The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[DeistPaladin]

Heh...Pliny's letter and the Emperor's replies suggest that news of the Christians had come to the attention of highest levels of the Roman government.

So much for the Legend theory.

Um, no. Pliny's letter to the Emperor suggests that Christian sects existed in the second century. It also suggests that Pliny was trying to figure out who these Christians were. It doesn't support the Christian story that just 50 years earlier, these Christians were blamed for burning down the capital and persecuted by the then emperor Nero. 

As for the Swoon Theory being a Christian argument...yeah, we've been trying to explain away that whole resurrection thing for 2,000 years. It makes it so hard to win converts with THAT hanging over our heads. 

You really need to distinguish between actual skeptics vs. faux skeptics. It isn't skeptics who come up with "liar" or "lunatic" as an alternative to "Lord". This is what Christians come up with as supposedly the only alternatives to the desired conclusion. 

Here's how it works:

1. Start with the desired conclusion.
2. Create a false dilemma as "the only alternative" or, if you must, more than one.
3. Use logical fallacies to rule out "the only alternative" or "only alternatives".
4. Use the argument from incredulity to say that since you've dismissed "the only alternatives", then the desired conclusion must be true.

It can be useful when making step 2 to utilize unfounded assumptions. For example, when coming up with alternatives to the resurrection of Jesus, you can simply assume that Jesus existed, that he was crucified per the story, that he seemed to die on the cross and was buried and that he was seen among his followers in the days that followed. At this point, Christian apologists pretending to be skeptics (ala Lee Strobel) will start asking nerf ball questions like "Well, maybe Jesus survived the cross and was only thought to be dead?"

Real skeptics don't do this, as you might have been able to learn from your experiences here.

It is not the job of the skeptic to come up with alternatives to the story of the resurrection. It is the job of the believer to prove the resurrection to be true. 

Hope this helps.