Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[SteveII]

First, how do you think we acquire ALL historical information? Everything is evidence of something.

We also get historical evidence from archaeological investigations, monuments, etc. Writings are often the *least* reliable source of historical information and must *always* be treated skeptically, especially as regards to the motives of the authors.

That was easy. My goal was do drive you to a ridiculous position--but you ran there on your own as fast as you could. 99.99% of our knowledge of the world's history before 20th century is a result of reading what people wrote.  

Second, you just admitted that writings are evidence (even as you mischaracterized their status).  So, the NT is evidence of Jesus and his claims. Glad we got that out of the way. 

Second, you need to address why Paul was writing letters less than 20 years after Jesus to churches all over the Roman empire that BELIEVED the events that the gospels would LATER catalog. The ONLY explanation is that there existed a group of people that believed the events immediately after Jesus' resurrection.

Remember that those across the empire would not have had direct knowledge of the events in Jerusalem. Most believers only believed because of hearsay evidence. The travel times were long and travel was dangerous. Paul himself never saw Jesus (except in a delusion). Given that he clearly made up much of the story, that those he told believed him isn't any evidence of the actual events.

Why would they have no direct knowledge of the events in Jerusalem? It's even easier than that--we know why from the researcher Luke:

Acts 2:5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Third, your reference to what happened in the third century is a red herring--we are talking about what happened in the first century.

Not at all. There were many different accounts of the events, ranging from those eventually adopted as canonical to those that were much more bizarre.

Go ahead. List the first century documents that contradict the books we know were written in the first century. Looking forward to seeing those "many different accounts". 

P3-P5: People being delusional and misinterpreting coincidences isn't evidence. Predicting that people will do so isn't evidence either.

Serious question begging.

Not at all. The superstitious nature of the society makes *any* story along this line less believable from the start. That there were also violations of physical laws only confirms the impossibility.

if anything, you resort to special pleading in all of this.

First, you definitely are question begging to use superstition as an argument against miracles people claim to have seen.

Second, a miracle is not a violation of the physical laws, it is a natural event with a supernatural cause. To say it another way, a physical law describes the expected effect given certain conditions. If there is a supernatural cause, those certain conditions obviously do not obtain. You need to be precise with your language. 

So...there exists another explanation for these things!? Do tell. Seems to me the Christian worldview has built into it way more explanatory power than naturalism--and it is not 'just so'--it is foundation to the worldview--if there is a God, OF COURSE he created the universe. 

The funny thing is that you think that even if you can't put your finger on an explanation--one will be forthcoming. It literally seems impossible that anything we dream up get's past the "first cause" problem.

The problem is that invoking deities *does not* actually give an explanation either. Since deities could be consistent with *anything*, they don't explain anything.

Christianity is a cumulative case that involves natural theology, revealed theology, the person of Jesus, the occurrence of miracles (big and small), and personal experiences.  

 P11: Simply wrong

Assertion based on question-begging reasoning.

P12-P13: both based on fallacies. Since there is equal counter-evidence, the net effect is zero, or even against the position you hold.

No, there are no fallacies here--if you think so, name them. You have failed to explain away the evidence we have so we only have your question-begging assertions or mischaracterizations to compare my list to.

Special pleading.

Yeah...no. P12-13 (below) have no special pleading in them because both have reasons for the conclusions. You have to address the reasons I put in bold.

P12. There is a persistent, growing, unbroken chain of personal reports of the supernatural (from [b]P4, P5[/b])
P13. There are reason to think that naturalism is an insufficient worldview and the existence of the supernatural has better explanatory powers in a variety of these gaps. (from [b]P6, P7, P8, P9, P10)
[/b]

The point is that we *know* that people are superstitious and prone to interpret coincidences and low probability events in a supernatural light. The fact that people generally interpret such in light of their local superstition gives evidence *against* the existence of deities that far outweighs the claims made *for* their existence: the net effect is that deities are *less* likely. 

Again, the net effect of ALL of your claims is to make something incredibly unlikely still incredibly unlikely.

More question begging. In every case above you have already assumed the event/experience did not happen and are a result of superstition. That's not a counter argument.

Given the violations of physical law, that isn't much of a leap, now is it? How reliable were these people and were they reliable enough to say that they really observed such violations? or, is it just possible they were mistaken? Which is more likely?

The more the people the less likely they were mistaken. The more action that those beliefs compelled, the stronger the case. A claim of "no evidence" is a positive claim that requires a alternate theory that fits the evidence we have--of which there are a thousand data points in the first century alone.