Suppose I, or someone you knew, told you that they had been visited by aliens. Suppose further that they said the aliens had let them in on a new technology that will make $billions.
What kind of evidence would you require before you invested your life savings into it?
What if I told you to telepathically connect with the aliens and they would answer you by giving you vague good feelings. Would you trust your life savings into that? What if I told you that if you don't get the vague good feelings at first then do it again and again until you do?
At what point would it be obvious that I was either nuts of a con man.
What if someone told you that an angel had given an ancient gold book to a farmer who translated it by supernatural power.
What kind of evidence would you require before you invested your whole life into it?
Etc.
What's the difference? Why would a TBM look at these two scenarios differently?
not the craziest. But something that people understand the concept of without necessarily believing in their existence.
Also there are a lot of people who DO believe in aliens. Maybe you are one of them. For those people the same question holds. Of all the people claiming to have seen aliens, what would it take to convince them that my claim was true?
My point is that the level of evidence for a religious claim seems to be a lot lower than for a non-religious but similarly fantastic claim. We as exmos are often considered to be stubborn and refusing to accept the "evidence" that the LDS claim proves their case.
I've been going around with my brother the Institute Director and SUPER-DYED-IN-THE-WOOL believer. He has accused me of ignoring his evidence [I haven't ignored it, I've refuted it, but to him those are the same]. My point is if it were a similarly fantastic claim, how much evidence would a TBM need? Why should they expect us, then, to settle for much weaker evidence just because it's their religious belief?