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Mark Twain wrote:Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

Mark Twain wrote: And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

Mark Twain wrote:Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

Exiled wrote:DCP responds:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/dismissing-witness-testimony.html

Dr. P:

I think your use of a murder trial is misplaced. Seeing a murder is not an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence like supposedly seeing plates that no one else, conveniently, was allowed to see. The better example would be that of a fraud trial where a confidence man convinced some witnesses to testify to a supercomputer that he supposedly used to beat the stock market. The supposed computer is always behind a heavily guarded curtain that no one was allowed to see, except for his few witnesses. However, when one digs down on their testimony, one finds that the witnesses were required to "see" the computer with their "believing" eye and there was later testimony from one of the witnesses that the ones who supposedly saw the contraption didn't really "see" it and were very hesitant to sign the document that contained their testimony, as the document exaggerated what really happened. Further, and obviously, only allowing a select few to see the supercomputer was really telling of the fraud and what sealed the fraud conviction was the fact that the confidence man had to admit that the supercomputer had disappeared.

Laying out the State’s case against Mr. Robert Jones on charges of capital homicide, prosecutor Richard Anderson called eleven eyewitnesses who were part of the same two families, of solid reputation, undisputed sanity, and good character, and who had just returned from a convention on Alien Abduction and Torture, who all testified under oath that they clearly saw the defendant, Mr. Jones, pump six revolver rounds into Mr. Chauncey Gardner who was from Kolob, while Mr. Gardner lay on the ground pleading for his life. They all also reporting hearing the defendant screaming “Die, Chauncey! Die!” Note that the witnesses were not available at trail time for individual questioning but that the state had a spiffy statement with all the witnesses names typed below it as proof.

Symmachus wrote:

Exiled wrote:DCP responds:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/dismissing-witness-testimony.html

Dr. P:

I think your use of a murder trial is misplaced. Seeing a murder is not an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence like supposedly seeing plates that no one else, conveniently, was allowed to see. The better example would be that of a fraud trial where a confidence man convinced some witnesses to testify to a supercomputer that he supposedly used to beat the stock market. The supposed computer is always behind a heavily guarded curtain that no one was allowed to see, except for his few witnesses. However, when one digs down on their testimony, one finds that the witnesses were required to "see" the computer with their "believing" eye and there was later testimony from one of the witnesses that the ones who supposedly saw the contraption didn't really "see" it and were very hesitant to sign the document that contained their testimony, as the document exaggerated what really happened. Further, and obviously, only allowing a select few to see the supercomputer was really telling of the fraud and what sealed the fraud conviction was the fact that the confidence man had to admit that the supercomputer had disappeared.

Yeah, I'm sure a witness who thinks god talks to him through deer would be a criminal defense lawyer's top choice.