Why believe the bible?

[SteveII]

[Fake Messiah]

Real reason why people believe in Bible is the same why people believe in horoscopes: it gives them false sense of security. Some people simply feel they need it and can't live without it.

[Amarok]

Something outside the Bible? Okay. There were dozens of churches in dozens of cities across the Roman empire within 20 years of Jesus. They all believed the same thing that later appeared in the Gospels. Evidence for these churches are in first and second century docs like these. The mention of these churches in Acts and the Epistles complete a nice loop.

No they didn't all believe the same thing and even if they did it makes no difference
It didn't spread within 20 years and even if it had that's not evidence of a real event 
These documents are of low historical value so another strike out 

Fact is, we do know way more that you think. Demanding that we have non-religious-related docs is nonsense. 99.9% of all docs from the first century are gone. It is only docs that people cared about that were painstakingly preserved and copied on materials that had expiration dates.

No we don't and it's not nonsense you just don't like it because you want the bible to be the evidence .When it's the claim .

[JairCrawford]

[The Valkyrie]

Programming.
Fear.
Indoctrination.

[Mister Agenda]

Something outside the Bible? Okay. There were dozens of churches in dozens of cities across the Roman empire within 20 years of Jesus.

I don't think that it's in much dispute that there were Christians then. It's not in dispute at all that the Branch Dravidians were real, but it does not imply that David Koresh was a real prophet.

[Ravenshire]

I don't think anyone is claiming that you are claiming they are natural, rather that the 'supernatural' claims cannot be substantiated by any experience people can be proven to have,  if one merely has to make the claim followed by eye witness accounts then why not believe the claims of the Indian guru's who are alive today and have many like miracles said about them.

While you can claim they are supernatural in origin they are definitely able to be empirically observed if true.

We are talking about a specific set of miracles chronicled in the NT. They can be substantiated by people who saw them. These people later wrote things down, told other people and had them write them down. There is no proof. Only whether you believe the evidence and have additional reasons to think the evidence is true. Christian belief does not happen because you read about a miracle and believed it to be true. It is a process I outlined in my very first post in this thread. 

Bringing up people who purportedly perform miracles today is a red herring. I have no knowledge of or access to these claims.

That you accept hearsay claims from decades after the purported events as evidence of said events says more to your credulity than anything else.

Hearsay is not evidence Steve-o. No matter how much you deperately want it to be.

[SteveII]

-- We are wired to believe in the supernatural

[CITATION REQUIRED]

Inferring from the nearly 6.8 billion people (almost 9 out of 10) who believe in the supernatural AND the 10,000 years of history where we see the same. Of course I might be wrong and it's all because of the superb evidence we are hiding from the little atheist population. 

-- To most people, a miracle, a story, listening to people's experiences with the supernatural is not considered impossible. 

[CITATION REQUIRED]

Follows logically from above.

[Amarok]

Something outside the Bible? Okay. There were dozens of churches in dozens of cities across the Roman empire within 20 years of Jesus.

I don't think that it's in much dispute that there were Christians then. It's not in dispute at all that the Branch Dravidians were real, but it does not imply that David Koresh was a real prophet.

Indeed lots of people coming to accept a cult is not evidence what the cult believes is so .And Christianities was not all that remarkable.

[Mister Agenda]

It didn't spread within 20 years and even if it had that's not evidence of a real event 

Surely it spread somewhat within 20 years though within 20 years of exactly what isn't clear.