How do you deal with a religious family?

[Aractus]

You mentioned more than that - you had a whole laundry list as to why those witness statements are not credible.

I had a list that can be used for ANY witness. That's why one, uncorroborated, witness statement in court is not proof even if that witness is 100% certain of the facts he's remembering. But it is evidence.

To be clear, I gave my reasons why in my opinion they may not be credible. I don't know for certain, and other people are certainly entitled to make up their own minds.

Actually, it does. Or more specifically, it needs to have credible evidence supporting it. At best what you have here is a valid hypothesis.

A valid hypothesis is synonymous with the term "valid theory". The theory of Newtonian Mechanics is a valid theory, it's even useful we still use it today, however that doesn't make it "truth" or for that matter correct.

Given that it doesn't have any credible evidence supporting it....

For the resurrection? No, but there's credible evidence for other things.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, I was simply giving an example. There's plenty of common ground to agree on without polarising yourself is my main argument. The theory that the OT was invented "as a way to try to control society" is a valid theory, however it has little to no evidence. Just like say the theory that the Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves is a valid theory, however the evidence for it is extremely weak and the evidence that they were built by workers is quite strong (they excavated some of their graves for some of the pyramids). Virtually everyone agrees that Jesus did exist, that he called disciples and that he died on the cross. Christians believe the nativity and the resurrection and that all of the events regarding him are accurate.

It has more evidentiary support for it than the other one - specifically that as a general rule, the dead don't get up after three days.

That's not 100% the case. A theory can be partially correct, for instance it could be correct that Jesus survived the resurrection somehow and this was kept secret. That eventuality would mean that there was a resurrection of sorts, but not in the way the Bible describes it. So there's not exactly evidence, let's say, that Jesus was reburied, or that his body was stolen or that he survived the crucifixion - those are the other possibilities and there's an absence of evidence for them. But just because there's an absence doesn't make those theories invalid, nor does it mean any are improbable. I'd simply say that there's certainly not convincing evidence given that the resurrection is both: a. an historical event AND b. a supernatural event.

What debate? You argued - very persuasively, I might add - that evidence for the position is not credible. I agree. Debate over.

Nonsense, that debate would mean that every single uncorroborated witness statement made in court is untrustworthy. It's simply a statement of fact that a. the witnesses did not directly relate their testimony and b. there's no way of knowing the quality of the testimony.

And if they limit themselves to that, that would be fine. But if they want to convince others and impose those beliefs on others, then they need actual proof.

I don't think most Christians want to impose their beliefs upon others. I think "ethical vegans", generally speaking, want to impose their beliefs on others. I mean it would certainly be true in certain contexts and for some Christians. But I don't think saying that to an ordinary Christian is a good argument, I think it would be better to say you recognise they don't want to impose their beliefs upon others and that since they would agree their beliefs whether real or unreal are based on faith and not provable facts there's no point in them trying to prove their case to you. You could also say that you agree that freedom of religion and beliefs is a valuable freedom - I think nearly all Christians would agree with that statement.