This Skeptical Slogan is Mostly Useless

[@TestifyApologetics]

I keep seeing the same comment over and over, which is basically, "But Testify, extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary evidence." And to that, I say, yes: it does absolutely require more evidence to establish a miracle claim than it does an ordinary one. If that's what you mean by that, then we totally agree. Here's what almost no one is answering in response: What counts as extraordinary? You all are still not defining what you mean by extraordinary. Hence, your little slogan ain't helpful at all, it's all too vague. You are basically still tacitly asserting, "Whatever you come up with Mr. Christian, it ain't gonna come close to changing my mind." Basically, you're just saying you're the guy in the photo, and you don't like it. The more silly version of this comment I am seeing is "well, you didn't give me any evidence in this video." Bruh. No kidding. That's not the point of this video! I will be doing that with future videos in this series. We'll talk about what are some bare requirements to even investigate a miracle in the first place, as well as some other criteria to know when a miracle likely happened. All I'm trying to accomplish is to communicate the (mathematically correct) idea that if the facts can be accounted for without difficulty on the supposition of M, (miracle) but not, without great implausibility, on the assumption of ¬M, then they provide significant evidence in favor of M. The prior probability of M is not so low as to overcome the cumulative force of the evidence in its favor. In short, testimony can overcome a low prior so long as it's darn good testimony. Or to quote Thomas Sherlock: "I do allow that this case, and others of like nature, require more evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do. You may therefore require more evidence in these than in other cases; but it is absurd to say that such cases admit no evidence when the things in question are quite manifestly objects of sense.”

[@hamobu]

In these discussions you end up in some sort of philosophical argument that is not actually relevant or practical. In practice things are quite different. I think that most people would believe if there was good evidence that other's have confirmed. For example, I, an atheist, have never seen the planet Neptune with it's 13 moons, but I believe that it exists. I have never sampled and sequenced chimp and human DNA but I believe that they are 99% similar. I rely on others to know what they are talking about.

[@davidkodsy90]

@@jacoblee5796 This is not an overcomplication at all. It’s fair to ask about what do you mean exactly by “extraordinary”, because it allows the conversation or the debate we’re having to flow with us being on a common ground. Because atheist don’t even know what they mean by “extraordinary”. Like, what would suffice or be accepted or considered as an “enough” evidence for you to believe that the resurrection happened ? What do you need to know exactly to believe it happened ? Without defining the term “extraordinary”, no amount of evidence could possibly be enough. And so my question is the same for you : what could possibly make you believe in the likelihood of Jesus rising from the dead ?

[@PercyTinglish]

@@davidkodsy90 ordinary is typical experience, extraordinary is literally extra-ordinary, it's everything else. Pretending to not understand this is just embarrassing.

[@davidkodsy90]

@@PercyTinglish So, what would convince you that Jesus rose from the dead ?

[@Mythraen]

@@davidkodsy90 I dunno what would convince me, but the current evidence is so bad, it wouldn't convince me he ate a lamb stew if that was the claim instead of resurrection. Note, I wouldn't have much reason to doubt he ate a lamb stew, but if it was somehow important we determine whether he ate a lamb stew, the current amount of evidence is exceedingly weak.

[@japexican007]

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” Aka I’ll set my standard of incredulity so high no amount of evidence will be able to overcome the standard of hyper skepticism I’ve laid out

[@Finckelstein]

As opposed to a theist's "I'll set my standards of epistemology so low, a book written by primitives who didn't know where the sun went at night is enough for me to believe in the most grandiose claims possible." Also, no, claiming that we need evidence beyond hearsay for your quite frankly ridiculous claims is not "hyper skepticism". It's just regular skepticism.

[@TestifyApologetics]

That's dumb. Religious people are often just as skeptical as anyone else. And we can use common sense to weed out unpromising miracle claims

[@Finckelstein]

@@TestifyApologetics You're only skeptical about other religion's claims, never about your own. For your own you will come up with infinite excuses, while calling another religion "false" over the simplest of discrepancies. That makes you a hypocrite, not a skeptic. Also, common sense is inherently useless for discerning truth. A few hundred years ago it was common sense to bleed yourself almost dry as a form of ailment treatment. All it means is "This is what the majority believes" and as such makes it an ad populum fallacy. So no, you're not a skeptic. You just like LARPing as one since you think it lends you credibility.

[@TestifyApologetics]

I'm addressing this, as I said at the end, in the next video. Stay tuned and share your thoughts then

[@gospelfreak5828]

@@FinckelsteinChristian’s don’t set their standards low. Also many ancient people were smarter than most modern people today despite the fact we have access to more information. Your argument “old therefore bad” is not a good one. It’s mindless mockery, when in all reality, many of the people that existed back then maybe smarter than you or me.

[@UnluckyFatGuy]

The thing i hate about, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is that it's not an argument. It is just a refusal to discuss or debate.

[@Alias3141]

@@UnluckyFatGuy when hit with this, ask them for evidence that we are presently in reality and not a dream. That is an extraordinary claim (which they believe without evidence).

[@midimusicforever]

@@CCP-Dissident For sure, but that's not the issue. The issue is that if I show you a picture of a teapot in orbit, and link articles to reliable news organizations interviewing scientists who have observed the teapot with their telescopes, and then you go "nah, not enough evidence for this extraordinary claim", instead of showing why the evidence I showed you is failing. That's the problem with this non-argument.

[@deenmohammad385]

It’s actually just a request for evidence of highly audacious paradigm shifting claims but ok

[@WolfsBlight]

"If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not listen even if someone rises from the dead" [Luke 16:31]

[@Cekkkko21212]

Luke 16 fits many definitions of Atheism.

[@Cekkkko21212]

Atheists*

[@Philosophus_Rex]

Would be really interested to see a conversation between you and Matt Fradd on Pints with Aquinas. Your work is excellent and well-researched (with great humor to boot!). Thanks for what you do!

[@TestifyApologetics]

Goals.

[@FuddlyDud]

Commenting here since I’d love to see this too!

[@lovegod8582]

Sadly, Matt Fraud is a Roman Catholic. We don’t want this channel joining with him! Or if you mean to refute Matt, then that would be good!

[@GogakuOtaku]

I will comment too

[@fr.davideynon6984]

I actually find the phrase to be very useful. Materialism, Physicalism, and other forms of Atheism also make extraordinary claims, such as knowledge being accidental, order randomly emerging from chaos, everything randomly popping out of nothing (but only once), among many others. When compared to the ability of Orthodox Trinitarianism to explain and justify knowledge, order, and creation, the various forms of Atheism start to look not only overly extraordinary, but ridiculous.

[@randomCHELdad]

The idea that Chaos would lead evolution to stop for millions of years for our existence to even occur is idiocy

[@fabijans5440]

Where to start? I'll just point out that scientists have a body of repetable evidence. Plus the universe as we know it came from a dense mass of matter, not exactly nothing.

[@stachman9531]

@@fabijans5440 were did this dense mass of matter originate

[@levongevorgyan6789]

Yeah, it doesn’t make those claims though: 1. knowledge being accidental: assuming knowledge here means human knowledge, it is the result of billions of years of natural selection leading to humans developing complex minds that allow us to learn, pass on and preserve information. Hence, knowledge arose from evolution. 2. order randomly emerging from chaos. What chaos? Natural laws have been affecting things since the Big Bang if not earlier. 3. everything randomly popping out of nothing (but only once): it NEVER made that claim. The Big Bang isn’t everything randomly popping out if nothing, it’s everything expanding from a singularity into a universe. For all we know, everything always existed in one form or another, and there were multiple big bangs.

[@tomblaise]

@@randomCHELdadWhat do you mean by this?

[@Unswerving1234]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." is an assumption, not a fact. In fact, the claim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is, itself, and extraordinary claim. So where is the extraordinary evidence to support it? But even ordinary logic and scrutiny is enough to prove it false. For example, if an alien spaceship landed in someone's yard, the aliens got out, cut down a tree, took part of the tree into their ship, and flew away, that would be considered an extraordinary claim when people heard the homeowner tell about it. But the evidence would not be extraordinary at all. Maybe some burn mark or marks in the grass, some indentations from landing gear, some tracks across the yard, a tree cut down with a piece missing, etc. All ordinary things. All things that could easily be faked. But also the exact same things that would be found if it really happened. That there is no extraordinary evidence, such as an alien crushed under the felled tree, and that the evidence that exists could be faked or have some alternate explanation does not mean that the event did not happen as reported by the witness. Is it likely that an alien spaceship landed and stole part of someone's tree? No. Is it impossible that it happened? Also no. Treating the assumption that extraordinary happenings will only leave extraordinary evidence as fact is a false claim, which renders every point after it meaningless.

[@anthonynelson6249]

I don’t think the claim is “Extraordinary claims leave behind extraordinary evidence” but rather “Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence [for me to believe them.]” It’s a heuristic. Take your own example. Would it be easier for a random neighbor to convince you that they’d seen aliens fly into their backyard and leave behind scorch marks or that their family had had a barbecue? The more extraordinary the claim, the more evidence one demands. It’s an imprecise slogan, which makes it unhelpful for discussions about supposed ancient miracles like the resurrection, but I think it makes sense as a general heuristic (not least because it’s a heuristic that is shared intuitively by most everyone). The real problem with the slogan, imo, is that it doesn’t define what constitutes “extraordinary evidence,” so it’s usually just a way for an interlocutor to dismiss the evidence presented. Consequently, I don’t think the best response to the slogan is to try to refute it (as once we unpack it / get more precise in articulating it, it proves to make a good deal of sense) but rather to nail down what degree of evidence your interlocutor would consider extraordinary. If they say they’d only be convinced Jesus rose from the dead if they had video footage, then you can ask how reasonable it is to expect video footage to exist of a 2000-year-old event, etc. In the end, my problem with the slogan isn’t the slogan itself but rather that its use usually just signals that the user isn’t interested in being convinced.

[@cooperthatguy1271]

I think plenty of the apologetics community believes her. I’ve honestly not seen many people defend Ravi. People understand he was a bad guy but still had a good impact in his ministry.

[@nicobones9608]

@@Daniel-mw7pu Most of us didn't even hear about it until around the time Ravi Zacharias died.

[@Fiddleslip]

@@Daniel-mw7pu I don't know who either of those people are, but context clues are telling me this is just a smear disguised as a question.

[@Joural0401]

... What? No, the concept isn't that an extraordinary claim must leave behind extraordinary evidence, but that the precepts we have based our worldviews upon are being violated, and so we require extraordinary evidence to overturn our expectations.

[@Faithfulfilled1]

I remember when I was an atheist, I would use Occam’s razor to refute God, saying “which is more likely, the universe expanding rapidly and randomly, or a God creating the universe, obviously the universe expanding rapidly because adding God to the equation is just one more thing you have to prove, so because subtracting God is the simpler solution it is obviously less things to prove, therefore simpler logically following from of and razor” that is a really dumb argument, idk how I didn’t lose a debate with that argument. Tbh the epistemological razors (or philosophical razors) (which is things like Occam’s razor, “extraordinary claims equate extraordinary evidence”, and etc. are all stupid, except a couple like “don’t relate malice to evil when it could be done through stupidity” that’s a funny one

[@Dystopikachu]

Knowing that the universe is expanding or that its apparent starting point was a singularity doesn't bring you closer to its cause being a god conjuring it into existence. Your argument was indeed dumb, but not because you applied Occam's razor to it.

[@theodorechau3006]

If I may ask, how did you come to believe?

[@adamperdue3178]

See, my belief in God was actually reinforced by Occam's razor. Which is more likely to be true: 1) that Earth by random chance happened to be created within the habitable zone of an unusually stable star, with enough mass to keep an atmosphere but not too much mass to make gravity kill all but the most simple life, with an active core to keep a magnetic field that protects us, with an ozone layer that also protects us, with an abundance of water but because of tectonic activity still has large continents with multiple different biomes, that happens to have an axial tilt which allows for seasons, and I could keep going but basically all of the unique or rare aspects that Earth has all combined which would allow humans to safely develop and thrive. Or 2) that there is some creator that intentionally designed Earth to have all of the things that we would need?

[@paulcooper1223]

What made you think the universe is expanding randomly?

[@Faithfulfilled1]

@@theodorechau3006 I guess I haven’t pondered on that much, but I’ll be happy to recite all the details I can remember! About a year ago I was scrolling on KZbin, when I came across a guy named Forrest Valkai (at the time, I would claim to be Christian, but I didn’t read the Bible, didn’t go to church, committed pretty much every sin I could’ve, etc.) and it was a video of him reacting to answer in genesis (I still despise this channel because they teach so many false things) and he just debunked young earth, proved evolution, all that stuff. Then I began believing that the Bible said in the that the world is 6 thousand years old, so why would I believe something that’s proven false? I declared myself an atheist and started doing more research on the Bible. Well, when I would do debates with people, I never really debated someone who knew what they were talking about, pretty much growing my ego. One day I posted a video (I’ve taken down most my TT videos now) just asking questions to Christian’s, saying things like “why can’t God exists with evolution” “what evidence do you have that the earth is 6 thousand years old?” Things like that. When I met a really smart guy, I knew him as Kaceninchrist (I think he changed his TT now though) and he pretty much just said things like “God and evolution do exist” “the earth isn’t 6 thousand years old” and then I really started studying the Bible, found out it doesn’t say that earth is 6k yrs old, so I became way more agnostic, I was okay with Christian’s and things like that, would even let them pray for me, even though I didn’t believe, I just was able to entertain the idea. Met a guy named Zach, who was a super smart and spiritual Christian, who answered most of my question, the only one he couldn’t was “how does the trinity work?” Which is ok if I don’t know that answer. Decided to give my life to Christ over a slow transition of slowly becoming Christian a couple months ago, and got baptized yesterday actually!

[@mcfarvo]

"Ayo, presuppositional atheist, what evidence would convince you of God's existence?" "None" "Oh...well, if you ever did believe God existed and that He is the God revealed in Jesus Christ of the Bible, would you repent and obey Him?" "No" Okay, so...

[@WarriorcatGerda]

Stop arguing at that point they already said they won't believe with evidence you will just be wasting your breath

[@levongevorgyan6789]

How about god appearing before me and other people regularly ? News reports confirming it. Video evidence, interviews, etc. I’m a simple guy, I’d probably accept the evidence of my eyes if God was widely known and seen like the moon. But would I accept his rule? Now that is a different question. If he’s the God of Abraham from the Old Testament, he’s tyrannical and genocidal.

[@christophertaylor9100]

Several of the biggest "new atheist" voices have stated outright that they would not believe no matter what evidence or proof was given them. Its not about the evidence. It never has been.

[@mirandahotspring4019]

Theist, "What evidence would convince you?" Atheist "Wouldn't an all knowing all powerful god know what would convince me?"

[@Davie-jx4rh]

Wow, what a totally real conversation that totally happened If only I could meet this 1 dimensional atheist…..

[@jamespierce5355]

The existence of the laws of physics defies the laws of physics.

[@nicobones9608]

The fact that there are any "laws" of Physics convinces me that there is a God.

[@videogamecin]

@@nicobones9608 great, fine. although nothing proves that a guy nailed on a pole two thousand years ago is identical to that God or that he has risen from the dead.

[@LucksThePluckThatShouldntExist]

😵 ​@@videogamecin missed the entire scoreboard and into the wood, couldve hit a sensible point if you actually read the historical documents of Jesus and Israel.

[@polygondeath2361]

@@LucksThePluckThatShouldntExistthe historical documents, written decades after his sipposed miracles? L

[@paulcooper1223]

@@nicobones9608 The laws of physics are descriptive, not prescriptive.

[@VerilyViscous]

Going from a literal reddit-tier atheist in high school to finding God in my late 20s, I have so much more respect for well crafted apologetics now. I can't wait to dive into C.S. Lewis later this year.

[@kingofthorns203]

I read about a dozen Lewis books back to back last year. It was a sublime experience.

[@newme1589]

Are you me ? Haha, i used to laugh inside whenever someone named Jesus, now i pray to Him, go figure

[@Ben-br1bu]

The point of the resurrection is that it doesn't happen ordinarily. If it would happen often, it wouldn't be a sign. Skeptics sadly often do not understand this: If you want a miraculous sign from God which can only be done by God in order to believe in Him BUT you reject everything that is miraculous and can only happen by intervention from God based on the fact that it meets your criteria of being a miraculous sign which can only be done by God, then by your own standards, you make it impossible for anything to convince you.

[@Finckelstein]

Except we don't have miraculous signs of gods. We have STORIES about miraculous signs of gods. Funny how miracles basically vanished over night the second humans made cameras widely available to the public. I reject your miracle claims for the same reason you reject hindu or muslim miracle claims.

[@pgpython]

​@@Finckelstein well no, we have more than that. Let's suppose for an instance the apostles made up the story of the resurrection or they were just taken mistaken. What would have happened. Nothing much really, why because for over two thousand years no one has been resurrected from the dead so no one would believe them. Heck when the women who were at the tomb first had reported back. The apostles weren't like "oh he must have resurrected then." no they went to the tomb to find out what had happened. We have a similar situation with Thomas. He doesn't believe at first. Why would he. This is the problem if it was true there is no explanation as to why people believed in the apostles and followed their teaching. It makes no sense, they would be following a dead failed messiah. Not only that but why on earth wouldn't the phariaess just show that jesus was dead. They didn't like the fact he was leading followers away from them at all. If you seriously that there is a more rational explanation for the above problems then I challenge you to find it and put it forward

[@Finckelstein]

@@pgpython No, you really don't have more than that. The entire story is completely made up by the gospel writers. There are no contemporary, outside sources. Your incredulity as to how christianity spread if it wasn't true is just ridiculous given how many other religions there are. If Muhammed wasn't the true prophet of allah, why did the arabs follow him? Surely nobody would follow an illiterate merchant son into nigh-certain death? Why did the people follow Jim Jones to Jonestown? Didn't they know he was just a charismatic cult leader? They even died believing in him, that must mean he was right! See how ridiculous you sound with that argument? People are convinced for poor reasons all the time. This is just another excuse that betrays your poor epistemic standard.

[@paulcooper1223]

​@@pgpythonYou have what a book says, you don't have any corroborated accounts. You don't even know who the authors of the gospels were. If someone made a similar claim today you'd require a huge amount of evidence, yet because it's in the Bible it's given a passage

[@pgpython]

@@paulcooper1223 hmm what on earth would you make think we don't know who the author of the gospels are. We do the early church fathers who knew the apostles did and they told everyone else so on what basis would you have to say they were wrong on the basis you don't like Christianity is absurd OK how about this if you wrote a letter to your friend and your friend came to me and showed me the letter and said that you wrote the letter but my response was well we don't know who wrote that letter. Would you think I was being reasonable. No you wouldn't so I don't see the consistency here do you. The fact is you have no reason to doubt that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write the gospels so if they were then you have corrobated accounts by four different people. Saying you want annother one makes no sense. If there was a fifth account that corrobated with what the authors of the gospels said it would be annother Christian in which case you would say well we don't know who the author is even if you were told through faithful oral tradition so your back at square one

[@nicobones9608]

I would agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but here's the thing: Most of the human race across most of human history (an overwhelming majority, I might add), have believed in the spiritual realm, spiritual experiences, and miraculous occurrences. We have COUNTLESS accounts of people having personal encounters with spiritual phenomenon, which should count as evidence. Atheists want to dismiss claims about the spiritual realm and miracles with such basic arguments as "confirmation bias," "hallucination," and "superstition." While I can see the logic behind these arguments, what I see more prominently is an example of Atheists just saying, "Nah, that didn't happen," and dismissing the personal experiences of billions of people across human history who have encountered spirits in some fashion or another. The fact that experiments cannot reliably recreate encounters with spirits in any measurable way does not necessarily mean spirits do not exist, but rather 1. that we cannot control them, and 2. that spirits are not measurable by our current technology. Because most of humanity across most of history has held strong belief in the existence of spirits, God, or gods, it is in fact the Atheists' claim that spirits and/or God do not exist that is the extraordinary claim, and therefore requires extraordinary evidence.

[@kennethemmanuel3065]

@@KenCunkle Even today, with all the advancement in knowledge and technology, people still believe in conspiracy theories like the earth being flat, or that Covid-19 was caused by Microwave radiation (5G). This shows that people would always be stupid and ignorant, and yes sadly, misguided interpretation of religion can play a part in that (keyword: misguided interpretation). But that does not still negate the fact that spiritual realities don't exist and that people have not experienced them over the centuries and that the skeptics reductive approach to everything is actually more illogical than people claiming to see things. Also, you forget or you choose to ignore that a great number of scientists were moved to study science because of their deeply held supernatural or religious beliefs. Again, using people's limited understanding of the then world or their foolishness as an "aha", against religion is not a win skeptics like you think it is.

[@tolkienomics]

​@@KenCunkle In 2024, people in public areas standing next to a security camera believe they have a right to privacy when other people are filming. In 2024, people believe they can perform gene editing on themselves by thinking about the sex they wished their DNA actually encoded for. When Genesis was written, humans knew more about the solar system than most U.S. high school students in 2024. Humans also knew that the rib bone could grow back and had more tacit knowledge than your average 2024 adult. It is logically fallacious to cherry-pick examples from the past in order to undermine the capacity of the relative global population. It is even more fallacious to do so while also claiming superiority for your own time-period when you live in a world that caters to the lowest common denominator.

[@koderamerikaner5147]

@@KenCunkle Footnote, "Thor, Zeus, whoever" only applies specifically to Indo-European religions.

[@koderamerikaner5147]

@@KenCunkle I mean, the Ancient Near East had some of that, but it gets a bit more complicated, since there's traces of chthonic deities and other religion types. And Semitic religions are even moreso different, more spirit-based like the Japanese Kami, though definitely very unique in many ways and hard to explain. I usually focus on Paleo-European and Indo-European mythologies. Zeus is not a storm god nor was he made to explain such, he was given that power because they kinda just mixed the personalities of Perkʷūnos with him (considering Zeus is a derivation of Dyeus Pater). It gets really complicated looking at Indo-European religions, because much of their folklore is actually based off something real, but got complicated by cultures intermixing or early scholars trying to make sense of oral tradition without the advanced context we have today. For example, Kobolds/Goblins, Centaurs, Werewolves, and Lycanthropes are all based off recording the Kóryos tradition and violent Yamnaya expansion into Europe. Elves, giants, fomorians, tautha de danann, cyclops, and dwarves are probably descriptions of Paleo-Europeans and features or events associated with them. The Titanomachy and other myths such as the war between the Æsir and Vanir reflect the Indo-Europeans overthrowing the Paleo-Europeans and their religions. Saturnalia and Kronia are celebrations that reflect Paleo-European society and the way people lived in Europe before the arrival of Indo-Europeans. A lot of Indo-European folktales are real historical events or situations represented through surrealism. It also varies depending on culture, as separate peoples developed religion differently in method and reasoning from eachother. Religion in the eyes of the ancients was quite different from the modern perception, and really is a discussion of its own.

[@koderamerikaner5147]

@@KenCunkle Absolutely. I think the most notable bits of syncretism occur in Greek and Germanic religion. Not so much in the Celtic religion though. Much of the convolution of Greek mythology and strange traits stem from that, and arguably a lot of it had to do with a struggle for cultural representation and dominance between the various groups there. The Vanir clan of the Germanic faiths are most likely completely Paleo-European. Then after the whole fiasco of the Paleo-Europeans mixing with the Indo-Europeans, you get a weird sort of religious/cultural inbreeding after they start conquering themselves and exchanging beliefs with their cultural cousins/sisters. There's also the cases of genealogies being made and tales being slightly altered to fit a political agenda of some ruler or ruling class. What I find more fascinating is when you figure out that many of these beliefs stem so far back that they can be sourced to the Ancient North Eurasians or even, in the case of the Seven Sisters or Pleiades legend, back to some point 100kya, probably starting before or concurrent with Homosapiens leaving Africa.

[@treeckoniusconstantinus]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" Okay, since "extraordinary" hasn't been defined by the skeptic,, I'll define it as anything I say is extraordinary. EZPZ

[@Isaiahwrestling]

😂

[@BoondockBrony]

Exactly, extraordinary is a subjective standard that varies from person to person.

[@Mythraen]

"I'll define it as anything I say is extraordinary." So we should doubt everything you say? That's a weird way to define it, but okay. However, extraordinary literally means beyond the ordinary. It's obviously subjective to a person's experiences, but we all share that we've never seen a man inexplicably rise from the dead after three days of being dead, for example. We also all share that we've never heard a plausible story of it occurring, either.

[@davidreinker5600]

@@KenCunkle The word literally means "Going beyond what is usual, regular or customary". So yes, it would be extraordinary for it to rain in the desert for six days in a row if it doesn't usually do so.

[@Voltaire2261]

Define ordinary ​@@Daniel-mw7pu

[@segevstormlord3713]

Speaking as a Christian, I do still agree with the core point of the statement under contention, here: Extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary evidence. However, "extraordinary" is, perforce, subjective. What the statement is really saying is, "I require more evidence to convince me of something that would force me to alter my worldview than I do of something that reinforces or aligns with my worldview, because I find the latter to be more believable based on prior evidence I have seen - the evidence that helped me create my worldview." Extraordinary claims are _always_ those claims anybody makes with the expectation of changing somebody's view of reality. If you are seeking to convert someone to your religion, then you need something extraordinary to do so, beyond simply asserting basic claims and then saying "and thus it should be obvious." We Christians have the Holy Spirit, Who is a marvelous ally in providing extraordinary evidence to the Truth of the Gospel. The difficulty and strength of Christianity is that we are a religion built on faith, and faith is, in fact, a predecessor to nearly all blessings of God. This is simultaneously very difficult, because exercising faith when you are looking for truth can feel counterintuitive, and very powerful, because the exercise of faith when it turns out to be in a true thing leads to stronger faith. Atheists forget that the statement goes both ways, that THEIR claims that God is not real, that miracles do not happen, etc. etc., are extraordinary claims to Christians who have faith backing their worldview that God is our Heavenly Father and that Christ did, in fact, die and rise from the dead and sacrifice Himself so that we may be cleansed of our sins. Atheists and sciencists (not a spelling error) both fail to recognize that their own religion is showing when they assert, "But...your faith is unscientific!" I have honestly had somebody assert to me that "random chance creating life and the universe from nothing is more scientific than an intelligent Being doing it." Thus demonstrating that their faith in atheism is just that: faith. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And to the faithful, the claims that allegedly refute their faith are extraordinary.

[@luks303]

Great comment, you put it perfectly

[@ggpt9641]

And for those that come here, Hebrews 11:1 gives us the definition, the meaning, of faith. "Faith IS the substance of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen." What do we hope for, and what is the evidence for that hope? That seems to be a good question to answer.

[@segevstormlord3713]

@@ggpt9641 When it comes to seeking to test God on His terms, I think that Hebrews 11:1 can be interpreted to mean that we should be willing to accept on faith evidence we receive that God is answering our sincere request. To step away from divine apologetics for a moment, we can point out that this happens in secular science, too: There comes a point where most people take on faith that there isn't some conspiracy of dishonest or utterly stupid scientists who lied about or completely misunderstood the results of their experiments, and accept their explanations without conducting the experiments, ourselves. This faith is extended to the law of large numbers, essentially, because we trust that "that many" scientists who have replicated and reported positively on the experimental results wouldn't be conspiring together to lie to us. Going back to Christianity, the only thing we really change is that we place our faith in the promptings of the Holy Ghost, rather than in "enough" scientists. The tricky bit is always that struggle to discern whether it is the faithfully-sought prompting of the Spirit... or a vain imagining of one's own heart, just wanting something to be true. And that takes continuous exercise of faith, not to mention study of the Gospel of whatever you put your faith in. God is constant and steadfast, and He and His works are not of darkness, nor evil. So one good test of your sin-prone heart vs. the promptings of the Holy Spirit is whether following the prompting would lead to things you know, through your understanding of God's ways, good things. If not, then it is not a prompting of the Spirit. And, if ever you can't tell what would lead to "good" or not, then you can pray for God to let you know. It is most effective, I find, to pray something to the effect of, "God, I have these options before me. I plan to take THIS option, but wish to follow Thy plan, so if Thou wouldst guide me to another, I pray Thou wilst do so as clearly as possible. I humbly seek to follow Thy will, so will change my plans if I understand Thy will to be different from them. Otherwise, I will proceed, trusting that Thou wouldst not let me err in ignorance." Basically, tell God what you're planning to do, and remain open to Him telling you different. But don't dither about waiting; listen as you start pursuing your stated choice. God often wants us to make choices of our own, and when there are multiple good choices, He has no reason to tell us to choose differently.

[@segevstormlord3713]

@@KenCunkle I think you're just saying the same thing I am.

[@kerbalairforce8802]

The Big Bang is a miracle. Diameter of the universe is 93 billion light years across. Age of the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Nothing can travel faster than light, but for both of these to be true, the universe had to expand faster than light.

[@guillermoelnino]

Skeptic is their title, not their stance.

[@polygondeath2361]

No, it is our stance. No reason to believe any of the jibber jabber in the gospels

[@guillermoelnino]

​@@polygondeath2361 To y ou atheists skeptic = "no matter what everyone else is wrong" I know y ou don't understand how that's possible, because y ou're a closed minded bigot, but it's true. Y ou can trust me. I'm one of those "experts" y ou worship.

[@simpicusmaximus]

​@@polygondeath2361you reek of redditor incel

[@gung2549]

​@@polygondeath2361 average marvel movie enjoyer

[@IsaiahINRI]

True. They've already made up their minds long before they engaged in the evidence.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

Every claim is extraordinary the first time it’s made. The idea behind the scientific method is that we have a standard for what kind and amount of evidence is necessary to prove a claim is more likely than not to be true. Requiring “extraordinary evidence” and then refusing to define a standard for that evidence means you’ve defined the rules of the debate such that you never have to admit when the other party has succeeded. Nearly all atheist arguments revolve around framing the argument in such a way that they cannot lose.

[@uncensoredpilgrims]

Exactly. The one simple question that foils all atheist arguments: "What specific piece of evidence have you personally looked for and failed to find"?

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

@@uncensoredpilgrims Its crazy that a bunch of people who claim to be scientifically minded will then say "I'll know it when I see it".

[@uncensoredpilgrims]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 Yes that is exactly what they'll say. It's a cop out. You won't know it when you see it if you cannot describe it or give any information about it ahead of time.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

@@uncensoredpilgrims it's pathological intellectual laziness mixed with manipulation tactics. "You do all the intellectual heavy lifting and I'll tell you when it's good enough. I won't define what good enough means, you simply have to keep going until I feel I'm satisfied." If this was put into the context of a relationship the person who said that would be seen as a narcissistic manipulator.

[@sadscientisthououinkyouma1867]

It is a fun game I like to play with those who frankly are too dumb to get it. I tell them that the idea something could take a liquid and move hundreds of miles from the power of explosions is extraordinary. If they understand what I'm referring to they will tell me they can drive their car, to which I tell them I also can drive my car that isn't very extraordinary evidence is it? Then obviously I will expand on it for comedic effect, many different ways you can take it from there. Not the most productive argument, but one that gets a good chuckle out of anyone who actually understands epistemology and why arbitrary standards are bad.

[@survivaloptions4999]

All claims are extraordinary when made for the first time or unproven. It's meaningless.

[@dificulttocure]

Extraordinary means something more than just stated that happened in a book, which is often all that it is provided.

[@fisharmor]

I would bet the rent that fewer people have directly observed the 2-slit experiment, than had directly witnessed Christ walking around after the crucifixion.

[@dr.tafazzi]

​@@Narko_Markobut did you recreate it?

[@dr.tafazzi]

@@Narko_Marko well a priori quantum mechanics is really weird, you should consider it is unexpected and people that push for it have to gain their carreers and funding for research. Rather than the double slit experiment, look at the Higgs Boson discovery. Physicists had obtained massife funding to build the LHC, thousands of jobs were payed by taxpeyers' money to prove the Higgs Boson existed. Then after a while they said they found it. That made them look reliable in the eyes of the organizations that finance scientific research. Articles were published money arrived. Then the LHC shut down for upgrades after many years. Is that discovery repeatable? Strictly speaking yes, but it's practically impossible me or you will repeat it. That means we're left having to trust these people who *did* have something to gain in telling the world about this. Not to say I'm a Higgs Boson skeotic, I'm convinced we found it, but I say that on the grounds of scarcer evidence than we have for the Resurrection.

[@maxalaintwo3578]

@@Narko_MarkoIf they deceive people, they’re definitely not getting that eternal life lol I don’t think you know how this Christian thing works

[@AM22Salabok]

Reddit tier atheists will continue to make excuses and never believe no matter how much evidence is presented to them. Just recall what Dawkins said about aliens 😂

[@atgred]

Here is an extraordinary claim: nothing comes from nothing.

[@survivaloptions4999]

Hume's defense is two circular fallacies. He presumes incredulity therefore the witness is dishonest. He, therefore, never has to examine the facts. Cute.

[@Reiman33]

no facts can be established if all of your supporting evidence comes from the same source. this is basic. you cannot point to biblical works to support claims in biblical works. this should be obvious to you. If the resurrection happened and was undeniable, there would be sources from OTHER PLACES ON EARTH FROM THAT TIME CONFIRMING IT. I literally mean: Chinese texts, European Germanic Tribes texts and Gaullic Texts describing the same event. If you call this level of proof incredulous, off yourself. If the ressurrection happened and was deniable by design, God is a troll at best, you are a liar at worst.

[@CalebTheHunter-e1g]

The meaning of Extraordinary Claims in this context means that it has significant impact meaning if the claim is true it would have major implications for our understanding of the world. Take the Theory of Evolution for example, when evolution was first proposed it was a very extraordinary claim in that time the claim that life can change and diversify over time. But over time we have found the extraordinary evidence for evolution like transitional fossils like Archaeopteryx for example. In fact Archaeopteryx was discovered just 2 years after Charles Darwin published his book “The Origins of Species”.

[@rickandrygel913]

Lot runs into the room. "God is going to destroy the city, we must run away!" He exlaims and then runs away. "Ha ha ha," you and your friend laugh. Boom! Also, "on a long enough time scale, your ancestors are fish. And it's just so obvious you'd be a dummy to question it"

[@tjr_bestclipz]

You and IP are the best apologist channels😤

[@Vanta1111]

Brother is speaking facts

[@ehhhhhhhhhhk]

What about skibidi_apologetics69??

[@danielbrowniel]

He is better than IP. IP appeals to authority and that is a young guy thing, I used to do it myself. In the world of honest skepticism it isn't as great a sin as appealing to popularity but.. when one goes through the effort of reading a book to retain all it's knowledge, one subconsciously desires for that invested time to not be a waste of time, so you will put weight on the individuals credentials rather than their argument. I like 90% of IP's stuff but his confidence on some archeology claims, I think is undeserved. Bronze age history is like an unturned stone and we flipped a few grains of sand near the stone.. and we have nothing to be proud of.. we are all just making our best guesses in some situations.

[@TestifyApologetics]

I love skibidi apologetics bro has the sigma grindset and lotsa rizz

[@uncensoredpilgrims]

@@danielbrowniel Indeed and verily. IP is terrible, not worth listening to. Promotes evolutionary syncretism instead of true Christianity based on the Bible.

[@protochris]

It's extraordinary that an obscure crucifixion and resurrection would be at the heart of the largest western religion 2000 years later

[@glassesinthetubathome]

It’s not obscure. You believe historical events happened that have much more obscurity than the Bible. There is no other historical text more well documented and authenticated over time than the Bible. Do your research before you make illogical and baseless claims

[@nxtvim2521]

​@@glassesinthetubathomenah, even during the churches of Paul and Peter; Christianity was still an obscure religion. a fringe of Pharisetical Judaism. it wasn't until Constantine both legalized christianity and converted, that Christianity became a major religion within a major Empire before that the largest Christian Empire was Axum (Ethiopian orthodox Tewahedo) the Oriental Orthodox these are still small. but Constantine's orthodoxy eventually also became Catholicism, which in turn became protestantism Christianity only became more popular as it evolved to think it stemmed from an obscure torture session from a wrongful trial, is telling of how humanity works. I mean, nobody would think modern black division and blacktivism started because of some obscure druggie getting choked to death, wrongfully, by some stupid LEOs

[@nxtvim2521]

​@@glassesinthetubathomeit's pro Christian to say that the idea of Christianity working out perfectly is extraordinary. I mean, if Rome would have lost Judea to Persia, Jesus would have been King of Persia, because the Royalty and nobility of Persia believed in God. if Constantine wouldn't have had the idea of Chi Ro, it wouldve remained an obscure branch of judaism for christianity to be ordinary, it would be islam; spread by sword and trade

[@godsgospelgirl]

Thanks!

[@doltBmB]

What is considered to be "extra"ordinary is entirely subjective, and mostly has to do with that persons "normalcy"-bias. Objectively there is no such thing as an extraordinary claim, and all claims simply require the same standard of evidence.

[@christophertaylor9100]

Correct. The claim sounds plausible until you think about it.

[@doltBmB]

@@KenCunkle We both know all three claims are made up, and therefore equal. Made up only to support the idea that some claims are better than others, intentionally absurd to prove a point, thereby defeating its own point.

[@christophertaylor9100]

@@KenCunkle its not about them being equally credible. Its about what level of proof is required for each to be believed. Its equal in both cases. You see frogs and blood everywhere, see a video of the events. Proven. Same as if it rained, when you see wet ground everywhere and video of rain. The difference here is not the degree of evidence required, but the unlikely nature of the claim.

[@Destroyer83]

Would the better phrase (or a solid counter-phrase) be the one from Sherlock Holmes, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."?

[@Eboreg2]

The virgin "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" vs. the chad "That's a nice argument, senator. Why don't you back it up with a source?"

[@LawlessNate]

There's nothing objective about a claim being considered "extraordinary". It's a purely subjective notion. So, for "extraordinary claims require extra evidence", it therefore allows anyone to reject any and all evidence they don't personally like due to purely subjective reasoning. They just decide that claim and/or evidence is or isn't extraordinary enough to match what they decided to believe before examining the claims or evidence. It's essentially just a reworded way of saying "Truth is whatever I want to believe it is, evidence doesn't sway me" which is intellectually bankrupt. Claims require evidence, period. Follow the evidence wherever it leads, period. If you don't like where the evidence leads then too bad.

[@LawlessNate]

@@KenCunkle You're doing exactly what I describe; you're just swapping "extraordinary" for "meaningful". You're essentially saying "I don't have to follow the evidence wherever it leads. I can subjectively decide that the evidence isn't "meaningful" enough for my subjective standards, and therefore I reject it and and the conclusion it supports. Again, not for objective reasons but because of my subjective feelings of what is or isn't "meaningful", and that directly corresponds to whether or not I want to believe the conclusion or not." You then provide what essentially amounts to an ad hominem by comparing God's existence to something silly; being childish doesn't do anything to support your position.

[@LawlessNate]

@@KenCunkle "I follow the evidence wherever it leads." Also you "I refuse to follow the evidence to that conclusion because I subjectively don't find it to be 'extraordinary' enough." Based on your emotions, you've already decided to think that God doesn't exist. Now you work backwards to try and justify your emotional decision. There is no amount or quality of evidence that could ever convince a foolish, emotional person who has already set their heart on a specific conclusion. That same foolish heart now convinces you that you're somehow rationally justified in what you're doing. Take a long look in the mirror, pal. You're unironically suggesting. "I'm a truth seeker who follows the evidence wherever it leads... as long as it doesn't lead to the conclusion that God exists." What about you as a person is in error that you don't realize this contradiction which is to blatant to everyone else? Where did you go wrong? Then again, I'm probably wasting my breath, so to speak. Someone like you claims that you care so much about evidence. You claim that all day every day until your face is blue. Then you reject any and all evidence which disagrees with the conclusions you subjectively prefer, after which you convince yourself that you're being such a rational person who somehow magically isn't refusing to follow the evidence. There's no point in speaking about reason or logic to someone like you who willingly rejects it.

[@themarchoftime3691]

@@KenCunkle If you were Genuine, you would be searching up creationism or young earth creation and then bothering to read their own sources and articles. infact why not search young earth creation channel and just watch their videos on youtube?

[@Augie-r9q]

For me it has nothing to do with evidence I personally or dislike, eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. If you are going to tell me that a man in ancient times or even today rose from the dead, and all you have to go on are accounts or testimony written in an ancient, that would be inadequate. And here is the thing, like Eric Manning here in this video try to make the case for miracles, it's often special pleading because they are only trying to convince you of only their preferred miracles in their bible are true and not miracle claims from other sources. And so if I am sceptical of even these miracles in the bible christians will say that I have a anti supernatural miracle bias.

[@SabbatarianCalvinist]

The claim itself is pretty extraordinary, they need to prove their claim first before using it. A massively self defeating conundrum they set themselves up with.

[@christafarion9]

For me, 300 fulfilled messianic prophecies sure qualifies as extraordinary evidence. The odds of The Lord Jesus fulfilling so many prophecies are infinitesimally small.

[@alasarcher400]

There is no evidence he even existed, so there can't be evidence he fulfilled even 1 messianic prophecy.

[@connerdozier6689]

@@alasarcher400 wrong. There’s plenty of historical evidence Jesus existed. Josephus, tactus, Pliny the younger, the New Testament, etc. anyone who claims Jesus didn’t exist is a fool and intellectually dishonest. But don’t take my word for it. See Tim o Neil’s website history for atheists (he’s an atheist btw) as he rips apart every mythists arguments and says that his fellow atheist should stop using this argument. It’s a bad one.

[@andreamarino6010]

In the Catholic Church to attest miracles we also have a medical commision specifically for these sort of events. For example a statute of Mary near my city cried blood (it's an usual miracle tbf), but it was never accepted by the commision and it's still under investigation (30 years have passed). So not everything is quickly labeled as miracle. To finish it off, miracles are not dogmas and not to be believed necessarily Mind you this is catholic doctrine, something may vary from church to church

[@dr.tafazzi]

There are new guidelines for assessing miracles published last months, so that the church can get to a conclusion faster, even if it's a temporary conclusion.

[@hamnchee]

I always took "extraordinary claim" to mean it upends previously established theories or hypotheses, so the evidence must account for a lot more than just a single claim.

[@Jckuz1man]

Hey Testify, just subbed, loved the videos. HUGE SUGGESTION please start putting the part of a specific series (Ie this is part 3 on miracles) in the video title. PLEASE

[@TestifyApologetics]

there's a playlist and they're in order, but sure, not a bad idea. I'll consider it. The algorithm doesn't seem to like long titles.

[@hariman7727]

"Socialism/communism is a good idea!" The most extraordinary and impossible claim. Also... Why would the 12 Apostles often be tortured to death while still maintaining the truth of the event without a single one breaking their beliefs/stance that Jesus rose from the dead?

[@alasarcher400]

There is no evidence outside Bible (which is one making claim) that any of apostles died for their faith. However even if there was, there are millions of people outside Christianity who died for their faith whether it was pagans, muslims, jews, hindus.

[@hariman7727]

@@alasarcher400 Christianity reformed from those days. Other religions haven't, but still get a pass, and ONLY Christianity gets condescended to by centuries old sins. Everybody else gets a pass for sins/crimes both past and current. Also, the Crusades were a reaction to centuries of invasions and aggression which killed significantly more than Christianity. Oh, and socialism/communism killed over 100 million in the past century. It's disgustingly hypocritical.

[@hariman7727]

@@alasarcher400 also, the dismissal of the Bible as a source of historical facts, given that it is literally a history of both Christianity and Judaism AND there are archaeological finds that match up various biblical locations, like Sodom, is also hypocritical. Christianity can't be true because Christianity is bad but no other religion, creed, or political system gets the same scrutiny.

[@alasarcher400]

@@hariman7727 I don't see how any of that what u said ( which ia mostly wrong) is related to my comment. I pointed out that just because apostles may havw died for their mythology, does not make their mythology true. Same way all the other morons dying for their mythology, whether they are muslim or pagan or hindu , does not make those mythologies true.

[@hariman7727]

@@alasarcher400 the apostles of Jesus were tortured to death. And none of them recanted on their Faith. You don't get a dozen people who are willing to uphold a con. You only get people who are willing to endure torture unto death if they actually believe in their cause. And I'm going to say it now: you also don't get people who will uphold a false religion by dying to torture either. That is why the 12 apostles maintaining their statement that Jesus died and was resurrected through torture is so important.

[@chrisazure1624]

I ask Hatheist to prove abiogeneisis according to the magic mud puddle theory (primordial soup). It seems like an extraordinary claim.

[@dringoman257]

I think the current issue with it is similar to what we had with the extinction of the dinosaurs. At each step of the process, there are multiple plausible scenarios. For example, the miller urey experiment showed it was possible for organic compounds to form in what they thought were prebiotic earth conditions. As what prebiotic earth's conditions were has been revised multiple times and people have conducted experiments similar to Miller and Urey with those updated conditions and found those conditions also produced organic compound.

[@chrisazure1624]

@@dringoman257 Amino acids. Still a long, long, long way from being a life form. Please keep trying. I want your extraordinary evidence.

[@dringoman257]

@chrisazure1624 do you have a specific stage you have an issue with? Those amino acids can form self-replicating molecules if you want studies for that part?

[@chrisazure1624]

​@@dringoman257 Still not life. Globules of amino acids. Wasn't it Lee Cronin who said he was making a lot of salad dressing? Still not life. A long, long, long way from life. But keep ginning up the little you have. I am still awaiting the extraordinary evidence.

[@dringoman257]

@chrisazure1624 You might have a misconception about where the line for life starts. I believe scientists start life at a self-replicating cell enclosed in a membrane so the step between PNA and life isn't that far. Is PNA or RNA gaining a cell membrane the part you have issues with?

[@ggpt9641]

"IF independent witnesses can be found, who speak the truth more frequently than falsehood, it is ALWAYS possible to assign a number of independent witnesses, the improbability of the falsehood of whose concurring testimonies shall be greater than that of the improbability of the miracle itself." LMK if my following summary is or seems incorrect, but it seems like this is talking about IF you have enough witnesses who speak truth more than lies, the chance of a miracle is bigger than the chance that a lie is being told.

[@Augie-r9q]

Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. If you haven't heard of "the miracle of the sun" look it up. in 1917 in Portugal 50, 000 people at least witnessed the sun dancing erratically in the sky. Does this mean it really happened? No

[@Auron3991]

I once asked one of these people: 'if the Ark of the Covenant was found, with an exact match of biblical description and all abilities described, would that meet your evidentiary threshold for God's existence?' Unsurprisingly, they said no and acted like they had the smart position. Some people can't be taught.

[@PercyTinglish]

Are you aware of how many ancient copies of the arc are know about? They're in churches all over Africa. You believe they're all the real one? I wonder why not......

[@retrictumrectus1010]

I dislike that argument. It does not line up with Christianity, so I may dismiss it as demonic. Maybe Judaism though since they are obsessed with building a temple and their coming (false) messiah.

[@Auron3991]

@@PercyTinglish Have any of them dried a river for those carrying them? Have any been striking people down? My exact statement was with 'all abilities described' and none of the ones I've seen information on display those powers.

[@Auron3991]

@@retrictumrectus1010 The Old Testament (including the Ark of the Covenant) are a part of Christianity. We can quibble about whether the Ark itself was imbued with power by God or if God was localizing actions around it, but that wasn't the point. The question was to see if it were even possible to get them to consider God's existence, and the range of things described as happening around the Ark makes it fairly hard to argue against it being divine will. Remember, people claim the Resurrection was but a man fainting and waking up later (while intentionally ignoring multiple reasons that's an incredibly bad take).

[@PercyTinglish]

@@Auron3991 so you asked people if you showed them a box that had demonstrable magic powers and they said they would think it's a regular box? Why lie? Do you think people believe these silly anecdotes?

[@spacemoose4726]

How do you determine the improbablilty of falsehood of a witness by using the frequency of speaking truth over falsehood? Even pathological liars speak more true things than false things. How does that not lead to it always being more probable that someone is telling the truth than something improbable being false?

[@LucksThePluckThatShouldntExist]

From the evidences in the Bible, there is no legitimate reason for them to lie nor economical benefits, what is a liar trying to gain? Personal interests. You have to answer 1. Why? Did it benefit anyone? 2. How did the lie be made? 3. Who made the lie? No one in history would have died for something they clearly knew to be a lie. But instead the apostles kept their mouth the same way for over 40 years. Oceangate conducted a study where a group could maintain a lie for X amount of time. They only lasted two weeks. Let alone 40 years. Lying is inconsistent and improbable and sometimes predictable if it were for selfish reason.

[@LucksThePluckThatShouldntExist]

TL;DR; Evidence.

[@spacemoose4726]

This doesn't address my question, which is related to the video. I'm asking how you determine the probabilities? If someone lies 20% of the time, would you believe them claiming something that has a 25% chance of being true? According to this logic you'd have to believe the person who lies 20% of the time (no one lies this much) even though it's statistically unlikely. People don't evaluate the likelihood of claim simply based off how many true things vs falsehoods a person says. If you did, you'd have to almost always believe everyone, even pathological liars. ​@@LucksThePluckThatShouldntExist

[@hamobu]

Yeah, mathematicians can be really stupid.

[@dr.tafazzi]

A priori it's always more likely someone is speaking the truth than a lie. You must take into account the other pieces of evidence to update your estimate on how likely a claim is to be a lie

[@KD-eh3qo]

Also worth noting is that the arguments for God's existence, such as the cosmological, teleological, moral, ontological and contingency arguments, all greatly increase the prior probability of a miracle

[@TestifyApologetics]

sort of. I'd argue the religious context (Jesus' self-claims and messianic prophecy) increase it more.

[@KD-eh3qo]

@@TestifyApologetics Fair enough

[@Augie-r9q]

But all of these arguments have alternate explanations that don't require a God. These have all been debunked

[@KD-eh3qo]

@@Augie-r9q Merely having alternate explanations is not sufficient, they have to be viable, rational and plausible explanations. The above arguments have not been debunked as no such naturalistic explanations have been proposed, especially for the first 3 arguments mentioned

[@thesolantor8624]

An extraordinary claim is something that is defined in the word itself, something that betrays or assumes something about our current understanding of the world and how it functions, ie the ordinary. This does not necessarily mean it is false, but it requires much more evidence and experimentation than a claim that fits within our current understanding of reality. Take gravity for example, to those before Newton an invisible cosmic force that can bend space and time would be an absurd statement that assumes something that hasn't been proven and betrays our already existing notions of the world, yet in the few hundred years since that theory was proposed there has been mountains upon mountains upon mountains of unbiased evidence, reproductions and experimentation that have again and again proven the existence of gravity. Yet in the the thousands upon thousands of years since humans have introduced the ideas of Gods the compelling evidence for them hasn't equalled one one thousandth of the plethora of certain evidence that has been produced for gravity in just a few hundred years. I'm not saying it's impossible that a god exists or that it is impossible we may eventually find evidence for this being but the amount would have to be astronomically greater than what already exists for even our most complex ideas, considering the fact that God himself is infinitely complex in his nature. The day we are able to reproduce such things like turning a piece of wood into a living snake, the resurrection of a long dead body, or the creation of a boat made purely from wood which can house trillions of species and keep them alive I'd be much more inclined to believe in that possibility. Until then its a matter of pure faith and not science and one should not attempt to conflate the two considering the gap that exists between the incredible nature of an all powerful, all knowing, all present being, and the limited understanding we have even of things like our own consciousness and the universe.

[@austingeorge6659]

I'm amazed how quick you can upload. Id add that if it weren't for thousands of people witnessing for themselves Jesus' miracles, the extremism of the Jews back then and their incistance that ONLY truth is spoken (in comes the apostle Paul, the Christian killa), and the overwhelming amount of historical writings all corroberating a cohesive story, (and my own personal experience as well witnessing miracles, seeing evidence, hearing logical explanations, and having all my questions about God being answered) then I would agree that the concept of a God existing would is ridiculous. All I had to do was ask God for what I needed to believe...

[@Mark-cd2wf]

3:55: I’ve been saying this forever. All claims require _sufficient_ evidence.

[@hamobu]

That's the same thing as extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[@deenmohammad385]

Where’s the sufficient evidence for walking on water?

[@deadalivemaniac]

I’ll take the idea of anything extraordinary existing seriously if we can actually get an objective criteria of what constitutes extraordinary.

[@kaenwanderer4547]

I feel like the idea of naturalism and that the physical universe is all there is contradicts itself. When scientists say, "by instinct we or they do this behavior" it always sound to me like the word instinct is just a way of saying an unknown thing. But as a Christian I would say that thing is God. God the being who teaches the wolf to hunt.

[@su1t0n11]

So both say they don't actually know. Scientists made up an Instinct, you made up a God.

[@IrishEagIe]

Your editing is perfect 😂

[@anaromana8183]

My only problem with this is: Why we are loosing 8 minute from our life to see a video who still doesent produce any remote evidence on any miracle claims that we have in this universe? Waist of time. case done. move next!!!

[@TestifyApologetics]

lol. the point is to say that it should be theoretically possible to change your mind about miracles on the basis of testimony, and ECREE doesn't really say anything useful. I am gonna address miracle claims in future videos.

[@CNNat11]

you dont even know basic spelling and grammar man

[@thadofalltrades]

I often ask skeptics: What evidence for an event which happened in ancient history, that would reasonably be available at that time, would convince you the event happened? So far I have never once had someone respond. That's not to say my question is anything special, but for some reason when I ask this question the conversation just ends. I never get a response to it. 🤷‍♂🤷‍♂

[@Finckelstein]

How about multiple contemporary attestations, including by outside sources? You know, something that is completely absent for the bible. You only have the bible, whose NT was written decades after the fact and some mentions of christians being a thing by Tacitus and Josephus - once again, both decades after the fact. When it comes to Julius Caesar for example, we have tons of contemporary scripts. By his allies, by his enemies, by contemporary historians etc. Why doesn't something like that exist for Jesus? Why is there no outside source for the resurrection? You'd think at least some people would write about such a world-changing event. But no, crickets. The resurrection isn't mentioned anywhere outside the gospels, which were written by decades later by people who wanted to make christianity a thing. Also, contrary to this video, the claim that Julius Caesar existed is a completely mundane one. I can believe that on simple corrospondence. The claim that he not only lived but also was a demigod (which was written about him by the way. Contemporary, even. Which is way more than what you can say about Jesus) is somehow not widely accepted by skeptics. I wonder why that is....

[@thadofalltrades]

@@Finckelstein is that evidence reasonable for the place and time the event happened? Most skeptics believe the vast majority of people in 1st century Israel were illiterate. Why would you expect sources like that then? "You'd think at least some people would write about such a world-changing event." This statement is based on a 21st century view of what happened. When it was happening, almost no one would have considered it world changing. Most Jews, including the disciples until after Jesus appeared to them, would have thought Jesus to be a false Messiah because he died. The Bible describes a very local event, aimed at a very small, specific group, that eventually spread over a much larger area. When it did eventually spread over a wide area you start to see national level historians talking about it. It makes perfect sense that an event in a tiny corner of the Roman empire that had no impact on the Roman empire at the time would get no press. The only press it would receive would be local and Jewish and in a society where virtually all news was transmitted word of mouth there would be very little writing. The only possible thing you might expect is publications denouncing the event as false, which we have none. Possibly because so little survives from that time. The Christians were intentional about preserving these writings, that's why we have such a wealth of manuscript evidence. It makes perfect sense given the historical context that we would have very little external attestation close to the event. What there would be would likely be in the form of personal journals by people like Pontius Pilate or members of the Sanhedrin, but the likelihood that something like that would survive to today is very tiny and it wouldn't likely be preserved with as much fervor.

[@jojo88430]

By this garbage logic, The Punic Wars never happened because all we have are the Roman accounts written down well after they occurred, and there are ZERO non-Roman, contemporary accounts that they happened, nor any day-by-day accounts from anyone following the war.

[@CNNat11]

@@Finckelstein Ever heard of Josephus?

[@Finckelstein]

@@CNNat11 You mean the guy who not only wasn't a contemporary of Jesus, but whose passages about Jesus have been shown to be forgeries? The Testimonium Flavianum is so ridiculously out of place, you have to be very dogma-driven to accept it as an actual account and not as a ham-fisted way to stuff Jesus into historical texts. Josephus was a devout jew and never would've written those passages. They don't fit contextually, historically or typographically. They don't fit his writing style either. The passage is entirely alien to the rest of Antiquitates Judaicae. The fact people like you always bring up Josephus and Tacitus shows just how little you have. Not only are your sources not contemporary, quite a few of them are entirely made up. I'm willing to go as far as to say you never read the Testimonium Flavianum. You were just primed to blurt out "Josephus" every time someone questions your sources.

[@Satarack]

In essence, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," suggests there's one standard for ordinary claims, which don't require extraordinary evidence, and extraordinary claims, which do require extraordinary evidence. Even if we ignore how inherently subjective "extraordinary" is, you're still saying there's two standards of evidence, one standard for the ordinary, and one standard for the extraordinary. But there is only one standard of evidence. Evidence is that which makes a claim more likely to be true than if the evidence did not exist.

[@hamobu]

The amount of evidence is proportional to likelihood of the event. Let us say you tell me that last week you traveled to Boston and you bought a coffee and a donut in Dunkin. That's an ordinary claim, and I am happy to take you at your word. And then you say that while in Dunkin, you came across Jennifer Lopez who was upset with Ben Affleck, so she grabbed you, dragged you behind the store and you two kissed next to a dumpster. I would not believe your claim but if you show me a video of it happening on your phone then I would believe you. But then you said that Jennifer Lopez is actually an alien, and the person in the video pulls off her face like a mask to reveal a face full of alien tentacles. In that case I would not believe either you or the video, but if scientists end up examining Ms. Lopez, confirm that she is an alien, and this ends up being national news, then I would believe you again.

[@jfr45er]

They could just be honest and say “I would believe in god I just dun wanna!”

[@jfr45er]

@@KenCunkle what do you mean by that?

[@jfr45er]

@@KenCunkle interesting. How’d you come to that conclusion?

[@jfr45er]

@@KenCunkle are you saying that if only the Testify KZbinr and people like myself could read and understand English like you can that we would reach your conclusions instead?

[@DanielFernandez-jv7jx]

Excellent summary! Thank you. The value of evidence can only be judged by its ability to prove its intended argument, and cannot logically be related to the improbability of the claim. There can be degrees of certainty in proof, but these degrees are also unrelated to the probability of the claim.

[@BloodSonicFlux]

The issue with the sagan argument, is that if we try to define extraordinary, far too many events or claims could be counted as extraordinary, while the kinds of evidence that could be counted is basically either all or nothing. Every historical event, or scientific proof, are believed on the basis of witness testimony. A scientific paper is itself a written testimony of a scientist's theories, methodology, result and conclusion. In some scientific fields, these things cannot be replicated (e.g: social sciences, archaeology) And the ones that can be replicated don't become anything more than another person's testimony. That either is extraordinary, in which case the gospels also are, or they aren't, meaning we can't believe anything. And when we reach to the classification that the gospel accounts are, that is historical testimony for historical events, then unless the only thing you classify as 'extraordinary claims' are biblical miracles which is basically presupposing your own position, we can use the same set of criterion to argue that neither of the World Wars happened, nor did Hannibal's crossing of the alps, nor did the beginning of the universe. Because the only evidence of such things is either the testimony of supposed eyewitnesses, or some suppositions and assertions.

[@tomblaise]

This video did a lot of arguing by analogy without actually doing much arguing. It sets Hume (and people who ask for extraordinary evidence) up as this absolutist viewpoint that won’t even consider large amounts of evidence, including in-person testimony. The issue is, we don’t actually have much (if any) first hand accounts of Jesus. We have conflicting narratives that were written many decades after his death, and the earliest books of the New Testament are thought to be written by John, someone who never actually met Jesus. Deconstructing an opposing viewpoint doesn’t actually make the Christian view any stronger. If anything, all this video succeeds at is picking a very extreme viewpoint supported by skeptics without actually addressing the moderate claim of skepticism.

[@mullcorin6810]

Testify: Releases a video called, "This Skeptical Slogan is Mostly Useless" Commenters: You didn't prove Christianity, all you've done is argue [what the video is titled]!! 😤😤

[@tomblaise]

@@mullcorin6810 The video argued about a needlessly extreme version of skepticism that has absolutely no level of proof acceptable to believe something as true. It argued against a position of skepticism that isn’t actually held by anyone. Sure, maybe an extraordinary level of proof isn’t well defined, but neither is a reasonable level of proof, or a light burden of proof.

[@RavenDelta]

​@tomblaise it's strawmanning all the way down

[@zitternden]

When you said "the problem with the word extraordinary is that it's rarely clearly defined by the skeptic"... I've found in debating skeptics that often they use relatively undefined words. If you simply ask them what you mean by "xyz" and try to pin them down on definitions, their arguments often fall apart.

[@zitternden]

@@LordMathious That just means we can debate on a level playing field. It doesn't mean you won't run away.

[@zitternden]

@@LordMathious Perhaps I just didn't understand your meaning.

[@retrictumrectus1010]

I think this is how a skeptic mind works: Claims that I found difficult to believe require evidence that is so strong i find it difficult to resist. The problem is that all of those tend to be measured through feelings or guts, not facts and logic.

[@RodMartinJr]

*_After FIRST defining "extraordinary,"_* we need to ask: "To what purpose does an extraordinary claim require extraordinary evidence?" Ironically, a great deal of *_extraordinary evidence_* has been dismissed because it did NOT match the new doctrines established at the end of the 19th century!!! Geology and anthropology were two of the hardest hit fields of science. *_The SUBTEXT_* of this Argumentum Sagani implies that an extraordinary claim for which there is no extraordinary evidence is "automatically disproven or debunked." While any scientist worth his salt will NOT explicitly state this, the implication remains -- as if to hope that the muddy thinking masses will go along with this unstated implication, thus ridding the world of the uncomfortable claim. But this implication is logically fallacious, as well, because it is an Argument from Ignorance! Just because you have Little or No evidence for a claim, *_NEVER_* disproves or debunks a claim. We are left with the uncomfortable fact: "I don't know." Like the 4th century *_Politicized Christians,_* today's corrupt scientists want a FIXED MEANING to science. They cannot stand uncertainty of any kind. *_BUT we must Humble ourselves to God's UNKNOWN Truth_* which will *_Always_* remain beyond our reach so long as we have physical bodies and egos. 😎♥✝🇺🇸💯

[@SonOfMan182]

Presupposing extraordinary thing requires extraordinary thing to mark as evidence is absolutely not true. There is still things that can lead to indirect evidence of something through worldly measures, and archeological, historical, and cultural records comply with the phenomenological records that gravitate towards the death of Christ in prophecy.

[@Spartan322]

Liars tend to hide their falsehoods behind a presumption which goes undefined so they can claim they aren't actually liars, and then when you catch them out on it they either claim "oops, but my argument remains" basically motte-and-bailey'ing the argument, (often with some kind of whataboutism) or they'll go and say "it is defined, you just don't accept the definition, that doesn't make it invalid" and then refuse to give a consistent definition, but one they design to pragmatically refute each individual argument but for which contradicts the other occurrences of their own arguments when stacked alongside each other, functionally another form of moving the goalpost. (otherwise known as a deflection)

[@oolooo]

Basically , it is the proclamation: "I will reject all evidence I am given because it is not what I want to see and will claim it is somehow not sufficient no matter what and will claim I am an intellectual due to being so inmature and childish" They claim there is not enough strong evidence because they reject evidence for being evidence .They need to reject it .Christ Risen could appear before them and they would delude themselves with an elaburate yarn about their senses tricking them .

[@KevinForfar]

Here's a big issue: something being extraordinary or not is a matter of the individual. For instance, to humans, the existence of angels seems extraordinary. But if we suppose that angels do exist, then the existence of angels is NOT extraordinary to the angels themselves, but is instead obvious since they are constantly interacting with other angels. So, who gets to decide what is extraordinary or not? What is extraordinary to one person may be a banal fact to another.

[@Cu_Lyo]

I think the problem is that any claim can be considered "extraordinary" if someone is ignorant enough. We tend to lay knowledge on itself like bricks in a house, but we can't imagine resting a brick on empty space (unless it's minecraft). This is why advanced technology is compared to magic, I think. In this way, "extraordinary" is a relative term, that doesn't serve any useful purpose. In the case of miracles, they often seem to outright defy the way reality works. We see that the dead do not rise, so it would be beyond abnormal for them to do so. For those of us who accept the obvious, that this was all created, it does not seem so farfetched that the creator could "bend the rules," where we can't. The atheist, instead choosing to believe a far more "extraordinary" explanation of "this was all an accident that arose from literally nothing," has already rejected the very foundation of any other miraculous claim. We live in a consistent universe. The laws that govern it do not alter themselves, and we cannot disobey them like we can human laws, because our very, physical existence is subject to them. For this reason, one needs to first see the atheist convinced that there must be a god, before they can move on to the implications therein.

[@charbelbejjani5541]

6:17 this. I think (and you may not agree) that Our Lady of Zeitoun is a straightforward example of what Babbage is referring to here. At this point I don't think one can do a deep dive into this event and come up unfazed and confident that nothing happened.

[@randywise5241]

Atheism is the worship of self. Prove me wrong. If there is no God, then "do has thou will be the some of the law." If rights come from governments, then they can be taken away with the stroke of a pen.

[@polygondeath2361]

Atheism makes no claims. You are just wrong

[@skybattler2624]

​@@polygondeath2361 Unfortunately, that is the natural conclusion of Atheism. So many prominent Atheist knows this, and quickly became Agnostic when they realize it. True Atheists are extremely rare, and many of those who claim as such, are Anti-theists. As one famous Atheists said: I hate popular Atheism because they still act as if God exists, just denying His existence.

[@CNNat11]

@@polygondeath2361 there are obvious logical extensions of Atheism though. Let's not be dense.

[@polygondeath2361]

@@CNNat11 no, there are not. Atheism is the rejection of gods, of which there is very shaky evidence.

[@ego8330]

No, Atheism is just the lack of belief in a God/Gods.

[@CJFCarlsson]

So an extraordinary event would be proof of an extraordinary claim and then having the afternoon free I would have Hume flogged for impertinence. And Sagan, as extraordinary flogging.

[@holdingpattern245]

Babbage didn't make a programmable computer, he designed one but it probably wouldn't have worked, none of them worked until the idea of making them electronic was conceived in the early 1940s. I personally don't even credit him for the idea really, since it expands on the Jacquard mechanism in an obvious way. (Just a little nitpick.)

[@kiwisaram9373]

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence really means unbelievable claims demand unbelievable evidence.

[@joiemoie]

Fantastic video again! You show the cumulative case argument and how it defeats Hume's argument. I want to point out one angle that also defeats Hume's case. His claim: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". My question would be, "require for what? To go to Church?" Because you certainly don't need extraordinary evidence to go to Church and devote yourself to Christ. Hume conflates intellectual belief and action, and thinks you need overwhelming evidence before you step foot in a Church and pray. The reality is more simple. You need ordinary evidence that at the very least, the Church you are considering cultivates virtues. That's when you let God come to you, accept him, and the spirit spurs action. You might not even know apologetics, and you will sin plenty still. But the action of the Spirit comes first, and then action and understanding grow hand in hand. You will understand the evidential reasons for Christ, as well as your actions conform to his will. Later as you naturally grow in understanding, you may find that your home Church that you first started at no longer aligns with your beliefs, or the pastoralship is lacking, and perhaps you find a different Church. But that is a far-cry from radical skeptical atheism, where you simply avoid going to Church altogether. Here might be the different stages of understanding which grow over time: Stage 1: 1) My family goes and I love my parents. 2) I like the community there. This first stage is characterized by probably not really avoid sin much and going for the fellowship. It's enough to get you at least going for the pizza. Stage 2: 1) I begin to understand the objective reality of good and evil. 2) I recognize through some basic arguments, like the first mover argument and the beauty of nature, that God definitely is real. This second stage is the stage where you start to understand the faith more seriously, avoid sin, but maybe you haven't incorporated the historical lens of understanding the Bible. You believe in Jesus more likely, but maybe you still don't understand the Bible also and wouldn't do somethings that other Christians do, like missionary work. Stage 3: 1) The Bible can be corroborated internally though undesigned coincidences, as well as extra-biblical sources and certain consistencies among early Christian Creeds and writers. 2) I understand the Bible more deeply at different layers. This stage is characterized by more fully loving God through seriously tackling sin, evangelizing to others, and wanting to read scripture daily to peel apart all the layers. You might start to develop more fully a sense of proper doctrine and float around Churches as you start to embed yourself in a taking sin more seriously beyond just the pizza parties. Sin becomes a more foreign element to you, seriously harming your relationship with Christ. Action and understanding really grow hand-in-hand here.

[@Inari1987]

What is "extraordinary" is highly subjective to the person using it.

[@spacemoose4726]

"All claims need enough evidence" How do you determine what is "enough?" Do all claims require the same amount of evidence to be enough?

[@jdotoz]

Likely "enough to overcome prior probability."

[@spacemoose4726]

​@@jdotozSo the lower the prior probability the more evidence is needed?

[@jdotoz]

@@spacemoose4726 If by needed, you mean "needed to convince a person that the proposition is true, or at least likely to be true," yes. More and/or stronger evidence.

[@spacemoose4726]

@@jdotoz So then shouldn't something with a extraordinarily low prior probability need an extraordinarily amount of evidence?

[@jdotoz]

@@spacemoose4726 Yes. I think he's strawmanning the slogan a little; it does make sense understood this way. However, it's all too easy to have a nebulous or arbitrary standard which makes it impossible to satisfy.

[@tolkienomics]

Extraordinary claims require ordinary evidence, not extraordinary evidence, as the concept of an extraordinary claim primarily designates probability of public exposition. It does not invite any additional speculation in regards to a requirement of extraordinary methodologies for processing extraordinary claims. As such, the scientific method does not have conditional variations dependent upon a hypothesis's novelty.

[@Gouka07]

I don’t like allowing this slogan in a discussion because it’s just special pleading. However, I’m intrigued to see where you go with it. Off the top of my head, the idea that a materialistic, evolved brain is suited for determining truth instead of merely surviving? Or going one level deeper - the claim that discerning truth necessarily increases a creature’s chance of survival? Those are pretty extraordinary claims within their own framework!

[@yee2631]

I don't use this phrase to dismiss opposing claims as increduous outright, just to point out the obvious that claims such as the immaculate conception and resurrection are virtually impossible to prove. Of course, that might also be considered an extraordinary claim by people who are convinced that these things really happened, so I'll still listen to any and all arguments you can possibly come up with and explain exactly why they're weak arguments.

[@alexisponce5021]

W channel and W vid

[@micahbannister1287]

The problem of this is the switching of criteria, and trying to answer atheist presupposition with historical data. There is no way to answer it because they disqualify themselves from investigating. As an example: Atheist: "I am going to conduct study on the winning lottery numbers of 10 years ago" Theist: "Awesome! Here are the historical records that show who the winners are, what they spent their money on, and how the relatives reacted to it." Atheist: "Wait a minute now. Out of all the people in the world, and all the numbers in the world, isn't it a little convenient that it happened to be this person and these numbers? I mean, just from a mathematical standpoint, the odds of this being true are incredibly low, bordering on statistical impossibility!" Theist: "But that's not how this works. You're asking a historical answer, you have to accept historical criteria, not statistical criteria. You're investigating if this numerically unlikely thing occurred, so you can't therefore require more than what a historical account will give you to count as proof." Atheist: "But I believe in math! Don't you? Are you a math denying fundamentalist who doesn't understand statistics? A claim like this is so unlikely it's not worth entertaining. It is more reasonable to assume that nobody won the lottery than to believe these historical records. eXtRaOrDiNaRy cLaiMS ReQUiRe ExTrAOrDiNaRy eViDeNcE" Just like in the above analogy, there is no way to convince someone with this disposition that miracles occur, because of course historical evidence will not meet their philosophical presuppositional challenges. It can only meet the historical ones. It doesn't matter how well it does so. Even though textual criticism shows that the gospels are clearly written as history by people close to the events who died for their belief in the truth of the documents, with events that are confirmed by more outside sources than you can shake a stick at... It doesn't matter. Because they move the goalposts in the historical realm into the philosophical realm where they don't matter. Just like the statistician refusing to accept the lottery winners from 10 years ago, if you judge history by extra-historical standards, you will never be convinced.

[@PercyTinglish]

Extraordinary is very simple, it means a lot. The reason that the claim you have a dog is not extraordinary while the claim you have a fire breathing dragon is extraordinary is not because there is one piece of super evidence backing up the dog claim, it's because there is an enormous amount of regular evidence that dogs exist, and that people keep dogs as pets. I might be lying about having a pet dog, but I might also be lying about having a pet dragon so they are even on that. The difference is that we don't have evidence that fire breathing dragons even exist. Likewise, if I told you I have a pet lion, we have a lot of evidence that lions exist, not as much as dogs, but still many, many times more than most people look for. We also have evidence that people keep lions as pets, but it is uncommon, especially compared to dogs, so the lion claim is more extraordinary. The lion claim is less extraordinary that the dragon, etc. It's really not complicated, I don't know why people who do this professionally get so hung up on a simple concept.

[@TestifyApologetics]

But bro I basically literally say that the lower the prior probability the more evidence is needed. I just say that enough reliable eyewitness testimony can overcome a low prior. My beef is when people say testimony can never be enough. Here is what I'm saying: If the facts can be accounted for without difficulty on the supposition of M, but not, without great implausibility, on the assumption of ¬M, then they provide significant evidence in favor of M. The prior probability of M is not so low as to overcome the cumulative force of the evidence in its favor. Or to quote Thomas Sherlock: " “I do allow that this case, and others of like nature, require more evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do. You may therefore require more evidence in these than in other cases; but it is absurd to say that such cases admit no evidence, when the things in question are quite manifestly objects of sense.”

[@PercyTinglish]

@@TestifyApologetics how many people have to tell you that Mongolia is exclusively occupied by clones of the real Jesus of Nazareth before you believe it? You're not allowed to investigate further, you don't have access to any new information about Mongolia. Just the stories. How many?

[@PercyTinglish]

@@TestifyApologetics how does testimony overcome that barrier? You have to get past the simple fact that people can be wrong. I can write to you as honestly as I am capable, and still mislead you.

[@TestifyApologetics]

this is dumb. it's not as if we can't assess the claims of people by finding out what their relationship with truth is, were they present, and are they knowledgeable or not.

[@PercyTinglish]

@@TestifyApologetics really? How would you tell the difference between a reasonable person who was accurately relaying information to you and the same person relaying false information to you when they genuinely believe it to be true? Keep in mind we're dealing with a particular set of data that we don't have a lot of background information to verify with.

[@imimpo9316]

Thanks for the video! I pray that all the lost souls find the Light of Christ!

[@ClaudioIbarra]

But lots of people _said_ it happened, so that's like the same thing as one person checking and verifying it, right? Extraordinary just means out of the ordinary. It's like the difference between "was there a person named Jesus around Nazareth a couple thousand years ago" versus "did a person come back from the dead". One of those is not an extraordinary claim. If you set the bar low for "miracles", then you have to set the bar low for ALL miracles, and now every religion is right. They cannot all be right, but they can all be wrong.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

Not really. If you examine the evidence in favor of Christianity and use that as your "standard of evidence" when analyzing other religions, you find that no other religion holds a candle to Christianity.

[@ClaudioIbarra]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 That's what those religions say, too.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

@@ClaudioIbarra cool. Anyone can SAY anything. Have you actually done the legwork yourself?

[@ClaudioIbarra]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 For what? I'm not making a claim. Unless you consider "that's a bad argument, and it's not evidence" as a claim. The important part here is that "a lot of people _said_ it happened" isn't the evidence for the claim. That IS the claim.

[@thegodofalldragons]

​@@ClaudioIbarraSo in other words, no, you haven't looked into it yourself.

[@briggy4359]

Comparing a miracle to natural occurances is like comparing the recitation of Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy to wet fart.

[@jdotoz]

"Evidence" can be defined as "any observation that alters the probability of a given proposition." I suppose "extraordinary evidence" might indicate that the change in probability was above some significant threshold, whether this change was from a single observation or the cumulative result of many observations.

[@Heightren]

When you talked about the flurry of jabs, I thought of the video of the guy cooking chicken by slapping it with a machine

[@RodMartinJr]

*_WHY are Miracles so Rare?_* BECAUSE they require a state of Mind and Heart which is not normally found in the human population. Humans are normally *_Selfish_* (egoistic). Here, we define "Heart" as the subconscious ("feeling") mind which typically involves fight-or-flight reactions and inspiration. If the Heart has any selfishness, even a tiny speck -- 0.00000000001% -- then the individual has ZERO chance of asking God Almighty for a miracle. I discuss this effect in my book, *_Perfect Zero._* And this was inspired by a set of miracles I experienced on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles in 1977 which had me *_temporarily_* Pure of Heart. I discuss this incident in my books, *_The Art of Forgiveness, The Science of Miracles,_* and *_The Logical Christian._* And miracles are possible because God LOVES His spiritual children -- *_NOT the bodies they wear._* 😎♥✝🇺🇸💯

[@sixtealbisetti2480]

The slogan is useful when talking about things that are not supposed to be miracles For instance, flat earthers Or people seeing aliens everywhere Or conspiracy theorists

[@MessianicJewJitsu]

Volume punching by cardio guys can easily chew up a power puncher throwing slogan-like haymakers.

[@atticusherodes6648]

One of the most subjectives statements because what is extrodinary to one isnt to another it is not a statement of god fairh.

[@JaidenTamayo]

They never define extraordinary evidence I could use any piece of evidence and say it's extraordinary. Extraordinary evidence for them is setting the bar unreasonably high

[@hamobu]

I used to be a Muslim because I was told that there were scientific facts in Quran. Once I saw those for myself, I realized that it was BS. IF the Quran or the bible actually had something like that, I would believe. For example, if the bible mentioned any of the following: 1. Germs and Viruses exist 2. Dinosaurs existed and died out 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth. 3. Stars are distant suns and it takes years for their light to reach us. 4. If God actually spoke to me, and proved it by predicting the outcome of every coin toss. Etc.

[@humantwist-offcap9514]

What fascinates me about this kind of positional argument is that it is entirely based upon your willingness to forgo your ego and preconceived notions. I talk cellular biology with people a lot. They’ve never seen it, they have no reason to believe what I’m telling them, and they can’t witness anything I am explaining. If I approached every journal I’ve read with this same foundation of rejection that skeptics have, I would reject everything I’ve ever learned. All of the evidence is just things they’ve written, you’re still trusting the legitimacy of the provided evidence. However, there sure is a lot of that evidence, huh?

[@su1t0n11]

Weird, because you should be a person that know these things can be tested again and again and get to the same result. That is why people "believe it" because it can be tested. Can you test miracles from God the same way you can test scientific phenomenons?

[@nunciomassara7534]

I think that, like any phrase, it can be misused. The issue being raised is burden of proof, with the nonreligious person arguing that it has not been met. Of course, if one does say that nothing could convince them, then the objection is moot. Not saying all or even most people are saying that when they use this phrase, but if that is the stance of the person talking, the argument will go nowhere. On the flip side, if a Christian (or anyone of religious faith) were to claim that nothing would dissuade them from believing it, they have made the same error. Ultimately, I would hope we can all agree on the underlying principle: Blindly accepting or rejecting something is bad.

[@deenmohammad385]

Definition of an extraordinary claim: Something that would change the whole understanding of a field of learning because it contradicts so many of our previously tested and researched conclusions. Eg. Walking on water would break our understanding of physics given the plethora of evidence and tests done regarding the weight of humans and water and why things sink, how gravity works etc. And there absolutely can be extraordinary evidence. A highly plausible theory as to how such a feat was performed such as through current day replication (provided that the technology to do it today was possible back when the feat was supposedly performed) would suffice. Of which we don’t have that evidence for the extraordinary claims of walking on water and turning water into wine. This whole video is just a huge straw man argument arguing that atheists can’t define an extraordinary claim (which some may not but many can). And what makes it even funnier is the constant use of the Wojack to display atheists as silly and stupid while the whole video is a giant straw man, like you can’t even make this up bro 💀

[@Lecommandant_camroun]

Jesus is king ❤

[@hamobu]

You miss Hume's point by giving examples similar to resurrection. The point is not guilt by association, but a demonstration that if you believe in resurrection you should then believe in similar examples, and if you don't then you shouldn't believe in resurrection.

[@FuddlyDud]

@hamobu Right, and we do believe in similar miracles when the evidence is there. :) The issue here is that no specific miracle has yet been alleged. So, if you know one of sufficient specificity that Christians don’t accept, let me know! :)

[@hamobu]

@@FuddlyDud "The issue here is that no specific miracle has yet been alleged." No there was such miracle listed in Hume's essay itself. That's the point. Are you a catholic? Are you familiar with "Our lady of Medjugorije" or "Miracle of the sun"? DO you believe in those miracles?

[@TestifyApologetics]

bro no that’s now how this works. you can't do trial by proxy. in the next vid you should hopefully see the claims are not the same.

[@hamobu]

@@TestifyApologetics you kind of can do a trial by proxy. That's called a precedent. If you do something in one case then you are consistent in subsequent similar cases.

[@FuddlyDud]

@@hamobu " No there was such miracle listed in Hume's essay itself. That's the point. " Well that's actually a problem since then the standard is unfalsifiable as of right now. :P "Are you a catholic? Are you familiar with "Our lady of Medjugorije" or "Miracle of the sun"? DO you believe in those miracles?" No, but yes, I do believe in them. :) God blesses all people, even those of other religions and denominations.

[@JacobGosnell-fr2xc]

Eric have you ever experienced someone giving a word of knowledge that was accurate?( which is when God reveals something about someone they couldn’t have known otherwise)

[@liamdoyle2828]

The great thing is, anyone willing to objectively assess the evidence will see we have extraordinary historical evidence for the resurrection. Wait, skeptics still aren't convinced? Makes it seem that they're being somewhat disingenuous about assessing the evidence here.

[@RozkminTo]

"I dont know, i dont care and im not convinced"

[@gergelymagyarosi9285]

It's not just Hume who says miracles are improbable. This is practically the definition of a miracle. If miracles were everyday things that would render Jesus' resurrection mundane. I can't believe how close Testify comes to understanding the implications, then swats aways that pesky thought with shifting the burden of proof.

[@5BBassist4Christ]

Mohammad: The proof of my revelation is the fine eloquence of my book. Nobody can write something like it. I'm the judge if they try. Atheists: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm the judge on the quality of the evidence.

[@guillermoelnino]

2:11 Tr ump trial in a nutshell

[@briggy4359]

Fr

[@polygondeath2361]

No, there is a ton of evidence. You don’t get found guilty on ALL counts. Why do christians keep finding themselves within the cult of trump?