The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Jenny A]

Willingness to die for a belief is proof the belief is strongly felt, but not that it is accurate.

The apostles did not accept death rather than deny a belief. People do that every day...just watch the news.

The apostles died rather than deny something they knew to be true. IOW, if the gospel is a lie, then why lose your life over something that started off as a fraternity prank?

If captured by ISIS, do you think Bobby Henderson would be willing to die for his beliefs concerning the Flying Spaghetti Monster which he created in 2005? Or is it more likely that knowing the FSM to be fictitious, he would admit the charade to save his skin?

Yes people do die for their beliefs.  Right now most of those people are not Christian and their beliefs are different and opposed to yours.  They are Muslims.  Does that mean Islam is true and Christianity is not?  No, it has no bearing on whether either set of beliefs is true, only how strongly they are held and what the believer thinks the consequences of denying that belief are.  

Sufficient to be remotely persuasive.  Are you sure you meant "coercive."  I have this silly picture running through my mind of a stack of Bibles holding someone hostage at gun point.

Once again, rational people don't believe UFO abduction reports based on eyewitness testimony for precisely the same reasons.   Other religions allege other miracles based on eyewitness testimony.  You believe in the Golden Tablets of Joseph Smith, the accuracy of the Prophet at Dephi, that Hindu priests can turn water into wine?  The evidence for those is the same as for the resurrection.  Claiming more for the Bible is just special pleading.

Have faith in it if you like, but it isn't proof.

Do aliens exist? I have no idea. I'm agnostic when it comes to aliens.

I have not nor can I investigate every claim of UFO sightings and alien abductions, but even if I could, would the lack of evidence be sufficient for me to conclude that aliens do not exist anywhere in the universe? Nope. Therefore, I must be agnostic about alien life.

I can evaluate the claims of Joseph Smith (and Mormonism is in trouble because, thanks to the Interweb, more people are doing just that) and the other phenomenon you list to make reasonable determinations about them.

But how will you determine that no god exists? There is no science whose methods, when used properly, show God does not exist. Therefore, an atheist must use principles in philosophy in order not only to refute theism but to prove atheism as well.

I haven't proven that any god doesn't exist.  It is not possible to prove a negative.  You can't prove I don't have an invisible magical purple dragon in my crawlspace either. That is why I wait to accept a claim not UFOs until such thing is proven.  God (a rather undefined idea anyway) remains unproven.  Therefore, I don't believe in your god, or alien abductions.  Given the scarcity and unreliability of the evidence, compared to the claim of an all powerful being who interjects itself into the affairs of humans, I'd say the chances of such a being existing are miniscule at best.  The chances of alien abduction are a little better, but not much.  However, should evidence present itself, I'd reevaluate.

The Bible is not such evidence.  The fact that Mormonism, a very strongly held belief by it's followers, can be shown to be false now, is a perfect demonstration of why it is that eyewitness testimony from the past is not persuasive evidence of supernatural events.  People are easily fooled then and now.  It's just easier to find the flaws now.