(July 5, 2016 at 1:38 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote:(July 5, 2016 at 1:35 pm)SteveII Wrote: I think Jesus coming to earth, teaching, dying and then rising from the dead is a pretty good demonstration that God exists. First century Christians sure thought so--they said exactly that! How about that for concise?
Ok... What makes you think any of that actually happened?
I choose to believe that the authors of the NT were truthful in what they wrote and that the core content was not changed at a later date--both evidenced by the existence of a growing church as little as 15-20 years after Jesus' death. I would expect to see minor contradictions and minor transcribing errors. I believe the life and death of Jesus is one of the most attested to events in ancient history.
I also believe the denial of the above consists mainly of a belief that miracles do not happen. This is a circular argument because you are asking for evidence that God exists and then say, well, you can't use miracles because...God does not exist.