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Sorry but I don't respond well when people are throwing ugly sarcastic replies in my face. You seem incapable of having a polite discussion.
There was nothing inpolite in my post. You are just dodging now because I called you on a point you made that you now can not back up.
Also I am not the one throwing insults like "your stubborn close mindedness.". Nor am I the one who has their posts moderated to remove personal attacks such as in this one here. So check your own attitude and decorum before presuming to admonish others on theirs please.
Again the clear... polite.... and correct point I am making is that no.... despite your claims that courts accept it "daily"..... unverified and unverifiable anecdote is not evidence. Not in science. Not in courts. Not on forums.
The original point I was making in the thread was that it seems you are quick and willing to accept anecdotes that support your position.... dismissive of any that do not.... but offended when people do not accent yours. This is a glaring bias in any discourse on a subject like this one.
Anecdote is simply not enough. Especially not "friend of a friend who told my pastor that he was told by his cousin that his brother heard his sister saw a miracle" type anecdotes. From Chinese Whisper effects... to people outright making crap up.... by the time that anecdote falls off your fingers onto this forum it is just unverifiable nonsense that we can do little with.
There was nothing inpolite in my post. You are just dodging now because I called you on a point you made that you now can not back up.
You wrote:
"Oh goodie. Please cite me daily examples where unverified AND unverifiable anecdote has been used in a court case please. A nice case of someone walking in and saying "Oh I know a person who saw the accused kill the victim, I do, no really I do" where they were taken seriously. Go on. I can't wait for this."
Sorry, but where I come from that, that's being rude, impolite, and baiting. Now if you had presented it in a different manner, I would have no problem saying that perhaps I have confused anecdotal evidence with eyewitness testimony. At the time, I was thinking more along the lines of someone testifying "well he told me that he was going to go rob the bank." It's third party account, but I believe it would still be used in a court. Maybe I'm wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
Also I am not the one throwing insults like "your stubborn close mindedness.". Nor am I the one who has their posts moderated to remove personal attacks such as in this one here. So check your own attitude and decorum before presuming to admonish others on theirs please.
I am merely pointing out the manner in which your replies are coming off to me. I would be glad for you to prove me wrong and show me how you can be open minded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
Anecdote is simply not enough. Especially not "friend of a friend who told my pastor that he was told by his cousin that his brother heard his sister saw a miracle" type anecdotes. From Chinese Whisper effects... to people outright making crap up.... by the time that anecdote falls off your fingers onto this forum it is just unverifiable nonsense that we can do little with.
If you truly believe that then anytime a good friend of yours tells you a story, your atheist response must always be, "hey great story, but sorry, I have to reject it as a lie because ancedote accounts are not enough." Well I have a bit more faith that my Christian brothers and sisters are not all bold face liars.
Sorry, but where I come from that, that's being rude, impolite, and baiting.
If you say so. I do not know any such place. Perhaps it is just you that is over sensitive. But as I said I will not be admonished on my manners from someone who engages in name calling and is the only one of the two of us who has had their posts moderated for abusive and rude content by the moderators.
I am... for the third time.... all ears to hear your examples of where unverifiable and unverified anecdote is used "daily as evidence in court cases.". I am more than willing to make it easier for you however. Forget daily. Try even shown it is taken MONTHLY.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
I would be glad for you to prove me wrong and show me how you can be open minded.
Given you appear to think "open minded" means "agree with me" there is no way I will be showing you any such thing. However I define "open minded" as "Someone who is readily willing to change their position/opinion on any matter in the face of evidence, argument, data or reasoning".
Alas given your resistance to providing an iota of any of those four things which substantiates your claims I do not have the chance to be "open minded" their either. Instead all I am getting from you is excuses as to why you will not be giving any of the evidence. Evidence you keep claiming there is not just some but lots and lots of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
If you truly believe that then anytime a good friend of yours tells you a story, your atheist response must always be, "hey great story, but sorry, I have to reject it as a lie because ancedote accounts are not enough."
If their anecdote involves making a Truth Claim about our Reality itself they yes I would of course. There is a world of difference between an anecdote like "I went out last night and met a girl and we kissed" which I am happy to accept on face value until such time as believing it impacts on my existence in some way and "I went out last night and met a girl who suddenly flew off into the sky without the aid of technology".
People on threads like this are not just telling anecdotes about personal experiences which made them confused, wowwed and get a feeling of "oooo that was freaky/spooky and I can not explain it but its fun to talk about it and speculate all the same".
No, they and you are tending towards using such anecdotes as actual evidence that the supernatural speculation you engage in is somehow substantiated or even credible off the back of them.
never underestimate someone just because their reality isn't your reality.. anything is possible
I am happy with "Anything is possible". No one has discounted the possibilities here.
The issue is when you get past "It is possible" to "Is it credible" or "Is it substantiated" we always come up with "No".
And when you point that "No" out someone always comes back arguing about how it is "possible" because "anything is possible" and the circle goes off again.
If you say so. I do not know any such place. Perhaps it is just you that is over sensitive. But as I said I will not be admonished on my manners from someone who engages in name calling and is the only one of the two of us who has had their posts moderated for abusive and rude content by the moderators.
Maybe the difference is I don't go running and complaining to mods the moment someone throws some harse criticism at me. I said you were acting close minded. If you consider that name calling and abuse then you really are extremely sensitive. OTOH, you called me a whiner and a ranter which is much worse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
I am... for the third time.... all ears to hear your examples of where unverifiable and unverified anecdote is used "daily as evidence in court cases.". I am more than willing to make it easier for you however. Forget daily. Try even shown it is taken MONTHLY.
I already gave you an example. "Try even shown it is taken MONTHLY. " That's not even a complete sentence. Can you work on being more comprehensive in your comments?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
Given you appear to think "open minded" means "agree with me" there is no way I will be showing you any such thing. However I define "open minded" as "Someone who is readily willing to change their position/opinion on any matter in the face of evidence, argument, data or reasoning".
I will agree with your definition, but I never see it in practice with atheists. I've never once seen an atheist change their position or opinion. This either means Christians are always wrong with anything they say 100% of the time, or atheists are close minded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
Alas given your resistance to providing an iota of any of those four things which substantiates your claims I do not have the chance to be "open minded" their either. Instead all I am getting from you is excuses as to why you will not be giving any of the evidence. Evidence you keep claiming there is not just some but lots and lots of.
Discussions with you is like playing a football game where you get to make up and change the rules during the game to always call penalties against me. I merely just want to know what the rules are before the game starts. Your persistent refusal does you no favors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
If their anecdote involves making a Truth Claim about our Reality itself they yes I would of course. There is a world of difference between an anecdote like "I went out last night and met a girl and we kissed" which I am happy to accept on face value until such time as believing it impacts on my existence in some way and "I went out last night and met a girl who suddenly flew off into the sky without the aid of technology".
People on threads like this are not just telling anecdotes about personal experiences which made them confused, wowwed and get a feeling of "oooo that was freaky/spooky and I can not explain it but its fun to talk about it and speculate all the same".
No, they and you are tending towards using such anecdotes as actual evidence that the supernatural speculation you engage in is somehow substantiated or even credible off the back of them.
Think what you want. For me, it is a form of evidence that at least suggests that there is more out there than this physical world.
Interesting thread. I thank jdaelectro for sharing his story.
Thanks TroutDude!
I didn't realize this thread got refreshed.
Gonna have to look through the new posts. I'm headed for S Korea and will be pretty busy once I get there, so it might be a bit before I reply to everyone's post.
Maybe the difference is I don't go running and complaining to mods the moment someone throws some harse criticism at me.
Nor do I. This forum, unlike those I moderate myself here and here, has a policy of active moderation. Which means the mods do not just respond to reported posts. They moderate things they themselves see too. On the forums I work for however we moderate nothing unless a user reports it.
But do not let these facts get in the way of you making things up about me whatever you do. I would hate to curtail your only source of evidence so far since you joined: Just making stuff up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
I already gave you an example. "Try even shown it is taken MONTHLY. " That's not even a complete sentence. Can you work on being more comprehensive in your comments?
So you are reaching the level now of having to make ad hominem attacks against typos to derail threads have you? I will not be derailed so I will repeat the point. You claimed unverified and unverifiable anecdote is taken as evidence in courts of law not just often but daily. I would like to see you substantiate this claim in some way because I am under the impression that this is not even remotely true on any level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
I will agree with your definition, but I never see it in practice with atheists.
Nor will you until you actually start providing them with the evidence by which they can practice it. We can not demonstrate the willingness to consider new data and evidence if you consistently avoid giving any data and evidence. It simply can not be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
I've never once seen an atheist change their position or opinion.
Then you simply have not looked hard enough. It happens all the time. Without even testing my brain at all I can instantly come up with the examples Leah Libresco, Anthony Flew, John Lennox and Francis Collins. All former atheists turned theists. Were I forced to actually tax myself I could come up with numerous more examples.
What is more likely to be true is that YOU personally have never managed to get an atheist to change their position or opinion but given the standards of evidence you have been adhering to since joining these fora... this is hardly surprising and I am more than willing to believe you on such a claim given the examples I have thus far seen. The fault however in such a case is with you, not them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
This either means Christians are always wrong with anything they say 100% of the time, or atheists are close minded.
Or, the third posibility to add to your either/or above, you are working on a massively cherry picked and incomplete data set.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD39
Think what you want. For me, it is a form of evidence that at least suggests that there is more out there than this physical world.
It appears from how you use and present anecdote that the reality is actually the mirror inversion of this however. It appears you have already concluded that there is "more than the physical world" and are cherry picking the anecdotes to fuel that conclusion in a feed back loop of confirmation bias.
However you are right in one thing. The weight of anecdote on a particular topic does highlight that topic as being worth of further discourse, research, study and so forth. Where there is a concentration of anecdotes... be they spiritual in nature or other things like UFO and alien abduction... it does tell us that there is an area of interest there and more work has to be done.
The issue for people like me is that people like you want to jump from the anecdotes to the conclusion and bypass any of the interim work that should be done. Or... worse... there is a subsection of you people... one I fear you are in as I said above.... who want to start at the conclusion and then jump back over the interim work to cherry-fit the anecdotes.
A process that is rather akin to firing an assault rifle at a large wall randomly... finding the 10 bullet holes that are closest together.... drawing a bullseye around them.... and then declaring yourself to be an amazing marksman.
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