Ulrich Mohrhoff on the skeptics's last card: Extraordinary Claims requires extraordinary evidence. The perfect excuse for disbelieving

The above pic shows some of the topics regarding which "skeptics" and "scientific" atheists apply the principle "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".  Read it carefully, and think if yourself agree or accept some of those phenomena or putative realitites, and if you're irrational or stupid for believing them. Think about it honestly, not simply because you disagree with "skeptics".

As you can see in the above picture (created apparently by the Center For Inquiry), some of the things to which "skeptics" apply the principle in order to disbelieve in them are:

-Parapsychology

-ESP

-The afterlife

-Auras

-Homeopathy

-Vitamin Therapy

-God

-Jesus' Resurrection

Each one of the above phenomena or entities or methods have their sophisticated defenders, and at least in my evaluation, some of them have refuted the skeptics in those fields. For example, in the following video, you can watch an atheist applying such principle in order to disbelieve the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus posed in the debate by philosopher William Lane Craig:

Craig replies that such principle is used by skeptics as way to disbelieve something which contradicts the skeptic's position. The skeptic (atheist philosopher Keith Parsons) replies that it is not the case and that he would believe it if, for example, it would appear some day in the sky a divine figure talking to Parsons. 

Such reply is clearly hypocrital and arbitrary, since Parsons could use the "extraordinary claim" principle ALSO to that experience and to claim "Wow, what an amazing hallucination or vivid dream I've had today!". After all, hallucinations and vivid dreams are frequent and ordinary, but God appearing on the sky and calling you by name is not.

In fact, this is the position of atheist philosopher J.J.C. Smart:

Someone who has naturalistic preconceptions will always in fact find some naturalistic explanation more plausible than a supernatural one... Suppose that I woke up in the night and saw the stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed. I would know that astronomically it is impossible that stars should have changed their position. I don't know what I would think. Perhaps I would think that I was dreaming or that I had gone mad. What if everyone else seemed to me to be telling me that the same had happened? Then I might not only think that I had gone mad-- I would probably go mad" (J.J.C. Smart in his contribution to the book Atheism and Theism, pp.50-51. Emphasis in blue added).

Note that Smart's position, which is contrary to the empirical evidence that he's imagining, requires more faith than belief in God and imposes on Smart a dogmatic sticking to atheism on the teeth of contrary evidence (the same sort of evidence which, according to Parsons, would convince him that God exists!).

However, to Smart's credit, he honestly admits that for a committed "naturalist", whatever possibility (even the possibility of being mad or crazy) must be preferred over any evidence supporting God's existence. In other words, naturalism is unfalisifiable, because it cannot be refuted by ANY kind evidence which an committed atheist could accept. (Paradoxically, the unfalsifability of "scientific" naturalism makes it obviously unscientific). So, Smith's naturalism is DOGMATIC and not sensible to contrary empirical evidence or argumentation.

The "extraordinary claims" principle is used as a priori way to disvelieve something contrary to the skeptic's position.

Can you think a more dogmatic way of being an atheist? I cannot.

But more interesting is the fact that skeptics themselves make "extraordinary claims" to which they never apply the skeptical principle. 

In a comment on Dean Radin's blog,  Ulrich Mohrhoff mentions some of the "extraordinary claims" believed by atheists and naturalists:

Usually they are not satisfied with evidence. They want extraordinary evidence for what they regard as extraordinary claims. I usually respond by pointing out just how extraordinary the claims of the materialist mainstream are. Certain regularities in our experience of the world are held (i) to describe all there really is and (ii) to account for the very experience from which the regularities are abstracted. How extraordinary that something can (i) exist by itself, out of relation to any consciousness or experience, and (ii) exist for someone! How can something that exists by itself be experienced? How can there be consciousness of what exists by itself? Even more extraordinary is the claim that what exists by itself is adequately described by mathematical symbols and equations. Isn’t mathematics a creation of the human mind? And is not this mind a creation of matter and evolution? How extraordinary, then, that matter should be governed by mathematical laws! And how extraordinary that mathematical laws describing certain regularities in our experience should be the very laws governing all that really exists! Where is the extraordinary evidence for all that?

Mohrhoff correctly perceives the inconsistent position of "skeptics". They believe a bunch of extraordinary claims, but don't ask for any extraordinary evidence supporting them. 

Consider atheist Michael Martin's extraordinary claim that the universe came "out of nothing":

First of all, the universe could arise spontaneously, that is, "out of nothing." Several well known cosmologists have embraced this view and it is not to be dismissed as impossible"

Or Quentin Smith's extraordinary claims, not just about the origin of the universe, but about the incredible fact that "without reason" we interrupts the reign of "non-being", which forces us to acknowledge our foundation in "nothingness":

The fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing... We should instead acknowledge our foundation in nothingness and feel awe at the marvellous fact that we have a chance to participate briefly in this incredible sunburst that interrupts without reason the reign of non-being ." (Theism, Atheism and the Big Bang Comsology. P.135. emphasis in blue added)".

If it is the "most reasonable belief" of scientific atheists, then hardly they can call properly themselves "rationalists". Such atheism based on "nothingness" requires more faith than believing in God.

Clearly a double standard is operative here. When the extraordinary claim is consistent with (or worst, required by) atheism and materialism, then it is accepted without any evidence at all. (What extraordinary evidence would support the claim that the universe came absolutely "out of nothing" instead of coming from a supernatural = beyond the working of nature = independent of natural laws cause?)

But when the extraordinary claim is contrary to atheism, naturalism, materialism or scientific orthodoxy (or even if the claim is pretty ordinary, like vitamin therapy which is in tension with orthodox medical views), then all sorts of excuses and arbitrary requeriments of evidences are invoked by these dogmatists.

In my opinion, these people are simply dogmatists and irrationalists masked as "rational skeptics".