Atheist Debates - What does 'Extraordinary claim" mean?

One of the more frustrating dodges to this is something I've seen WLC do. He'll say (paraphrasing here) if millions of Christians believe this, then it's hardly extraordinary. As if acceptance of the claim can somehow override how the claim corresponds to reality.

Most people who make extraordinary claims don't believe they require ANY evidence.

"The religious mind is primed to accept lies" - paraphrased from Andrew Seidel's new book.

Only theists cannot get their head around this. They think their claims of supernatural are ordinary!

I cant believe it was necessary for Matt to make a 19 minutes long video to explain this but yeah we live in a world where stubborn as hell people like Cameron and WLC exist so I cant blame Matt for that.

If Matt tried to simplify it any more he would need to use crayons. Good job

The claim is not the evidence. So for any claim we need a method of deciding if it is true. And that is by looking at the evidence. Not just the evidence that supports it, but the evidence against it. All the evidence. Homeopathy works is an extraordinary claim because we have mounds of evidence it doesn’t. To change our mind, we would need evidence so extreme, so unusual that it overturns everything we know about reality. It’s basically Bayesian reasoning.

thanks for these logic 101 videos, I find them very helpful.

lol i love that intro. Imagine if he just left it at that haha. We appreciate you Matt! ive been an athiest long before i discovered your videos and the atheist experience videos, but thanks to you, I can better explain why I dont believe, so thank you!

Youtuber paulogia put it nicely: " Claims of things that I do not perceive as usual, require evidence that has sufficient claim-affirming properties to overcome my pre-evidential assessment in order for me to personally become convinced of said claim."

I find myself chuckling sometimes at how wise this man is. Thank you Mr. Dillahunty.

Much clearer than what I had expected from the title. Good one. Thanks 🙂

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -Christopher Hitchens.

I really appreciate that you take the time to show that there is a significant amount of nuance in many ideas that can appear to be simple to quite a few people. And you do it clearly and even entertainingly. In math there is a group that tried to put all of mathematics on as firm and certain a footing as possible. (Bourbaqui?? don't know how to spell the name) It may be dry but it is necessary. It is just that most people, even mathematicians, won't go to all that trouble. As I said, you do it and make it eminently viewable.

"I believe the Gospel authors were truthful and reliable" OK, THAT claim now needs to be verified.

Countering "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" with "every claim only requires sufficient evidence to warrant belief" is like countering "Large pools require large amounts of water" with "every pool only requires enough water to fill it"

I agree extraordinary proof is needed. Because, they are asking me to choose between Zeus, Ahura-Mazda, Wöten, Amateratsu, Jehovah, et cetera and ad mucho if not quite ad infinitum ... who all make the same claim - "just believe ... 'X' calls you ... look what so-and-so says" and the like.

In my head I always imagined "extraordinary evidence" by it's very nature would need to be extraordinary. IE: exceptional in some way. Example: The evidence for Einstein's claim that Gravity is a distortion of spacetime is extraordinary, because it involved two huge, massive, incredibly delicate interferometers detecting Gravity waves from two merging Black Holes, 1.4 billion light years away. Now that's what I call extraordinary evidence!

Excellent video, keep up the good work

I think the extrodinary claims thing is kind of another way of putting the hume quote 'A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence'. These claims that you would call extrodinary, have ZERO things already weighting down their side of the sacle, as you put it. In fact there is a ton of stuff right off the bat on the opposite side of the scale! So you NEED an extroidnary weight of evidence for this new claim for it to have a hope of tipping the scales in its favor.. And without that level of evidence- it is not wise to belive it. So yes.. ALL claims only need 'sufficent' evidence to warrant belief. But they cant go around pretending 'sufficent' is the same amount for all claims! Sometimes what is 'sufficient' is a lot damn bigger!