Doubt, Courts and Debates

[liamconnor]

Not seldom does a person make a claim only to be met with, "I doubt it; prove it." If asked, "On what grounds do you doubt this claim," the quick reply is, "It is YOUR job to convince me of your claim."

To me this is odd behavior; as if doubt by itself were the rational position and were a conclusive argument.



Question for debate:

Is this kind of inveterate response permissible in court? For instance, if a witness (let's say someone in forensics) were called to testify, and the defense attorney presented the defendants testimony (she fell off the balcony!) is it enough for the witness to say, "I doubt that?" And if asked, "Why?" Is it legitimate for the forensics to answer, "It is YOUR responsibility to convince me the lady fell." Or is it at least expected that the forensics give a ground for his or her doubt, i.e., "The position and trajectory of the victim suggests she was pushed"?

If in court Doubt requires reason, should the same be true in Debates? Why or why not?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 48 by liamconnor]

So, to differentiate yourself from Christians, you would need to say, "There is no God to raise a corpse" or "Even if there is a God, He/She/It is powerless to raise a corpse" or "Given a God, it would not want to raise a corpse" or "Given a God capable and willing to raise a corpse, still, there is no evidence He/She/It did so with

Or rather, point out that the Christian who claims there is a God who is able to do this resurrection thing...has not been substantiated.
Imagine if you claim that the reason your neighbour's TV is no longer in his bedroom is because it was beamed up to the Enterprise by Scotty.
Sure, hypothetically, a transporter might be able to do what you claim it can. However, given that they have not been proven to exist, or even capable of existing, we can't grant your claim the status of plausible.

I am not saying "There is no God". I am saying "Those who claim there is a God have not and as far as I am able to tell, are incapable of substantitating that claim".
If you do not have on hand, (so to speak) a God who is able to do the various things that are claimed in the Bible (resurrect a dead body, have it phase through stone, teleport all over the place, alter its appearance, then fly off up into the sky without any visible means of propulsion)...then the claim that Jesus was resurrected and did all these other things completely and I do mean completely falls apart.

So I invite you to explain to the readers just how the Christian claim can be substantiated, propped up, justified, if you do not and cannot show your God.

I'd also like you to tell me what is functionally different between saying "God did it" and "A wizard did it"?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 51 by rikuoamero]

Imagine if you claim that the reason your neighbour's TV is no longer in his bedroom is because it was beamed up to the Enterprise by Scotty.
Sure, hypothetically, a transporter might be able to do what you claim it can. However, given that they have not been proven to exist, or even capable of existing, we can't grant your claim the status of plausible.

Do you honestly think that this is a parallel case with the N.T.?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 45 by Divine Insight]

Truly.

When someone claims that a dead body came back to life after three days the reasons to doubt that claim should be obvious.

To suggest that people aren't providing rational reasons for their doubt of these claims is utterly absurd.

I think an initial doubt is quite reasonable. Nearly every character of the N.T. had doubts.

I think "doubt" may have rational grounds, but to move from "doubt" to "fact" is quite irrational.

"I doubt therefore it didn't happen" is not an objective statement.



Now, none of this really has to do with the OP. The OP was about whether statements of doubt required a "because clause" for the doubt.

You seem to suggest that, Yes, statements of doubt should have a "because" clause after it.

And I agree.

Once everyone gets on board, we can start analyzing the various "because" clauses for their merit.

The only thing I would say in reply to this is that you are basically insinuating a false situation to begin with.

It's your claim that people aren't offering you the reasons why they doubt your claims. But when I read these threads I see people offering you all manner of reasons why they doubt your claims.

So it seems to me that you are basically proposing a false accusation, especially concerning the members of this forum who have been replying to your posts.

When people doubt things they typically have reasons for their doubts. Otherwise why would they doubt it?

Also, many people who have since come to learn that Christianity is a false religion were like me. In the beginning they were Christians. They didn't doubt the claims of Christianity, to the contrary, like all good little Christians they just accepted what their parents, pastors and Bible school teachers told them.

In the early going I wasn't asking questions because I "doubted" the truth of the claim. I asked questions because they simply weren't adding up and I was basically asking for more clarification. When that clarification was lacking and kept adding up, only then did I start to question whether the original claims might not be as true as these people themselves seem to believe.

And this is most likely true of ALL atheists who were formally Christians. They came to their "doubts" due to a lack of reasonable explanations for the countless contradictions that exist in the scriptures.

And the far more important aspect of the whole thing is to realize that these Christians who realized that the stories don't hold water did so entirely from a sincere intellectual desire to understand. They most certainly weren't thinking, "Hey, if I reject this religion and this God I can go off and do all manner of horrible things".

In other words, the idea that these Christians who became atheists were looking for an excuse to get away with "sinning" is clearly false. Yet, that would absolutely need to be the motivation if this religion were true.

You can't have people falling from "Grace" simply because they were seeking a better intellectual understanding of the religion. That makes no sense at all.

So in a very real sense the very nature of this religion proves itself false. Wanting to have a better understanding of God would be the greatest "sin" of all in this religion. And that's an oxymoron. Therefore the religion can't be true.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 51 by rikuoamero]

Imagine if you claim that the reason your neighbour's TV is no longer in his bedroom is because it was beamed up to the Enterprise by Scotty.
Sure, hypothetically, a transporter might be able to do what you claim it can. However, given that they have not been proven to exist, or even capable of existing, we can't grant your claim the status of plausible.

Do you honestly think that this is a parallel case with the N.T.?

...yes? In one case, a body is claimed to have resurrected, and in order for that to happen, a God who is able to cause it to happen is claimed to exist.
In the other claim, a TV is claimed to have been teleported from one place to another, and in order for it to happen, a piece of advanced technology that hypothetically could do it is claimed to exist.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 51 by rikuoamero]

Imagine if you claim that the reason your neighbour's TV is no longer in his bedroom is because it was beamed up to the Enterprise by Scotty.
Sure, hypothetically, a transporter might be able to do what you claim it can. However, given that they have not been proven to exist, or even capable of existing, we can't grant your claim the status of plausible.

Do you honestly think that this is a parallel case with the N.T.?

It's an exact parallel case to the NT.

1) A claim is made that a TV was teleported

2) A claim is made that approx 500 people saw a risen Jesus

In both cases, we have a single claim with no substantiation and no reason to believe such an event is possible.

How exactly do you think they are different other than the precise thing being claimed?