Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Fake Messiah]

One significant thing you seem to be overlooking is that without Jesus, there are no Christians.

So are you saying that Jesus had to exist because people believed in him? Does that also means that Zeus also existed because people believed in him, or were those just stories people made up that people started believing they were true?

Tacitus referred to the large community of Christians in Rome regarding the events of 64AD

Tacitus does mention Jesus but only snippets that happen to mention common Christian beliefs of their day in passing while actually discussing some other subject altogether, not making any grand pronouncements on Jesus' historicity.

I mean just imagine what Tacitus and people that lived in those times fail to mention the phenomenally news-worthy events: like a 3-hour supernatural darkness over "all the land" - an unprecedented solar phenomenon that the whole ancient world would have noticed; or the healing rain that fell; the veil of the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom; Jerusalem was rocked by not one but two earthquakes, strong enough to split rocks open, and perhaps my own favorite overlooked historical detail, the mass resurrection of many dead Jewish saints!!
I mean how do you explain that? Do you simply ignore it?

Thallus discussed the crucifixion of Jesus around 52AD. His work is lost but was referenced by Julius Africanus in 221AD

As you said it we know almost nothing about Thallus. Who he was, what he wrote and when he lived are all mysteries. Every scrap that can be gleaned comes from a tortured chain of Christian sources.

Josephus was a historian writing mainly about the political struggle of the Jews with Rome for which Jesus was not an important figure (yet). Since Jesus was not of interest to Josephus' overall goal, his mention is important in confirming he existed.

Ah, yes Flavius Josephus. Indeed, only one writer, that the Christians claim wrote about Jesus, is the one that even comes close to being a near contemporary - though he was born years after Jesus' alleged death, with an account written some sixty years after the times suggested for the crucifixion. In his "Antiquities of the Jews" he writes how there was this wise man, that was probably more than man, a supernatural man that resurrected.

But that passage is considered so blatantly counterfeit that no historians today deny it is a later Christian forgery by overenthusiastic scribes. On of the the major giveaways is that this passage does not appear until the 4th century. For the first 300 years of its existence, there is no mention of the Testimonium anywhere.

You cannot get around the fact that there is ample evidence that people believed the claims of Jesus immediately following his death--even prior to them being written down in the Gospels.

Actually there is no evidence Jesus was just as widespread in the first century as it is now. The ones you said are easily debunkable. The first century is actually considered one of the best-documented periods in ancient history, and Judea, far from being a forgotten backwater, was a turbulent province of vital strategic importance to the Romans. There were plenty of writers, both Roman and Jewish, who had great interest in and much to say about the region and its happenings during Jesus' time. We still have many of their writings today: volumes and volumes from scores of writers detailing humdrum events and lesser exploits of much more mundane figures in Roman Palestine, including several failed Jewish messiahs.

Now not only does Jesus fail to show up in those books, but some other spectacular highlights from the Gospels, like: Caesar Taxes the World, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, Star of Betlehem, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Here's another thing you don't have explanation for and that is that places in NT were mostly invented. One of the most blatant is Jesus' adventures at sea. Where do you place such nautical adventures into a rural Palestinian setting as Mark did? Mark solved it by inventing a brand new body of water, the Sea of Galilee. Luke, who tried to correct Mark calls it Lake Chinnereth. This modest body of water seems like an unlikely stand-in for the ferocious sea where Jesus and the disciples have to battle life-threatening storms and powerful waves.

[Cyberman]

Tacitus referred to the large community of Christians in Rome regarding the events of 64AD

Tacitus does mention Jesus but only snippets that happen to mention common Christian beliefs of their day in passing while actually discussing some other subject altogether, not making any grand pronouncements on Jesus' historicity.

I mean just imagine what Tacitus and people that lived in those times fail to mention the phenomenally news-worthy events: like a 3-hour supernatural darkness over "all the land" - an unprecedented solar phenomenon that the whole ancient world would have noticed; or the healing rain that fell; the veil of the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom; Jerusalem was rocked by not one but two earthquakes, strong enough to split rocks open, and perhaps my own favorite overlooked historical detail, the mass resurrection of many dead Jewish saints!!
I mean how do you explain that? Do you simply ignore it?

Not to mention the huge red herring we're expected to chase - nobody denies that xtians exist. But there's no way to get from there to the existence of a christ figure without blatantly palming a card, any more than we could establish Santa from the existence of his fanclub.

[Fake Messiah]

Not to mention the huge red herring we're expected to chase - nobody denies that xtians exist. But there's no way to get from there to the existence of a christ figure without blatantly palming a card, any more than we could establish Santa from the existence of his fanclub.

Christianity did exist, but it was very small in 1 CE. Later on it did grow but it was not a Christianity, but many denominations of Christians hating and killing each-other over which Christianity is real. So you have Roman writer Ammianus wrote in 4th century: "No wild beasts are so hostile to mankind as are most of the Christians in their savagery toward one another."

Christians were always like that, religious intolerance and disharmony were the norm for the better part of our history and they would be like it now, but the only reason  we see apparent unity today between conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants is because today they have common enemy which is secularism - they are no longer able to fight about whose Bible will be used or whose prayers will be said publicly, instead they joined forces to fight those who prefer no public prayers be said at all.
Also don't doubt that doctrinal disputes and prejudices between the two factions would quickly arise if the common secular enemy were removed.

[Harry Nevis]

I'm indifferent to the historicity of a non-miracle-working Jesus, I don't have a bet placed.

But what's called 'evidence' for the miracle-working man seems to not add up to more than 'lots of people believed he was real and really worked miracles, so he was real and really worked miracles'.

Sounds like you've already decided that miracles cannot happen so you edit out those parts. Isn't that kind of like the file-drawer effect?

Since a no miracle has ever been shown to be an actual miracle, I think that's appropriate.

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Sure, you can document an actual flesh and blood individual.  Maybe there was a rabbi named Jesus who is credited with starting the xtian cult.  You could document that much, though I don't know and don't care how well that has been done.  What you can't do is document the supernatural, wooey claims made for that individual whether actual or not.  A documented natural human being doesn't get you to god or any of those extraordinary claims.

By what criteria do you decide which parts of the narrative to accept and which to reject? Is there any objective standard for what makes something extraordinary? A peasant girl named Joan leading the French army to victory. That sounds extraordinary too.

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*Ninja kudos to Mr Agenda.  Hadn't read beyond the post I quoted in my last post before I echoed your take.

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I assume we'd both expect a high degree of vetting to accept such claims.  We're not just talking about whether or not somebody did something we all understand how to do ourselves.  It is hard to imagine how one would begin to show conclusively that so-and-so accomplished a 'miracle' by completely non-natural means.

So people ask for evidence of a miracle, I present presumably historical materials attesting to a miracle, and they will not accept it because it describes a miracle. Sounds like special pleading and the original request was disingenuous.

No, it sounds like you have too broad of a definition (and a low bar) for evidence.

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Sure, you can document an actual flesh and blood individual.  Maybe there was a rabbi named Jesus who is credited with starting the xtian cult.  You could document that much, though I don't know and don't care how well that has been done.  What you can't do is document the supernatural, wooey claims made for that individual whether actual or not.  A documented natural human being doesn't get you to god or any of those extraordinary claims.

So, in that case you need a theory that fits all the evidence and explains why people believed falsely that Jesus was God. When I say 'believed', I mean eyewitnesses believed thoroughly with all their heart. If you don't have such an evidenced-based theory, it seems then you are claiming that because there is no supernatural, then the NT can't be evidence of the supernatural--which is arguing in a circle.

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A bunch of bad evidence =/= persuasive evidence.

And you are correct, the statement that there is "no evidence" is false. Only bad or insufficient evidence.

It is not that we are raising the bar. It is that you are lowering yours. You would not accept the same level of evidence for other religions than yours.

I don't think is a matter of lowering the bar. I think if most people are pre-disposed to think that the supernatural exists, then the Christian version is the best evidenced religion by far. This assessment is supported by the fact that Christianity grows by many millions of adult conversions across the world each year whereas other religions do not.

Although I question that "fact", the most popular is the right one?  How this has anything to do with the veracity of the bible or for the support of biblical claims is beyond me.

[Angrboda]

I don't disbelieve categorically that miracles do not occur. What I do however do is discount that a bunch of stories written during a time of superstition, credulity, and legend making constitutes sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred. That's just being plain gullible, and as noteed is a different standard than you hold other religions to account for.

[Brian37]

I don't disbelieve categorically that miracles do not occur.  What I do however do is discount that a bunch of stories written during a time of superstition, credulity, and legend making constitutes sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred.  That's just being plain gullible, and as noteed is a different standard than you hold other religions to account for.

I most certainly dismiss the word "miracle". That is simply another gap filling word. It is used because of the person having selection bias and sample rate error. It is being selective about what one wants as an answer instead of looking at a larger sample of similar events that do not have the same consistent outcome.

If a passenger jet crashes and only 1 person dies out of 300 they use the word "miracle". If 299 people die and only 1 survives they still use the word "miracle". When does the word not get used? When 150 survive and 150 dont? 

If a plane crashes and someone lives or dies it is a result of the countless conditions from pilot skill, weather, mechanical and angle of impact and seat on the plane. Neither surviving or dying are good luck or bad luck, but CONDITIONS.

The word "miracle" is pointless to me considering 50 to 60 million humans die worldwide per year on average, from everything you can imagine. We die in the uterus, stillborn, from childhood disease, famine. Adults die from disease, accident, crime, natural disaster and war and everyone dies from old age eventually. You can only try to delay death, but you cannot avoid it regardless. The word "miracle" is a bullshit superstitious gap filling word and is as hollow as the word "god".

It is pointless to gap full with a lucky horseshoe or rabbits' foot as much as it would to chalk your survival up to Apollo, so the word "miracle" is a junk word. There is only life then death, no "miracle" required to explain either life or death, it is simply nature. It is a gap word really that humans use to express a sense of relief but falsely attach it to woo/luck/magic or a god. There is no way to water down that word to use it in any real context of a scientific explanation.

[Cyberman]

Exactly. When every example of a miracle has been shown to be anything but, whether by virtue of being not the whole truth, a literary construct, political convenience, wishful thinking or some unsteady Heath Robinson combination of those things that falls apart under the slightest pressure of scrutiny, it's not our fault for not being gullible enough to believe them without question.

[SteveII]

One significant thing you seem to be overlooking is that without Jesus, there are no Christians.

So are you saying that Jesus had to exist because people believed in him? Does that also means that Zeus also existed because people believed in him, or were those just stories people made up that people started believing they were true? [1]

Tacitus referred to the large community of Christians in Rome regarding the events of 64AD

Tacitus does mention Jesus but only snippets that happen to mention common Christian beliefs of their day in passing while actually discussing some other subject altogether, not making any grand pronouncements on Jesus' historicity. [2]

I mean just imagine what Tacitus and people that lived in those times fail to mention the phenomenally news-worthy events: like a 3-hour supernatural darkness over "all the land" - an unprecedented solar phenomenon that the whole ancient world would have noticed; or the healing rain that fell; the veil of the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom; Jerusalem was rocked by not one but two earthquakes, strong enough to split rocks open, and perhaps my own favorite overlooked historical detail, the mass resurrection of many dead Jewish saints!!
I mean how do you explain that? Do you simply ignore it? [3]

Thallus discussed the crucifixion of Jesus around 52AD. His work is lost but was referenced by Julius Africanus in 221AD

As you said it we know almost nothing about Thallus. Who he was, what he wrote and when he lived are all mysteries. Every scrap that can be gleaned comes from a tortured chain of Christian sources.

Josephus was a historian writing mainly about the political struggle of the Jews with Rome for which Jesus was not an important figure (yet). Since Jesus was not of interest to Josephus' overall goal, his mention is important in confirming he existed.

Ah, yes Flavius Josephus. Indeed, only one writer, that the Christians claim wrote about Jesus, is the one that even comes close to being a near contemporary - though he was born years after Jesus' alleged death, with an account written some sixty years after the times suggested for the crucifixion. In his "Antiquities of the Jews" he writes how there was this wise man, that was probably more than man, a supernatural man that resurrected.

But that passage is considered so blatantly counterfeit that no historians today deny it is a later Christian forgery by overenthusiastic scribes. On of the the major giveaways is that this passage does not appear until the 4th century. For the first 300 years of its existence, there is no mention of the Testimonium anywhere. [4]

You cannot get around the fact that there is ample evidence that people believed the claims of Jesus immediately following his death--even prior to them being written down in the Gospels.

Actually there is no evidence Jesus was just as widespread in the first century as it is now. The ones you said are easily debunkable. [5] The first century is actually considered one of the best-documented periods in ancient history, and Judea, far from being a forgotten backwater, was a turbulent province of vital strategic importance to the Romans. [6] There were plenty of writers, both Roman and Jewish, who had great interest in and much to say about the region and its happenings during Jesus' time. We still have many of their writings today: volumes and volumes from scores of writers detailing humdrum events and lesser exploits of much more mundane figures in Roman Palestine, including several failed Jewish messiahs. [7]

Now not only does Jesus fail to show up in those books, but some other spectacular highlights from the Gospels, like: Caesar Taxes the World, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, Star of Betlehem, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. [8]

Here's another thing you don't have explanation for and that is that places in NT were mostly invented. One of the most blatant is Jesus' adventures at sea. Where do you place such nautical adventures into a rural Palestinian setting as Mark did? Mark solved it by inventing a brand new body of water, the Sea of Galilee. Luke, who tried to correct Mark calls it Lake Chinnereth. This modest body of water seems like an unlikely stand-in for the ferocious sea where Jesus and the disciples have to battle life-threatening storms and powerful waves. 

1. No, unlike Zeus, we have evidence that people actually saw him in person, recording his words, performing miracles. The additional evidence of significant numbers of followers spread throughout the empire within the lifetime of eyewitnesses strengthens the documentary evidence. It is a cumulative case. 

2. I don't believe I have inferred anything from Tacitus except my point that there were substantial numbers of Christians in Rome only 35 years following the Crucifixion.

3. The Thallus reference was about the darkness. The Talmud later talks of Jesus being an evil sorcerer. You forget that the vast majority of writers were interested in political history (politics, kings, emperors, military, territory). In the first century, they were not interested in what they saw as an offshoot of a minority religion in a region that would soon be crushed and dispersed. 

The Thallus reference brings up a good point. How many histories were lost to time? Most could not read or write, materials had a short shelf life, the environments were harsh, and wars and politics moved things around over generations. 

4. Are you denying that Josephus ever mentioned Jesus (which was my point)? If so, you are in the very small minority. 

5. Are you denying that Christianity had spread all across the Roman Empire? Seriously? How would you explain everything we have dated from the end of the first century through the second and third? There is a consistent thread that can be followed all the way from Paul and the Gospels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ea...an_writers

6. With Jersalem being leveled in 70AD. How much writing (which was scarce enough) would have been lost in such a time? 

7. I think you overstate your case, but nevermind. This is only proof that people did not think an offshoot of a minor religion in the corner of the empire important during the first generation of its adherents. 

8. Are you throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? There are tons of articles that examine every point you think you make by bring these things up. Pick one with some links if you want to discuss them separately. 

9. You have obviously never been out in a boat on a large lake in a storm. Do you know how big waves can get with a fetch of just a few miles?

You seem to be nibbling away at some edges but avoid discussing the need for a theory which accounts for all the evidence we do have. What is your theory?

[Mister Agenda]

I'm indifferent to the historicity of a non-miracle-working Jesus, I don't have a bet placed.

But what's called 'evidence' for the miracle-working man seems to not add up to more than 'lots of people believed he was real and really worked miracles, so he was real and really worked miracles'.

Sounds like you've already decided that miracles cannot happen so you edit out those parts. Isn't that kind of like the file-drawer effect?

I've concluded that you can't take miracle claims at face value because no miracle that reasonably could have been confirmed if it actually was real has been confirmed. What's your rational, logical reason for thinking that the proper epistemological stance is to accept such claims, especially when too ancient to even be within the realm of possible confirmation, as real?

[SteveII]

I don't disbelieve categorically that miracles do not occur.  What I do however do is discount that a bunch of stories written during a time of superstition, credulity, and legend making constitutes sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred.  That's just being plain gullible, and as noteed is a different standard than you hold other religions to account for.

Isn't any belief system a cumulative thing? If we read the stories of the NT in isolation and the followers had died out 1900 years ago, that would be evidence that people's lives were not being changed as Jesus' teachings instructed/predicted. Instead we have an unbroken chain of people testifying to the changing power of God in their lives since day one. I think encountering such people, coupled with a predisposed belief in the supernatural, is the first piece of evidence in a long chain in the cumulative case for Christianity. The evidence of the NT becomes stronger because a Christian has additional evidence (experiential and personal knowledge of other's experiences) that makes more sense in the context of the NT. If one is reading the works of Jesus, Peter or Paul and it matches with what the feel to be true in their spiritual lives, it is not a leap at all to believe the whole message, then the events, and finally the conclusion that God exists (and loves them)--especially in the absence of contradictory evidence.