Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[JackRussell]

I think the NT provides some level of ordinary evidence.  I'll talk about the sections talking about the life of Jesus just because I don't know about all of the NT and just for the sake of conversation to keep it easier.

Someone wrote a book about it, there may have been some witnesses.  That's about it.

There are many MANY things that can be considered to cast doubt on the claims of the new testament.

The fact that it does contain a type of religious leader who is able to perform supernatural actions in the form of miracles.

This isn't begging the question or circular reasoning.  I'm not saying supernatural things can't happen because they're supernatural.

I'm saying we have no evidence (beyond what I previously mentioned) of them (supernatural events in the NT) happening, we do have evidence of people being deceived into believing supernatural actions/events do happen.

There's the situation of the evidence and witness testimony being so old, combined with the supernatural actions.

If the claim was for example "Mary walked across the stepping stones on this river 2000 years ago" then it can be taken with a shrug.  You could think, ok maybe she did, who cares?  Her footprints are long gone, anyone who saw her is long dead, the children of whoever saw her are long dead and so are the grandchildren of her children.

If the claim is that "Jesus came back from the dead, had a chat with people, turned water into wine and walked on water over 2000 years ago."

We're in the same situation, plus supernatural events.  The witnesses are long dead, the wine has been drank, no photos no film, nothing but what people said and wrote down.

So we have no evidence of people being able to use actual real magic and miracles to walk on water, come back from the dead, turn water into wine.

 Can people be tricked into believing this has happened?   Yes, we have evidence people can deceive other people into believing magic things happened, or just lying about it to begin with

 Do cult followers believe their leaders can do these type of things now? 

 Do cult leaders perform real magic supernatural miracles now, or is it true that there are people who are capable of deceiving other people into believing miracles and magic have been performed?

How reasonable is it that a cult leader 2000 years ago could have had witnesses claiming he did miracles when he actually didn't do them.

How reasonable is it to think that the cult leader 2000 years ago performed real magic miracles on the basis of whatever evidence we have.

I'm giving benefit of the doubt though, I'll be willing to go along with a hypothetical situation in which we know these witnesses were real people and this book was written by followers of Jesus, I know a lot of people doubt he even existed or that his followers did.

Bold mine. This is what your whole post boils down to. 

The events during and following the life of Jesus are some of the most attested to series of events in ALL of ancient history. We know exactly what the first century Christians believed and much of what they did. Even Bart Ehrman thinks the NT is 99% of what it was originally. I don't care if you don't find it compelling. But this constant nonsense (not just you) of "no evidence" is just silly and show a lack of understanding the evidence, or bad reasoning skills, or misunderstanding definitions, or a bias you bring to the subject. 

In case anyone is hazy on the difference, here is an excellent discussion on it at http://pediaa.com/difference-between-evi...and-proof/

Your link is not an excellent discussion.

Proof is for maths and alcohol.

Evidence is proportionately weighed in light of the claim being made.

Water is normally wet. Easy.

Dead man rises and is also God. Hmmmm.

There are ancient texts from many cultures that say weird things that one can not now rationally believe.

There are even conspiracy theories in contemporary cultures that one doesn't rationally believe.

You have evidence, in the form of your OT and NT documents. I accept that.

Your evidence is not good enough to convince a skeptical mind IMHO.

Your God knows that, and, if real, would also know what would convince me.

It is plausible to me that he either doesn't exist, or doesn't care.

I haven't set up a formal logical dichotomy, I may agree, but.......