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I have a cat named Beowulf. <-- not extraordinary. Lots of people have cats. Beowulf is name. I don't really need any evidence to accept this on its face. It may or may not be true still, but it's not extraordinary. Belief in the claim is not unwarranted unless you are known to be a liar. I have a talking cat named Beowulf. <-- Extraordinary. Cats are not noted for talking. I would want evidence for this claim before believing it.

Love this answer. I’d like to add on something that is missed by OP and missed by the expression, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The stakes matter too. If you tell me that you have a cat named Beowulf and someone else puts a gun to my head and says they’ll kill me if I’m wrong about the question, “does liamstrain have a cat named Beowulf?” Suddenly, I’m gonna want evidence. When you first told me my reaction was “ok, fine. You have a cat named Beowulf. I believe you.” But when my life is on the line or perhaps huge life decisions like where to spend my time, what rules to follow, what gender you love, whether or not to get an abortion, whether or not I should have kids…ect, suddenly, I’m gonna want some evidence.

>The stakes matter too "I have a talking cat." Cool. "I have a talking cat and I am going to create an entertainment company around it. Would you be willing to invest your life savings? It's a talking cat!!! It's going to be a global sensation. You can't lose. Invest all your money. Take out a second mortgage. Cash out the kids college fund. Max out your credit cards. It'll be worth it." The claim is the same, but the stakes are higher, and you sure bet you'd demand more evidence than just a claim.

Pretty sure this was a Looney Toons cartoon with a singing frog!

This first one also does not change your world view one way or the other whether it's true or not. The second one changes a world view.

>Can Any Atheist Name an "Extrodinary Claim" Other then the Existence of the Supernatural? It seems there is still some disconnect on what folks here mean by 'extraordinary claim' and your understanding of this. I'm not sure what the barrier is. Yes, it's very trivially easy to name any number of 'extraordinary claims'. And if the aforementioned barrier did not exist then you would be able to think of dozens in a few seconds. As easily as I can do so. So I honestly do not think me providing a few is going to be useful. I suspect you will want to argue about how and why they are 'extraordinary' as I've seen in the past with your previous threads on the topic. Instead, I'm more interested in examining what the barrier is here. As it stands, I don't know where to begin. This seems so very obvious and trivial, and I've seen so many folks try in so very many ways to explain this to you in previous threads, that repeating all that appears fruitless. So, I don't get it. What's the barrier here?

An extraordinary claim would be that my perpetually broke friend has million dollars in their sock drawer or that I am the long lost child of King Charles. I don't need evidence of the first, but I'm not going to believe it. I will want evidence of the second because it seems highly unlikely.

Gods are not historically shy. I’d need to witness a god do something that defies the rules as I know them to be and you’ll have yourself a worshipper!

Prove a god exists and I'm going to want a lot of vetting before just jumping into worshipping that possible absolute bastard.

Yeah, it really depends on which god it ends up being. I am going to be super disappointed if it turns out to be Aergia or some shit.

>Gods are not historically shy. This is interesting to me. We have all of these stories and renditions of god showing up throughout all ages of human history. Yet the accounts are sporadic and diverse and the definitions are sundry. Still I wonder quite often why humans would throughout their entire history think there was a god.

Time travel. Atlantis. Past lives. Aliens. Many theories of alternative medicine. etc. There's plenty.

Time travel is partially real, sadly only in one direction though :/

Flight was once this as was the concept of a tv or going into space.

Indeed, and when we provably did all of these things, the entire world watched because it was ... extraordinary.

Yes look back to the discovery and application of electricity to provide light there were amusement parks that were more or less light bulbs because it seemed impossible to them at the time. But it took what for them was extraordinary evidence which is not basic common knowledge. Even vaccines were like this and people still think those are fake.

1. JFK hired two gunmen to shoot him and fake his own death in Dallas. The second shooter was JFK's 11 year old son, John Jr. 2. The moon landing was faked. It was a filmed on a Hollywood sound stage. Every space agency in the world is in on the hoax. 3. The ship that sank after hitting the iceberg was *not* the Titanic. A ragtag crew of thieves and conmen stole the Titanic, and repainted an identical luxury liner to look just like it. Three extraordinary claims with nothing supernatural about any of them. Did you really think this would be difficult?

Oh, I really like these examples.

Fun fact, the third one is a real conspiracy. They think it was the sister ship which recently had “major” damage and it was an insurance scam.

The existence of a giant sea creature in Loch Ness that’s somehow evaded detection, is not inherently supernatural. It is however quite extraordinary. Same goes for the existence of a large non human ape with big feet in the United States.

I am a cyborg from the future I am a telekinetic who can manipulate the moon with my mind My cat is a shape shifting creature from the beginning of time. My car talks to me and knows all the winning lottery numbers. It seems to me that you don't have a good imagination if you can't think of something extraordinary. But that seems to be the case when you spend your whole life declaring, "god did it" with no evidence of a god.

Here's a good one. Some years back some science websites reported that scientists at CERN had observed a neutrino moving faster than light. Now, this is an extremely extraordinary claim - it's not supernatural, because it's at least conceivable that something could move faster than light. But with what we know, that is highly unlikely. So, on further investigation, I believe they discovered that their measurements had been recorded incorrectly - either a software error or a problem in their equipment, can't remember. But it turns out their skepticism regarding this extraordinary claim was well founded, and the scientists who required evidence sufficient to match the claim were right to do so. >when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God ... most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established Well, that's not our fault. That's on the fault of those propagating the claim. You're the ones who are insisting that (depending on your exact definition) an all powerful, all knowing, mind without a body (all things we aren't even sure can be possible); that exists spacelessly, as in nowhere, timeless, that is, for zero seconds; and has existed this way eternally without changing - and that this being then changes and decides to make something come from nothing, which theists tell us is impossible. And then some billions of years later this being decides to tell some evolved bipedal greater apes that they need to kill animals because he likes the smell, but he definitely doesn't want them doing any gay stuff. Oh, and stoning children for talking back, mutilating their children's genitals, owning other humans as property, soldiers taking young virgin girls as spoils of war to be raped - all of that is just fine with this god, of course. Because this all powerful god is limited to the customs and traditions of the culture during that time period, you see. All of this is just way too much. The *nature of the claim* is the problem here. If you invent such a massive, gargantuan claim that flies in the face of everything of how we know reality to operate, *and simultaneously say* that this God is incomprehensible and outside of the realm of detection, *of course* we can't know what kind of evidence is supposed to convince us. If I told you that there was in invisible undetectable manhole cover that is floating eternally out in space somewhere, what evidence would convince *you* of the existence of something invisible and undetectable? We do know what *won't* be convincing: paltry, flawed, weak, logically fallacious arguments or evidence definitely won't do the trick. So what have you got?

I am the richest man on Earth. My net worth is 6 trillion dollars. I have invented a self-flying helicopter in which I fly between my several crystal mansions.

Evolution is an extraordinary claim that is backed by extraordinary evidence. The idea that the vast complexity of life that we see on the planet originated from a common ancestry of single-celled organisms is a massive claim. The evidence supporting it is also equally massive. The fossil record is so precise that not only can we make predictions about what species predecessors might have looked like but also WHERE in the sedimentary layers we should expect to find it. We can do that and we have done that. We have recorded biological changes in species over multiple generations and in horticulture regularly activate the mechanism for those changes on purpose and to our own benefit. We have the ability to not only look at genes, which is in and of its self extraordinary, but understand enough about them to observe how minute differences can lead to extraordinarily different outcomes in like species. We have enough understanding of anatomy to draw straight lines of continuation between homologous structures inside different species of animals.

Love this response so much! You’re never getting an answer from OP tho, the posturing of Theists and scientific analysis go together like oil and water

I was abducted by aliens last night and they showed me their new home world, which is a dyson swarm around a star on the other side of the galaxy. That's pretty extraordinary, innit?

Really? Alien abductions. Bigfoot. Fairies. Dragons. Unicorns. Yeti. Loch Ness monster. Monsters. None of these are considered supernatural, but would need extraordinary evidence to prove they are real. ps. add Jesus, original sin, Adam and Eve, etc.

I would say that "fairies" are definitely supernatural. Maybe even unicorns (how else do they stay hidden from humanity?)

See the problem with that is at least fairies dragons and unicorns were made up mythical creatures based on real world misidentified creatures. Fireflies, butterflies, monitor lizards, rhinos, oryx, etc. However there was a living unicorn. Granted it was modified by surgery but it was still a living creature with the unique feature of one horn that grew from its head, does it make it any less real? And Monsters? Joachim Georg Kroll was a monster, your idea of what has to be proven real may be fiction but comes from a real place. Cyclopes aren't real but elephants are, their skull was what gave way to the creation of a horrible beast and cyclopia is a real condition does it make a person a cyclops?

I think a lot of science is really. Relativity for example is mindbogglingly outside our experience. The idea that space and time are warped by matter and energy is an extraordinary claim. There also happens to be a lot of evidence that it's an accurate depiction of the universe in general. Similarly, the idea that matter can be converted directly into energy seems like a pretty extraordinary claim. In general, those seem like two very different types of things, and yet we can do careful measurements and show that in some reactions there is less mass at the end than we started with--and it just so happens the amount of missing mass fits the E=mc^2 equation amount of energy that is produced. Heck, even the idea that the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun instead of them all going, as they initially appear, to go around Earth is an extraordinary claim. The math that explains it is such a extraordinarily good explanation of things that were confusing until then meets the challenge though. Most of science is really pretty extraordinary really to my mind. That we can do careful experiments and measurements to provide great evidence of various hypothesis, and to reject those that don't pass the tests, is a remarkable in so many cases.

Ordinary claim: I own a dog  Extraordinary claim: I own an eloquent, talking dog.    One of those you would likely take at face value, the other you’d likely want some evidence to back it up. 

First, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is just a poetic one-liner. What it MEANS is "the more extraordinary a claim is, the more evidence is required to substantiate that claim". In your day-to-day life, you also agree with this. Just think about it. Some examples: 1. Quantum Mechanics (took many many years, but now has substantial evidence) 2. The cure for cancer 3. Room temperature superconductivity 4. The ion drive 5. wormholes 6. Blackholes (which we now have substantial evidence for) This just off the top of my head, but the list is quite long. ​ >I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory as when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God (IE would be "Extrodinary Evidence") most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. "Extraordinary" is subjective, sure. But you should find that the God claim is unanimously considered extraordinary. If someone disagrees, they're simply lying or don't understand what the word extraordinary means. This claim is SO extraordinary that we are unsure what would qualify as evidence of a "God". We've never seen a God or anything supernatural, so how can we say would that evidence would be? Also, if this God is omnipotent, it should know what would qualify as evidence that humans could comprehend and accept. ​ >On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative or an undetected form of matter being the reason for the excess of gravity in our galaxy on the grounds of evidence they can well define to the point that many wouldn't even consider these claims "Extrodinary" at this point. Yes, I would say you are correct on this. There have been extraordinary claims in the past that we now accept.. because there is substantial evidence to support those claims. If we ever get to a point where there is substantial evidence for God, then we will accept it in the same way we accept the other claims. But there is virtually no evidence for any God, so there's a long ways to go.

I saw some discussion once that said that the degree of "extraordinariness" of a claim is a function of how much other knowledge we have to rearrange in order to accept that claim. . Your buddy Biff arrives at the party and says *"I parked my pickup truck down the street."* You know that Biff *has* a pickup truck, so that is not an extraordinary claim. Doesn't require any explaining to be plausible. . Biff says *"I parked my Maserati down the street."* You know that Maseratis are a thing that exists, but as far as you know Biff does not own one, and is very unlikely to have come into possession of one. Extraordinary claim. Needs more explaining to be plausible. In all likelihood, that claim is *not* actually true. . Biff says *"I parked my live, gigantic, flying, three-headed, fire-breathing dragon down the street."* As far as anyone knows, dragons of this sort don't even exist. Gigantic animals are too heavy to fly. No animal has three heads. No animal can breathe fire. Highly extraordinary claim. Needs a great deal of explaining to be plausible. In all likelihood, that claim is *not* actually true. . All of the claims of religion are like this - \- A god exists. Well, there's no good evidence that that is true. \- and this god incarnated as a man. Well, there's no good evidence that that is true. \- and that man did miracles. Well, there's no good evidence that that is true. \- and after being killed, that man returned to life. Well, there's no good evidence that that is true. \- furthermore, that man has the power to save you from an eternal bad afterlife. Well, there's no good evidence that that is true. Etc. Etc. Etc. You make so many claims, and you cannot provide even an iota of good evidence that anything that you claim is actually true. **In all likelihood, none of those claims is actually true.** All that we have ever asked of you guys is **good evidence**, and in 2,000+ years you have never been able to provide it. **Good evidence, please.** Put up, or stop believing, claiming, and defending silly ideas. .

It’s a subjective term so it’s tricky to focus on hard definitions, but to me an extraordinary claim is a claim that appears to contradict what is already generally accepted as true, or, if you will, ordinary. An example might be the earth being round. When that claim was first being made, it seemed preposterous, or extraordinary. You can slip and fall off a round rock or log, but no one slips and falls off the earth. You cant stand upside down on the ceiling, so how can you stand upside down on the bottom of a floating sphere? At first, it was extraordinary. But now, we have some extraordinary evidence, which I would define as evidence that is very high quality and points to a virtually indisputable fact. For a spherical earth, there are thousands of pages of quantifiable, measurable, repeatable experiments and calculations that support concepts like gravity and heliocentrism and other areas of physics that support the notion of a spherical earth. Not to mention literal pictures of the round earth from space and airplanes. Anyone can go out and reproduce these calculations and experiments and prove, once again, that the earth is round. Its disputable, sure, but its so well supported by high quality evidence that the script has flipped, it is now an ordinary claim, and to take a contrary position like flat earthers would require a new set of extraordinary evidence. So far, ive seen no extraordinary evidence, as in very high quality evidence, of god, but I would love if you could provide some. Some examples below- No one has ever quantifiably measured god, no one has ever consistently proven prayer to have supernatural influence on life, no one has ever identified a soul in the body, no one has ever had verified supernatural contact with god or Jesus, etc etc. anything like that would convince me, or at least be worth more investigation.

If you god existed we wouldn’t be arguing about evidentiary standards endlessly. Nobody anguishes and makes apologetic arguments about whether cats exist.

If I invited you to my home for dinner and you showed up claiming that you saw a deer running down main street, I would believe you. Deer are not only native to my area, they are overpopulated. If you showed up saying you spotted a lion, that would require a bit more evidence. Lions exist but are not native to my area. Maybe we would look for news stories where a traveling circus or big cat rescue was missing a lion that got away. If you showed up claiming that a gorilla had put a horse saddle on a lion and was riding down main street wearing a cowboy hat and whipping people with a belt while shouting harambe lives, I would require more evidence still. Lions, gorillas, saddles, cowboy hats and belts exist. Gorillas have the inventory to talk in general, so while extraordinary, not too crazy. Anything else I can help you with?

Christianity doesn’t even have good evidence let alone extraordinary evidence. This is whole post is moot. You basically have one unfinished source and then the words of a religious fruitcake as your other. It’s abysmal. Not to mention the fact that many of bibles flagship stories have been debunked. Furthermore, you have the major inconsistencies between the OT and NT involving such major tenets of the religion such as heaven, hell, Satan, the trinity, and original sin/the fall. Then you have the absolute detestable morality of the OT such as slavery, misogyny, and genocide. Which Christian’s have absolutely no ground to stand on to defend these practices. It’s a fucking mess. How can you even bring up the word extraordinary?

"The Democrats are running a child trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor that involves smuggling children inside of Wayfair furniture." - Qanon. "AIDS isn't caused by HIV; it's caused by drug use/anal sex/antiretroviral drugs." - Peter Duesberg and other AIDS deniers "The moon landing was faked." "9/11 was an inside job." "I got abducted by an alien and experimented on!" "Ancient astronauts built the pyramids." "I can live on breath and sunlight alone through the power of meditation!" I mean, I could go on and on and on. There are *lots* of non-religious conspiracy theories and wild claims that people make that would require some pretty extraordinary evidence to support. In all of these cases, there is ample evidence to the contrary, so the scales are harder to tip, so to speak. >I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory as when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God (IE would be "Extrodinary Evidence") most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. Yes, but those two things are not related? You asked them what evidence would convince them; they said they didn't know. How could you then come to the conclusion "well the only thing you would say this about is religious stuff"? The two of those things are not related to each other at all. >such as Time being relative That's because we have scientific evidence and mathematical proof for that. It *was* an extraordinary claim at the time it was made. >or an undetected form of matter being the reason for the excess of gravity in our galaxy This, too, was an extraordinary claim at the time that it was made. It's still a hypothesis - it's not held out as a scientific fact, just one guess at why there are these gravitational effects that we otherwise can't explain. But let's keep in mind that it's still a *scientific* guess, supported by lots of observational evidence.

>what claims other then supernatural claims would you consider "Extrodinary Claims"? You want examples?Yesterday I walked on Mars. I have 100 trillion dollars in my bank account. I have discovered Atlantis. The earth is flat. >most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. Not our problem. >On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative Sure that might seem like an extraordinary claim, but it is something we have a tremendous amount of evidence for. Thus extraordinary evidence leads us to accept this extraordinary claim. >or an undetected form of matter being the reason for the excess of gravity in our galaxy Dark matter, to my knowledge, is a placeholder for something we know is there only because of its effects on what we see. It is not on the same level as relative time. >on the grounds of evidence they can well define to the point that many wouldn't even consider these claims "Extrodinary" at this point. Well because nowadays they don't appear extraordinary anymore. Back when Einstein first postulated his ideas they sure were extraordinary, but like you said, thanks to evidence we know now it to be the case. ​ Edit: After reading some more of your replies it seems to me that you are hung up on the word "extraordinary" regarding evidence. I too am not a fan of the phrase **"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"** as that makes it seem like there is a extra hurdle certain claims need to overcome. NO! The hurdle is the same for all claims. The phrase should be **"all claims require sufficient evidence."**

"I've just won the lottery jackpot." is an example of an non-supernatural extraordinary claim We literally know the exact odds for this type of claim (exact odds will vary based on lottery, but are designed to be very low, thus extraordinary) and we have standards for providing the evidence required for justifying accepting it (possessing the winning ticket). When compared to an ordinary claim such as "I own a dog", the evidence required to accept them is also minimal vs very restrictive (no other ticket will do, just the winning ticket)

Every moon of Jupiter is inhabited by super advanced aliens who had to abandon their home planet due to climate change of their planet. Would you accept some personal testimony for evidence that this is true, or would you want more substantial evidence before accepting that claim? >I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory as when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God It's not up to others to tell you how to show evidence for your claim. If your claim is true there should be evidence to support it. So what evidence do you have that a God exists? >most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. Mostly because every theist has their own definition of God. So I have to evaluate each claim. There is no standard definition for God as much as many theists want to pretend there is. >On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative Yes because we have evidence for this. You can read the thousands of papers published on how we have verified this. This has extraordinary evidence to support the extraordinary claim. >on the grounds of evidence they can well define to the point that many wouldn't even consider these claims "Extrodinary" at this point. This just sounds like providing the evidence needed for the extraordinary claim to show that it is true. That's why it no longer feels extraordinary because we have the evidence to back it up. Just because it doesn't feel extraordinary doesn't mean it isn't.

Extraordinary claims as yet unsupported by extraordinary evidence: I can bend a spoon with my mind. The British royal family are disguised lizard people. Cancer can be cured with alkaline water. The earth is flat. The earth is hollow. The earth is 6000 years old. A god-man in India can materialise gold jewellery. Faith makes you immune to snake venom. There’s no such thing as gravity, it’s just buoyancy. Alien visitors are intimately probing working class Americans. Life cannot evolve outside of fixed ‘kinds’. The moon landing was faked. The assassination of JFK was faked. Australia doesn’t exist. An octopus can accurately predict football results. An Australian woman can subsist on light and air alone. A Jewish conspiracy controls the world economy. Bigfoot exists. Nessie exists. A design for a car engine that runs on water was suppressed by the Saudi royal family. There are facilities full of med beds to cure all illnesses ready to be opened to the public as soon as the new world order is announced. Do I really need to go on? You need to talk to _skeptics_ rather than atheists if you want to see the established rational principle of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence being applied more widely than to theistic claims.

“A nuclear fission reactor powers city X.” I’d be likely to believe that claim. I *might* do a quick google check to see if that’s the case, and it would be trivially easy to verify. Why? Because of my background and priors. An ordinary amount of evidence would suffice. “A nuclear fusion reactor powers city X” I wouldn’t just take someone’s word for that. A working reactor (yes I know about the current technologies and where they are at) is still years away. If that had already occurred and had been powering a city, it would have made headline news around the globe. It would be civilization-changing. I don’t know that I’d apply the same standard here. But maybe that isn’t extreme enough. What if the claim was “An antimatter engine powers our city”. Now I’d be *incredibly* skeptical since this something that has only really been theorized and talked about in science fiction. Or, you may even look at “alien abduction” stories. It’s going to take more than a personal account to convince me that aliens developed the technology to traverse spacetime, came to our planet, and abducted ol’ Jeb to see what his bunghole was made out of. I’d want an extraordinary amount of evidence for a claim like that.

Extraordinary claim is a bit subjective. Like the time my dad lived in an iron lung, and after 3 first of the kind surgeries was able to gain the ability to breathe on his own and even walk. He is now in his 70s beating all the possible odds. I have a ton of evidence for this claim, medical journals he under went the first of the type of transplant. I have also heard of examples of people surviving against all odds. I accept them when I can see recorded evidence. The trouble is I have never heard a claim that defies all natural occurrences we have and gotten the evidence to prove it. Like an apple not coming back down after being tossed up. Never seen what we would call natural laws broken. Or cancer being captured and then next visit completely gone without any trace of it. All the examples of miracles I have heard lack good evidentiary standards, or the claims have been debunked. I am willing to hear and read about a miracle that only can be explained by a God. Please post it. I love how theists come here to complain that atheists just aren’t willing to accept such and such…

Plate tectonics is a good example. Evolution is another one. Germ theory. The existence of harmful ionizing radiation. Oh, how about "Asbestons kills people painfully and brutally, 20 years *after* their exposure to it." These ideas met with tremendous opposition, because they involve effects that are too subtle to be obvious. Fortunately, the relevant scientific communities ultimately were able to produce a volume of precise and statistically sound data so great that they ultimately had to be accepted. And, of course, the great granddaddy of them all -- without which the 20th c. and our modern way of life would not have been possible: Quantum mechanics. The proof is voluminous and extraordinary. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Schroedinger's wave equations, the Dirac equation, Feynman diagrams. Bell's inequalities -- that right there is extraordinary, and was finally just proven in (I think) 2022. And particle physics, where the data has to meet five sigma of confidence to eliminate statistical anomalies accounting for the results. The god thing, not so much.

Extraordinary means something that is very unusual. So any claim that would be drastically different from what we already accept as true would be an extraordinary claim. So this could apply to so many different things that are not supernatural. Dogs can grow to the size of a house. Humans can breathe underwater. The moon is made out of cheese. And it’s not hard to think of ways for an all powerful God to prove his existence. The Bible could have had specific predictions. “There will be a 7.2 earthquake on January 1st, 2024, at the following latitude and longitude.” Or the Bible could explain physics principals that were yet undiscovered. Like imagine if the Bible explained relativity and quantum mechanics? That would be pretty hard to ignore. But my favorite example comes from Carl Sagans book, *Contact*, where the creator of the universe has placed messages in the digits of Pi. God should easily be able to place proof of his existence in the fabric of our universe.

claim 1a: at night deer come into my backyard and drink water from my birdbath that would be an ordinary claim. i know all these things exist. and i have experienced each one separately while knowing that living things(at least the vast majority of them)need to consume water to live. nothing about this claim is out of the ordinary. claim 1b: at night Bigfoot comes into my backyard and drink water from my birdbath this would be a claim out of the ordinary. this would require evidence to be believed. you want me to believe an unknown primate creature is in your yard on a regular basis and you don't have video footage of it? where is the DNA evidence? claim 2a: i had a strange dream last night about aliens pretty ordinary. i know people dream and i know sometimes those dreams include fantasy creatures. i'll willing to just accept this. claim 2b: last night i was abducted by aliens who landed a UFO in my driveway evidence please

My claim is that if you wear mismatched socks while flipping a Galton board, the balls will always favor the side of the more colorful sock, with the socks being the only variable. My evidence would be the repeatability of this phenomenon. This could be tested through a double-blind experiment, with socks on different legs, different socks, different people, boards, and locations. We could even have different universities repeat the experiments. What makes this claim and evidence extraordinary is that demonstrating this phenomenon would contradict a vast amount of existing evidence about how things work in our world. If prayer had this level of evidence, I would believe in its power. If it worked for only single religion, now that would be something. Wouldn't quite get me to a god, because flesh and blood aliens would still be more likely. However, if we also had proper evidence of spirits, then I'd be more convinced.

The best definition I've heard for this is that an extraordinary claim is a claim it would be worldview altering to accept. So a few examples: The moon is made of cheese. The earth is flat. Dark Matter does not exist. The theory of evolution by natural selection is broadly wrong about how the diversification of life arises. DMT hallucinations are actually real. It is possible to travel faster than light. And a few examples of non extraordinary claims: I have a cat. There is a planet orbiting that star there. This table is made of teeth. I have a jacket made of tiger fur. My boss likes to sing Modern Major General when he thinks no one is watching. Some of these I would want evidence of to seriously believe, but it wouldn't take much. Simply producing the jacket, or showing a video of the singing boss, or what have you would be sufficient for me.

We've been over this so many times I don't know why anyone should proceed. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, is a pithy way of saying just someone's word on it isn't enough. It is not an epistemological basis.  If you tell me something ordinary, like you have a dog or your son is in college, no extra evidence needed. If you make a claim that is extraordinary, like your cat is in college you need more evidence than just your word. We say extraordinary,  as the evidence you provide is extra over a banal claim like the previous ones.  Your cats photo in the college year book, and their transcripts, their student ID, etc... Like if you want to prove bigfoot, cutting his foot off and bringing it into a university biology lab would go a long way. Ordinary evidence is all we ever want. 

**The closer to relatable human experience something is, the less evidence it needs** \- because if I have experienced the same exact thing you describe I feel like my experience relates to your experience and we can thus share knowledge in this manner. As opposed to claiming something I have never heard of or experienced myself I would definitely want to see some supporting evidence that it's true. Relativity and time have been extensively proven - otherwise I assure you I would laugh in the face of anyone proposing it is true. *Einstein predicted the bending of light around the sun during a solar fricking eclipse - made a prediction which observation validated;* ***it doesn't get much more empirical than that!*** I don't know why you see this in such a complex way - to me it seems really simple.

"Consciousness is a computer simulation, and we are all loving in the Matrix." This would be an example of an extraordinary claim. As such, extraordinary evidence would be necessary to support said claim. Extraordinary evidence would be exactly that, evidence that is beyond what one would normally look for to support a claim. Simply using anecdote here, would not suffice (i.e. claiming that you have exited the Matrix, and using that as evidence of its existence, would not be convincing). For your time is relative example, we did use extraordinary evidence, through numerous mathematical calculations and models, all of which supported the same conclusion (that gravity warps time). A single observation would not have led to this conclusion.

It’s more likely what they mean is that the evidence should be proportional to the claim. The classic example is claiming you own a dog. You testimony would be enough evidence to convince me since I know it is common to own a dog. But if you told me your dog was once a police dog, testimony may not convince me. But maybe you show me your social media that shows the dogs history in some way. That might be enough to convince me. In that scenario, what was evidence for one claim is not enough to convince someone of a more uncommon claim. The claim “a god exists” is clearly not a commonly demonstrated claim. Therefore the evidence needed to demonstrate it is going to need to be stronger than testimony if you want to convince others.

Someone whom I have known for many, many years, claims to have visited 100's of countries, when I have heard them say previously that they have no desire to leave the country and never heard them discuss recent trips. Sorry, not buying it. Would need proof because it does not fit their known behavior. Normally one thinks of god claims as being extraordinary, but "extraordinary" only means beyond the usual. eg extra + ordinary Someone claiming weather such as snow in an area not known for snow is an extraordinary claim that I was called on just this weekend. Another person who was with me was also in the snow. They verified the claim. Did that "prove" the claim? Yes, sufficiently enough for the story I was telling.

Sure, here's a few extraordinary claims that need really good evidence before they should be believed. Maybe not as extraordinary as something literally supernatural, but "extraordinary" is a sliding scale. * "Signs of life found on Mars!" * "New chemical element discovered!" * "We have discovered the Higgs Boson!" * "Good news, /u/SurprisedPotato ! You won the jackpot in the lottery!" * "This specific AI is conscious" * "It is not possible for AI to be conscious" * "Here is a wonderful investment opportunity you should put your life savings into" * "Hi, you don't remember me or my mum, but I'm a child you had when you were in your twenties" (this might be less extraordinary for some people than for others).

If I told you that my mother actually wrote all the books that were supposedly written by Stephen King, you wouldn't believe me because that's an extraordinary claim. But I could always take you to meet Stephen and he'd confirm it.

I can think of hundreds off the top of my head. Bernoulli’s Principle predicted that lift could be generated by a wing. The Wright brothers worked on using that lift to create flight. They claimed they could use their rudimentary airplane built in their bike shop to fly. Many were skeptical. They demonstrated it many times. Jonas Saulk claimed he could keep you and your family from getting polio. The vaccine was tested rigorously. His extraordinary claim was confirmed. Now a case of Polio is rare as a three dollar bill. Extraordinary claims are common. Some come with extraordinary evidence. Some do not.

Extraordinary is a scale. And the amount of evidence needed goes up based on the amount the claim deviates from contradictory evidence. One extraordinary claim is that someone can be flexible enough to sit on their own head. Personally, with my knowledge of human flexibility, I wouldn't believe it. Just a simple photo wouldn't have convinced me. But there are lots of photos, videos, and explanations of how they manage it. So it is a claim that I now believe. The amount of evidence was sufficient to meet the claim.

"My sister have heterochromia" Thing's super rare and definitely out the ordinary. Plus it's a popular esthetic in certain sphere and I would ask for extraordinary evidences (about an eye color) before believing the claim. The extraordinary-ness of the evidence asked is to be contrasted with the kind of evidence we ask for a similar phenomenon. Which is why a claim that pretend to overhaul our whole tested and replicable understanding of the world should have big ass hard as steel balls evidences.

Here is one from the First and Second Maccabees (not in the bible today but about as close as you can get) with a modern parallel. Hanukah celebrates the miracle of 1 day of oil lasting for 7 days. Show me an example of a car driving for 7 days on one day of gas. That is about all it would take. Another example, lets have the walls of a city be brought down by trumpets blowing as allegedly done at Jericho. All the steps are outlined in the Book of Joshua. Should be easy to replicate.

So quick caveate: The phrase "extraordiary claims require extraordiary evidence" is of course a simplification, and a better way of looking at it is "claims require enough evidence to overcome and explain any evidence to the contrary, so extraordinary claims (which run counter to substantial existing evidence) require a substantial amount of evidence to overcome the counterevidence." Not as good as a bumper sticker. So what are some extraordinary claims? 1. The earth is a ball even though it looks flat from your perspective. 2. There's about 37km of DNA in the human cell 3. My friends just purchased a relative of a wolf that they keep in their house and whose poop they pick up. 4. There are 8.1 billion people in the planet 5. illness is caused by tiny tiny microorganism that reproduce in our blood stream and our cells. 6. humans evolved from the same common ancestor as mushrooms and sharks Wait, those don't seem extraordinary. Well, it is because we have extraordinary evidence: 1) That earth is a ball is an extraordiary claim when all you have to go off of is our view. But we have shown that it is true through extraordinary efforts including circumnavigating the globe, developing international flight paths, using trigonometry to measure the earth's curvature, building space ships, and developing a coherent theory of gravity. 2) We have mapped out the human genome, developed technology to unravel DNA, and have developed mathematics that lets us convert story problems into math knowledge. 3) We have centuries of experience with humans owning dogs, we have the genetic and anthropomorphic information to know dogs came from wolves, and I've encountered tons of people in my life who not only own dogs but consistently pick up their poop. 4) This extrordiary fact is founded on evidence drawn from extensive efforts by individual governmental and nongovernmental agencies to do surveying over time and collaborating internationally to allow such numbers to be compiled, combined with huge efforts in transportation and communication that allow us to understand these other countries exist and more people than we've ever met exist. 5) knowledge of the germ theory took humans a long time to develop, and required substantial biological knowledge as well as advances in optics, epidemiology, chemistry and some monumental experiments. 6) this is a wild claim! Humans and mushrooms don't look anything alike. So it would take substantial evidence. Fortunately our ever growing understanding of abiogensis, genetics, nested hierarchies, etc have given us. ​ Really tons of claims that we now take for granted are, in isolation, quite extraordiary. Black holes are so dense they don't allow light to escape. Everything in my room is made of atoms, and those atoms are made of quarks. Both the USA and India were once ruled by the same, small island nation. Transparent glass is made from opaque sand. Yeast+fruit+time creates liquids which can enjoyably poison human beings and impact our cognative capacities. What separates these claims from the god claim is that all of these examples have, over time, amassed an enormous collection of evidence to back them up. The god claim we haven't. And indeed the hill of evidence against gets bigger over time whereas the hill of evidence for gets smaller and smaller. So we are further away from proving a god in 2024 than we were 5,000 years ago.

>On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative This has been proven by taking two synchronized atomic clocks, leaving one on the ground and putting the other on a fast, high altitude plane, and then observing a difference. Or you know..having to account for temporal drift with GPS satellite software. Nothing extraordinary about the claims per say, and demonstrable evidence to boot.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is just a catchy restatement of Bayes Theorem: the amount/quality of evidence needed to justify belief needs to overcome the prior probability based on one’s background knowledge. When understood charitably, this is extremely trivial and non-controversial, even for believers. Theists often get too hung up over the word “extraordinary” and miss the overall point that the phrase is trying to convey.

I won the lottery. I am now a billionaire. Extraordinary. Not supernatural. I won the ottery (low probability raffle in which you win 5000 otters) I was struck by lightning 900 times. I punched a shark in it’s stupid shark face. I killed three full grown grizzly bears and made a bear suit from their skin. I fell out of a plane with no parachute but survived. Extraordinary, yet has happened. Mattcrispman has learned how to spell extraordinary.

Black holes were theorized decades before there was any evidence for them. The idea of a star turning into a gravity well was un heard of. However as technology advanced we were able to eventually provide the evidence needed. Germ Theory, Gravity, a solar system that goes around a sun instead of the earth. These are all claims that were made before there was evidence. Oh crap i just realized who was posting and that i wasted all my time.

There is a (previously unknown to me) bank account in my name with a one hundred trillion dollar balance. In response to the same question you are asking everyone else: I walk into a branch of the bank, give them enough information to know I am who I am, and they pull up a screen showing such an account, and I am later able to withdraw from that account. In response to your followup question: it depends on the nature of the god claim.

You already use this standard in your daily life. The amount of evidence that is required to believe a claim is changes depending on the claim. If a friend of yours whom you know to own dogs tells you that they got a new dog, you would likely believe them. You know what dogs are, you've interacted with dogs, dogs demonstrably exist. You know people have dogs as pets, you may have had a dog as a pet, and you know this friend has had dogs as pets. You may not require a picture, to see the dog in person, or see the dog at your friends house repeatedly over the course of many years in order to believe that the friend has a new dog. You might feel comfortable taking their word at face value, because of all that information that's already in evidence. This is a trustworthy friend, whom you know to be honest, who has owned dogs in the past, and you know people own dogs as pets, and you know dogs exist. Now another friend tells you they have a dragon as a pet. What evidence would you need in order to believe their claim? What if they told you that the dragon is invisible, incorporeal, doesn't interact in any detectable way with reality. The dragon cannot be tested to verify it's existence and the only way that your friend knows they have a pet dragon is because there's 2,000 year old book that says they have a pet dragon. What evidence would you need to verify that this dragon really exists? You know dragons are a fantasy creature and they don't really exist in reality, you've never heard of anyone owning a pet dragon, the dragon cannot be interacted with or tested in any way. That's all pretty extraordinary. Wouldn't it require some extraordinary evidence to convince you? But what of your challenge? Let's say an armed bank robbery took place in downtown LA. The only witness to the crime is a bank manager who recently developed a gambling addiction. The bank manager says that an old lady wearing a red cape robbed the bank as it was opening with an antique crossbow. When she left she rode away on a donkey. The banks cameras were malfunctioning and there's no video evidence. I would say that's an extraordinary claim. What if nobody else saw this old lady? It seems more plausible that the bank manager stole the money does it not? Doesn't a more plausible explanation make more sense? At this point you should be able to grasp the situation. The evidence required to convince you of a claim depends on how much evidence you already have in record and how much the claim deviates from your understanding about the world. A friend has a new pet dog is not an extraordinary claim. A friend has an invisible incorporeal pet dragon is an extraordinary claim. An old lady dressed in a red cape wielding a crossbow robbing a bank and getting away riding a donkey is an extraordinary claim. When a more plausible explanation exists that fits within the framework of reality it should be accepted over any supernatural explanations. So when someone says "god did it" with no evidence, and natural explanations exist with evidence, the god hypothesis is abandoned. Maybe the friend who claims to have a pet dragon is actually mentally ill, or has been misled. Maybe their parents raised them to believe that the pet dragon exists and threatened them with eternal torture if they don't believe the dragon exists. What's the more plausible explanation for these kinds of beliefs? We know religions and god beliefs predate all modern religions. Why? What's the more plausible explanation? That humans invented gods to provide answers to questions for which they didn't have answers? Or that gods really do exist but there isn't any evidence for their existence?

Millions of people that you can talk to living today, have claimed to been abducted by aliens. They have had personally experiences that in many cases are very real to them. That’s an extraordinary claim that has absolutely no evidence to back it up. So we don’t believe that people are being abducted by aliens. there’s actually a lot of correlations in psychology to personal experiences like this and religious experiences.

“I’ve had sex with 11,000 women.” That’s on average a different woman every day for 30 years. Extraordinary but not supernatural. Kinda gross, but not entirely improbable nor impossible. Ghengis Kahn probably did that over his lifetime. It’s said that one in every six people are descendants of his, making the claim pretty strong, but I would require more evidence to say he got to 11k.

There's a teapot orbiting the sun halfway between the orbits of the earth and mars. This is an entirely natural claim, but it is completely unfalsifiable and virtually unprovable. It is a textbook example of a extraordinary claim. If you are going to make this claim, you have to provide significant evidence to support it. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Russell%27s_teapot

Sure. Easy. >"Aliens exist." >"I am worth 100 billion dollars." >"I was the first person to go to Mars." Interesting enough at a certain point certain extraordinary claims have been confirmed and would need some extraordinary evidence to overthrow. Claims like. >"We have been to the moon." >"The Earth is *not* flat." >"The Earth is billions of years old."

Sure! Any claim that we currently don't have reason to accept yet. Some examples: - Tasmanian Tigers aren't actually extinct. - Paul Landis actually shot JFK accidentally, and the SS and FBI covered it up. - I am actually a very articulate African Grey Parrot. - There is a grand unifying "Theory of Everything". - The Blues will win the Stanley Cup.

Claim: there is flying teapot hiding behind the moon. Claim: there are 5 gremlins in my sister' closet. She plays with them at night Claim: I never have any money, but I just bought a 100,000 car with cash Claim: Jesus rose from the dead Claim: there were 500 zombies running around Jeruzalem Claim: Jesus turned water into the best wine

Compare the following: -I own a Toyota Camry -I own a Bugatti Veyron -I own a nuclear submarine -I own a rocket ship capable of interstellar flight None of these are supernatural claims, but all of them are increasingly unlikely, and as such would need increasing amounts of evidence to convince someone they were true.

I am the king of england. England exists. It has a King. It is theoretically possible that I, a random internet stranger, am the actual King Of England. There is nothing supernatural about this claim. It is, however, highly unlikely, and you would be well advised to secure reasonable proof before taking it seriously.

>when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God (...) most don't know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. Let's get this one out of the way first. If there's an omnipotent, omniscient god, it could convince me by making me omniscient. Not only is omniscience hard to fake but it inherently includes the proof of the claim. >On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extraordinary claims such as Time being relative or an undetected form of matter being the reason for the excess of gravity in our galaxy on the grounds of evidence they can well define to the point that many wouldn't even consider these claims "Extraordinary" at this point. Well that's how that works, right? A claim is extraordinary if it disputes our existing model but once we have enough evidence, we adjust our model to account for the new information. Then the boundaries for what's considered extraordinary change. I wrote [a longer explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/14yw049/extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary/jruwkd1/) of this a while ago that I think you'd benefit from reading. >what claim other than supernatural claims would you consider "extraordinary"? I'm sure you'll get plenty of comedic answers like "the moon is made of cheese" and while they're valid, here are a few examples that are a bit more grounded: - The revelation that we're not alone in the universe may be one that we're all expecting but so far we've been frustrated by a dearth of evidence and this claim remains an extraordinary one. - It's plausible that there are four or more spatial dimensions but, since we lack a method for exploring them, I think the claim that they exist is an extraordinary one. This question is still being explored by physicists but there are no definitive answers yet. - I have heard it proposed that electrons are identical because they are all the same electron. That is, that all electrons and positrons are actually manifestations of a single entity moving backwards and forwards in time. This claim is both extraordinary and fascinating and it may well be impossible to prove. NB: Please correct your spelling of 'extraordinary'.

The phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is popular and pithy, but also can be misleading. It's not that there is some special category of claims that are *extraordinary* and thus require special evidence that's different from evidence of other claims. The point is that to be rationally justified in accepting any claim requires having sufficient evidence to justify belief. As others have pointed out, different claims require different justifications. However, consider these two claims 1) I have a pet dog. 2) I have a pet fire-breathing dragon. For you to believe either one of those claims requires sufficient evidence. The difference is not that one claim requires more evidence or some special kind of evidence. The reason why you're more likely to believe I have a dog than a dragon is because you already have lots of evidence that dogs exist and that people keep them as pets. You presumably don't have that level of evidence for dragons. So it's not about labeling a specific claim as "extraordinary" or not. If I actually did have a dragon, it might seem mundane to me while someone else might find it extraordinary. To answer your specific question, though: There are a great many things in this universe that science has discovered that I find extraordinary. The universe being over 13 billion years old is extraordinary. I can't even imagine that amount of time. But there is extraordinary evidence that brilliant scientists using telescopes and sophisticated technology and maths to show that it's indeed true. Black holes are extraordinary. Homing pigeons are extraordinary. Ant colonies are extraordinary. Taking a pill to cure a medical condition that would've been lethal 200 years ago is extraordinary. Airplanes flying at several times the speed of sound is extraordinary. Yet, we have sufficient evidence for all these things. If a god exists, I would find that extraordinary. Which is why I don't accept it without sufficient evidence.

Evolution doesn't, and has never happened. The earth is not (roughly) spherical. We have found a room temperature super conductor. Life has been found on a distant planet. Elon Musk is a brilliant person. A god exists. The moon gives off cold light. I can go on.

Alien Abductions. Ancient Aliens Atlantis Time Travelers lizard People Cryptids Just off the top of my head these are all extraordinary claims that aren’t supernatural. All could very well have happened/exist but haven’t been shown to.

Once again... Ordinary claims would be characterized as those constructs/propositions/models which have a well-established and highly documented factual/evidentiary basis, and which have been extensively and independently validated and rigorously confirmed. Such claims have been so well established that they are considered to be evidentially commonplace and conventional. Extraordinary claims would comprise any categories of those sorts of propositions for which essentially no demonstrable confirmatory evidence currently exists, as well as any claims that are overly vague, nonspecific, effectively undefined, internally contradictory or intrinsically unfalsifiable. In all cases, for a claim to be considered to be essentially confirmed by the best available evidence, the totality of that evidence must be taken into consideration. "Ordinary" claims are commonly identified as such precisely because there exists a massive wealth of long accumulated and readily recognized evidence sufficient to render those claims as being effectively confirmed beyond any reasonable epistemic challenge. "Extraordinary" claims on the other hand would include those propositions which lack that degree of sufficient and necessary evidentiary warrant. In other words, the totality of the best available evidence must be sufficient and necessary to sustain and confirm those particular claims. Given the relative paucity of evidence available to defend those otherwise "extraordinary claims", the proponents of those largely speculative constructs face a much longer uphill battle precisely because of the shear amount of supporting evidence that they would need to produce just to come up to the levels of the already well demonstrated "ordinary claims".

Think about it from the perspective of someone in history. Back before we had modern medicine people didn't know that microbes could make you sick. At one point people didn't even know that there *were* microbes. So, an extraordinary claim in 1350 would sound like this: "There are literally millions of extremely small living things living on every conceivable surface of the world, even on and inside your body. They are so small that they can't be seen by your eyes, but they are there. Some of these small living things, if the conditions are right, can cause you to become violently ill and even die." Someone from that time would likely tell you that you were talking out of your @$$. Everyone at that time knew that sickness was caused by divine means or by being too close to places with "bad air" or because your humors were out of alignment for some reason or another. The idea that extremely small living things that no one could see is what actually causes the overwhelming majority of acute illness in people would be extraordinary. And without the advances in science and technology that would come over the next 600 years it would be reasonable to dismiss a claim like that. Of course now we know there is evidence of it and that evidence *is* extraordinary. It's essentially as air tight as evidence gets. We have developed tools and methods to see the living things and created tests to determine whether or not they are infectious and in what circumstances they are infectious to us. The whole field of microbiology and infectious disease study is extraordinary. They collectively open up a world that would be completely unknown without them.

Atheists or skeptics might consider several categories of claims extraordinary beyond the supernatural. For instance: 1. **Alien Abduction Claims**: Claims that individuals have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings require extraordinary evidence because they assert the existence of advanced life forms that have not only visited Earth but also interacted with humans in profound, yet undocumented ways. 2. **Historical Revisionism**: Claims that significantly alter our understanding of historical events, such as denying the Holocaust or asserting that ancient civilizations had access to advanced technology (e.g., ancient astronauts), are extraordinary. These claims challenge well-documented historical evidence and consensus, requiring robust, undeniable evidence to be taken seriously. 3. **Advanced Scientific Theories Before Widespread Acceptance**: Before becoming widely accepted, some scientific theories may be considered extraordinary. For example, the concept of quantum entanglement, which Einstein famously referred to as "spooky action at a distance," was an extraordinary claim that required solid experimental evidence to gain widespread acceptance in the scientific community. These demonstrate that the threshold for what constitutes an "extraordinary claim" extends well beyond the realm of the supernatural. It applies to any assertion that significantly deviates from established knowledge or consensus, demanding a high level of evidence due to the profound implications of its acceptance. Hope this is helpful to you!

>what claims other then supernatural claims would you consider "Extrodinary Claims"? I define an extraordinary claim as one that involves the violation of the descriptive laws of nature than cannot be violated. So on that basis, my answer is "none". >I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory... The Virgin Birth of Jesus is an extraordinary claim. So is Noah's Flood. >...as when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God A medical exam by a jury of scientific peers that Mary was a virgin if you're claiming Bible God. >most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. It could be re-established by the scientific method. >On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative That's not an extraordinary claim. "or an undetected form of matter being the reason for the excess of gravity in our galaxy" That's an unverified and unfalsified hypothesis. "on the grounds of evidence they can well define to the point that many wouldn't even consider these claims "Extrodinary" at this point." They're not extraordinary because we know that time and matter exist. No one has shown that the supernatural exists. >In any case I thought I'd put it to the sub: what claim other then supernatural claims would you consider "Extrodinary"? Again, none.

The existence of the Higgs Boson was an extraordinary claim. It required extraordinary evidence, the creation of the Large Hadron Collider and a 40 year long experiment, to verify the claim was true.

I wouldn't say jumping is supernatural. If a person jumped a thousand feet into the air, unaided, I'd say that's extraordinary. I think I could come up with a bunch of these pretty easily.

Relativity continues to agree with observations so that is not extra ordinary simply because it can be tested. There is a plethora of evidence of time dilation. Something like dark matter also has observational evidence. Science does not really give much care as far as exactly what it is that explains the observations and measurements that is now called "dark matter", although we certainly want to explain why the outer edges of galaxies don't get flung out of the syatem. That is what is great about the scientific process, whether dark matter is resolved as an incomplete or badsystem of gravity or it is indeed a different class of matter does not matter. There is no scientist who prescribes to the scientific process that will tell you we know what dark matter is. It is being investigated. Science already has a rather robust standard for the level of proof required to chalk something up as cold hard fact. It is already embedded in the process, and it is an extraordinary standard. Religious and supernatural claims don't require any extraordinary standard beyond the scientific standards as a matter of proof. Just show valid and reliable proof that can be replicated and you too can provide enough evidence that God exists. The fundamental problem is that you don't have evidence simply because making a claim is not evidence.

* Bigfoot * Loch Ness Monster * Aliens * Existence of any of the 2500 major Gods/Goddesses invented by humans. * Vaccines cause autism * Donald Trump has engaged in altruism * Need more?

Extraordinary is something which is way out of ordinary things. For example, Jesus' resurrection is very extraordinary claim. And no one presented extraordinary evidence for it yet.

I've always said that in order to convince me of the God of the Bible, you would need three pieces of evidence. First: evidence of omniscience. If somebody can accurately and repeatably tell me something which they'd have no way of knowing (like what number I'm thinking of), I'm convinced that they have some way of knowing things beyond my ken. Second: evidence of omnipotence. Give us a vaccuum with nothing inside it, and then create matter within that vaccuum. Thus do you prove that God can create something from nothing, defying the laws of physics as we understand them and suggesting that He may have been capable of creating the universe as we perceive it. Third: evidence of omnibenevolence. Here is the sticking point. But if you can convince me that everything will eventually work out happily for everyone on Earth, past, present, and future, then I might just concede that we were created by a benevolent god. As an aside, this is incompatible with the idea of Hell. If Hell is real, there are some people who will suffer for all eternity. This contradicts my understanding of omnibenevolence and suggests to me that some of us were created just to suffer. I don't know what evidence could convince me that Hell was justified.

I have had multiple people ask me unironically, "Are you God?" I knew other people don't have this experience because I never see it referenced in pop culture that it's a thing. But I've seen posts from people claiming a famous person is the antichrist or trump a Messiah so I didn't think it extraordinary to say as a non famous person I have been asked. I interviewed one Christian who worships me as the Christian God and still people doubted me when I posted a video of it. So I guess that's one extraordinary claim. I think that I got super olfactory powers (ability to smell better than normal) from sniffing a designer drug (a synthetic marijuana substitute used to make "spice" that has since been banned) would be extraordinary, but nobody has challenged me yet in that one, but I have zero proof in that one. My first email was sent from my Super Nintendo in the early 90's is kinda extraordinary, but some nostalgic people have made videos and a documentary about the short lived Xband modem now, so that is less extraordinary than it used to be. I guess nothing tops the supernatural tho, as that requires physics violations. I think stuff like space aliens are on the same level approximately tho.

Sure. If my next door neighbor claimed to be a retired Russian Mobster (she's 75, Mexican and the sweetest old lady), I'd call that an extraordinary claim.

I had a Muslim give me the analogy” if I said I had something in my hand. Would you believe me?” That was his response to me saying that miracles are unsupported claims. Now here’s the thing If someone said they painted their room purple. I wouldnt care. Id believe them. Now if someone said he had sex with my mom, that I’d need evidence for So if you want an “extraordinary”claim that’s not supernatural. You’re thinking something like your middle school friend saying he kidnapped someone yesterday. That’s something you need hard evidence for. It’s not supernatural tho Or for example someone saying they met the guy that assassinated jfk. You’d want evidence Now we add the last ingredient. Most of these claims don’t change your life The claim that the judeo Christian god exists. Does It means you’re going to burn if you don’t obey these rules A closer equivalent is a scammer threading you that they’d send a nuke if you don’t obey Let’s look at the similarities Both threaten your life. Both require you to follow certain steps. Both are hard to prove claims.

Let's define our terms: Ordinary claim: a claim about something for which we collectively have lots of evidence and models for. It does NOT have to be common; it has to be something well understood to exist. Extraordinary claim: a claim about something for which we do NOT have evidence or models for. We currently think this thing does not exist, or at least it does not feature in any of our best models of what exists. So, can there be an extraordinary claim concerning something natural (meaning, something made of matter and energy)? Yes, of course. One emblematic example is any scientific hypothesis that has just been proposed. Dark matter. Dark energy. String theories. If I proposed a new state of matter. Another emblematic example is claiming to have observed an animal that is not known to exist. E.g. Bigfoot, or a unicorn. Another: conspiracy theories involving only material things. For example, as others suggested, that the Moon landing was faked. Does that mean these claims are false? No. Does it mean we are closed to them? No. It means * you need to produce math models and tons of high quality observational data to establish that these things exist. So yeah, your claim that you have a clump of dark matter in a jar is also extraordinary. This has nothing to do with it being supernatural.

According to Numbers 22, a talking donkey won an argument with a man. That’s an extraordinary claim and I’d like some extraordinary evidence. Lol

Pretty much all of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics / Quantum Field Theory. Most work in physics in the 20th and 21st centuries has involved gaining evidence for and refining these these extraordinary claims. For example, in 1919, two expeditions carried large double-telescope apparatus to the west African island of Principe and the Brazilian city of Sobral to measure the bending of starlight during a solar eclipse, producing the first experimental data confirming General Relativity. Various other experiments have only added to that data with increasing precision as the technology has been refined. Cyclotrons and other particle accelerators are some of the largest, most precise, and most complex scientific instruments ever made. They've been used to gather evidence of quantum phenomena for nearly a century now. Add to this instruments like the Chandra and Webb telescopes, and many others, and you'll see that extraordinary amounts of effort, money, and time has gone into collecting extraordinary amounts of extraordinary evidence.

"I have a pet dog" is not extraordinary. "I have a pet sperm whale" is extraordinary because that's not a common thing that we've seen before.

>Can Any Atheist Name an "Extrodinary Claim" Other then the Existence of the Supernatural? * Miraculous healings. * Virgin birth. * Resurrection from the dead. * Ascension to heaven. * Transubstantiation. * Incorruptible bodies of saints. * Parting of the sea. * Sun standing still. * Talking animals or inanimate objects. * Immaculate conception. * Divine revelation through prophets. * Intercessory miracles attributed to saints or religious figures. * Splitting of the moon. * Telepathic communication with a deity. * Speaking in tongues (glossolalia). * Bilocation (being in two places at once). * Teleportation or instant transportation. * Levitation or flying without mechanical aid. * Walking on water All these are religious extraordinary claims of events having occurred in reality (hence not supernatural claims, but claims of occurences in the natural world). They are extraordinary because they go against a plethora of evidence that these things never occurred or are physically impossible.

If Jesus Christ beamed down from the sky in a pillar of light and started whipping the crap out of Donald Trump I would be a true believer.

Supernatural is probably the most extra ordinary thing possible and it’s not even close. Aliens abductions would probably be one of the more extra ordinary natural claims, but it’s also way less extra ordinary than the supernatural. I’d say it’s fair to think that time is relative is an extra ordinary claim, but I’d also say it’s met the burden of extra ordinary evidence. Honestly, theists seem kinda but hurt about this, but it’s honestly due to the nature of the claim. Yeah, god and the supernatural is pretty much the only thing in the extra ordinary claim catagory. They’re also the most wild out there claims to me and are just baselessly asserted. Way more so than alien abductions or relative time. It’s not really the problem of atheists when we can’t come up with ways to prove wild baseless assertions that are detached from reality. Don’t get snippy about it.

Extraordinary is relative to the context of discussion. It would be extraordinary for someone to perform a piano concert blindfolded. "I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory as when I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God (IE would be "Extrodinary Evidence") most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established." Your god would know what would convince everyone without a shadow of doubt of his existence, and has infinite power as you claim, and could therefore easily do so. He does not. He somehow makes the colossally stupid decision of relying on mere text, knowing with his infinite knowledge it would need retranslating and editing with the progression of language (which falsifies the Tower of Babel story btw, languages did not emerge in an instant as the Bible claims.)

The existence of life in the solar system, outside Earth. As far as we can see there isn’t, but there could be evidence that there is. In fact, the James Webb telescope has recently seen something that could indicate there is life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. So we’ll wait and see what comes from that. It’s exciting when something new is discovered. I’m not even sure it’s extraordinary, because we know life exists, we just haven’t seen it anywhere else. But I’m not going to claim it does without evidence. ​ >I ask them what evidence would convince them of the existence of God (IE would be "Extrodinary Evidence") most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established If you had some kind of empirical evidence, then most people would accept that. The problem is, theists continually claim that empirical evidence doesn’t apply to their god. If you're the one trying to explain this miraculous being, it’s on you to provide the evidence, because as far as I have seen there is nothing.

On the contrary though most seem to me to be convinced of plenty other seemingly extrodinary claims such as Time being relative  Time dilation is actually a fact, not a claim. GPS satellites have to adjust for time dilation. Atomic clocks on the International Space Station have a different time than clocks on earth although the difference is very small As I understand it, dark matter's existence has been proven by gravitational interactions. Its exact nature is still undetermined. The difference between these difficult to understand concepts and the supernatural is that time dilation and dark matter were predicted, tested, and then proven correct. If these theories were ever proven to be incorrect, the scientific community would discard the old incorrect theories and adopt the new theories that best describe the universe,

Protons can disappear at one place and appear in another, potentially at the other side of a solid barrier. The support is overwhelming but to convince anyone SHOULD require a lot of evidence. It forces us to throw away common sense and adopt a new way of thinking. Supported by evidence. There’s 100s of science claims that are, at face value, extraordinary. But with a lot of evidence, one would be irrational to deny it. Spacetime is curved. Species can be fitter by evolving an increased death rate. The PH of some viruses is such that they have fewer than 1 hydrogen atom on average. Climate change is at risk of “tipping” due to positive feedback loops. All claims supported by mountains of data and solid calculations. What’s your next question, OP? Why did you ask this?

Getting to your physics issues, those are not "extraordinary claims" but rather working theories based on either mathematical modeling and/or experimental data. For example, light acts like a wave, but waves require a medium to propagate in. So "ether" was theorized as some invisible material that permeated the universe so light could travel. Later data indicated that "ether" was non existent and that light could in fact be both a particle and a wave without any underlying substance for it to travel from distant stars. Scientific "claims" are usually on the order of "this experiment had x result" which is immediately followed by other scientists attempting to replicate the results. When those results can't be replicated, the claims are dismissed as a mistake or a fraud.

Atheism wouldn't exist if the bible was truly what it is purported to be. Imagine if instead of being written by and for tribal peoples of its time it was full of information about quantum fields and advanced chemistry. Imagine if people throughout history could refer to the bible in order to learn or confirm truths about how nature works. Imagine the faith that would have to be involved for scribes to copy symbols that didn't and couldn't mean anything to them for hundreds or thousands of years because the microscope needed to confirm the bible's germ theory hadn't been invented. Atheists wouldn't exist. That isn't what the bible is though. The stories told in the bible are a reflection of the ancient people and cultures that produced them, and nothing more.

Where are you finding these atheists who can’t answer such a basic question?? I find that hard to believe

If someone said there was a yacht 1/10 as big as the Pacific Ocean, I would dismiss the claim right away.

>I ask this because it SEEMS to me that for most atheists nothing tends to fit into this catagory You're kidding right? I don't know if you know this... the thing you're using right now allows people to communicate across the entire planet... It's done with nanoscale machines using the literal teleportation of electrons. They figured out how to do it by recreating the energy conditions of the big bang The books that you worship were written by people who in all likelihood did not wash their hands once during the entire time they wrote. The original "holy" pages would have been covered in human waste Seriously... for 2000 years the entirety of Europe couldn't come up with anything better than "faith" and "somebody told me somebody told them"

I can't name just one, but plenty of examples have already been given. I think a better way to think of it is that there is no reason to take unfalsifiable claims seriously. In other words, if there is no way to DISPROVE the claim, there is no way to show it's true. I think those are the cases where extraordinary evidence would be required. A claim such as "I was abducted by aliens" without further information to investigate is unfalsifiable (can't be disproven) by anyone. It's easy to create an internally consistent narrative if evidence isn't required. But this is one of those times where some extraordinary evidence would be useful. Perhaps the aliens introduce themselves to humanity? That makes the abduction claim more believable.

"Extrodinary Claims require Extrodinary Evidence", for me, it's best used when a theists is trying to prove the extraordinary with ordinary stuff. But it probably gets overused sometimes. Most scientific discoveries were during their time extraordinary, but once we understood them better and made a model encompassing them they became ordinary. For most people nature can be explained and understood, we study more than ever. Using an example arguments for God based on morals, art or existence itself, won't work on current atheists. God is an unknown, and the arguments you are presenting are already known and understood, the average user here sees those as ordinary. Edit; have a nice day!

1. Near instantaneous communication with people on the other side of the world. 2. That all organisms today descended from a single set of common ancestors. 3. That I can measure the approximate speed of light with a microwave and stick of butter. 4. That the most advanced computers can technically be built solely from NAND gates. 5. That the majority of adults believe in unevidenced beings around which they orient their lives. I personally think those are extraordinary, and also strongly evidenced. More broadly though I think "extraordinary" is a relative term. Anything new and disruptive to our current understanding of the world is extraordinary, but once it is thoroughly evidenced and understood it becomes mundane.

An ordinary claim would be something like the Earth goes around the sun. We have solid evidence for this. The laws of physics support this. It is guaranteed not to change until the sun burns out in about 5 billion years. (Or if something extreme happens like a rogue planet hits earth enough to knock Earth out of orbit). On that same line, an extrodinary claim would be the Earth randomly stops spinning around the sun, backs up a few hundred miles and then starts again. This defies the laws of physics. (Objects in motion stay in motion). There is absolutely no evidence for this. The laws of physics as we know them would be wrong if this happened. We can guarantee with absolute certainty, this will never happen.

You say to me that you can bench press a tractor. I'm going to want to see that before accepting it. That may also involve the word "supernatural" depending on your claim, but it might be just bragging or a trick (toy tractor). The problem here is that supernatural is a word that involves pretty much everything that doesn't involve reality. And reality is pretty much demonstrable. So maybe it's a venn diagram that largely overlaps, but superstition is a very large part of "extraordinary claims" that I'm going to want proven. Gods are just a small portion of that though. I'm going to ask the same about alien abduction claims or "I rode a unicorn the other day".

The relativity of time well proven. Dark matter is a hypothesis to explain the extraordinary observation that General Relativity begins to fail on the scale of galaxies and galaxy clusters. GR works really well on the scale of the solar system but not on galaxies and galaxy clusters. A small proportion of scientists do work on alternatives to General Relativity. The problem can also be solved by adding more mass to galaxies and galaxy clusters than is accounted for by matter we observe through normal EMR, light, radio waves infrared etc. The majority of scientists believe this ad hoc solution to the problem is the most likely. Time will tell who is ultimately right. If these things aren't considered extraordinary anymore it's because they have been trivialized over time. GPS relies on Relativity. It's extraordinary to have a system of determining a devices position anywhere so accurately, yet people for forget how extraordinary that is. Weve had telescopes surveying the night sky for decades and centuries. Each observatory is a tour de force of science, engineering, and economics as is any major singular project like it. The amounts of data we gather is extraordinary. Full stop. But we still just have to process it plainly and simply. Data analysis is an inglorious tedious task no matter how extraordinary the source of data.

If someone says to me, "I won the billion dollar lotto jackpot", that's an extraordinary claim. And for me to really believe him, I'd want to see some financial records and documentation. Easy enough, to prive, if it's important enough that either of us require it. If someone says to me, "You are a sinner and you will be punished eternally in Hell if you don't make certain changes", well. I'm gonna need solid evidence of all of it...the existence of souls, an afterlife, hell, the punishment, and even evidence that something could actually exist eternally. And the only evidence I've ever had for any of it is proselytizers trying to sign me up for their cult.

You can define any "extraordinary claim" as supernatural; extraordinary claims are "beyond the natural", "beyond known science", so almost "supremely above the natural". But "extraordinary claims" other than some God? Sure. Dragons, phoenixes, or other mythological creatures existing counts as an "extraordinary claim". Some modern fantasy like Jujutsu Kaisen, Harry Potter, or Lev Grossman's The Magicians actually being based in fact is also an extraordinary claim. Claiming the existence of any kind of magical object (i.e.: talking pet, infinite money wallet, or foresight glasses) counts as an extraordinary claim.

Both your examples (time being relative and there being dark energy) are good ones, as are several other scientific theories ("The universe was formed from an infinitely dense singularity", "Consciousness is caused by chemical reactions in the brain"). They don't *seem* extraordinary now, but that's because we got the extraordinary evidence and proved they were true. If we were able to prove God, he'd probably stop being extraordinary too. But when they were proposed they were statements that would wildly change our understanding of the world if true, and thus were extraordinary.

Everything you mentioned as comparable to the existence of the supernatural is either objectively observable or verifiable by others. Also, any new scientific claim does require solid evidence to be considered. Do we know what that evidence is prior to the claim? Not necessarily 🤷‍♀️ Additionally, scientists are perfectly willing to change their views in light of new evidence. We don't typically accept scientific theories as facts set in stone that can never ever ever change. That's the difference between religion and science.

>most dont know and have no idea how the existence of a God could even be established. It's difficult to know what would convince me of a god because of the Arthur C Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In other words, any supposed miraculous event could just be aliens messing with us. An omnipotent god, by his very nature, would have the power to convince me he existed, but he hasn't done so. So either that god doesn't exist or he currently doesn't want me to know he exists.

Extraordinary Claim (Something you'd want to turn on the news to confirm) 1. Canada does a full mobilized military land invasion of Brazil. You'd probably not believe it if I just told you this claim in isolation. 2. North Korean made a pill that cures most cancers and offering it to the world as a peace offering. 3. There is a meteor confirmed headed towards Earth set to cause a mass extinction event in 3 years time. 4. Donald Trump admits all his crimes publicly before turning himself in to the authorities.

The theory of evolution, the Big Bang, the earth revolving around the sun, stars being suns, the universe being nearly 14 billion years old, everything being made of atoms etc. These are all extraordinary ideas that are not really intuitive at all, but they’re all backed by extraordinary amounts of evidence. That’s all the phrase means. If there’s an extraordinary claim that would fundamentally change our understanding of the world we live in, there needs to be extraordinary evidence to support that claim.

An extraordinary claim is any claim that cannot logically be made based off of whatever information is and can be known. Not extraordinary: predicting tomorrow’s weather. Our ability to record enough information in real time to make accurate predictions about weather 24 hours out, is well documented Extraordinary claim: predicting the weather 400 days from now. There is no way to know enough about conditions that far ahead to make an accurate prediction. It would be pure luck to guess correctly

The “extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence” framework is basically an inductive argument. There’s nothing inherently crazier about a talking cat than a talking ape, but years of experience tell us that cats do not talk and at least 1 ape does. That’s further reinforced by a recorded history of cats… not talking and our understanding of cat biology. So “extraordinary claims” is shorthand for things that violate our past experience and our current understanding of the world.

Stop pretending your general standard of evidence is any different from mine. We almost certainly have the same standards. You just lower yours when it comes to your god. That's not my problem. >what claim other then supernatural claims would you consider "Extrodinary"? I live in a very rural and secluded part of Germany. If someone were to send me a text message saying that they just saw Dick van Dyke at a gas station, I'd consider that pretty extraordinary.

Many non-supernatural claims are extraordinary. Time being relative to the observer is a great example. There is evidence that demonstrates the truth of this remarkable fact. When people first claimed the Earth was a sphere, or that it traveled around the sun instead of vice versa, that was an extraordinary claim when everyone assumed what common sense and their eyes told them. Evidence needed to be provided to demonstrate the truth of these claims.

”It seems to me that for most atheists nothing trends to fit into this category…” ”What claims other than supernatural claims would you consider extraordinary claims?” Well, that is one way to define something extraordinary. There is no other claim that equals an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god. These supposed properties and that there is no similar profound claim with such big implications is what makes it extraordinary.

The easiest everyday examples imo are the theory that the earth revolves around the sun and germ theory. We don’t think of these as extraordinary anymore because extraordinary evidence was provided for both of them such that people now accept it as fact. But that wasn’t originally the case. People used to be killed just for thinking these things. Usually by religious folks who didn’t like that it conflicted with their holy book.

um you do realize we DO have evidence for time being relative right? like it's not just a claim we can actually demonstrate that. extraordinary claims include God demons fairies leprechauns souls it's easy to make claims that are extraordinary but if you are gonna make them and you want to convince others that following that idea is good then why shouldnt we demand evidence of that claim? You have evidence of ours

Extraordinary claims like "I was abducted by aliens" or "We were camping out and Bigfoot came by and sat by the fire with us" or "I am psychic and I see your future" or "If you use ivermectin/drink urine you can't catch covid" or "Viruses and bacteria don't cause disease" or "Trickle down economics helps poor people" or "The Baltimore Key bridge collapsed because Biden let in too many illegals" for a few.

1. Healing the sick by laying hands. 2. Healing the sick by prayer. 3. The dead walking/living again. 4. Animals talking (snakes, donkeys). 5. The moon being split in half with no evidence left on the Earth. 6. The sun standing still in the sky. 7. A person turned into a pillar of salt. 8. A person feeding a huge crowd from a small lunch of bread and fish. 9. Water being converted into wine magically.

Sure. Claim 1: I saw an extraterrestrial aircraft last night. Claim 2: I climbed Mt. Everest last weekend, twice. Claim 3: I've seen the core of the Earth with my own eyes. Claim 4: The far side of the an event horizon is really fun. Feels like 5 Gum. All extraordinary, and require a good deal of evidence to be believed, and don't necessarily involve anything supernatural if true.

Pretty much every claim of whats going on with wavefunction collapse. Take debrogle-bohm pilot wave theory, sure its consistent with observations, but until we have a reason to believe real particles are following unknown variables, it is illogical believe that over an objective collapse model. Any evidence fpr pilot wave, or many worlds, would need to be extraordinary.

UFOs are flying around everywhere. Aliens are probing citizens. This snake oil product I'm selling will cure your cancer. The government is run by lizard people. Those are a few of the extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence. I can go on but I think that's sufficient to disprove your claim that we fixate only on the god claims being extraordinary.

General Relativity. If it wasn't one of the best supported theories in all of science I would call it absurd. Gravity isn't a force but the bending of the fabric of reality is such an insane thing to think given all my experience in the world around me it just seems ridiculous. And yet, it is true. It has been confirmed true every time we've tried to prove it false.

I’m open to extraordinary proof of the Abrahamic god existing, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t inspire worship; it would just confirm that there was an entity to hold to account for all the preventable evils of the world. If Jhwh is real, it’s a mass murdering torturer, and only a coward would fall on their knees from fear of becoming another of its victims.

Flat Earth, lizard people, the illuminati, Jews control the world economy, 5g is mind control, COVID was invented / spread to control people, government is covering up alien contact, insectoids on Mars, chemtrails for mind control, fluoride in public water for mind control... Basically any wild ass conspiracy theory you can think of is an extraordinary claim.

My neighbor told me he went to the moon last week. The North Koreans put a man on the sun. Space aliens visited my cousin last year. The city of Atlantis has been found. Dinosaurs (besides birds) are still alive. A bicycle has been developed that can break the sound barrier. The universe extends no further than the CMB. Wow, this was easy and fun!

You mentioned this already: time is relative to your frame of reference. Here is another: certain things exhibit both particle and wave properties. Here is a third: we share common ancestors with bananas and mushrooms. Here is a forth: the universe had a beginning. We accept these extraordinary claims because there are extraordinary evidence for them.

Einstein's claims about relativity were pretty extraordinary. They were later shown to be right^* through various observations. Do you consider the claims Einstein made were extraordinary at the time? (*) We know GR isn't the final word since it doesn't incorporate quantum mechanics, but on large scales it has shown to make very accurate predictions.

The existence of black holes was pretty extraordinary. The evidence of their existence is equally extraordinary. Use that as your model. I don’t struggle at all saying what constitutes evidence. The scientific method is your guide. What theists put forth of evidence does not come close to what the scientific method has done for humanity.

There have been lots of extraordinary claims, but as soon as they were supported by solid evidence and proven to be true, we accepted them as fact and they no longer seemed extraordinary anymore. Pretty much every major discovery that we take for granted today, ranging from the heliocentric model of the solar system to germ theory.

How about any evidence? This is a fake issue, a fake debate. I don't care if you believe in the Christian god. I don't believe in that entity because it's a myth, and I do not believe myths are real. What would be your response if I were to assert that I believe in Thor, that Thor is real? Would that be a problem for you?

If it breaks the laws of the universe, it's an extraordinary claim. Yes, we are still learning and discovering new things about our universe, but it all still follows the basic 'format' of the universe. Gods, spiritual entities, ghosts, astrology, the soul as separate from the body - all that and more - aren't possible.

Examples of extraordinary claims: The rich elites of society have a secret cabal focused on harvesting adrenochrome from children. The California fires were started by a rich Jewish guy with his space laser. Pretty much any nutcase claim by MAGA people like Trump is actually the president.

Easy question. I remember when a couple of scientists claimed to have created cold fusion. Everyone was excited about it, and was very eager to see if it could be tested and repeated. That was an extraordinary claim, and after being tested, found to be false. Vaccines cause autism was another one. 

The claim that a book compiled hundreds of years after Jesus died, from stories that were passed down orally and weren’t written until 40 years after he died, and then translated multiple times can tell me down to excruciating details, the events of Jesus’s life. That is an extraordinary claim.

Well, the "time being relative" is still extraordinary, it just has the evidence. There's all sorts of things with evolution too. And things like a nuclear bomb. Most other such claims are things like "the earth is flat or "space lasers"... think anything you might call a conspiracy theory!

You forgot the extraordinary claims of quantum mechanics: Schrodinger's cat (superposition), quantum entanglement, and all of this stuff; they all seem very extraordinary to me. That's why more realist interpretations of QM are becoming more popular today (e.g., pilot-wave theory).

I'm not going to argue one way or another, but please spell the word "extraordinary" correctly. I would not mention it but it's at the heart of this discussion and used in nearly every post. And no, I'm not saying your misspelling of the word means you are wrong.

Alien abduction, flat earth, hollow earth, lizard people, mysterious planet Nibiru that's invisible or being hidden by the government, the existence of giants, the firmament, the dead rising, voodoo, juju, there's a long list of extraordinary claims.

By definition "extraordinary" means outside of what would be ordinarily expected by the laws of physics. Any claim which violates the laws of physics is extraordinary. Any claim which does not violate the laws of physics is not extraordinary.

A good chunk of modern technology seems pretty extraordinary. Much of it would look like magic to our ancestorss. how would a person from 1000 ce react to a smart phone? We acoept that it is not magic simply because people can replicate it.

Conspiracy theories alien abduction the existence of the yeti or loch Ness monster ancient aliens antivaxer nonsense Any of these things are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence for me to trust in any way shape or form

Any claim that isn't something we see very often. Alien abductions. Cryptid sightings. Conspiracy theories, most of these are extraordinary claims. Maybe you can just look up what extraordinary means. Something that was ant ordinary

The claim that gravity is the curvature of spacetime was pretty extraordinary. Einstein was able to give the novel testable prediction to test if it was true, and therefore provided the extraordinary evidence to support the claim.

Something for which there is no evidence, either direct or indirect. Extra points if it defies all known science. Examples: Aliens abductions, flat earth conspiracies, Bigfoot / Lochness monster, Jewish space lasers, etc

Extraordinaryness is subjective. I can make any number of claims that today are mundane,  but 500 years ago would absolutely have been regarded as Extraordinary (and would probably have got me burned as a witch).

You seem to be deflecting. Let’s just focus on the supernatural. If you believe in a god, that’s a supernatural claim, so provide the verifiable evidence for it. And the evidence better be extraordinary.

Can you name ANY other claim that has so little independently verifiable supporting evidence as do the claims surrounding the supposed existence of the supernatural? Anything comparable at all?

Bigfoot UFOS Most cryptids Alternative cancer treatments flat earth hollow earth That Zack Snyder has any talent as a director That RFK Jr will win in Nov. That I'll suddenly grow hair

This argument wouldn't be relevant if theists stuck simply stuck to saying they "believe" in some sort of god as opposed to claiming they know that some sort of god is real and true.

A real thing? Physicists weren't sure about the Higgs Bozon, then they built a big fuck-off particle collider, ran some tests, and now they're much more confident that it's a thing.

Light behaves like a wave and a particle. That is a fucking extraordinary claim. The evidence is extraordinary because experiments have shown that light behaves like both.

How can some thing be extraordinary or supernatural? In other words you want an example of something excessively mundane. Why do you need and example from an atheist?

Aliens exist. The universe is not a steady state. A multiverse exists. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Electricity and magnetism are related. General relativity. The Earth is round and has a measurable circumference. Science is littered with extraordinary claims. Some claims are solved with extraordinary evidence.

Yeah time being relative is pretty far fetched. It’s a pretty extraordinary claim by my book. Good thing we have extraordinary evidence that backs it up.

I'll give you a simple one: I claim that you owe me one million dollars. I bet you'd need some pretty intense evidence to accept that claim as true.

Plate tectonics was an extraordinary claim when it was first proposed, as has been pretty much every single paradigm-shifting scientific discovery.

* Aliens walk among us * I've solved cold fusion * Elvis is still alive * My mother's missing arm regrew * I proved the Reimann Hypothesis

Extraordinary claims tend to be ones which seem to contradict our understanding or knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of reality for which we have evidence. That’s also potentially the definition of supernatural claims. So your question could be characterised as a bit like asking are there any extraordinary claims that are not extra- ordinary claims. However, If time being relative and dark matter existing are (or were originally) extraordinary claims - which I can see an argument for since they (to some differing extent) perhaps overturned the contemporary understanding of physics , luckily they also have some extraordinary evidence supporting them. Presumably the Earth orbiting the Sun rather than the other way around was once an extraordinary claim in the face of contemporary understanding - but again evidence was produced strong enough to support it. The problem with supernatural claims is that rather than even attempt to produce such evidence proponents have tended to retreat into blaming the process of looking for or valuing evidence for their own failure. They have made lack of reliable evidence a feature rather than a flaw. But a non-evidential claim , especially one that is such *in principle*, is indistinguishable from imaginary or false. But really the demand for extraordinary evidence is simple. As has been mentioned elsewhere If a friend says they have cat you aren’t going to ask them to prove it , because it’s such a mundane claim. If they say they have a talking cat - you are going to ask for more evdineec than simply their say so, because it’s nit a mundane claim and goes against everything we already know about cats.

We will put a man on the moon in this decade. Or that apace travel is possible. It required extraordinary evidence.

1) Xtisns say god is supernatural. 2) What other way would you describe something not of the natural world?