What is Evidence?

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Do you get to decide for yourself what is evidence and what conclusion that evidence supports?

Evidence is whatever is evident to the senses.

What it signifies is a different matter (what it is evidence of). It begins as a bare apprehension: something is there. The mind quickly fills in what that apprehension implies from memory (prior experience), and how one feels about it (affective component).

One is free to use whatever rogue logic he chooses to connect that evidence to his conclusion, but if it isn't valid (fallacy-free) logic, the conclusion has no truth value.

 

[Valjean]

Can you prove your claim by taking every single one of their so called "sources" and providing evidence to your claim that they are all unreliable, and that all of their conclusions are also unreliable?

Any conclusions, about anything, are unreliable if the evidence leads to conflicting claims. One of them may well be correct, but if testing hasn't ruled out all but one possibility, they all remain just claims.

 

[Valjean]

I've been able to visually see, mentally visualize, audibly hear, verbally communicate with, and feel the presence of earthbound human spirits since I was 6 years old. I've seen other entities as well. I'm also an empath and an HSP and can see people's auras in vivid colors. This is what I experience every day.



My close friend and mentor is also a spirit medium. She taught me to control my abilities instead of them controlling me.

I also keep track of some well-known spirit mediums who I believe are authentic.



I believe in supernatural phenomena for reasons that I've often discussed on this forum (such as these previous posts here and here, which include more content to read). Suffice it to say, I've experienced enough of this phenomenon since I was 6 years old, so I have absolutely no doubt that it is real. That's nearly 45 years (my 51st birthday is next week). This represents the vast majority of my life. Many of my personal encounters with it have also been verified by multiple eyewitnesses. Furthermore, two therapists and three psychologists have evaluated me in an effort to determine if there is a natural explanation for what I've been experiencing since I was a child, but there is none. I've also had two cranial CT scans and a psychiatric evaluation in a further effort to find a natural explanation for what I'm experiencing, but yet again, there is none. As a result of all of this, I'm confident that what I'm experiencing is real, and that modern science has yet to conclusively explain it. So these are the primary reasons why I believe there are genuine supernatural phenomena in the physical world that neither modern science, religious dogma, nor religious texts like the Bible or the Quran can rationally explain or logically debunk.

But unless your visions/revelations/experiences are consistent with those of others making such claims, they're suspect. Even if others have the same experiences, interpretations are likely to vary.
Truth doesn't contradict itself. It's consistent.

Millions of people have hallucinations, ecstatic experiences, and strong emotional or experiential convictions. They generally don't stand up to testing.

 

[Audie]

But science backs up its claims with tested evidence, available to everyone to examine. Religious claims do not. Religions don' even try to disprove their claims or doctrines.

Scientific research ends with a single, universal belief. Religion, which doesn't research, comes up with thousands of conflicting doctrines.

"Does not try to disprove" has to be the
understatement of all time.

Savage reprisals for the least deviation
from the orthodox are, have been, a norm.

 

[Audie]

Any conclusions, about anything, are unreliable if the evidence leads to conflicting claims. One of them may well be correct, but if testing hasn't ruled out all but one possibility, they all remain just claims.

Aka self evidently unreliable.

 

[Audie]

But unless your visions/revelations/experiences are consistent with those of others making such claims, they're suspect. Even if others have the same experiences, interpretations are likely to vary.
Truth doesn't contradict itself. It's consistent.

Millions of people have hallucinations, ecstatic experiences, and strong emotional or experiential convictions. They generally don't stand up to testing.

No more than do all the readings of
Scripture by those inspired of God to
the one True interpretation.

Which is disappointing.

 

[shunyadragon]

There is nothing to respond to. You call yourself a scientist and all you do is talk. Scientists test observed phenomena and run experiments to prove or disprove theories. They don't just proclaim results without trying anything. Show me how you can make any kind of idol absorb milk (btw the videos show metal, wood, clay idols doing it).. If you can't reproduce what hundreds of ordinary housewives did on camera, then nobody can (except of course magicians)

Scientists did it in India as follows: Ganesha drinking milk miracle - Wikipedia.

Seeking to explain the claims, Ross McDowall led a team of scientists from India's Ministry of Science and Technology, travelled to a temple in New Delhi and made an offering of milk containing a food coloring. As the level of liquid in the spoon dropped, the scientists hypothesized that after the milk disappeared from the spoon, it coated the statue beneath where the spoon was placed. With this result, the scientists offered capillary action as an explanation; the surface tension of the milk was pulling the liquid up and out of the spoon, before gravity caused it to run down the front of the statue.[1]

Sitaram Kesri, labor minister in the Narasimha Rao government, quoted internal reports to say that a temple in Jhandewalan Park near the RSS headquarters in Delhi was the epicentre of the miracle. He said it was a ploy by the Hindu nationalist BJP to gain votes in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections by spreading false rumours. The phenomenon reportedly spread by an organized barrage of late-night telephone calls to Hindu temples all over India and the world, telling them to feed their statues milk.

There are also other ways statures may appear to rink milk. Old porous wood and ceramic statues will appear to absorb liquids. For an added trick one can drill a deep small hole in the lips for an added touch,

 

[shunyadragon]

I just know how we got truly here is all.

How did we truly get here?

 

[soulsurvivor]

Scientists did it in India as follows: Ganesha drinking milk miracle - Wikipedia.

That's the link I gave in my first post. There is no documentation of any scientist reproducing the phenomenon anywhere in the world, No photographs, no videos, no peer-reviewed or published papers. Just like you, there is just a lot of talk.

If you are such a scientist and if it is so easy to reproduce (it was done hundreds of times in Sept 1995), you should be able to do it. You can't. That is the problem.

Instead of all this talking, why don't you actually run some actual experiments like a real scientist and show us some real results?

 

[Jimmy]

But science backs up its claims with tested evidence, available to everyone to examine. Religious claims do not. Religions don' even try to disprove their claims or doctrines.

Scientific research ends with a single, universal belief. Religion, which doesn't research, comes up with thousands of conflicting doctrines.

I’m not talking about religion

 

[Jimmy]

How did we truly get here?

I’ve told you before, but I’ll tell you again in case anybody here doesn’t know. Existence itself is possible because of the life of one man. When he dies existence ends. When he’s reborn existence begins. On and on and on it goes. It’s an endless cycle. This is my opinion of course. Don’t take my word for it.

 

[firedragon]

Any conclusions, about anything, are unreliable if the evidence leads to conflicting claims.

That's a false dichotomy. Just because there are two conflicting statements exist in two different sources, both cannot be wrong. This is a false dichotomy, and also ignoring the nuance. Go and research what these statements and you might understand how logically fallacious your statement is.

One of them may well be correct, but if testing hasn't ruled out all but one possibility, they all remain just claims.

You made a positive claim. The burden of "proof" is on you. Proof, not just making a sermon like this.

I know you will never in your life be able to prove your claim so you have to preach your way out of it. But at least acknowledge that you made such at least "failure to probabilistic reasoning" bear minimum. Bear minimum.

 

[firedragon]

Aka self evidently unreliable.

What does that mean? "Self evidently unreliable"? What evidence or criteria are you using to conclude that all sources are unreliable? Have you encountered studies or research that support this?

 

[Valjean]

I’ve told you before, but I’ll tell you again in case anybody here doesn’t know. Existence itself is possible because of the life of one man. When he dies existence ends. When he’s reborn existence begins. On and on and on it goes. It’s an endless cycle. This is my opinion of course. Don’t take my word for it.

I won't. So I ask, who is this man. Has he written anything? Can he be interviewed? How does he have this power to switch existence on and off like a light? What mechanisms underlie this power?
Finally, where's your evidence? Has it been examined and tested?

 

[Valjean]

That's a false dichotomy. Just because there are two conflicting statements exist in two different sources, both cannot be wrong. This is a false dichotomy, and also ignoring the nuance. Go and research what these statements and you might understand how logically fallacious your statement is.

OK, Please explain how conflicting claims can both be right, and please explain how claims without evidence can be verified.

You made a positive claim. The burden of "proof" is on you. Proof, not just making a sermon like this.

It's not a sermon. it's a mathematical statement; an invocation of logic.
Do you doubt mathematical constants?

I know you will never in your life be able to prove your claim so you have to preach your way out of it. But at least acknowledge that you made such at least "failure to probabilistic reasoning" bear minimum. Bear minimum.

You're the one making the claim. I'm just pointing out the fact that it's unfounded.

 

[Jimmy]

I won't. So I ask, who is this man. Has he written anything? Can he be interviewed? How does he have this power to switch existence on and off like a light? What mechanisms underlie this power?
Finally, where's your evidence? Has it been examined and tested?

I can feel his presence on earth. Without him there is nothing.

 

[shunyadragon]

I can feel his presence on earth. Without him there is nothing.

Without evidence there is nothing.

The topic of the thread is "evidence."

 

[Jimmy]

Without evidence there is nothing.

The topic of the thread is "evidence."

Is the topic of the thread for only those that believe in whatever evidence supports?

 

[Jimmy]

Without evidence there is nothing.

The topic of the thread is "evidence."

See post #195. I answered the thread question and told him what I think of evidence then people started asking me questions about what I said, and I gave answers. So what’s the topic again? lol

 

[shunyadragon]

I’m not talking about religion

Yes you are. Your just dodging the reality of your own beliefs and think your different from any one else. What you have described by definition is religious belief.