Witness reliability

[*Paul*]

I witnessed a car crash a few of years ago & wrote down the details of it a month later and likewise several other witnesses also witnessed the same crash and wrote down what they saw from their perspective. Putting these eye witness accounts together helped the insurance company decide who was at fault and make sure justice was served.

6 years later another witness came forward with an account that conflicted badly with the several eyewitness accounts and said that he should be believed but he gave the insurers no reason to believe why his account was more valid than that of several eyewitnesses. When he was rejected he became very angry and threw his weight around.

Likewise on this forum and in life I have encountered muslims who tell me that the bible accounts surround the conception, birth, life, death & ressurection of Jesus Christ are unreliable instead I should believe the tesimony (koran) of their prophet who was from a different vicinity, race, culture and 6 centuries removed from the events.
They offer no good reason for this over than the prophet says that Allah told him so.

Faced with a straight choice between the two I opt for the accounts written by the first Church following Christ and His chosen Apostles the the wild dreams of a man 6 centuries too late.

 

[Charity]

I get your over all message but we have trouble making people believe the first eye witnesses........It all just comes down to people believe what they want to....

 

[sandandfoam]

Eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable. Check out any of the work by Elizabeth Loftus. She has some especially interesting work re cars and yield sign

 

[no-body]

I find this line of thinking funny because you are willing to use this type of logic on something that you've already dismissed beforehand and not on your own believes. Not singling out this poster but I've seen this type of logic around here from all of the dogmatic believers. Why not just say you belive because of pure faith and stop trying to "prove" your religion is somehow objectively verifiable?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable.

I agree. I especially wouldn't be inclined to trust a witness statement written down months after the incident.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a race marshal. I've witnessed many on-track incidents that had to be written up in order to issue penalties against (or exonorate) drivers involved. There are two big rules that we're supposed to go by:

- write down a report with all the details you remember as soon as possible after the incident. Like minutes after. Hours after is pushing it.
- don't discuss the details of the incident with anyone until all the witness reports are written down (except for what's required to respond to the incident, of course).

If you don't do both of these, the officials tend to give much less weight to your report, and with good reason, IMO.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if several acquaintances managed to come up with very similar witness statements of an incident several months after the fact. They'd have had plenty of time to get their stories to align... not to say that any intentional deceit was involved, but people's memories are malleable. One person's recollection of an incident will tend to become more like another person's re-telling of what happened the more times they hear it.

 

[fantome profane]

... on this forum and in life I have encountered muslims who tell me that the bible accounts surround the conception, birth, life, death & ressurection of Jesus Christ are unreliable instead I should believe the tesimony (koran) of their prophet who was from a different vicinity, race, culture and 6 centuries removed from the events.
They offer no good reason for this over than the prophet says that Allah told him so.

Faced with a straight choice between the two I opt for the accounts written by the first Church following Christ and His chosen Apostles the the wild dreams of a man 6 centuries too late.

Interesting. Do you believe that the Biblical accounts were written by eye witnesses?

If the archangel Gabriel did actually witness these events and conveyed what he saw directly to Mohammad would that be something worth considering?

 

[*Paul*]

Eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable.

They lead to a lot of criminal convictions where i'm from and certainly admissable as evidence.

 

[*Paul*]

Interesting. Do you believe that the Biblical accounts were written by eye witnesses?

If the archangel Gabriel did actually witness these events and conveyed what he saw directly to Mohammad would that be something worth considering?

Perhaps if there were some proof to go along with it, God wrought many wonders through the Apostles as per the book of Acts to verify their message and authority.

I believe the Gospels were written by eye witnesses or as in the Luke accounts by gathering evidence from eye witnesses.

 

[*Paul*]

I get your over all message but we have trouble making people believe the first eye witnesses........It all just comes down to people believe what they want to....

Yes they do but I was looking for an answer specifically from the muslims on here who keep posting about why Islam is right and why Christianity is wrong. Why should a Christian abandon the bible for the koran?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They lead to a lot of criminal convictions where i'm from and certainly admissable as evidence.

But when there are conflicting witness accounts, we have to sort this out somehow and usually this isn't by just counting up the witnesses on each side. Do the agreeing witnesses know each other? Would they stand to gain by lying? What does the physical evidence say?

A case with only conflicting witness accounts and no physical evidence would be pretty weak. Do you have any physical evidence?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes they do but I was looking for an answer specifically from the muslims on here who keep posting about why Islam is right and why Christianity is wrong. Why should a Christian abandon the bible for the koran?

No reason at all that I can see. IMO, they both have about as much going for them, so if you've decided off the bat to accept one or the other, it seems to me that it just comes down to personal preference. Go with what you like.

However, if you really are interested in accepting the points that the most people agree with, why not be Jewish? After all, the Old Testament is accepted by more people than the New Testament, and it's been around longer. From your OP, it seems like those are your criteria for acceptance.

 

[sandandfoam]

They lead to a lot of criminal convictions where i'm from and certainly admissable as evidence.

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the reliability of witness evidence.

 

[regulo]

I think theres no actual eyewitness acounts written at the time Jesus was teaching and it was all written about 300 years later and thats whats in the bible. As well the Romans rewrote a lot when they were becoming Christians.

 

[fantome profane]

Perhaps if there were some proof to go along with it,

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But it seems you have had at least a glimpse of the atheistic perspective.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Perhaps if there were some proof to go along with it, God wrought many wonders through the Apostles as per the book of Acts to verify their message and authority.

Why do you consider Biblical accounts of miracles to be "proof" but not Quranic accounts of miracles?

 

[MSizer]

"Witness" and "reliability". Hmm, how do you put those into one sentence without including the word "no"?

Human memory is utterly unreliable. It's contextual and can be influenced by a number of factors that have been proven by psychology researchers.

 

[imaginaryme]

'Zactly. Eyewitness accounts fly in court because they are personal, and the judge and jury are people. But the science has been done, and any cop will tell ya - never trust a witness.