Fluffy
A fool
Absolutely wrong. Evidence is presented to the court for its consideration. If the evidence is found worthy, it becomes proof. (One must be proved guilty from the evidence presented.) An observance is made and evidence presented from which a hypothesis is formed. That hypothesis must be proved in order to become a theory.
This can be attributed to semantic inaccuracies. When a person is "proved guilty" it is not said that it is impossible for a mistake to have been made. This can be easily seen through the number of cases in which a "guilty" person has been later shown to be innocent.
What is actually being said is that it is highly likely that the defendent is guilty according to the evidence. In fact, the likelihood is so high that it exceeds the unwritten line that permits punishment of that defendent.
Whilst it would be correct to say "it has been proven that the defendent is likely to be guilty", it would be incorrect to say "it has been proven that the defendent is guilty". The latter could only be arrived at from a deductive argument and is therefore not possible from the inductive nature of evidence.
This would be all well and find except that when people ask for proof, the unwritten line can be placed absolutely anywhere. So we have a creationist who states that design in nature proves God's existence becauses his line is very low. We have the nihilist who doubts the existence of reality because his line is set very high.
What this means is that "proof" is essentially meaningless unless the position of the line is fixed. In this case, proof was asked that the Bible is from God not that the Bible was likely to have come from God. This can only be answered through deductive means since evidence cannot provide a certain conclusion.
There is no evidence that could be used to prove to me that the Bible was written by God because proof, to me, must be certain and therefore must be deductive not inductive.
What do you mean "relevant?" Relevant to what?
A piece of relevant evidence is evidence that justifies whatever conclusion is being put forward. If a piece of evidence is false or falsely applied then it is not relevant.
For example, a man may be accused of murdering another man. The evidence for this was that he was in posession of a gun at the time. This would be relevant evidence unless, for example, the man was paraplegic or the murdered man was drowned and not shot. In both of these cases, the evidence is irrelevant.
So when you say that you "find plenty of evidence that the Bible is divinely inspired" then this very well may be the case. However, the reason why it cannot be considered proof is not because your belief is somehow immune to scepticism but because it falters to the very same arguments as to why science does not deal in "proof".
I see no difference between faith based on evidence (what I would call belief) and science based on evidence (what I would also refer to as belief) in anything except for the generally more consistent methodology and clearer line of the latter.
In addition to being relevant, evidence should also be capable of authentication, be traceable to someone's personal knowledge, and generally bear indicia of reliability.
I think it is reasonable to conclude that hearsay in a book by an unknown author, whose purposes in writing and basis in personal knowledge for the things written is likewise unknown, isn't compelling evidence of anything.
I agree with you fully. When I use the term "relevent" I imply all of the things that you listed so eloquently here since I feel that if evidence fails any of these criteria, it can no longer be considered relevent.