Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Aractus]

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I appreciate your honesty. Now that we have found common ground, please allow me to bother you with one more question, and it is my hope that you do so with the same sincerity.

If somebody believes something that is not true, what would it take to convince them to change their mind? More specifically, what evidence would convince you that your belief is wrong?

If your belief is supported by evidence, then it follows that there’s a possibility of some new evidence that could make it more likely false. This is true with all evidence based claims.

If somebody is delusional, no amount of evidence would convince them that they were mistaken. You would be right to ask me the same question pertaining to what I would require in order to believe, and I am prepared to answer it. But as a sign of sincerity and intellectual honesty, oblige me with your answer, and I will be happy to return the sentiment.

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Correct.

If you could provide evidence that either: a. Jesus did not die on a cross, or b. That he did not rise from the dead, then you would convince me that Christianity is wrong. However as those two facts, I believe, are firmly established, they form the basis of the evidence that convinces me that Christianity is right.

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Many of the shorter epistles including 2 Peter were considered dubious by the Church Fathers—as usual, no opinion recorded from the Church Mothers. They were called antilegomena, i.e., spoken against. You are indulging in the usual fundamentalist cherry-picking: the Church Fathers are reliable near-contemporary witnesses when they support your position, and blithely ignored when they don't.

Not at all. I think much of what they recorded is valuable. Especially so when writing about contemporary matters. They record the history of the early church as best as they can, however there is certainly room for error.

That's easy enough to explain. There were forgeries, people writing under the name of a long-dead authority.

Then what was it's purpose? It didn't introduce a heresy or any new theology, so why did somebody write a false epistle that had no purpose?

The phrase "long ago" is repeatedly used, indicating that it has been a long wait for the second coming, ancestors are dead, etc.

He uses it twice, that's hardly "repeatedly".

• For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
  
  But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

And I don't see how its use in any way indicates that the original apostles are long-since dead. The phrase "their condemnation from long ago" refers to being condemned for their (unrepented) sins, even though they are still alive. You just have to read the whole passage in context to see clearly that the text is referring to contemporise that have been "condemned long ago".

The end of the world is indeed the central theme of the NT, both for Jesus and for Paul, who expected that Jesus would return while he was still living.

I wouldn't appeal to the Gospel of John for anything about Jesus' teaching. There is next to nothing authentic in it as compared to the 3 synoptics. It's a bunch of theologizing by some anonymous person at the end of the century.

Even if we accepted John, I don't know where you get the idea that it would put Peter's death later than 68 AD. First, you are assuming that Jesus can infallibly predict the future which no skeptic would accept without proof. Second, if Peter was about the same age as Jesus, that would make him 74 in 68 AD, which can surely be called old. Third, as above, you consider church traditions very valuable only when they agree with your pre-established opinions.

I just mentioned that's how it's always read to me. The more important thing is the phrase Jesus uses which is that "when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go". That phrase describes beheading and not crucifixion. People that were crucified were stripped naked, and then were led (not carried) to their cross.

In any case it clearly show that Jesus doesn't believe that the world will end in his lifetime.

Another clear example, which I know you won't accept, is Mark 14:58:
“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’”

Now it's interesting to note that nowhere in the synoptic gospels do we see Jesus make such a statement. This is not the same as the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem - Jesus is talking about the symbolic destruction of the temple as a house of worship. Yet we do find him saying it in John:

• So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

I don't know why you think John is unreliable.

Even if I was to accept that Jesus can't predict the future, all that would mean is that "when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go" is written after Peter's death, and if that's the case then there's no possibility of getting the facts wrong is there? My point that it's a more reliable account than that from the 2nd century church fathers still stands - Peter can't have been crucified, it's inconsistent with the text.

Similarly in an earlier post you said that the Jewish historian Josephus probably got the date wrong for the census under Quirinius.

No I'm sorry, you misunderstood me. I don't think that he probably got the date wrong.

As far as I can see, you base that solely upon a belief that Luke cannot make mistakes since his writing was bound up in THE BIBLE™ centuries after his death.

No, it was bound up just decades after his death, here's proof:

You never attempted to answer my earlier post about the birth narratives for Jesus. Specifically, Luke says that Mary, Joseph and Jesus headed back to Nazareth 41 days after the birth. No time there for the excursion to Egypt which Matthew tells us happened. Not unless God furnished them with a flying horse as Allah did several centuries later for Mohammed. You remember he flew from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night, so the trip to Egypt and back would be no problem. After all, Bethlehem to Alexandria is a shorter trip as the Pegasus flies.

Because you've used a deceptive technique to try and discredit the scripture. Luke says that the baby is cleansed in the temple 41 days after he is born (according to the law). Then there is a 2-year gap which he doesn't attempt to fill in between that and the return to Nazareth.

Just because he left out a detail doesn't mean it didn't happen. Luke would have had a copy of both Matthew and Mark's gospels when he wrote his. And in fact, he also had materials that Josephus would later use too.