What evidence do you want that someone rose from the dead 2000 years ago other than an empty tomb, almost all of the formerly cowardly and uncertain apostles dying for that belief, and the rapid spread of Christianity by peaceful means when you had to risk your life to practice it in Roman occupied territory.
1-Well, first of all, we could start with accounts which are obviously consistent rather than requiring acrobatic apologetic (what were the actual words of Jesus on the cross? who exactly went to that Goram toimb? How many angels/boys were there? Where did Jesus first reappear and to whom?).
2-We'd also like these accounts not to be contradicted with other evidences (if it requires rhetorical funambulism to fit, most likely, it is because it is fiction): Jesus visit to the Sanhedrin, Pilate having to obey the crowd, none of this really make sense in the context of what we know of first century Palestine.
3-Then, it'd be nice these accounts to be as contemporary as possible and directly written by the eyewitnesses, right now everything suggest that we only have hearsay, hearsay separated from the events by several decades. That kind of testimony are known to be almost worthless.
4-Then, we would like to have corroborative evidences. Some of the events described (the earthquake; the sky turning dark; the dead invading the city) would have been shocking enough to be reported many times. The fact that they only show up in the Gospels actually is evidence that the account are fictitious.
5- It'd be also nice to have reliable contemporary accounts of Jesus' life. Likely forgery such as Josephus or accounts which are clearly a repetition of the Christian credo clearly does not count.
6- Of course, it would also be great if the story telling was consistent with that of a eyewitnesses, the presence of passage such as Jesus hesitations in the garden or the fate of Jesus' garments, thing that the gospel writers would have had no way of knowing, is consistent with an all-knowing narrator, a figure of fictional story-telling, not historical testimony.
I know it might be difficult to prove all this, but, heh, you are the one asserting a miracle occurred, that the laws of physics and biology were suspended, the 'burden of proof' (actualy, the duty to bring solid evidences) clearly is in your camp.The default position should clearly be that the miracle are either rare of inexistent and that, until demonstrated otherwise, any particular event is
not miraculous in nature.
Also, you assume that the laws of the universe were bend for this event to be possible, why wouldn't God bend them a bit further to provide people with good evidences.
Once again, the available evidences seem, to me, to clearly suggest that nothing terribly extraordinary happened on that hill that day, at fortiori, they are simply lacking to suggest the opposite.
Now, I know from past experience with you, that I am wasting my time. You seem incapable for some reason to do like many Christian and accept that the evidences are lacking and that the question is a matter of the faith that your homeboy did find so important.
I have seen you twisting quotes and fact before until getting them to the point where you can argue from ignorance: 'Well, we can't be 10% certain that Josephus was an interpolation, so that means he mentioned Jesus', 'Well, we can demonstrate definitively that the Gospels were misatributed, so that means the apostles really did write them'.
So, yes, I am wasting my time but at least re-thinking the subject might help when I get into a conversation with a honest Christian that actually care for the truth more than cajoling is own beliefs.
