Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Mister Agenda]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I don't have time to address every point. But here are a few comments.

You're welcome. No worries, I don't expect you to respond to everything, with so many other people on the thread, you have to pick and choose what to address.

1. It would only be special pleading if there was no justification for the Christian belief. I think that the significant amount of information available in the NT make a better case by far than most religions have. With this justification, there is no special pleading.

It would only be special pleading if you expect what Christians have to present to be treated differently than what other theists have to present. That the information in the NT makes a better case is your opinion, and so far it hasn't failed to be convincing to atheists because of how poorly it stacks up to other religions, but because it fails to be convincing entirely on its own merits. Most of us are equally skeptical of other religions, the paranormal, alien visitors, or cryptids. It's not like our standards of evidence are inconsistent. No amount of testimony, in itself, is going to convince me of alien abductions, Bigfoot, or ghosts. What is presented for the supernatural claims of Christianity, in order to be convincing, needs to be of the caliber that would convince me of the same of another religion, alien abductions, Bigfoot, or ghosts. I'm not really familiar with your complaint of specifically Christian special pleading accusations; all I've noticed that could be described as special pleading is the usual generic theist stuff (something caused the universe, and that something is the God of Christianity).

 
2. I am talking about the writings of 27 sources we combined into the NT as well as dozens of other surviving documents that at least attest to a part of the overall narrative. No special criteria--just the only evidence that we could ask for from that time period for the truth of the claims of Christ--people writing about things within the lifetime of witnesses and possible rebuttal witnesses.

But no Pliny the Elder or similar contemporary historian confirming the events of the crucifixion of Jesus or any of his miracles. Your contention is on the order of details of London in an account being accurate, therefore you have evidence that the events portrayed in the Harry Potter series actually occurred. You have nothing of the kind, sir.

The statements "Christianity is true" and "there is more evidence for Christianity than any other religion" are independent of each other (a belief on one does not have an impact on the other). This discussion is on the latter. 

Since no one doubts the existence of your religion, please be more specific about what it is you are claiming is true. I'm guessing you mean ' the miraculous events described in the books that were determined to be canonical to the NT actually happened'. Christianity can be correct on a variety of mundane matters without that also being true. You could mean 'the Bible is literally true and inerrant', which is not something all Christian sects believe. You could just mean 'the God of Christianity is real, but not every jot and tittle of the Bible literally true'. From my point of view, you're claiming 'there is more unreliable evidence for Christianity than any other religion'. That's an assertion, I don't know if it's true or not. If you were a Zoroastrian, I imagine you'd consider a religion happening to start in a period where much of history is known and literacy was fairly common, to be a pretty arbitrary standard.

Lastly (and generally), the case for Christianity does not rest on one aspect (i.e. unassailable 1st century documentation). It is and always will be a cumulative case with many aspects (natural theology, message content, predisposed to the supernatural, historicity of Christ, morality, personal experience, influence of others). We are discussing one aspect and how it compares to other religions.

It might be better to focus on those other things, then. I think we've established pretty clearly that 'we have more testimonials' isn't considered awfully impressive around here.