probably, yes. Can you prove that you love your kids? Hell no. The only solid evidence you have is the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you give your kids piggy back rides, or watch them sleep, or pack 'em up in the minivan for the ride to school. That’s subjective evidence – it’s enough to prove to YOUR satisfaction that you love your kids, but you can’t prove that feeling exists to anyone who chooses not to believe you.
Naturally, the main difference here is that, unlike belief in God, loving your children is not an extraordinary claim. Most people will willingly accept on faith that this love for your children is genuine. But that’s all that is – faith. If hard evidence comes to light which contradicts your expression of subjective love (for instance, it’s proven beyond doubt that you’ve secretly withdrawn their college funds and spent the money on a new yacht for you and your secret mistress) your subjective “love” evidence becomes null and void.
I’ve only been talking about scientific evdidence. I made that distinction upthread. More populist definitions of the word 'evidence" are neither here nor there.
This is not a very good analogy. “Love” is only a descriptor for the emotion. The emotion is not “evidence for love,” it IS love. Love is only a label for the emotion. A=A.
Can I prove to anyone else that I have this emotion? I’m not sure I couldn’t. It’s just brain chemistry. It’s a physiological event, therefore it should be theoretically possible to locate in the brain. Me just saying so would not be scientifically meaningful evidence, though.
Yep. So?
I never would have had any evidence anyway, short of my theoretical PET scan.
What part of the questions are based on assumption? When he stated the evidence for black holes is testimonial he was saying that the evidence you have for them are based on what you have read/been told by others. Stop pretending you didn’t understand what he meant even though he phrased the statement poorly. I already re-phrased it for you.
You responded with:
You know damn well what he meant by “testimony.” You accept black holes exist (or some other scientific claim) based on what evidence they tell you there is and not because you’ve gathered evidence on your own and he wants to know:
Just for the record, a Darwin parade would not represent any kind of Establishment violation, since it would have nothing to do with endorsing any statement about religion. It would just be a celebration of an important historical figure and scientist.
This is not relevant. It makes no difference what I personally think about black holes. The fact remains that the actual, physical evidence for them has produced, critiqued and confirmed. All of it is replicable. I personally have no part in that equation. I am not part of the process for it. It makes no difference to the argument whether I personally accept or deny the evdience for black holes. The evidence still exist either way. Nothing at all exists for gods. The most you can say is that I trust, to some degree, the process of scientific investigation and review done by others, but what really matters is that I don’t have to. I can replicate it all for myself if I want to.
But everyone else is talking about all kinds of evidence so maybe you should be too? Other forms of evidence influence what you accept as true, no? You accept Cleopatra lived and that your mechanic is trustworthy based on evidence that’s not scientific, right?
You told abele derer that testimony does not count as evidence. He asked some questions regarding why you accept things based on what others have told you is true if that doesn’t count as evidence. So it is relevant. I won’t pester you to answer questions anymore but continuing to post without doing so isn’t going to help him or anyone else.
I never said that there was no evidence for those gods. That is, I suspect, a deliberate misstatment on your part. Rather, I said that there is no evidence that those 1,000 gods would rather you be an atheist than a wrong-god-deist.
Nice little dance around the topic you did there. Can you do the Macarena?
Well, you could be a psychopath. If you were a psychopath, you’d be socially skilled enough to convince people that your love for your family is genuine, and until your actions speak otherwise (or you submit to a DT-MRI), people will believe you. As for “love” being an event that is “possible to locate in the brain,” I know of no study which definitively separates “true” love from “fake” love – the problem with psychopathy is that these individuals actually do feel an emotion akin to what we call “love”, it’s just twisted and deranged in a manner which enables the psychopath to feel good about manipulating & hurting people under the false guise of love.
FTR, I don’t believe you’re a psychopath; the circumstantial evidence doesn’t suggest that’s true. However, the evidence does clearly suggest that you are [checks forum] a very stubborn individual who, despite being intelligent and well educated, is nonetheless grossly mistaken on many key issues, and to make matters worse, is completely oblivious to these facts which are patently obvious to everyone else. (Yes, that will do…)
Umm…okay. Thanks for proving my point, I guess. :rolleyes:
Someone claimed, or hinted to this “fact”, (I forgot who posted it) that Judasim can’t capitalize on pascal’s wager since we don’t have have an infinite afterlife.
Many people, including Sam Harris, make this mistake; since, indeed, the Torah HARDLY talks about the afterlife.
However, there is an entirely different reason why the Torah doesn’t talk about an afterlife. The reason is – and this isn’t relevant to whether you accept the Kuzari proof or not – the Torah was cognizant of the Kuzari proof (it is alluded to in numerous places in the Bible). Therefore, it could not talk about an afterlife since that would remove much of the strength of the Kuzari proof. If the Torah would focus on an afterlife, the skeptic would be able to claim that the Jews accepted a false history because they were hammered over the head with everlasting torment or reward.
(There is another instance where the Torah preempts a challange to the Kuzari proof. Some may claim that, maybe, Moses was an extemely charismatic person and he therefore successfully convinced people to accept a false book. Therefore, the Torah goes out of its way to tell you two facts about Moses: He was meek and he had a speech impediment, which means he was extremely uncharismatic.)
Ok. There is some evidence for your 1,000 gods. Now we have to compare evidence. Who has more evidence. Your words, said in jest, or Joseph Smiths words.
Yes, there is evidence that those gods would rather you be an atheist. That evidence? Personal revelation to me. I can write it down for you if that would help.
The point is that if you’re going to accept personal revelation as evidence for Yahweh, you have to accept it for my 1000 gods. If you’re saying there is zero evidence for what my gods command, then by that definition of “evidence” you have to accept that there is zero evidence of Yahweh.
It’s a double standard for you to accept revelation as valid evidence in support of Yahweh and reject revelation for my 1000 gods. It’s the logical fallacy called special pleading.
The fact that you claim there are 1000 gods is not different, or no more evidential than you claiming there is one god.
I mentioned already yesterday. No “prophet,” as far as I know, has ever claimed that only atheists will go to heaven.
Then, I continued: What if, however? What if a prophet says that only atheists go to heaven. Is Pascal’s wager no longer effective? Not at all. We then have to evaluate which religion has the most evidence (the flipping a coin option would no longer apply, indeed.)
If I write down the personal revelations of my 1000 gods and photocopy that ten million times, then my evidence would be just as voluminous as Smith’s revelations. So does the act of photocopying make the evidence more compelling?
You aren’t being serious about your vision, of course. But what if you were serious? Then, yes, we would have to take your vision into account. Of course.
But many models of the afterlife in those days had neither eternal torment or eternal bliss - they just had eternal afterlife. And I’ve never seen evidence that the afterlife was reserved for Jews, or that we did better there than non-Jews. If it was, we’d be ethically required to recruit, which we aren’t.
If the afterlife were described as just one part of God’s world, I don’t see how it would have any impact on the acceptance or rejection of history. And, if the Torah had been written by Moses for a people whose parents had gone through the described events, I don’t see why any kind of support for your supposed proof would be necessary.
In any case, it is absurd to base the wager on something so obscure.