Safe spaces for truth

[DrZoidberg]

So 'truth' is the wrong word. To me it's clear that what universities teach is not necessarily the truth. Rather, it's something like operational beliefs. Beliefs that seem to work.

It's the same thing. Truth is whatever description of reality that is the most useful. Or I should re-phrase that. It is the pragmatist definition of truth. Pretty much every school of philosophical thought has their own version. I like the pragmatist one the best, because it's so simple and straight forward.

Also, if you give the power to teaching institutions to decide what qualifies as truths you create ipso facto the conditions for abuse of that power. For example, an independent faculty can decide what is taught according to their personal beliefs, according to some collective ideology, or according to who pay them. Business concerns will invest in these institutions in every which way they find useful, including by bribing the faculty, the heads and even the students themselves as already happens.

We already have that situation. Universities today are arbiters of the truth. That's just how our world works. Sooner or later the rest of society comes around. We don't have a situation where on the one hand we have science and the other something else. It's all science. It's totally dominant. What we have is early adopters of new scientific knowledge vs slow adopters. Even religious thought today has to be dressed in scientific language to be palatable by their followers today.

Business concerns already shape what science is made, and which results are presented.

It's still the best system for finding truth that anybody has ever managed to come up with.

There is also no reason to exclude religious teaching or religious institutions, as long as they teach what they are expert about, namely religious views. And they will have religious views on evolution I'm sure. They could for example teach the truth that for all we know, evolution may well have been the means by which God decided to create modern man. If it is done well, you could teach these things while sticking to the truth, although usually they don't bother because they don't need to.

Seminaries and theological university institutions are actually really good, if they are among the top ones. I used to think that they were brainwashing institutions for religion. Actually no. They're good at bringing up problems with theism.

These are not to be confused with religious schools with are brainwashing institutions. There's a lot of them. Primarily in USA. But can be found all over. It's easy to spot which is which. The real theological universities produce students who go on to do famous things. The graduates of the brainwashing schools manage to do fuck all with their lives.

Sophistry can decide who wins an argument. But not necessarily who is correct.

A good example is Watsons true statement that we can't say that all races are as intelligent, since there's no non-pseudo-scientific research in that field. His career was destroyed because of it. Still true. That's what I'm talking about.

But that's sophistry. This subject is not a scientific one. From a scientific point of view, there would be a clear bias in having an Indo-European dominated science, in an Indo-European dominated economy and geopolitics, concluding that Indo-Europeans are more intelligent. Ask Trump who is more intelligent.

Watsons himself would probably have refused to admit that Indo-Europeans are less intelligent if it had been the conclusion of a scientific study conducted by African, Japanese or Chinese scientists.
EB

Why? I've gotten the impression that he's a complete aspie, with zero ability to sense what's appropriate to say or not. Ie, a total devotion to the truth, and nothing else. I don't think he's racist.

 

[Lion IRC]

lol. "my truth"

If your truth doesn't include "consciousness generated by a brain after every sleep, that would not exist if brain did not generate it", it's not a truth. Unless you propose that the whole natural world is an extravagant deception....

The whole idea that we can all have our own truth, is so dumb. How would that reality even function? Would it function?

God appears to me in a burning bush.
I tell you about the experience.
You say it never happened.
I say yes it did.
You insist it did not - that I'm hallucinating. (You throw in a few gratuitious epithets and personal claims about the non-existence of God)

Whose truth do I trust? Mine or yours? You weren't even there. You didn't have the experience. I'm not even sure about your motive for gainsaying and denying my truth.

Witness: I saw a leper healed.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw an angel
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw Jesus three days after He was Crucified.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: other people saw it too.
Skeptic : No they didn't.

 

[Lion IRC]

A lot of atheist forums (fora) have atheist-only safe spaces.

 

[untermensche]

Some Bronze-Age writers claimed there were witnesses to miracles.

Just like Joseph Smith claimed in the 1800's an angel came and spoke to him.

Only children believe stories like this.

 

[Lion IRC]

Children? Bronze agers?
You dismiss claims based on these sort of criteria?

What about homosexuals? Are they trustworthy?

 

[untermensche]

Children? Bronze agers?
You dismiss claims based on these sort of criteria?

What about homosexuals? Are they trustworthy?

I do dismiss Bronze Age claims.

As any rational human should.

What about homosexuals?

That they are living and they have the feelings they claim to have?

Yes, I believe them.

Why should we not?

 

[braces_for_impact]

Take the Pro-Truth pledge!

Why? (The Brain Science of Political Deception in the 2016 Election)

I think one thing that I kind of knew, but still hadn't really considered is simply that MOST people on our planet are not oriented towards truth. This is really a personality type/trait. Skeptics often self-select for this, but for many, the truth is really of less concern. Kind of frightening and sad, all in one.

 

[Lion IRC]

Are these uni campus safe spaces an admission that the truth hurts?

 

[DrZoidberg]

The whole idea that we can all have our own truth, is so dumb. How would that reality even function? Would it function?

God appears to me in a burning bush.
I tell you about the experience.
You say it never happened.
I say yes it did.
You insist it did not - that I'm hallucinating. (You throw in a few gratuitious epithets and personal claims about the non-existence of God)

Whose truth do I trust? Mine or yours? You weren't even there. You didn't have the experience. I'm not even sure about your motive for gainsaying and denying my truth.

Witness: I saw a leper healed.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw an angel
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw Jesus three days after He was Crucified.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: other people saw it too.
Skeptic : No they didn't.

This is not different realities. This is disagreements about the nature of the one reality.

We might say that people live in different realities or have different truths. But that's a metaphores. They don't actually have that. And I often get the impression of Christians, or any religious people, that they don't understand it's a metaphore. No, it's not obvious what they mean. Because they do often believe lots of silly things that we know for a fact (ie the one truth) is wrong. Like the afterlife. So we have every reason to believe that Christians have trouble telling metaphore and poetic language apart from concrete language.

I wouldn't be surprised if all religion was a result of misunderstanding of poetry and poetic language.

- - - Updated - - -

Are these uni campus safe spaces an admission that the truth hurts?

yes

 

[Speakpigeon]

So 'truth' is the wrong word. To me it's clear that what universities teach is not necessarily the truth. Rather, it's something like operational beliefs. Beliefs that seem to work.

It's the same thing. Truth is whatever description of reality that is the most useful. Or I should re-phrase that. It is the pragmatist definition of truth. Pretty much every school of philosophical thought has their own version. I like the pragmatist one the best, because it's so simple and straight forward.

Then we disagree about the very notion that you chose to define your proposal.

It is also clear that your view of truth goes against both tradition and current general use, notwithstanding postmodernist noises. And I believe you yourself can't even escape thinking in terms of truth in this ordinary sense, it's just that you will happily entertain contradictory notions whenever you have the urge to do it to gain some short term benefit.

Truth is a metaphysical notion. It is something we assume must exist even though we don't have any practical way of knowing whether the things we believe are actually true.

Various organisations, institutions, groups as well as very nearly all individual human beings will insist that they know things and then insist that other people accept the practical measures consistent with this supposed knowledge. That's clearly the inevitable process by which we get to decide what we do collectively. It is the same process that sometimes produces totalitarian regimes and sometimes produces democratic ones. Sometimes this process results in progress, sometimes in regress. All those involved in this process will one day die one way or the other and it is the new generations who will get to write the historical account of past events, often against the views of survivors of these past events.

Your attempt to redefine the notion of truth is only one among many previous ones. Like for previous such cases, it just happens to suit your political objectives. In effect, this is you thinking that you happen to know what is useful for humanity so this is what we should all do. To avoid people having protracted metaphysical discussions about how you got to know what is useful, you opt for redefining the notion of truth as what is useful and you are prepared to explain how usefulness should be assessed.

But that's not what people want to mean by "truth". For all of us, including, ironically, you, a truth is just a symbolic formula we think is the expression of some particular property of the real world. Whether an actual truth would be useful might depend on many things but most people certainly believe there are truths that are useful, or would be if we knew them. Yet, from that you cannot deduce the view that what is useful is necessarily true, or that we actually know some useful truths, let alone that what you think is useful is ipso facto true.

So the trick you use, to redefine the notion of truth as just what is useful, seems to cut to the chase and stop the interminable debate we are in effect engaged in all the time. You say: I know this is useful, if it is useful therefore it is the truth, so just let's do it. Your fundamental mistake here is that people who disagree with you about what is useful cannot agree with you about your notion of truth. They will take your position as essentially a totalitarian one where you are trying to suppress dissent much in the same way as a would-be Big Brother would by redefining the fundamental notions in which any conversation can be conducted and therefore any dissent can be expressed.

We all make the distinction between useful and useless. But we also make the distinction between truth and usefulness. Most people will accept that some truths may prove less than useful. The notion of usefulness itself is relative: useful to whom? Something that seems useful now may prove catastrophic later. So usefulness is potentially revisable. And of course, you will say that truth is revisable too, but that's not what people mean by 'truth'. By trying to redefine the notion of truth, you are just being totalitarian because the notion of truth is so fundamental to even the possibility of having a conversation. If we can't have a conversation under your proposal, then it's a totalitarian regime.

I could just as well tell you that truth in Sweden is whatever the people of Sweden have democratically decided to do so whatever you say that goes against this is not true.

1984 anyone?
EB

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's the same thing. Truth is whatever description of reality that is the most useful. Or I should re-phrase that. It is the pragmatist definition of truth. Pretty much every school of philosophical thought has their own version. I like the pragmatist one the best, because it's so simple and straight forward.

Then we disagree about the very notion that you chose to define your proposal.

It is also clear that your view of truth goes against both tradition and current general use, notwithstanding postmodernist noises. And I believe you yourself can't even escape thinking in terms of truth in this ordinary sense, it's just that you will happily entertain contradictory notions whenever you have the urge to do it to gain some short term benefit.

Truth is a metaphysical notion. It is something we assume must exist even though we don't have any practical way of knowing whether the things we believe are actually true.

Various organisations, institutions, groups as well as very nearly all individual human beings will insist that they know things and then insist that other people accept the practical measures consistent with this supposed knowledge. That's clearly the inevitable process by which we get to decide what we do collectively. It is the same process that sometimes produces totalitarian regimes and sometimes produces democratic ones. Sometimes this process results in progress, sometimes in regress. All those involved in this process will one day die one way or the other and it is the new generations who will get to write the historical account of past events, often against the views of survivors of these past events.

Your attempt to redefine the notion of truth is only one among many previous ones. Like for previous such cases, it just happens to suit your political objectives. In effect, this is you thinking that you happen to know what is useful for humanity so this is what we should all do. To avoid people having protracted metaphysical discussions about how you got to know what is useful, you opt for redefining the notion of truth as what is useful and you are prepared to explain how usefulness should be assessed.

But that's not what people want to mean by "truth". For all of us, including, ironically, you, a truth is just a symbolic formula we think is the expression of some particular property of the real world. Whether an actual truth would be useful might depend on many things but most people certainly believe there are truths that are useful, or would be if we knew them. Yet, from that you cannot deduce the view that what is useful is necessarily true, or that we actually know some useful truths, let alone that what you think is useful is ipso facto true.

So the trick you use, to redefine the notion of truth as just what is useful, seems to cut to the chase and stop the interminable debate we are in effect engaged in all the time. You say: I know this is useful, if it is useful therefore it is the truth, so just let's do it. Your fundamental mistake here is that people who disagree with you about what is useful cannot agree with you about your notion of truth. They will take your position as essentially a totalitarian one where you are trying to suppress dissent much in the same way as a would-be Big Brother would by redefining the fundamental notions in which any conversation can be conducted and therefore any dissent can be expressed.

We all make the distinction between useful and useless. But we also make the distinction between truth and usefulness. Most people will accept that some truths may prove less than useful. The notion of usefulness itself is relative: useful to whom? Something that seems useful now may prove catastrophic later. So usefulness is potentially revisable. And of course, you will say that truth is revisable too, but that's not what people mean by 'truth'. By trying to redefine the notion of truth, you are just being totalitarian because the notion of truth is so fundamental to even the possibility of having a conversation. If we can't have a conversation under your proposal, then it's a totalitarian regime.

I could just as well tell you that truth in Sweden is whatever the people of Sweden have democratically decided to do so whatever you say that goes against this is not true.

1984 anyone?
EB

Not sure what you are reacting to, or commenting on? How does 1984 enter into this? At a university we've got the Dunning-Kruger paradox in operation. The less knowledgeable (within a specific field) can't really critique the more knowledgeable in any meaningful way. If that is suppressing dissent... so be it. But it's not only suppressing dissent. It's also suppressing what is wrong. Which is what universities are for, aren't they?

I'm not trying to redefine anything. Here's Richard Rorty (a pragmatist philosopher) explaining the pragmatist view of truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzynRPP9XkY

The problem with knowing what is true is that language doesn't map to reality 1:1. All language descriptions of the truth are simplifications of reality, ie not true. The solution to this conundrum isn't to declare that everything is false, lie down and die. So we need to come up with a truth definition that is workable. We need to find a way to compare truth definitions and weed out those that correspond less well with reality. This is something that all philosophical schools struggle with, and have come up with their own solutions to.

Useful means how well it helps the holder of that belief to predict the future. If each time somebody wanders onto a bear trap it chops their leg off, then it'll probably also chop off your leg. Accepting this as true is useful. Both for you avoiding walking on the bear trap, as well as for the bear hunter who wants to catch bears with it. Believing that the bear trap will only chop your leg off if you aren't a Christian, is a less useful belief. In the Chinese boxer rebellion the boxer warriors thought their strong faith made them immune to bullets. A less useful belief.

But we don't really need to get bogged down by philosophical theory. We can instead just decide to agree on that students probably are less knowledgeable than their professors, within their professor's field of specialisation. If they wish to challenge generally accepted (by the scientific community) scientific theories they are advised to wait until they're getting their phd, and they've joined the club of the experts.

Somebody may decide that scientific knowledge is all hokum. That's fine. They're free to present all their alternative theories in some other non-university setting, and not wasting the time of serious students and serious scientists.

 

[Kharakov]

There are underlying truths that can be arrived at in reality. You can find the exact hexadecimal value of the colors on a web page if you desire (they have specific values) although you might not be able to ever exactly duplicate the wavelength/interaction of photons from your screen again in the history of time*.

Of course, you cannot know that the web page isn't something entirely different (say a living, multidimensional entity that makes up hexadecimal values to create a storyline for your mind to follow), and that the hexadecimal color values are not an illusion. So I don't think you can know the truth in this case, but you can say "in the framework I use, the border of this page has the value 6F8AA0 has the appearance of being true". Then you have to ask... did you say it if you said it?


* I'm leaning towards the idea that the underlying complexity of spacetime increases over time as the number of particles in spacetime grows, so space traversed by photons going the "same exact" path changes over time (complexity increase equates to increased travel distance in this case- think "fractal" distance increase of "shoreline" (or the boundary of an actual mathematically generated fractal) as you zoom in).

 

[braces_for_impact]

The whole idea that we can all have our own truth, is so dumb. How would that reality even function? Would it function?

God appears to me in a burning bush.
I tell you about the experience.
You say it never happened.
I say yes it did.
You insist it did not - that I'm hallucinating. (You throw in a few gratuitious epithets and personal claims about the non-existence of God)

Whose truth do I trust? Mine or yours? You weren't even there. You didn't have the experience. I'm not even sure about your motive for gainsaying and denying my truth.

Witness: I saw a leper healed.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw an angel
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw Jesus three days after He was Crucified.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: other people saw it too.
Skeptic : No they didn't.

Now try this:

Witness: I saw Mohammed split the moon.
Skeptic : No you didn't.


Witness: I saw a djinn.
Skeptic : No you didn't.


Witness: I saw Mohammed ascend to heaven on a winged horse.
Skeptic : No you didn't.


Witness: Mohammed said he was the last prophet, and that Jesus was not the son of god.
Skeptic : No they didn't.

Now what?

 

[Kharakov]

A con artist started a religion.
No he didn't.

A schizophrenic started a religion.
No they didn't.

A couple of fundamental particles started a religion.
Sure.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Not sure what you are reacting to, or commenting on? How does 1984 enter into this? At a university we've got the Dunning-Kruger paradox in operation. The less knowledgeable (within a specific field) can't really critique the more knowledgeable in any meaningful way. If that is suppressing dissent... so be it. But it's not only suppressing dissent. It's also suppressing what is wrong. Which is what universities are for, aren't they?

I don't think that's a useful characterisation. Universities can cost a lot of money so the point is that the contents taught to students should match what society, as a whole or as parts of it, think will be somehow useful. It's not a matter of "truth". The instance that's paying the bill should see how it's going to get the specific results it is expecting. As I said before, it's all about results. And results are expected because people expecting them see them as useful. However, we shouldn't kid ourselves that there is anything like non-beneficiary-dependent usefulness. Usefulness is always relative and you have to accept that society is best judge of usefulness. Giving any institution, be it civil servants, the government, or faculty, sole responsibility for deciding on contents isn't a good idea.

I am also all for a code of conduct for faculty and students. Each university should also be able to decide what this code is and see if students keep coming in. However, characterising the contents of university teaching as the de facto truth is plainly idiotic. Instead, university should do their level best to provide quality teaching and relevant contents, possibly even saying how they will go about it. Universities are usually dependent on somebody to pay the salaries of the faculty and this somebody should be able to get a refund whenever the university isn't doing what it pretends to be doing.

I'm not trying to redefine anything. Here's Richard Rorty (a pragmatist philosopher) explaining the pragmatist view of truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzynRPP9XkY

This is getting pathetic. Rorty is one of many philosophers who tried to redefine what truth is!

"Truth" is an ordinary English word and it's not the job of philosophers to redefine the vocabulary English-speaking people use and how they use it. Instead, they should make explicit what people mean when they use the word "truth" and if they think it's as such a useless notion then they can always opt to use another, more useful word, as they see fit. They can also create neologisms or use new expressions. That's perfectly acceptable and many have just done that and some have been very successful.

The problem with knowing what is true is that language doesn't map to reality 1:1. All language descriptions of the truth are simplifications of reality, ie not true. The solution to this conundrum isn't to declare that everything is false, lie down and die. So we need to come up with a truth definition that is workable. We need to find a way to compare truth definitions and weed out those that correspond less well with reality. This is something that all philosophical schools struggle with, and have come up with their own solutions to.

If you think the notion of truth as people use it is useless use a different word. It seems you could specify what you're after merely by requiring universities to deliver useful teaching.

Useful means how well it helps the holder of that belief to predict the future. If each time somebody wanders onto a bear trap it chops their leg off, then it'll probably also chop off your leg. Accepting this as true is useful. Both for you avoiding walking on the bear trap, as well as for the bear hunter who wants to catch bears with it. Believing that the bear trap will only chop your leg off if you aren't a Christian, is a less useful belief. In the Chinese boxer rebellion the boxer warriors thought their strong faith made them immune to bullets. A less useful belief.

But we don't really need to get bogged down by philosophical theory. We can instead just decide to agree on that students probably are less knowledgeable than their professors, within their professor's field of specialisation. If they wish to challenge generally accepted (by the scientific community) scientific theories they are advised to wait until they're getting their phd, and they've joined the club of the experts.

Somebody may decide that scientific knowledge is all hokum. That's fine. They're free to present all their alternative theories in some other non-university setting, and not wasting the time of serious students and serious scientists.

I think it is essential that professors should feel accountable to their students as to the contents of their lessons. They should feel their job is to justify to students what they are teaching. Many teachers don't understand that but are protected in their stupidity by their status as faculty. Many professors are also incompetent in terms of justifying their teaching. They just parrot their lessons all their professional life without knowing even what they are talking about. The system should get rid of these people. What you propose would just make things worse by protecting bad teachers from criticism.
EB

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think that's a useful characterisation. Universities can cost a lot of money so the point is that the contents taught to students should match what society, as a whole or as parts of it, think will be somehow useful. It's not a matter of "truth". The instance that's paying the bill should see how it's going to get the specific results it is expecting. As I said before, it's all about results. And results are expected because people expecting them see them as useful. However, we shouldn't kid ourselves that there is anything like non-beneficiary-dependent usefulness. Usefulness is always relative and you have to accept that society is best judge of usefulness. Giving any institution, be it civil servants, the government, or faculty, sole responsibility for deciding on contents isn't a good idea.

I am also all for a code of conduct for faculty and students. Each university should also be able to decide what this code is and see if students keep coming in. However, characterising the contents of university teaching as the de facto truth is plainly idiotic. Instead, university should do their level best to provide quality teaching and relevant contents, possibly even saying how they will go about it. Universities are usually dependent on somebody to pay the salaries of the faculty and this somebody should be able to get a refund whenever the university isn't doing what it pretends to be doing.

I think we're talking past each other. Truths that aren't useful, aren't useful because they aren't true. How could teaching the truth ever not be useful?

All other institutions are open for political meddling. Can't we just have one, that isn't? One institution that has some higher ideal than the rest?

There's also the question of knowing wtf you're doing. If we don't have universities above politics, we will have zero institutions for us to have as reality checks.

I'm not trying to redefine anything. Here's Richard Rorty (a pragmatist philosopher) explaining the pragmatist view of truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzynRPP9XkY

This is getting pathetic. Rorty is one of many philosophers who tried to redefine what truth is!

"Truth" is an ordinary English word and it's not the job of philosophers to redefine the vocabulary English-speaking people use and how they use it. Instead, they should make explicit what people mean when they use the word "truth" and if they think it's as such a useless notion then they can always opt to use another, more useful word, as they see fit. They can also create neologisms or use new expressions. That's perfectly acceptable and many have just done that and some have been very successful.

I think it's as simple as that you just don't get it. You clearly haven't thought this through. If you think it's an easy and straight forward notion, then you haven't given it enough thought.

The problem with knowing what is true is that language doesn't map to reality 1:1. All language descriptions of the truth are simplifications of reality, ie not true. The solution to this conundrum isn't to declare that everything is false, lie down and die. So we need to come up with a truth definition that is workable. We need to find a way to compare truth definitions and weed out those that correspond less well with reality. This is something that all philosophical schools struggle with, and have come up with their own solutions to.

If you think the notion of truth as people use it is useless use a different word. It seems you could specify what you're after merely by requiring universities to deliver useful teaching.

There's different ways of being useful. Truth is whatever knowledge helps us to understand and predict reality better. We're only talking about usefulness in that very narrow sense.

Useful means how well it helps the holder of that belief to predict the future. If each time somebody wanders onto a bear trap it chops their leg off, then it'll probably also chop off your leg. Accepting this as true is useful. Both for you avoiding walking on the bear trap, as well as for the bear hunter who wants to catch bears with it. Believing that the bear trap will only chop your leg off if you aren't a Christian, is a less useful belief. In the Chinese boxer rebellion the boxer warriors thought their strong faith made them immune to bullets. A less useful belief.

But we don't really need to get bogged down by philosophical theory. We can instead just decide to agree on that students probably are less knowledgeable than their professors, within their professor's field of specialisation. If they wish to challenge generally accepted (by the scientific community) scientific theories they are advised to wait until they're getting their phd, and they've joined the club of the experts.

Somebody may decide that scientific knowledge is all hokum. That's fine. They're free to present all their alternative theories in some other non-university setting, and not wasting the time of serious students and serious scientists.

I think it is essential that professors should feel accountable to their students as to the contents of their lessons. They should feel their job is to justify to students what they are teaching. Many teachers don't understand that but are protected in their stupidity by their status as faculty. Many professors are also incompetent in terms of justifying their teaching. They just parrot their lessons all their professional life without knowing even what they are talking about. The system should get rid of these people. What you propose would just make things worse by protecting bad teachers from criticism.

It's not a perfect system. But it doesn't have to be. It just needs to be better than anything else out there.

 

[bilby]

The whole idea that we can all have our own truth, is so dumb. How would that reality even function? Would it function?

God appears to me in a burning bush.
I tell you about the experience.
You say it never happened.
I say yes it did.
You insist it did not - that I'm hallucinating. (You throw in a few gratuitious epithets and personal claims about the non-existence of God)

Whose truth do I trust? Mine or yours? You weren't even there. You didn't have the experience. I'm not even sure about your motive for gainsaying and denying my truth.

Witness: I saw a leper healed.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw an angel
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: I saw Jesus three days after He was Crucified.
Skeptic : No you didn't.

Witness: other people saw it too.
Skeptic : No they didn't.

Are you claiming that this has, in fact, happened to you? Have you been spoken to by a burning bush that claimed to be a God? Have you seen a leper healed without the use of Rifampicin or other modern antibiotic therapies? Have you seen an angel? Have you seen Jesus?

I suspect that you have not. In which case, these are shithouse examples of anything.

Your evidence is all just placeholders for actual evidence. You believe on faith - which is fine, as far as it goes; But you clearly feel that faith is not enough. So you claim to have evidence, but as you actually only have more faith (Trust me; Trust the people who claim to have seen unlikely things; Trust the people who wrote the Bible), you are essentially killing your own argument - by admitting that evidence is required, you deny faith, but then you present as evidence only further (and weaker) faith based claims.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I think we're talking past each other. Truths that aren't useful, aren't useful because they aren't true. How could teaching the truth ever not be useful?

"Truths that aren't useful": So now you accept that truths can be useless?

"Truths that aren't useful, aren't useful because they aren't true": Sorry, I'm lost. This doesn't seem to mean anything. A truth cannot be said to be this or that because it's not a truth. It's true of a duck as well: A duck cannot be said to bark like a dog because it's not a duck.

You're definitely talking past me and it seems to have something to do with your logic.
EB