A simple challenge for atheists

[Esquilax]

To tie the two threads together between the OT and revelation, you have to make a distinction based on the content of the revelation. Paul was NOT creating a new religion. He wrote letters explaining and fleshing out the framework of what Jesus already taught. He was instructed by the apostles and inspired by God to write his letters and preach his sermons. He did not impart new commandments, new systems, or new methods of atonement. Since Mohammad and Smith did, there is the distinction.

But surely you can see how irrelevant that distinction is? You're basically saying that Mohammad and Smith's testimonies can't be true because they aren't the kind of things that you think a god would inspire them to say. Well, who cares? The truth of a message is in no way impacted by how much it departs from orthodoxy; saying that Paul's experience was a small change, and Mohammad's experience was a big change is little more than an observance of scale, not of truth. So far you've thrown out a bunch of road blocks to this, but none of them actually address how you know that one message is true, and the other is false. All you've really managed is listing how the messages are different, and nobody was ever saying they were identical.

So let's recap. Going over the traditional philosophical arguments of the existence of God with this group is unproductive because the answers are either 1) prove it and/or 2) claims that "we don't know so therefore God" are not proof.

Well, yeah. Regarding point two, the reason "we don't know" statements are not evidence for god is that they aren't evidence at all, but more importantly they aren't positive evidence; they don't point specifically to your god, and so anybody with a magic claim could likewise use them as evidence for their claim. It's effectively a useless argument, because everyone could use it for any claim, equally as effectively.

This ignores that fact that the arguments are not meant to prove conclusively, but rather to assign a probability ranging from a) no way, b) more likely than not, or c) likely. You cannot claim 100% "no way" to any of them and support that conclusion.

And "you can't disprove it!" is not justification for claiming that it's true, nor does it make that belief rational. Dressing up your beliefs in unfalsifiable robes (for a given value of unfalsifiable, because I know from experience that theists like to bend over backwards to justify their beliefs by any means, rather than just discarding them) is nothing to be proud of. Once again, this is the type of argument that also works for a whole lot of obviously false claims- you cannot disprove the idea of, say, Boo the Giant Miniature Space Hamster, for example- and that's why it's useless.

I gave you the rather dramatic miraculous evidence witnessed by the early Christians.

All claims, made anonymously, and second hand at that, in sources also written by anonymous authors. So, effectively:"Some guy said that some other guys saw magic happening." Would that be convincing to you for any other claim?

I gave you secular links as to the historicity of Jesus.

Notably, none of those secular sources would believe in the divine claims Jesus made, so by your own argument wouldn't that also lead you to admit that Jesus was just a regular human? Or are those sources only to be believed up until the point where they start disagreeing with you?

I also pointed out that hearsay evidence is still evidence. I don't care if you don't think the evidence is strong enough. You cannot say there is no evidence.

So, if you were on trial for murder, facing life in prison, would you be okay with a procession of hearsay witnesses coming to the stand to testify against you? Would you feel that justice had been carried out if the judge sentenced you to life, on the basis that though the evidence against you was poor, we cannot say there is no evidence, and furthermore, that the defense had failed to disprove it conclusively? Would that be okay to you, being sentenced not because you were guilty, but because nobody could find you conclusively innocent?

And if not, why do you think arguments of that exact stripe should be any more convincing elsewhere?