Are arguments a type of evidence?

[Shad]

Why would you conclude that? That's like trying to understand Chinese using a Russian translator. Or maybe like investigating a cave without any lights. If all you own is a hammer, the world becomes one big nail. Science explains the natural rather nicely, but it has absolutely no ability to assert or refute my incident in the Fifth Grade classroom. It's worse than using a hammer to drive in a screw, or the back of a screwdriver to pound in a nail.

Actually it can. You could of experiences an optical illusion. Besides it is not a requirement of science to refute every baseless or subjective experience any individual may have.

 

[paarsurrey]

Yes or no, and why? To elaborate, many people today believe that only physical, empirical evidence should count for anything. They do not accept logically plausible arguments as a form of evidence. Do you agree or disagree with this?

It should be understood that real evident needs no evidence necessarily.
Regards

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Why would you conclude that? That's like trying to understand Chinese using a Russian translator.

No, it's realizing that if all you have is a Russian translator, then you can't understand Chinese.

If we're going to figure out whether a given claim is true, we need tools to sort out truth from falsehood.

It seems to me that by declaring God and other things "supernatural" (and therefore not subject to the epistemological methods we would use for "natural" things), you're implying that the tools we normally use to sort out truth from falsehood don't apply to them. If this is true, then there are two options available to us:

1. We develop new tools that reliably sort out truth from falsehood for "supernatural" things (if such tools can even exist).

2. We resign ourselves to the fact that we can't know whether any claim about the "supernatural" is true. IOW, belief that any particular supernatural thing exists can't be justified.

As far as I know, nobody's done Option 1 successfully. If you have a way of doing it, I'm all ears.

 

[Scuba Pete]

No, it's realizing that if all you have is a Russian translator, then you can't understand Chinese.

But you certainly don't deny that Chinese exists.

If we're going to figure out whether a given claim is true,

I say Chinese exists, but there's no way for me to record it. You say unless I record it then it doesn't exist.

All these years later, I have two experiences, which seem to be shared by a rather large number of people, that suggest to me that something outside of the natural world exists. Something that I would rather not believe in. Whether you believe me and my experiences or not, the anecdotal evidence is more than enough for me, since they are my anecdotes. In the same vein, my experiences with the soul and the Spirit can be easily dismissed by those who have never had this revealed to them. You can demand proof, but unless it's revealed to you, you simply won't get it. When it is, it's the type of proof that you can't share with others... other than it's been revealed to you.

For what it's worth, I find my belief in ghosts contemptible... silly even. I wouldn't share my beliefs with anyone I was trying to impress as I'm ashamed of them. Why shouldn't I be? My mother claimed to be an atheist, yet she believed in ghosts and the supernatural even more strongly than I did. Shortly before she died, someone asked her point blank about this and she mocked simply them. Then she said: "Well, there was that one time..." Turns out she had multiple experiences of the sort I recounted. We both shared the dank smell, the pricklies and the distinct feeling that our vision was blurred. We would like to ascribe this to overactive imaginations... but the similarities won't let us.