Thoughts on Atheism and Apologetics

[Esquilax]

For an atheist (ostensibly with an "open mind") to examine evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus is almost a farcical enterprise from the start (at least from a Christian perspective) because he commences the analysis with the extremely hostile presuppositions of:

1. No miracles can occur in the nature of things.
   
2. #1 logically follows because, of course, under fundamental atheist presuppositions, there is no God to perform any miracle.
   
3. The New Testament documents are fundamentally untrustworthy and historically suspect, having been written by gullible, partisan Christians; particularly because, for most facts presented therein, there is not (leaving aside archaeological evidences) written secular corroborating evidence.
   
4. Some atheists even claim (or suspect) that Jesus didn't exist at all (making such a topic even more absurd and ludicrous (given that premise) than it already is in atheist eyes).  
   

Somehow, despite these presuppositions, the atheist still manages to say with a straight face that he is being open minded about whether the resurrection happened and that he is examining the issues honestly and without bias. Sure he is.

Aside from the fact that we have not immediately believed your arguments, what basis do you have for making these accusations about the way we think?

From where I'm standing, you don't have any basis beyond that; you've made a series of arguments, and when they fail you flail around like a spoiled child, accusing us all of disagreeing merely because of bias. But if you were pressed to actually disclose how you know that we have these biases, the only thing you can actually provide is "you don't believe me!" To be clear, you don't know any of us, you have no concept of what we think, or how we operate, beyond the confines of our lack of immediate conversion here in this forum. The only thing you have to base this pitiful, self serving extended tantrum you're having is the fact that we don't find your arguments convincing, and you're in dangerous territory there:

If other reasons for disagreeing with you beyond presupposition exist, then your claim here is not only entirely baseless, it's also completely self serving, and itself a presupposition: you're deciding, based on nothing, that we disbelieve you because of a presupposition rather than those other reasons. If you cannot think of other reasons for disagreeing beyond presupposition, then you yourself are presupposing that your arguments are inherently, automatically convincing, and there is no way for anyone to rationally dismiss them. Either way, you're guilty of exactly what you're accusing us of, because you need more justification than none at all to do otherwise.

In addition to these objections to Christianity, it is a given in atheist circle that the Catholic Church must always be criticized, and this is true even if atheists are offering contradictory criticisms simultaneously. For example, some atheists are quick to criticize the popes (and the Church as a whole) for supposedly declaring things by fiat and with raw power, apart from rational deliberation and intellectual reflection. Yet, if the popes wait centuries to let the Church reflect and ponder important issues (as in the case of the Assumption [1950] or papal infallibility [1870]), then the popes get blasted for being indecisive and lacking authority.

These two things aren't mutually exclusive from where I'm standing; they're just a pair of failures for the church. To begin with, authority must be demonstrated, not merely asserted, and since the church hasn't done that then they are just declaring things by fiat; without any demonstration of the existence of god, detailing what that god wants is little more than fiat assertion. As for the second point, if the church really had the authority and mystical foresight that they claim- but never demonstrate- that they do, then they wouldn't need to defer and think at all, they'd have a perfectly rational, authoritative response all ready to go. In this way, the church is both declaring things by fiat and acting in an inconsistently indecisive way.

Sorry that the catalog of failures within your church is so densely packed that it's confusing, but I suspect you made little effort to actually parse each individual contention before you decided they were wrong anyway.