Gemli explains...

[Res Ipsa]

I haven't read any of Gemli's posts but am persuaded by stories of his exploits.

(What? What?)

[Res Ipsa]

...I also think Gemli would say his rejection of the story is not based solely on them being religious, but that they have similarly fantastical elements that are present in works of fiction like Lord of the Rings.

I doubt he would reject a story about a Buddhist monk eating a sandwich just because it happens to be religious in nature.

I agree it seems gemli rejects fantastical elements (I do recall an objection to fairies) but to be fair, gemli did explain why he concentrates on religious claims, at least in his comments on the blog in question. in my opinion, you are correct in your assumption that it is the similarly fantastical elements that have the strongest influence. Here's a quote from page 1:

gemli Seatimer
17 hours ago

I have it on good authority that gemli is not "anti-Mormon." It might be that sticking one's finger into an open flame is a bad idea, whether the flame is from a kitchen stove, a campfire, an electric heater or a hot iron. It's not the specific item that matters as much as it is what they all have in common, which is that they're all dangerously hot. Gemli focuses on religions because they all make essentially the same fundamental claims of supernatural beings and eternal lives for one species of ape. He thinks it's unseemly for intelligent people to adhere to the scores of discrepant theological claims that defy reason and cannot be falsified. It's telling that thousands of different religions exist which are believed in wholeheartedly by millions of people. They can't all be right, but they can certainly all be wrong.

On a separate note, my aunt got a traffic ticket for rolling through a stop sign but she insists that 'the spirit' told her it was safe because she was doing god's work. Based on this thread, I'll advise her to fight her ticket, and to explain to the judge that her story of the spirit's influence is evidence that legally must be taken into account. Her spiritual experience was the same as if an actual policeman was standing there and waving her on!! Well, to her, at least. Getting the spirit to give evidence might be tough, but I'm sure her story will be given the proper credence it deserves and that her fine will be overturned. Surely.

Straw-person analogy. We've been talking about what is and what is not evidence. What the law requires has literally nothing to do with evidence.

[Res Ipsa]

. What makes it special pleadings is his categorical rejection of "stories" when they are religious in nature, even though stories are accepted as evidence in daily life, including the courtroom.

Are you not similarly making a categorical rejection of stories which are fantastical in nature?

I also think Gemli would say his rejection of the story is not based solely on them being religious, but that they have similarly fantastical elements that are present in works of fiction like Lord of the Rings.

I doubt he would reject a story about a Buddhist monk eating a sandwich just because it happens to be religious in nature.

I don't have to guess at what Gemli would and would not say. He is articulate and clear in what he has to say. He singles out religion for his "stories aren't evidence" rule. And claiming that the sentence "A Monk ate a sandwich" is a story that is religious in nature is absurd.

[huckelberry]

Have you ever watched a trial and paid attention to things get admitted into evidence? The jury isn't just handed a fingerprint taken from the defendant and a fingerprint (or partial fingerprint) taken from the alleged murder weapon. A witness is sworn in and tells a story about the two fingerprints. In fact, fingerprint identification involves a significant amount of subjective judgment. The same is true of wound to wound shapes -- they are subjective judgments that are introduced into evidence through stories told by "experts."

Were the fingerprints on the gun made before or during the shooting? Or were they planted afterward by someone? That evidence is established through a story.

Physical objects very rarely speak for themselves. It is the stories that turn physical objects into evidence.

I’d love to see you in court arguing that the forensic evidence against your client is just a story.

I think defense attorneys would regularly argue that the prosecution’s story about the evidence is wrong and just a story. It is a story which links the evidence together and determines what it means. If the story is making incorrect connections, the forensic evidence could be suggesting guilt for the wrong individual. At least the defense attorney is going to try hard to show that is either likely or at least a possibility.

[Moksha]

Which one of the two different arguments you have repeated do you think PG agrees with?

1. Stories about fairies aren't evidence; or

2. Stories about fairies are not sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude that fairies exist.

SEN would berate Gemli's disbelief for not reading all the available LDS Fairies stories. Legalists would point out that stories about fairies are sufficient. Gemli would be stuck back at square one saying, "Show me the fairy" and the robotrons at SEN would all reply, the fairies are too sacred to show outside the Temple."

[huckelberry]

To say that stories about murder weapons can be evidence, but stories about fairies cannot be evidence, is special pleading, unless you can explain, without begging the question, why the subject of the stories makes this big difference.

I take stories as evidence all the time. If my brother-in-law tells me a story about liking this particular beer, I'll believe that it's a good beer, and go so far as to try it myself.

On the other hand, if the same guy told me he'd seen a fairy in the garden, I wouldn't believe in the fairy. I might entertain the possibility that there was something in my brother-in-law's garden that kind of looked like a fairy, but that's as far as it would go, and my more favored hypothesis would have to do with that beer.

I think I'm being reasonable, but I don't think that my reasonableness is accurately explained by saying that stories about fairies aren't evidence. I think the real explanation is that stories in general are relatively weak evidence, and that fairies are very a priori unlikely. It's not that plywood can't support weight. Plywood can. It's tough stuff. You can totally build things from plywood. It's just that plywood isn't strong enough for a railway bridge.

I find Physics guy’s comments clear and reasonable. Somewhere in this thread Marcus made the additional relevant observation that not only are angels questionable but the story, Book of Mormon which the angel brought has a large amount of evidence indicating it is fiction. That the story is fiction is significant evidence that the angel is fiction.

The oft used idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is ambiguous because what is or is not extraordinary is not a simple clear yes or no determination. Some people may approach story of angels assuming or believing angels exist for what ever cluster of reasons. Other people of course do not.

[Res Ipsa]

I have not served on any juries, but I'm pretty sure that the whole jury doesn't get trained in ballistics, go to the lab with the alleged murder weapon, and conduct all those tests personally. Instead some expert tells the jury a story, about how the weapon was tested—probably after someone else has told the jury a story about how that ballistics expert is a qualified expert.

At some point the weapon really was tested. The jury only have people's word for that, though. So just how is the thinking of a jury who accepts the expert's word different from the thinking of Mormons who believe that Joseph Smith got golden plates from an angel because someone told them so?

Of course I agree that murder weapons exist and Smith's angel did not. Simply saying this isn't an argument, though. It's begging the question.

The fact that angels are a lot more uncommon than weapons, even according to people who believe in angels, does seem to me like a solid and relevant point. We should expect more evidence before believing in angels, because their prior likelihood is lower. There are also a lot of particular details about Smith's story that are suspicious. I don't buy that angel for a moment.

The reason I doubt the angel isn't that stories aren't evidence, though. It's that these particular stories are nowhere near good enough evidence to outweigh the prior unlikelihood of this angel.

As long as you are using Bayesian reasoning, you're weighing evidence. That seems fine to me.

[drumdude]

Are you not similarly making a categorical rejection of stories which are fantastical in nature?

I also think Gemli would say his rejection of the story is not based solely on them being religious, but that they have similarly fantastical elements that are present in works of fiction like Lord of the Rings.

I doubt he would reject a story about a Buddhist monk eating a sandwich just because it happens to be religious in nature.

I don't have to guess at what Gemli would and would not say. He is articulate and clear in what he has to say. He singles out religion for his "stories aren't evidence" rule. And claiming that the sentence "A Monk ate a sandwich" is a story that is religious in nature is absurd.

A story that friends of Joseph Smith saw some plates in the woods is a similar story. But that’s not the whole story. The fantastical elements are precisely the ones that Gemli appears to be objecting to.

Take out the religious nature and you’ve by definition removed the fantastical nature. Unless your definition of a religious story is so broad that a monk eating a sandwich fits it.

[I Have Questions]

Are stories about God, evidence that God exists?

Do Mormon stories trump Catholic stories or visa versa in terms of them being evidence about which Church is the one God favours? Are they equally evidence of God’s existence? Or are they equally not evidence of God’s existence?

What stories would be evidence of God’s existence?
What stories would be evidence that not only God exists, but that Mormonism is the religion that has the correct details about his existence?

[drumdude]

What stories would be evidence that not only God exists, but that Mormonism is the religion that has the correct details about his existence?

The ones we have, apparently.

If Mormon God wants only a few people to accept that God exists and Joseph was his true prophet, then he crafted the perfect story. Crazy enough for 99% of humanity to reject as a silly fiction, but just plausible enough for less than 1% to devote their entire lives to.

Bravo, Mormon God. *chef kiss*