Hacker News Reader

Comment by mithrilskeleton | Hacker News Reader

Why do you believe the Christian Bible is the Word of God when other texts(The Quran, etc) similarly purport to be the One Truth? These other texts also include "eyewitness testimony."

View on HN

FWIW, the Quran does not include eyewitness testimony in the sense you are speaking of. It is taken literally as the word of God. Although some parts in it ascribe certain quotes to certain people (e.g. Jesus said so and so, Mary said so and so, etc.), but the witness here is God Himself.

Regardless, eyewitness testimony is not reliable[0]. Many people have claimed to seen UFO's, Aliens, and crimes that people did not commit.

0. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-i...

Sure, but when investigating events of a certain magnitude, you would more likely have a bigger group of individuals who have witnessed said event. The article references incidents like murder convictions, where it can be easy to mistake one person for another, because they both happen to be of the same race for instance.

In this case; however, we're talking events like person X gave a speech and said Y. This is much more likely to have been heard by many people, so the likelihood of it have happened in the way it was relayed is much higher.

>Sure, but when investigating events of a certain magnitude, you would more likely have a bigger group of individuals who have witnessed said event.

The Torah claims a million witnesses for the revelation at Sinai. I don't see anyone rushing off to become Jewish.

It occurs to me that "number of purported eye-witnesses" may not be a good evidentiary standard.

You are absolutely correct, it is not just about quantity, but the quality of the witnesses as well. How trustworthy are they? How good is their memory? Do they have any biases? Etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com