Can't prove the supernatural God

[Redbeard The Pink]

Pretty much all religions already existed by the time somebody decided to write something down about them. The claim already existing when somebody recorded it is not evidence that the claim in circulation was true. Why would you even think that?

We are not talking about all religions. We are talking about a specific set of facts.  In all cases, the authors believed the "claim in circulation" was true--not simply reporting it (an important distinction). Under all your supposed rationale for denying the events is simply a belief that they did not happen. This faulty reasoning does nothing to undermine the NT books.

See, that's where you're wrong. You're insisting that those 27 books are historical evidence, and I'm insisting that they are a catalog of myths believed and recorded by a particular offshoot of Judaism, and that to be believed they would need to be corroborated by additional, unbiased evidence (like the claims of any other religion). Those 27 books were written by people who believed a religious claim and compiled by people who believed that same claim because those books (sort of) agree with whatever narrative they were trying to establish at the time (which, by the way, was hundreds of years later, and that process included the parsing out of LOTS of texts written by people who also believed this claim). I have never seen a shred of believable evidence that any of those books were actually written by an eye witness, and many of the supposed "authors" of those books did not exist at all, and many of the events purported in those books do not align with what we know of the Roman Empire and that region from that time period. I say "that region" kind of loosely, because the geography presented in the New Testament is also problematic in various places. Simply put, the New Testament is no better supported by evidence than the story of Athena bursting forth from Zeus's skull

No, Steve. It does not. Those 27 books are a catalog of claims. They are only evidence of ancient scribes writing a book and what those scribes believed. The claims made in the book must be proven by something other than the book itself. It does not matter that the claims were already in circulation when the book was written; the book is merely documenting the claims, and therefore is effectively the claim.

That is not a defensible position.  How are all historical events known? The writing down always follows the event. Then you say that the claims in a book must be proven by something other than the book. How about 26 more books? How about the fact that churches existed outside of Palestine 20 years and all the way to Rome in less than 30 years after Jesus? How about the fact there is literally an unbroken chain of people who believed these events to be true with surviving writings from almost every generation since.

Repeated empirical data tells us that eye witness testimony from memory is one of the worst forms of evidence available, and that second- and third-hand and so-on accounts are practically useless. That said, the unfortunate fact is that for many historical events, all we have are written accounts that are copies of copies. Now, there can be more than that...things like wars, towns, roads, bodies of water, etc. leave demonstrable marks on the world, and from those we can actually go out into the field and see if the evidence lines up.


As it turns out, it does not. For one thing, various parts of the Bible directly contradict what we know from various realms of science...pretty much all of them, actually. There's also the problem that most accounts that are considered historical do not include magic because magic is not a demonstrable phenomenon. When I say magic, I am also referring to prayer and miracles. Blessings are the sort of enchanting a god does. Miracles are the sort of magic a god does. Prayer is the sort of spell you cast if you are appealing to a god rather than a spirit or a force of nature. You believe in magic, and copies of copies of testimonies about myths that are not supported by extraneous historical evidence and whose claimed events are not repeatable under virtually any conditions are not sufficient evidence for believing in magic. We might have to go on that when we determine that a war happened, or that a person was in power, or that a particular story, belief, or group of people was in a certain place at a certain time, but in many cases we don't. Written record isn't the only record of history, but it IS the only record of your claims, and because of the nature of your claims (gods and magic exist, men can rise from the dead, etc), you need better evidence than written records of hearsay. If gods exist and magic is possible, you (or somebody) should be able to demonstrate that under lab conditions before anybody has a reason to believe you.

Regarding why should we expect to see other contemporary sources to Jesus refer to him, three things: 1) 99.99% of documents are lost to history, 2) why would anyone write outside of Palestine about Jesus until it became obvious that the church was growing a generation later? and 3) why wouldn't your standard above apply to this "missing proof"? By your own rationale, this "missing proof" would not be reliable either because it is simply another claim for which there would be no proof. The regression has to stop someplace.

I have asked this before and have yet to get an answer from anyone. What ancient series of events has more background information than the life of Christ? I don't expect you to believe the content. However, you knowingly or unknowingly are using bad excuses to justify your disbelief.

You're...you're kidding me, right? Ever heard of archaeology? Anthropology? One of the ways we gauge the accuracy of written accounts is by lining them up with evidence we find in the physical world. Sure, this was a while back, but you're only talking about a few thousand years ago. We have LOTS of archaeological evidence from that time and long before it, and much of it contradicts both the Old and New Testament.

What reason do I have to think those people believed wrong things (especially the witnesses)?

What reason do you have to believe that the New Testament was written by eye witnesses or from eye witness testimony?

You are conflating a belief in an idea with the belief as a result of either 1) an event directly observed or 2) facts easily checked with those thousands (or more) that observed them. To make your analogy better, the suicide bomber would have had been taught by Mohammad, thought his message compelling, observed many miraculous signs, watched him die, and met him alive again.

No, I believe that anybody from history that has actually died because they believed in Jesus did so because they believed in an idea. I have seen precious little evidence that these "witnesses," or the characters themselves, for that matter, even existed, much less that they died for what they believed because they allegedly saw it.

Again, why would you confuse one set of facts with another set that literally has no similarities? I am saying that with so many documents and the church expansion in the first 50 years since Christ's death, you are left with the two conclusions: 1) the authors really believed what they wrote, or 2) there was a really involved conspiracy.

You do not get to apply blinders to discussions about religious claims. Buddhism, for example, has roughly the same level and kind of evidence that you're describing, right down to the adherents dying for what they believe. It is based on figures that are believed to be vaguely historical, it rapidly expanded early on and continues to do so, it is supported only by ancient writings about wild claims and the personal testimony of its adherents...same thing with Islam. You must apply the same standard of evidence to all the claims you evaluate, and you are not doing that. You are dismissing some claims whose evidence meets the same standards as things you accept, and that is intellectually dishonest.