Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Fake Messiah]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_o...es_passage

So this is what your link claims about "Testimonium Flavianum": "While before the advent of literary criticism most scholars considered the Testimonium entirely authentic, thereafter the number of supporters of full authenticity declined. However, most scholars now accept partial authenticity and many attempt to reconstruct their own version of the authentic kernel, and scholars such as Geza Vermes [former Catholic priest] have argued that the overall characterizations of Jesus in the Testimonium are in accord with the style and approach of Josephus."

Since the passage is so blatantly counterfeit that no historians today deny it is a later Christian forgery; the only debate is over how much of it is a forgery. Still, wishful apologists try to argue that Josephus really did mention Jesus.
So I am in majority.

When it comes to "James Reference" - unlike the infamous Testimonium Flavianum passage it seems that this is indeed Josephus writing about some James, but then it goes against books of "Church History" the so called "Historia Ecclesiastica" because writers of those books agree James was stumbled on alone by an angry mob that seized him in the street, threw him off the temple roof and stoned him.

While Josephus' James was with his friends on a trial all condemned to be stoned to death. Seem like two events/ people.

Not just that but in Josephus' book mob gets angry that James was killed, so King Agrippa took high priesthood from Ananus and gives it to Jesus, the son of Damneus. So many Jesuses, or are they? Historian Richard Carrier explains that this looks exactly like a case of accidental scribal interpolation of a marginal note. The phrase "the one called Christ" looks exactly like what a scribe would write in the margin to himself to indicate that he thinks this 'Jesus' is 'the one called Christ.' Because if this is the Jesus whose brother Ananus killed, then that explains why the punishment was to depose Ananus and install in his place the brother of the man he unjustly killed. Of course, there is no way to prove this short of the appearance of an original Antiquities manuscript, but together all these factors establish a strong case for reasonable doubt.

You say "convoluted mess" because it makes your argument seem stronger. No, it is not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_t...references

How is it not convoluted when whole article is about speculation?

Is it the part of Jesus being the evil sorcerer - that you insist describes your Jesus goes: "Sanhedrin 43a relates the trial and execution of Jesus and his five disciples. Here, Jesus is a sorcerer who has enticed other Jews to apostasy. A herald is sent to call for witnesses in his favour for forty days before his execution. No one comes forth and in the end he is stoned and hanged on the Eve of Passover. His five disciples, named Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah are then tried. Word play is made on each of their names, and they are executed. It is mentioned that leniency could not be applied because of Jesus' influence with the royal government"

When was Jesus arrested along with his disciples in the Bible, let alone they were put on trial?

Or is it other Jesus "sinful student who practiced magic and turned to idolatry" he is described "as a student of Joshua ben Perachiah (second half of the 2nd century BCE)"

It's hard to imagine how much of this Christian apologists would want us to accept as reliable information about their Jesus, or how the Jewish accounts can be called corroboration when they can't even place their various Jesuses in the right century.

Again this just proves how desperate Christians are that they read these old text and every time they see name "Jesus" in them they jump to conclusion it must be their Jesus.
Beside I refereed to those Jesuses earler. Like I said Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua' ha-Notzri in Hebrew) never appears until the last layers of Jewish Rabbinic literature in the 6th or 7th century.

You can't possibly know that. All you can say is that our of the miniscule fraction of period-written documents that survived, there is not one that corroborates the story.

Considering that historians like Flavius Josephus took meticulous pleasure in cataloging Herod's misdeeds in loving detail, such as when Herod notoriously had two of his own sons strangled - an incident which heavily displeased Herod's patrons in Rome I would expect him to record mass murder of little babies.
It beggars belief to think anyone would have missed an outrage as big as the massacre of every infant boy in the area around a town just 6 miles from Jerusalem and yet there is no corroboration for it in any account, Jewish, Greek or Roman. It's not even found in any of the other Gospels - only Matthew’s.

I have been to Galilee. It is way bigger than the bay I sail on and that bay can easily generate 4 foot waves.

Yes and also when you get out off the lake you get teleported 30 miles away to Gerasa, just like Mark writes.

So, how did all the evidence of the NT and the churches come about?

Evidence of what from NT?