(July 28, 2017 at 2:57 pm)SteveII Wrote:(July 28, 2017 at 1:28 pm)shadow Wrote: Do you really think this is an important point to argue? You're saying some decent things in my opinion, but it's not really unreasonable that someone would discard very weak evidence as not being evidence at all. There's a point where evidence goes from meaning nothing to meaning something, and it seems like a semantic difference to insist we include the evidence that really means nothing under the category of evidence.
In my experience here, most atheist have so little understanding of the NT, its provenance, its people, its content, and its message that there is no way they can even claim there is no evidence because of two facts:
1. Because they do not have any clue about the facts they are claiming are not evidence. Really not much at all. You just mentioned goat herders. Another "a book". Another mentioned Teacher of Righteousness, temples and Confucious. Another believes that Jesus must have been crucified twice. Paul didn't agree with Jesus or founded Christianity. And I have so many people blocked that I don't see half of the dumb things that are said. How do you reject something that you don't even have sufficient knowledge of?
It's not like atheists just never have heard of religion before. Many atheists were steeped in religion at some point in their life or have considered the topic deeply. As for how do you reject something that you don't have sufficient knowledge of: how much do you know about Pastafarianism? I bet I know more about Christianity than you do about Pastafarianism. But do you reject the ideology?
Also, you didn't respond when I said if not goat herders, who? I think understanding who we're talking about here is a valid discussion.