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

[SteveII]

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.

No we don't. As I proved to you previously the first mention of Yeshua bar Yosef was in a book written at least 75 years after his birth and forty after his death, as a third hand account.

Paul wrote his first surviving letter in 50AD. That would be about 20 years after Jesus' death. And who was he writing the letter to? An already established church 1500 miles away. I wonder what was happening in the intervening 20 years. 

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.

And in that inferral you are also wrong. All we can reliably infer from Tacitus is that 1) the reference to Yeshua was an 11th century forgery and 2) by the time Tacitus wrote his histories there was a christian community of indeterminate (but probably tiny given other available evidence) size in the city.

You can always find an expert to give you the answer you want. 

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.

Yeah, and? We all know that christianity was essentially a minor jewish heresy until Constantine adopted and refounded it as Rome's religion in 325CE. And for histories being lost to time, well you can thank christianity for the loss of many major Roman and Greek historical works, they hunted down and burnt anything that disagreed with their invented story about their religion.

So goes your theory. 

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

Yes. The Yeshua insertion into his Antiquities was obviously an insertion by Eusebius whose whole career was made from "finding" contemporary writings mentioning Yeshua. When Photios I, Patriarch of Constantinople (and the 10th century's leading scholar on christian writings) calls out a passage as an obvious fake, you can bet your arse it is.

Arguing about one passage or another does not change the fact that most scholars believe that the original mentioned Jesus in some way.

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

Yes, at the point of a sword. Christianity was a minor jewish heresy until adopted by the Roman Empire as it's official religion mid way through the 4th century. All other religions were wiped out in a bloodbath (which christian apologists later appropriated in order to create martyrs to bolster their credentials).

So goes your far fetched theory. Explain these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ea...an_writers. Doesn't much sound like point of the sword to me. 

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

You're talking about the period in Principate history where the most abundant written documentation remains, and an area for which we have extensive records extant from that period. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we have a sufficiency to conclude that if Yeshua wasn't a complete invention, then he was a total non-entity until well after he died.

The evidence does not even suggest that. Fringe theories again. Do you only read atheist conspiracy blogs? 

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.

Actually the proof that christianity was unimportant lies in the fact that it's adherence was tiny right up until it was appropriated by the Roman Empire for its own ends.

More nonsense. Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Chri...ristianity
 Key sentences in the opening paragraph:

Apostles (see Apostolic see) and other Christian soldiers, merchants, and preachers founded early church communities in northern Africa, Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasian Albania, Arabia, Greece, and other places.[61][62][63][64] Over forty existed by the year 100,[62][63] many in Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia. By the end of the 1st century, Christianity had spread to Greece and Italy, even India.

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.

You're the one with nothing, you're the one flinging excrement at windmills. We have a sufficiency of evidence for our opinions. You have not one shred of evidence for your beliefs.

"Our opinions"? Dude, your opinion is fringe at best--even among atheists. And the reason is, your theory does not fit the evidence we have.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Everyone has an intuitive belief in fairness and yet there is no evidence supporting that belief? Is there anyone willing to say that people are unjustified and/or irrational for believing in fairness?

[Angrboda]

Everyone has an intuitive belief in fairness and yet there is no evidence supporting that belief? Is there anyone willing to say that people are unjustified and/or irrational for believing in fairness?

What do you mean by justified? The justification for fairness is our evolved social behaviors. I don't think that's the right kind of justification for what you want to say.

[Simon Moon]

Everyone has an intuitive belief in fairness and yet there is no evidence supporting that belief?

Well not everyone. sociopaths and psychopaths don't.

But everyone that is mentally healthy, has an intuitive belief in fairness. It is an evolved trait that social species have. It is one of our survival mechanisms.

What do you mean 'there is no evidence supporting that belief'? There is tons of evidence.

Is there anyone willing to say that people are unjustified and/or irrational for believing in fairness?

Yes. People who believe in fairies are unjustified and irrational.

[Polaris]

Fake Christians. All they need to do is start going on about their version of Christianity....

[masterofpuppets]

1. I would say that questions like "how did religion evolve" and "how did morality evolve" cannot have scientific answers -- because nothing that resembles the scientific method can be applied to them. So, theories are advanced that, at best, are plausible. That is a very low standard. 
2. No, they really can't -- just like the naturalistic theories.

1. Actually, they can and do have scientific answers. In regard to your example questions, one can make observations, test candidate hypotheses and then derive explanations for the evolution of religion and morality.
2. Naturalistic theories are built upon falsifiability. What you have said is simply false.

[Fake Messiah]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_o...es_passage

So this is what your link claims about "Testimonium Flavianum": "While before the advent of literary criticism most scholars considered the Testimonium entirely authentic, thereafter the number of supporters of full authenticity declined. However, most scholars now accept partial authenticity and many attempt to reconstruct their own version of the authentic kernel, and scholars such as Geza Vermes [former Catholic priest] have argued that the overall characterizations of Jesus in the Testimonium are in accord with the style and approach of Josephus."

Since the passage is so blatantly counterfeit that no historians today deny it is a later Christian forgery; the only debate is over how much of it is a forgery. Still, wishful apologists try to argue that Josephus really did mention Jesus.
So I am in majority.

When it comes to "James Reference" - unlike the infamous Testimonium Flavianum passage it seems that this is indeed Josephus writing about some James, but then it goes against books of "Church History" the so called "Historia Ecclesiastica" because writers of those books agree James was stumbled on alone by an angry mob that seized him in the street, threw him off the temple roof and stoned him.

While Josephus' James was with his friends on a trial all condemned to be stoned to death. Seem like two events/ people.

Not just that but in Josephus' book mob gets angry that James was killed, so King Agrippa took high priesthood from Ananus and gives it to Jesus, the son of Damneus. So many Jesuses, or are they? Historian Richard Carrier explains that this looks exactly like a case of accidental scribal interpolation of a marginal note. The phrase "the one called Christ" looks exactly like what a scribe would write in the margin to himself to indicate that he thinks this 'Jesus' is 'the one called Christ.' Because if this is the Jesus whose brother Ananus killed, then that explains why the punishment was to depose Ananus and install in his place the brother of the man he unjustly killed. Of course, there is no way to prove this short of the appearance of an original Antiquities manuscript, but together all these factors establish a strong case for reasonable doubt.

You say "convoluted mess" because it makes your argument seem stronger. No, it is not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_t...references

How is it not convoluted when whole article is about speculation?

Is it the part of Jesus being the evil sorcerer - that you insist describes your Jesus goes: "Sanhedrin 43a relates the trial and execution of Jesus and his five disciples. Here, Jesus is a sorcerer who has enticed other Jews to apostasy. A herald is sent to call for witnesses in his favour for forty days before his execution. No one comes forth and in the end he is stoned and hanged on the Eve of Passover. His five disciples, named Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah are then tried. Word play is made on each of their names, and they are executed. It is mentioned that leniency could not be applied because of Jesus' influence with the royal government"

When was Jesus arrested along with his disciples in the Bible, let alone they were put on trial?

Or is it other Jesus "sinful student who practiced magic and turned to idolatry" he is described "as a student of Joshua ben Perachiah (second half of the 2nd century BCE)"

It's hard to imagine how much of this Christian apologists would want us to accept as reliable information about their Jesus, or how the Jewish accounts can be called corroboration when they can't even place their various Jesuses in the right century.

Again this just proves how desperate Christians are that they read these old text and every time they see name "Jesus" in them they jump to conclusion it must be their Jesus.
Beside I refereed to those Jesuses earler. Like I said Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua' ha-Notzri in Hebrew) never appears until the last layers of Jewish Rabbinic literature in the 6th or 7th century.

You can't possibly know that. All you can say is that our of the miniscule fraction of period-written documents that survived, there is not one that corroborates the story.

Considering that historians like Flavius Josephus took meticulous pleasure in cataloging Herod's misdeeds in loving detail, such as when Herod notoriously had two of his own sons strangled - an incident which heavily displeased Herod's patrons in Rome I would expect him to record mass murder of little babies.
It beggars belief to think anyone would have missed an outrage as big as the massacre of every infant boy in the area around a town just 6 miles from Jerusalem and yet there is no corroboration for it in any account, Jewish, Greek or Roman. It's not even found in any of the other Gospels - only Matthew’s.

I have been to Galilee. It is way bigger than the bay I sail on and that bay can easily generate 4 foot waves.

Yes and also when you get out off the lake you get teleported 30 miles away to Gerasa, just like Mark writes.

So, how did all the evidence of the NT and the churches come about?

Evidence of what from NT?

[Esquilax]

What do you think is new that will be a detriment (in the long run) to Christianity?

It's hard to say: religious traditions of all stripes have a long and storied history of retracting their claims away from established facts as we discover them, while at the same time pretending that's not what they've done. I could only really answer that question if I knew how stubborn humans can be when employing motivated reasoning, which is hard to gauge.

[SteveII]

1. I would say that questions like "how did religion evolve" and "how did morality evolve" cannot have scientific answers -- because nothing that resembles the scientific method can be applied to them. So, theories are advanced that, at best, are plausible. That is a very low standard. 
2. No, they really can't -- just like the naturalistic theories.

1. Actually, they can and do have scientific answers. In regard to your example questions, one can make observations, test candidate hypotheses and then derive explanations for the evolution of religion and morality.
2. Naturalistic theories are built upon falsifiability. What you have said is simply false.

1. Then explain just one from the two examples.
2. No, again, not when we are talking about how this or that characteristic or psychological trait may or may not have evolved. If you think so, give an example.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Everyone has an intuitive belief in fairness and yet there is no evidence supporting that belief? Is there anyone willing to say that people are unjustified and/or irrational for believing in fairness?

What do you mean by justified?

By justified I mean having satisfied any epistemic obligations regarding one's opinions. In other words, can one believe that people should be fair and act on that belief without being obligated to provide supporting evidence. Secondly, if someone has normal cognitive capacities and directs those faculties successfully towards attaining truth, can that person be called irrational?