@ Dexter No prob. I'm not adverse to having a little fun myself. The sincerity of believers does not get you very far at all. People have believed and have been willing to die for beliefs throughout history. Surely that hardly counts for evidence. I actually didn't mean it as a measure for authentic...

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/begging-the-question/ Thanks for posting this Chris, as it made me think about a key point. People on both sides of the God debate often bring up contentions of logical fallacy. I think it's important to consider what a logical fallacy actually 'is.' In ...

@ Interbane Even a TRUE extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence. How else can we sort the wheat from the chaff? If you have any ideas, please share them. Normally the term 'extraordinary evidence' would refer to an overwhelming mass of unassailable proof. The evidence in support of ...

@ Interbane, Robert, and Dexter as well, since you all touch on this. What is the extraordinary evidence that the gospel accounts are not fiction? Evidence has more than a scientific connotation, as in a court of law for example. As in a court of law, there may be material evidence, but there may al...

Uh, the claims are also the proof? I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. As they are extraordinary claims, without actual evidence the most obvious explanation is that they are made-up stories. If you were to read the stories of 100 other religions -- or how about one other religion -- would you bel...

@ Interbane A person may have explored every part of his belief system in detail, but still missed a critical link that would expose the entire system as false. Those nuggets of contradiction are often surrounded by an impenetrable shell of fuzzy wording, bias, and equivocation. Flip the analysis ar...

Hi Dexter, The gospel accounts are that 'extraordinary evidence.' Divine birth Miracles Fulfilled prophesies Claims of divinity Death and resurrection Meeting his disciples after resurrection Raising to heaven It is precisely the fact that these claims are 'extraordinary' that they are questioned. K...

@ Chris Connor

This is a really great question.

Yes it was

From DWill I don't disagree with everything you say. I think we'd be crazy to value rationality above all other abilities, for example. But this idea that people who don't believe in God must therefore have no appreciation of the (as far as we know) unique capacity of humans to feel and express love...

Hello Doulos, welcome to Booktalk. You are quite wrong in your assertion. Bertrand Russell's teapot has no empirical evidence for or against it, yet the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it does not exist. Scientifically, we are right to assert that this teapot does not exist because the bu...