Religious Background

[SteveII]

3. There are no similarities between the claims of the NT and that of an alien abductee. One person can be mistaken (or lying). Dozens or hundreds are no mistaken.

No, there is nothing even remotely similar to God coming to earth; teaching love, peace and redemption; and then, because it was the only way, died (paid other people's penalty) in order to bridge the gap so that people could have a personal relationship with him. If you think this has some basis in older mythology, give an example. Otherwise the objection was just a straw man. 

The Pauline epistles were almost all written in the 50s. Twenty years had past since Jesus' death and there were already churches spread from Jerusalem to Rome. Paul's language was constantly referring to their shared belief in Christ's death and resurrection. The existing church's theology, Paul's theology, the disciples theology and the gospels theology all match. John and Peter were both eyewitnesses and wrote books.

Pt 3) there are similarities. People claim (without evidence) to have witnessed/experienced something extraordinary that (as far as we are aware) can't happen

I'm not constructing a straw man in comparing Christianity with alien abduction or other religious mythologies. They are comparisons. I didn't equate them, I compared them. They share core similarities with respect to how people believe in certain things that are fantastical and for which there is no evidence.

And while some of Paul's writings might have been earlier than 70 CE, none of the gospels are. And despite being written by maybe around 50 CE, that still means that no one wrote about the supposed events of Jesus' life while he was alive. So (at best) all you still have are stories passed down through hearsay. If I don't believe an alien abductee who claims firsthand experience being abducted by aliens, why would I accept hearsay claims about magic from 2,000 years ago? It's nonsensical


Cheers
TheBeardedDude

The similarities between Christianity claims and alien abduction claims amount to using a few of the same words in the sentence. By your definition, every event ever witnessed by any number of people is "without evidence". Eyewitness testimony is the only evidence that could ever be available. The fallacy you are employing is called special pleading. 

First, you left out the very real fact that there were other documents that predate the letters of Paul and the gospels. Second, Mark most certainly was written well within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. The other three are on the outer edge, but since they were written by editors, who, in their lifetime would have had access to all the characters, are excellent documents by historical standards. 

Hearsay is a pejorative term that describes EVERY historical document. It would seem that your rejection of the books have more to do with their content then their historical provenance. So your argument seems to be:

1. Christianity is not true because there is no evidence of the miraculous events surrounding Jesus.
2. The NT does not count because they contain mention of miraculous events.

That is quite the circular argument.