Kuzari Argument Part 12

Updated 1/4/2018 to clarify the event.

It would be helpful to skim my prior Kuzari posts begun in Part One

Lets examine one version of the Kuzari 'proof' that the Exodus with all the miracles and the Sinai revelation really occurred.

Rabbi Gottlieb (RG) Principle: Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred.

This can be briefly restated as: If people believe an event {eta 3/19/2019 of type E} occurred, then evidence must exist for the event's occurrence. 

Lets try to apply this principle to the ‘Event’ =  Thousands of people saw enemy aircraft. (This is eyewitness testimony that gets written up in the press as actually happening.}

Lets try to apply this principle to the ‘Event’ =  Enemy aircraft flew over British South Africa, 1914 just prior to WWI "

Thousands of people saw enemy aircraft. (This is eyewitness testimony that gets written up in the press as actually happening.}

Turns all those thousands of people were wrong and so was the press. 

From 
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/mass_delusions_and_hysterias_highlights_from_the_past_millennium/ 

"British South Africa, 1914 In the war scare setting of British South Africa in 1914, local newspapers erroneously reported that hostile monoplanes from adjacent German South West Africa were making reconnaissance flights as a prelude to an imminent attack. The episode coincided with the start of World War I. Despite the technological impossibility of such missions (the maneuvers reported by witnesses were beyond those of airplanes of the period and their capability of staying aloft for long periods), thousands of residents misperceived ambiguous, nocturnal aerial stimuli (stars and planets) as representing enemy monoplanes (Bartholomew 1989)."

The monoplane scare  is yet another example of masses of people misinterpreting the event(s),  here clearly due in part because of  preconceived prejudices. This is yet another example of how even masses of people can misinterpret events and evidence for those events. The RG principle is not a reliable {eta principle to determine if people's beliefs about events are true or not true.} 

Continued Kuzari Argument Part 13