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Yes and no.
Generally when evaluating evidence, the parties involved must agree on what constitutes evidence and the relative strengths of these.
In things like physics and neuroscience we use P values. Outside science, such as in informal debate we primarily rely on the use of logical propositions, and with questions of fact themselves again, the parties must agree on what constitutes evidence.
But within any arena, it is possible to come to that agreement, and it's little different than simply agreeing on the terms of debate more generally.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I didn't say they didn't exist. I said that someone's gonna have to prove to me that they are living among us. Again - I'm willing to believe they do, but I want proof.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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#realJSOP wrote: but I want proof.
I know. That's what my comment was about.
Never mind.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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The great philosopher, Rama Kandra; on the human emotion of love No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.
It is very easy to prove that love exists; all you need to do is to look it up in the dictionary.
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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I've got relatives who claim that they have proof in a book. It is supposed to be sufficient proof that a non-human fellow coming from above is living among us, so strong that they devote their life to it. The problem is that I never get to meet this fellow, yet they claim he is present.
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Is it just one book or is it a set of books written by multiple authors with different perspectives that corroborate each other? Is it just your relatives making this claim or has the claim been made by millions of people for thousands of years? Do other writings exist besides the book you mentioned that support the existence of this "fellow"? If the answer to these questions is "Yes" then maybe it shouldn't be dismissed so casually.
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I guess there are multiple authors, and they certainly do not agree on the details. Like, one claims he was born under one king, another guy claims it was under another ruler who didn't come into power until twelve years after the first king died. One claims that his parents were living in his town of birth, but had to flee and lived as refugees abroad for quite some time, the other one claims they were living in a different town and just were passing that town on their way, and returned back to their home after the birth. And, these two authors give quite conflicting information about the fellow's forefathers.
Yet it all is undisputable Truth. So I have come to the conclusion that my relatives must be more knowledgeable than me about this "duality" that you probably are familiar with. Like light may appear both as particles and as waves (and my relatives refer to light all the time). Or quantum logic, where you have a multitude of alternate answers, with varying probability of being the correct one. Maybe they know enough to extend the same principle to this fellow, that the two dates of birth are both true answers, with different probability. I don't knwow which one they claim to be more probable; a couple weeks ago they proclaimed that was the one were the fellow was born while his parents were travelling through this town, but then again they also referred to the other author's referral to visitors giving gifts to the kid. But that is how it is with probabilities and quantum logic; each element of the story has its own probability, and does not rule out the others.
I sort of like those people who base their ideas on modern, logical thought (well... let us assume for now that quantum theory is logical). I am not much into that stuff, but my gut feeling is that they take this duality priciple and quantum probability stuff a little too far. But that is just my thoughts.
As far as I know, there are not many other documents about this fellow. When the book was collected, the editors rejected a handful of other authors, because their stories did not fit in with the image of the fellow that the editors wanted to promote.
There are a number of other books in the market, who tells similar stories about other tykes (and in fact, several of the stories about this fellow my relatives refer to have been accused of being plagiarism, as exactly the same story had been told about others long before the birth of this fellow). That may of course some question of probabilty as well, the probabilty of the stories being older but ascribed to this fellow, against the story being original but yet identical to what someone else did or experienced.
And, there is a different probability of this fellow having once lived, from the probabilty that he is still alive today (as my relatives claim). I think the latter probability depends a lot on the amount of provable evidence. So to me it seems as if the probability is very close to zero.
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So do you believe in God?
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I'm willing to believe, but have seen no tangible proof.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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According to the Cosmological Argument from Contingency, the universe itself is tangible proof. If you're willing, please take a look at this - Five Arguments for God
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Fever905 wrote: So do you believe in God?
Which one of them?
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#realJSOP wrote: but I need to see proof
Politicians. Does that count? 
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Not that it's any more or less credible, but that's a Fox network website and not the Fox News website.
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I believe they are, how else do you explain politicians?
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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/ravi
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Quote: how else do you explain politicians?
Noooooo! How dare you insult aliens like that? 
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You mean the weasel-shaped orange thing on top of a certain politician's head? Yeah, that's definitively alien! 
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Those aren't aliens. They're demons.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Old news: look at the top left. 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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/ravi
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A bit strong saying there 'are no two ways about it' - show me the certain proof, although I agree the chances of there not being life in other parts of the Universe are vanishingly small.
But from what I can tell, everything we know about physics suggests that if aliens exist, then they're too far away to visit us. That, or we may not be worth the effort/costs involved, there are probably nicer places nearer. Otherwise with so much life probably out there, we'd be awash with alien tourism if the physics permitted (and not just North America).
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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How do you know for sure that we (humans) didn't come from another planet? Maybe some biological substance was attached to the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and we evolved from that?
Same applies to any of the species on earth really, how do we know this is their origin planet?
I think humans are so fascinated by the thought of aliens visiting that they assume it will/would happen around modern times (and not possible it already happened millions of years ago).
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musefan wrote: How do you know for sure that we (humans) didn't come from another planet? Maybe some biological substance was attached to the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and we evolved from that?
We know nothing "for sure"; but if we were aliens we'd not share this much DNA with life as it evolved here.
I do like the fact that se thinks her gender is somehow important.
musefan wrote: Same applies to any of the species on earth really, how do we know this is their origin planet?
Early life was not spacefaring or sentient.
musefan wrote: I think humans are so fascinated by the thought of aliens visiting
Mostly fantasy and arrogance. There's an entire ecosystem in your guts. It may just be they build their colonies in our sh*t.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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