Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Mister Agenda]

It would be nice to have more evidence. However, there is no way to know what "third-party" evidence there was and was lost to history (what percentage of documents do you think survived the sacking of Jerusalem or even the normal hazards of the first couple of centuries?).

If that is supposed to be an argument in favor of your claims, it's an argument from ignorance. And you know what that's worth. 'Maybe there's evidence that would back me up but it's lost' is something I would never say, because, frankly, it's pitiful.

There is no rebuttal evidence.

What do you imagine rebuttal evidence would look like? Pliny saying 'I heard there were no dead people walking around Jerusalem the other day'? Without corroboration, all you've got are assertions and claims; and they're in the form of hearsay, to boot.

It becomes a matter of opinion as to the weight you put on the evidence we have and what is or is not compelling. There is no proof. Most Christians believe because of a variety of reasons and not just because the first century Christian docs are unassailable proof.

In the thread on testimony as evidence, I maintained that testimony alone is not evidence at all, but an assertion or claim. There may be elements within the testimony that make it more or less plausible, and there may be other testimony it can be compared to that allow us to evaluate the plausibility better. That analysis can be evidence, but the testimony in itself is exactly what you are trying to determine the truth of. For mundane claims of little consequence, we usually take people at their word, because it makes living with each other easier and usually doesn't matter. You're not making a mundane claim of little consequence though, are you?

 
However, germane to the subject, Christians do have way more to consider in their cumulative case for their beliefs than do other religions.

More is not necessarily better. One verifiable miracle that accomplishes the physically impossible would be worth more than the entire Bible plus the entire history of all Abrahamic religions in establishing the existence of the supernatural.