I will assume that you agree that at least some testimonies are evidence.
This is why our conversations generally go nowhere. These words were in the post to which you responded: "All testimony is evidence."
Your hate towards Christianity and creationism is telling and very interesting
I have no problem with most Christians or with private religion. One's religious life should be as private as his sex life and financial situation.
My complaint with Christianity is limited to its bigotries (misogyny, homophobia, atheophobia), its contempt for church-state separation (reversing Roe v Wade), preaching politics from the pulpit while taking undeserved tax exemptions, the Catholic Church's pedophilia coverup, wealthy prosperity preachers, the hypocrisy of the white evangelicals who voted overwhelmingly for Trump, "war on Christmas" victimhood, and the dishonesty of creationists and their apologetics.
You're not being honest here. This comment was dishonest: "All I am saying is that at least sometimes testimonies count as evidence." If that were all you're saying, then you'd be done. Nobody is contesting that comment except maybe me, who says that testimonies are ALWAYS evidence just like everything else evident to the senses. Evidence is the noun form of the adjective evident. If one hears or reads testimony, then that is evidence that somebody made that claim. You like to refer to the testimonial evidence in scripture for resurrection. Those words are evidence that somebody wrote them and not even evidence that the writer believed them much less that the testimony should be given credence. But they are evidence of at least that, as is all other testimony.
This is from another creationist who also refused to disclose what he believed that was powering comments like this:
"The oldest known civilization is the Sumerian. Anyone who has any knowledge of how civilized that ancient
nation was, realizes that to reach that level of advancement at the same time that certain apes somewhere gave rise to that development, there would have to be real proof that the apes were actually developing their mathematics and astronomy... and not a couple of children's stories about how it "happened" without showing real evidence."
My answer to him was this:
"What's your point here? Can you state explicitly why you are bringing these claims about when and how cities, languages, math, and astronomy arose to this discussion? One can assume that it is in defense of some creationist belief. Are you implying that civilization appeared all at once in an advanced form and that this implies a creation event analogous to the Cambrian explosion trope creationists like to argue that that implies a sudden creation of the kinds?"
His next comment failed to address my request. It was more of the same:
"A civilization like the Sumerian, from the point of view of apes that become intelligent humans, would require that there be evidence of apes that know how to count, that speak, that name the constellations, that sow and wait for harvests, etc. Those ape communities don't exist...except in fiction/fantasy movies. So it is obvious that the intellect belongs exclusively to humans, and therefore, they were originally created with that capacity."
I don't expect you to outperform your fellow creationist. You'll NEVER express your agenda even though there would be nothing shocking about it and revealing it wouldn't hurt your effort to do whatever it is you're doing, which I think you already know will change no minds.
I can speculate as to what you're concealing - what the words would say if you were honest about your purpose for that line of discussion about testimony. Something that translates to science is not reliable, or that scripture is, or science is founded in nothing more than religion is - some false equivalency between the two. But you have no intention of being honest in that way.
