Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence


The title of this blog is an old one. It has bounced around for a long time but remains a force. 

Let's take two claims made by Christianity. The first that there was a preacher in Canaan who went about saying the end is near. This is not an extraordinary claim. There is evidence many such individuals did this talking of different gods and different futures for humankind. It does not require extraordinary evidence to claim one of these was later called "Jesus."

But, it's a different matter entirely to claim the Jesus was dead for a few days and came back to life. That is an extraordinary claim. There is no extraordinary evidence this happened. No individual ever wrote he/she personally saw the back to life version of Jesus. There were the long dead that walked out of their graves in Matthew, walking on water and parting the seas in the Old Testament. None of these pass muster. 

All of use these days receive calls from hucksters wanting our Medicare number, to extend our auto insurance repair warrantee and, to people my age, sell me a walk-in shower. I treat all of these calls with skepticism. The Bible deserves even more skepticism. The Christian package, at least many parts, wants your vote for a certain Party as well as your time and money. The telephone hucksters want only my money. Why would not everyone be suspicious about Christianity?

One of the funny ones that is used by some Christians is events reported in the Bible were prophesized. I guess this means that if an unseen god reportedly told someone long ago event X would happen and X happened that is proof that god exists and we'd all better shape up and show our respect. No doubt people claim gods predict things--no one hears it except the person writing the tale. 

Everyday of the year, there is more than one stock market pundit on the financial pages predicting the market is about to crash. Someday maybe one of these predictors will be correct. He/she will write a book and make money as a stock market genius. When the Bible was put together there was lots of writing to choose from. The predictions that were wrong did not make it into the Bible.  

None of the extraordinary events in the Bible are backed by extraordinary evidence.

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