Historical evidence

I did not say I don't believe in historical evidence so either your logical mind is failing you or you are merely doing what many bullies tend to do i.e. misrepresenting what others say to attack their character. I will repeat for those with open minds - I do not think we have yet come to the point where we can accurately verify all or even most historical records, particularly human written records. I did mention all the related sciences providing corroborating evidence as did you. That does not in any way mean I do not value historical evidence but that I am sceptical as to the value of much of the written historical record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997):

1. Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.
2. Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.
3. The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened.
4. A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source which is more reliable than a tertiary source, and so on.
5. If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.
6. The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
7. If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

Referring to the Bible, I think 6 & 7 apply since the main purpose of it was to propagate Christianity and cannot be seen as impartial evidence. Also 2, 3 & 4 probably apply. Much of the material that refer to events in the Bible will come from biased sources too so are equally questionable (5). Why believe anything, other than opinion, that is written in any religious document since they will be attempting to propagate their own agenda. Likewise, unless we know for sure the mindset of "independent" writers we will not know if they were trying to corroborate evidence rather than writing impartially. Also, how do we know what "evidence" they were privy to and what they believed to be true at the time of writing.

There is much controversy (in the minds of some) concerning events such as the Moon Landings and The Twin Towers, two events from recent history for which much has been written and there is also much physical evidence. Many still believe the latter to have been a conspiracy but in my view the "weight of evidence" points to the official version. Similarly "the weight of evidence" points to the Moon Landings as having taken place so I don't really have an open mind on either of those. I think the consensus view, apart perhaps from the USA since they seem to have a large proportion of "conspiracy theorists", is that both of these events happened very much as they appeared to those "witnessing" them. I do however have an open mind on the JFK assassination since it appears to me equally likely that others were involved rather than a single gunman and this is because at the time there were many who would have wanted JFK dead and the abilities to carry this out were probably in place too. I don't really see any "weight of evidence" in place for either view since there is always the possibility of government or other authority involvement altering evidence but it matters not if I believe one or the other theory, he still died and left many questions unanswered.

You might question my examples of using a few dramatic events to illustrate my point but all history derives from a continuum of small events and if we can't verify each individual event how do we assess their contribution to the larger picture?

Your ability to be impartial is in question since you appear to be unable to believe the extent of CP simply because you haven't seen any, and all the evidence cited comes from "suspicious" sources i.e. those who apparently would be opposed to paedophiles - the authorities or those working in conjunction with them. In your case it might simply be seen as a "political" stance in that anything that seems to affect how paedophiles in general could be portrayed must be opposed if it is seen as detrimental and unfortunately you are right as I have said many times - it is how all the related things tend to contribute as to how paedophilia is perceived that will make a difference towards any progress.

The closest approach to how I view historical evidence is probably this since what applies to scientific knowledge often applies to historical evidence too -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

Fallibilism (from medieval Latin fallibilis, "liable to err") is the philosophical principle that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations, or their understanding of the world. In the most commonly used sense of the term, this consists in being open to new evidence that would disprove some previously held position or belief, and in the recognition that "any claim justified today may need to be revised or withdrawn in light of new evidence, new arguments, and new experiences." This position is taken for granted in the natural sciences.

Unlike scepticism, fallibilism does not imply the need to abandon our knowledge we needn't have logically conclusive justifications for what we know. Rather, it is an admission that, because empirical knowledge can be revised by further observation, any of the things we take as knowledge might possibly turn out to be false.

I've sometimes thought there was cadre of "guard dogs" here at GC whose main purpose was to rubbish those coming to the site with opposing views to the "consensus" and defending those who are simply here for the ride and your behaviour makes me think it is quite likely.

If you persistently try to paint my views contrary to how I try to express myself then you will be ignored, as will others. Are you bothered? I am sure you are not!

I couldn't give a flying F about adult porn so don't expect me to bother answering any of the comments related to that.