What constitutes evidence?

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So only science gets to say what is evidence and what is not?


I find it interesting that there might be links between Biblical events and world myths. Not interesting as in trying to prove a point, I just mean personally fascinating. The Bible serves mainly to make theological points; it is in part based on the observations of people who experienced God themselves in various ways. As such it leaves out a lot of information that is theologically irrelevant. I think it's only natural to wonder and guess about what happened in the holes that the Bible leaves open. My OPINION is that our answers are in the myths of other cultures.

I'm not a catastrophist, as I mentioned earlier, but my understanding is that last big extinction event was most likely a collision with a meteor/asteroid and thus would have been a sudden extinction as opposed to a gradual dying off. A few Christians have thrown around this idea that a gap in time occurs between the first two verses of Genesis. What kind of thing would happen that would cause God to create the heavens and the earth only to destroy it and start over? I'm not one to entirely rule out either form of Creationism, but this view of a pre-existing heaven and earth with absolutely no timeline blows YEC out of the water (no pun intended).

So…even the possibility of the evolution myth is fascinating…doesn't mean just because I'm fascinated with it or anything else that I actually believe it.

Ahhh you go right to the point of the analogy, what you would describe as "moving the Goal Posts". In his analogy Russel makes it very clear that the T-pot is too small for contemporary telescopes to spot. This is a direct criticism of god believers and other super naturalist's. Whenever it is pointed out that there is no evidence of (lets keep to the current example) God stopping the sun, and that it goes against the natural laws of the universe and would have resulted in not just the annihilation of Joshua's enemies but also Joshua, his army and everything that lives on this planet, the supernaturalists will say something like 'Ahh but god is almighty and could quite easily have suspended those laws of nature". This is done without a shred of evidence that god, a: exists and b: if god does exist, it Is all powerful. The same goes for the T-pot analogy, if Russel were alive today he would have included the "fact" that the T-pot was invisible to every type of scanning device available to science.

In other words you cannot claim as evidence personal or group, belief. Actual evidence is required. As our technological knowledge increases, the realm of supernatural belief is pushed further and further to move goal posts, inventing ad hoc explanations of ever increasing absurdity. Why is it increasingly absurd? SImple really, as the level of probability decreases the level of cognitive dissonance must increase.

OK, but here's the thing: Nobody is trying to physically prove that God exists. There are other ways to "prove" God's existence that some people find convincing; others, like myself, are confronted with personal experiences that are extremely difficult to hand wave. I had some experiences not entirely unlike the Damascus experience, though not that extreme…I almost died, but that's really about all. I never found the existence of God to really be all that problematic to begin with, so rather than being smitten by some mysterious almighty Smiter, for me it was more like confirmation of what I felt I already knew. I'm fortunate enough to have had an easier time believing while probably most believers themselves struggle at maintaining consistency in their lives.

I realize, of course, none of this is 100% PROOF of God, etc., and that my experiences are just my experiences. If I ever were to get weighed down by doubt, remembering what happened hits me like a shock of ice water to the face. I've found it very difficult to deny what I've seen firsthand, and while I can't use that to convince anyone 100% that God is real, I'm content with understanding that what I saw and experienced was very real indeed.

Not EVERYONE has that experience, but perhaps they experience God in other affirming ways. Others are content with logical proofs. Another approach I've found personally useful is to ask why it's incumbent on us (believers) to assume there isn't a God? If someone else says "no God" and we believe there is, shouldn't someone who says "no God" try to prove their case?


Says who? Unbelievers? And what is the nature of "evidence"? Strictly physical? This is where I think Platonists actually have a point…empiricism strictly speaking cannot possibly account for abstractions. Where is the evidence for the number "1" (one)? I don't mean symbols or written words, I mean the actual number. There is no evidence for it, but numbers and other symbolic or descriptive language abounds in empiricism.

Here is another: There's no empirical basis for the scientific method. You merely assume that you get reliable results and that the method yields what it is intended to yield. You can't, for instance, prove the scientific method using its own principles. That would be circular reasoning. So why use it?


As our spiritual knowledge increases, the realm of empiricist belief is pushed further and further to move goalposts, inventing ad hoc explanations of ever increasing absurdity. Why is it increasingly absurd? Simple really, as the level of probability decreases the level of cognitive dissonance must increase.

Complete and utter balderdash.

The validity of the scientific method can be established by prediction. If the scientific method is true, it would be possible to predict outcomes before they happen based on the theories generated by the scientific method.

Predictions based on the scientific method has been proven to be extremely good at doing this, and predictions based on non-scientific methods have proven to be extremely bad at doing this.

Yes, but why assume the predictions to be true? Again, you're just assuming the scientific method to be reliable without testing it to show predictable results. The only way you could do that with the validity you're looking for is…wait for it…by using the scientific method itself…which you can't do without question-begging. How do you get around this problem?

It is perfectly possible to separate claims made by theories using the scientific method and theories made without it and compare their predictive power:

- Astronomy uses the scientific method. It has excellent predictive power.
- Astrology does not use the scientific method. It has very poor predictive power.
- Medicine uses the scientific method. It has somewhat good predictive power.
- Homeopathy does not use the scientific method. It has very poor predictive power.

All of these fields make falsifiable claims - and are thus (in a strict sense) scientific. However, of the 4, only astronomy and medicine use the scientific method to derive its hypotheses, and they perform vastly better than astrology and homeopathy when making predictions.

So one can easily distinguish between studies that use the scientific method and studies that do not based on predictive power without circular reasoning, since predictive power in itself is not a part of the scientific method.

Ok...and what did we use to observe this supposed "predictive power"?

Well, eyes, mostly.

Oh, and before you decide to go too way down that path... I know where it ends:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Nah, solipsism is too easy...

There's a bigger problem, though...how are you so sure that your eyes are reliable? Even without solipsism empiricists are skeptical of eyewitness accounts of events. How do you observe your own eyesight in a non-circular fashion? Oh, right..."predictive power"... And you observe "predictive power" with...what did you say again? "...eyes, mostly"? Now I'm lost. How do you account for [observing predicting power with your eyes which have predictive power] being mutually exclusive?

But your argument is textbook solipsism. Now go away, figment of my imagination. I'm not wasting any more time talking to figments!

Solipsism is the nuclear option for theists. "We can't know anything, therefore Jesus". And yet they still look both ways when crossing the street, visit doctors, etc.

But I'm not saying anything IS a figment of anyone's imagination! I'm just asking how you resolve the Catch-22 of "predictive power" being dependent on senses that are more or less reliable or unreliable? The way you've framed the scientific method being dependent on it's own predictive power makes predictive power and the senses used to detect predictive power mutually exclusive. YOU seemed to have said it, not me! You're creating your own impasse. I'm just asking how you get out of it?

Maybe for some, but I haven't postulated that we CAN'T know anything. All I'm doing is calling the way in which we know anything into question. So far all I'm getting is something along the lines of "the scientific method is the only way to know anything because the scientific method says so." I realize this is a vast oversimplification, but that's what it boils down to in essence. Can the scientific method prove itself in a way that is fundamentally non-circular or non-question-begging? I can almost see how "predictive power" might work, but because "predictive power" depends on eyewitness observation, it creates a mutually exclusive relationship that doesn't solve the problem of circular reasoning. The scientific method is useless without resolving this issue. So how do you do it?

Because it makes predictions that work. If you want to doubt your senses, as you just suggested, then that is solipsism. I'm willing to bet you don't doubt for one second the Lard's own good book exists. Hallelujah! Sweet Jesus!

Setting that aside for a minute, you don't get to proudly duck all questions and then pose more questions to others. That's acting like a kid who expects his parents to behave according to rules and social norms which he himself does not. You aren't my kid so that behavior doesn't fly.

I *explicitly* did not. See my previous post:

OK, fine…but that still doesn't solve the problem of the mutual exclusivity between eyes and predictive power. Would that not also entail some sort of methodology?