Four proofs of the nonexistence of God

[mordant]

2. The better test is to discuss the probability of the evidence you see if the events had not transpired as reported. Also, there is no conflicting/rebutting evidence. No group of eyewitnesses ever came forward and reported that they were there and these things didn't happen and, no one ever mentions/refers such a group.

Well we don't think that a three-legged squid descended from heaven 3000 years ago to enlighten humanity, despite that no one ever came forward and said it DIDN'T happen.

In any case you may be surprised to find out that I contend that we are living in a world where these events DIDN'T transpire as reported. Unlike you I am not in the least impressed that people believe something that is concocted. Happens all the time. Leeches my friend, leeches. Common belief is no evidence that the belief is true. Even the canard that people are willing to die for a belief is no evidence that it's true (witness Islamic suicide bombers).

3. You are listing evidence that may or may not have existed--you don't know. Nearly all historical documents are lost to time. The reason the NT books have been preserved so well is that a group of people existed that cared greatly if they we preserved or not. Most ancient documents do not engender such feelings.

On the other hand the same group of people would have been delighted to preserve any corroborating evidence from others to help their cause. Funny that they didn't.

Regardless of your opinion on the evidence, you are talking about assessing the evidence needed to satisfy your personal threshold for proof. I understand that is not the case for you. But the evidence has been sufficient for billions of others.

It is insufficient for tens of millions of others too. Neither fact speaks to the validity of the evidence or the arguments pro and con.

Well, since [the Pali Canon] was written 454 years after Buddha's death, you can hardly say that eyewitnesses were instrumental in the recording of those events.

Absent your low bar of what constitutes an "eyewitness" neither can you.

I never said there isn't a lot of exposition based on the claims, but the exposition means nothing if the claims aren't worthy of belief because they aren't properly substantiated.

Question begging. The only reason you are saying they are not 'properly substantiated' is because of the miraculous content.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary substantiation. That is a basic principle. If I claim to be married, that's not extraordinary and you're inclined to accept it as fact unless and until you know something that argues against it. But if I claim to be married to a woman who turns water into wine and rose from the dead, you'd be disinclined to believe it until you know something that argues FOR it.

Who said the gospels were anonymously written? Do you think that the person who wrote it out the first time was not known to the recipients of the written document?

Other than by traditional attribution we have no idea who wrote the gospels. That's a simple fact. They aren't known to US who are examining the claims NOW.

If you actually study systematic theology, the gospels do not disagree with each other and with Paul on matters of theology. 

I was raised on Lewis Sperry Chafer's Systematic Theology and I know all the circumlocutions around the disagreements of FACT. As to disagreements of theology, there are enough disagreements between Paul and the gospels alone to drive a truck through. Read the oldest of Paul's writings and then work through the NT chronologically and pretend while reading Paul, that you're a contemporary reader who is unaware of the gospels (because they don't exist yet). Here you have Paul appealing, not to eyewitnesses that (unlike later when the gospels appeared) were still mostly alive and yet to who or what does Paul appeal to "authenticate" his claims? A personal subjective experience, a heavenly vision. Odd. And how does he describe Jesus? As "seated in the heavenlies" No mention of the later mythos of the flesh-and-blood god-man working miracles. It's almost like Paul was promulgating the gnostic heresy and a different orthodoxy later won out over it. These contrasts between Paul and the gospel accounts would have been confusing to people in the 1st century but when the canon of scripture was eventually organized, by the simple device of putting the gospels first, front, and center, Paul can be interpreted in the "context" of the much later gospel writings and thus "harmonized" with them based on assumptions that didn't exist for Paul's original readers.

Islam is a poor comparison. Entire cultures/countries/people groups are required on pain of death/imprisonment/family banishment to adhere to Islam. My point was and is that vast numbers of adults find the message and evidence of Christianity compelling. You are not getting your message out!!

That wasn't my point. Islam will overtake your religion in the next couple of generations or less. It isn't a matter of how many adults are converting, but of how many children are born into it. Muslims are breeding faster, pure and simple. That's what governs the hegemony of religious ideas. Islam will likely bury you to become the first majority religion on the basis of worldwide population -- something that Christianity never achieved.

The only antidote to both Christianity AND Islam is education, science, and financial prosperity so people aren't so far down the hierarchy of needs that they're desperate for quick fixes.