Christianity a scam?

[SteveII]

Even if my proposition is not true and the Bible has remained unaltered for centuries, so far you Christians have not given me any reason why Jesus’ miracles did in fact happen and I’m still waiting!

I'll pick one line of reasoning... Inductive:

a. Jesus most certainly was born, baptized, and died in the time period claimed. (other sources)
b. Pete, James and John were known eyewitnesses to both the public and private events of Jesus' three year ministry
c. They presided over the early church
d. This early church instructed Paul
e. As evidenced by Paul's letters, this early church believed the claims later outlined in the gospels (long before they where written)
f. Peter, James and John eventually wrote letters emphasizing the themes found in the gospels
g. Luke wrote Luke and Acts with the purpose of outlining the events from the birth of Christ through his present day
h. The editors of Matthew, Mark, and John were all alive during the lifetimes of these people above (it is unknown if the actual people with the pen were eyewitnesses)
i. The editors would have been know to the recipients of the gospels. The books were name by which apostle influenced that particular book
j. The early church, who we know believed the claims of Jesus already, accepted the gospels. There is nothing in the early church writings that questioned them.
k. The gospels dovetail nicely with Paul's writings based on his training directly from all the eyewitnesses (completing a loop)
THEREFORE it is reasonable to infer that the events of the gospels are at the very least good representations of what really happened.

Before you jump all over some of the statements above, please realize 1) you do not have proof against any of them (finding someone to agree with you is not proof) and 2) it is inductive reasoning and therefore it is not claiming the list is proof of anything--it is only claiming the inference is reasonable. It is NOT a deductive argument which claims fact, fact, therefore fact. So it is a matter of opinion whether you think the list supports the conclusion or not.

Why might one believe the inference? Like I said many time, it is part of a cumulative case. There are a host of reasons not related to the NT why one might be less skeptical than you.

My theory is more plausible in the real world.

Let’s see what is more likely to happen somewhere in the world:

-A virgin gives birth to the son of God vs A man is born from a human woman.
-A man goes around doing miracles vs A man goes around staging miracles.
-Religious books are translated and copied and not a single word of them is altered since the 1st century vs Religious books are mistranslated and during the copying process they suffer many alterations over the centuries.
-A cripple is healed by the intervention of the son of God vs Someone gets paid to act like a cripple and fakes his condition, he gets touched by some “prophet” and he’s magically cured.
-People start believing because the real son of God has revealed himself to them vs People start believing because they were duped and because they need something to believe on.

People, we’re talking about this world. I don’t know what world or dimension you believe we’re living in. Maybe everything in the bible happened in another dimension where those kind of things can happen. But in this world I highly doubt it. So let’s talk about why you believe Jesus’ miracles did happen instead of attacking my theory. Of course you have the right to question my theory because I wasn’t there! and I’m just guessing. But I’d also like to hear why you as christians believe the bible is true. Why? "Because the bible says so" is not a valid argument.

Were  Jesus' miracles true? The question remains unanswered and no Christian dares answer that question.

Should I blindly believe in the bible? That means I would have to throw logic out the windows. I might as well believe fairies and unicorns are true!

And yes, my guess definitely makes no sense and is very ignorant because virgin births, healing sick people with magic and everything the bible says makes perfect sense and believing in it is not ignorant at all. lol

see bold

You don't have to throw logic out the window to believe the NT. There is nothing at all illogical about the supernatural per se. If the supernatural exists, there is nothing illogical about supernatural causation in the natural world. The fact that you don't believe it is your opinion as to the reliability of the NT and not based on logic. Like I said before, if you use the argument that there is no such thing as miracles therefore the NT does not refer to actual miracles, you are engaging in question-begging/circular reasoning--which is very bad logic. Half of your post above is an argument from personal incredulity -- more bad logic

Fairies and unicorns? Thinking that's a good comparison to the events of the NT shows that you are ignorant of facts and argumentation and your thoughts on the matter are overly simplistic.