The Deceptive Mechanisms

[FallentoReason]

Faith is essential. With it, the believer is capable of short-circuiting the brain and skipping the step of asking if something is sensible in the face of no evidence being present.

There is no evidence if and only if your definition of evidence is "information which is scientifically testable". Testability, in the strictly scientific sense, relies on repeatable processes. An event in the past is not repeatable. Therefore, no events have evidence. Of course, we could reform the definition of evidence to include the "trace" kind. Traces range from places and objects to written accounts. All could be manipulated, but all exist physically as clues. If we are reasonable and admit that events should have some evidence, we will find that the gospel events are in fact supported by traces. There are remnants of the cities described in the text, objects such as boats and clay pots, and writings. We must make sure we are fair regarding this evidence. For example, we cannot expect to find Jesus' cross or robe with his name inscribed on it. But we can expect to find the towns he passed through, and the sorts of objects he came in contact with. Personal accounts should be judged with the same care. If you don't call these evidence, then no historical event has evidence and the accusation that the gospels have no evidence is a deceptive one. If you do call these evidence, go to the next step and evaluate it. And evaluate it fairly, as in a neutral court of law. When several billion people believe in a person's life, and there is evidence, he is not "false until proven true by repeatable experiments."

So which is it? Is evidence that which is testable (repeatable) or that which has the capacity for human error?

I see what you're saying Undecieved, and I actually think you have a fair point to an extent regarding evidence.

evidence
a : an outward sign : indication [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evidence]

If we grab simplest definition for evidence then I agree with you that there's evidence for Jesus... just like there's evidence for Heracles killing the Hydra.



Now, for some unknown reason, you're tempted to completely stop there and claim that Jesus was real but Heracles wasn't, given that we have to an extent the same sort of evidence for both (I'll address the actual evidence more closely soon). Why would you do that exactly? I go one further and ask questions regarding the evidence to determine if it's credible evidence, and I think that's what most people on here refer to when they say "evidence". It's information that can be trusted to a degree.

So what do we have for Jesus? Well... 4 anonymous Gospels and a bunch of early Christian letters that ignore the events of these 4 Gospels almost completely and even threaten Jesus' own humanity at times. Not to mention other non-canonical documents that were just as valid as the documents that would eventually win over the others. So regarding the Gospels, none of the authors have the "qualifications" for us to trust them at all (e.g. witnesses), because we have no idea who they were and the textual evidence suggests they weren't written by the people that Tradition claims wrote them. So this is really no different to someone telling you there's dragons living in Jupiter and they heard this from someone who never saw those dragons for themselves, but instead read what he claims was the astronaut's journal of his journey to Jupiter, but later evidence suggests otherwise. Would you believe them solely based on that dubious evidence?

At the end of the day, you need faith to believe all of this is "credible" evidence (although, by definition, having "faith" means trusting in the face of no evidence, otherwise it's justified knowledge). I'm forced to conclude that you chose Jesus over Krishna, Heracles, Baal, Sol Invictus, Ixchel, Apollo, Ra, Osiris, Thor, Odin, Horus, Hades etc etc simply because you were born in the western world at a particular time. I'm afraid that's what it comes down to in the end, given that the credible evidence isn't there to justify your faith, and in fact, the evidence arguably opposes (or makes less probable) what you claim.