Thoughts on Atheism and Apologetics

[Brakeman]

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). 
   

You have a strange idea of what an "open mind" means.
Everything you type here has to be read and mentally digested  through a mind formed from our personal real life experiences. Extraordinary things go against our entire lives of observations of "natural things" and our history of seeing the rare items that we saw as "miraculous" being explained as a natural scientific phenomenon or through intentional fraud by a "magician." Given our personal history, we can and do give due process to the implications and requisite evidence of these proclaimed miracles and when we see the obvious signs of fraud, such as lack of physical evidentiary evidence, we then make up our current mind with the available current evidence, just like everyone else.
The effect you are bemoaning about is that we don't have a desperate need to support any god stories that require ample conspirators to stave off the popular idea that believers in wild imaginary myths are mental cases. The only reason that society doesn't lock up every catholic for belief in the Eucharist has nothing to do with the available evidence for the story, it is simply the popularity of the belief that protects them from the padded rooms.
We evolved the worry and the paranoia of "what's that noise???" in order to survive a predator filled world. And from that paranoia instinct all manner of farcical "Who Do's," ghosts, gods, and devils have been invented, but for the past 10,000 years it has always been the wind to the skeptics that didn't follow the wild tales of dishonest men.
I will not assume that a man selling Sasquatch repellent is telling me the truth about the number of Sasquatches in my area when I've never seen any evidence of it in my life. If I'm on a forum, I'd probably let him babble on about how non-believers don't give him and his wild conspiracy to hide the evidence a chance, but I would be looking at the actual evidence given, not the amount of whining about "open minds."

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the jesus claim is extraordinary. The bible paints a picture of a world in which Jesus was extraordinarily well known and was a major player of the time, yet HC'rs have trouble with evidence of even a bit part jesus.