“As I’ve said before (and PAA flattered me by putting it into the “Good CR Quotes” thread), the truth is the truth whether or not it’s sufficiently proven to you.”
I never said that I agreed with the good quote. (I would put a smiley face here but I am b’shita against them.) Now it happens to be that I agree in principle that the truth is the truth whether or not it is/can be proven. But what are the practical ramifications of that? I think we are coming from two different perspectives here. L’mashal: Let’s say you KNOW that Judaism is true but l’maaseh there is no way to empirically prove it. You might be satisfied with that because you are experiencing it so it doesn’t make a difference to you if you can prove it. But someone else who is not Jewish (or not frum) will not just accept that Judaism is true if you can’t prove it. (Ain Hachi nami it is possible to convince him by showing him the beauty of Judaism, but that won’t necessarily work in every context.) Similarly, on any issue being debated, one side can just claim that they are saying the truth (which works for them) but it doesn’t advance the debate at all (unless the other side has sufficient trust in you that they will accept what you say without it being proven). Which is why when someone nowadays makes a claim which they can’t back up with any source in our 2,000 year history of written literature, I will take it with a grain of salt. I’m not sure if this is what Sam is saying.