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[LordBucket]

... meanwhile, you occasionally get archaeological digs in high school and whatnot, that trivially and generally repeatedly produce returns.

Ok. But if you're not one of the people who have had that experience, how is that anecdote any different than the anecdote of <insert claim of religious experience here>? Yes, you can find plenty of people who say that they dug up whatever. And you can also find plenty of people who say they had whatever religious experience.

If you're not the one having the experience, how is it anything but faith to believe somebody else's claim?

[Graknorke]

Because you can look at the thing they dug up. They don't turn into fairy farts upon encountering open air, you know.

[LordBucket]

Because you can look at the thing they dug up.

And if you don't, but choose to believe it anyway?

[NJW2000]

Scientist claim to have used rational, empirical methods for working this stuff out. Theists and conspiracy theorists and pathological liars often do not. Only proveable distinction without basically being a scientist yourself and doing the stuff.

[LordBucket]

I think this whole argument is boiling down to this: Science isn't proving anything, it's providing evidence that can be disputed should the need arise. Acceptance of this evidence wholeheartedly is the equivalence of religious fervor, and that nothing should be taken as true without an actual understanding other than a few select a priori intrinsic beliefs (Plato's cave, etc).

Ok. That seems reasonable.

My position is that for most people, "religious fervor," as you put it, is their mechanism of belief, whether or not their specific beliefs are what would generally be described as religious. Belief in dinosaurs is merely a good example of this. The typical person has no evidence for the existence of dinosaurs for which there is not a typical religious belief equivalent. ("A teacher told me"/"A priest told me") ("I read about dinosaurs in a book"/"I read about god in a  book.") ("There are dinosaur museums, why would they lie?"/"There are religious museums, why would they lie?")

[Graknorke]

And if you don't, but choose to believe it anyway?

Excusing that belief isn't a (direct) choice, you could. It's not like museums with fossils in are hard to come by though. And there's many, many other people who can verify that the fossils exist. And then photos of those fossils too because everyone takes pictures of fucking everything now that they carry little cameras and internet-capable computers around with them.

I get what you're trying to do here, but they're just not comparable. There's a difference between believing someone telling you that a thing exists that you can go look at and they know because they saw it too, and believing someone telling you there's a thing but you can't see it and also they haven't seen it in person, only heard from somebody else.

[Antioch]

Well for the dinosaurs I would say that proof of non-existence in general is impossible (with the exception of deducing a physical impossibility).

We can only look at the evidence provided for EXISTENCE and declare it valid or invalid as evidence.

Declaring the evidence invalid would bring us back to the situation that "There is no evidence to support the existence of dinosaurs".

[Loud Whispers]

Do you lot believe in something until there is evidence to prove otherwise, or believe in something only if evidence suggests it so? Do you believe you are immortal until you die?

[Graknorke]

Well for the dinosaurs I would say that proof of non-existence in general is impossible

You can have evidence against a thing. Sticking with the dinosaurs thing, you'd expect that out of the millions of years of life that were around in prehistory, there would be some record left somewhere. The absence of any sort of traces of their existence would be very damning.

[LordBucket]

It's not like museums with fossils in are hard to come by though.

I get what you're trying to do here, but they're just not comparable. There's a difference between believing someone telling you that a thing exists that you can go look at and they know because they saw it too, and believing someone telling you there's a thing but you can't see it and also they haven't seen it in person, only heard from somebody else.

But...you believe that you can casually go and confirm this thing, because you already believe in it.

Hey, maybe you're right. Maybe you can. But, you don't believe it because you've done it. You believe it because you believe it. It's entirely circular. Your faith that you can go and verify dinosaurs fossils is because you believe in dinosaur fossils. Not because you've verified dinosaur fossils. Maybe fossils are real. But that's not why you believe in them.

And hey, maybe you're one of the few people who've actually held a fossil in your hands. Great! My statements nevertheless apply for most people. Most people have never held a fossil. Yet, they nevertheless believe that they could casually go and hold a fossil. Why do they believe that evidence is so casually available?

Because they already believe in dinosaurs.

Do you lot believe in something until there is evidence to prove otherwise, or believe in something only
if evidence suggests it so? Do you believe you are immortal until you die?

I'm uncertain about the ultimate nature of reality. I have only my experience from which to judge. I might be a brain in a jar. I could be in the matrix. I could be an omnipotent spirit being creating the hallucination of a physical experience to entertain myself. The entire universe could be a simulation. All I know is my experience, because I am observing it.  Everything I actually experience is fundamentally unverifiable. I cannot even truly know that my memory is valid. I could have been created two seconds ago with the memory of an entire lifetime.

or believe in something only if evidence suggests it so?

Given the above, what "evidence" could possibly exist that would justify any belief?

Our only source of evidence is our observed experience. I am aware of no logical justification for believing that our observed experience has any validity beyond the observable fact that it is being experienced.

[Loud Whispers]

Deeper than the Marianas Trench, which none of us can verify exists

[Graknorke]

maybe you're one of the one in 500 people who've actually held a fossil in your hands

Dunno where you got that number from, just about anywhere in this country with a coastline is going to have a pretty large amount of fossils easily findable.

And likewise the London Natural History Museum exists and definitely has fossils in it, and closer to home is the National Coal Mining Museum which also has fossils (but you'll probably have to take my word on that one )

[LordBucket]

Dunno where you got that number from

It was arbitrary. I made it up. Whether the real number is one in two or one in 7 billion, the point remains.

EDIT:
There. I've edited out the number.

[Loud Whispers]

I have a fossil, so I am the 500

[Graknorke]

It does matter though. It matters when the people who've seen evidence aren't a tiny minority, it effectively rules out the possibility of fossils being a conspiracy. In general if common knowledge isn't true, it's either a lie or just mistakenly wrong. I seriously doubt that those scientists could manage to keep millions of people on the quiet, so you're left with everyone who thinks they've seen a fossil just being wrong.
Is that possible? No doubt. But it's pretty unlikely.