>I ran into the corner of a table two days ago, and my leg hurts like crazy. But I have no evidence to back up my claim. Should I not be believed?
Billions of Muslims claim that Mohamed rode to the moon on a winged horse. Shouldn't they be believed? If we are going to be logical, your claims (especially those that are extraordinary) should only be believed if they are backed up by solid evidence.

>You didn't ask for evidence of supernatural events. The only evidence we have of that is Jesus' resurrection, and there's reviewable evidence there.
Somehow I doubt that you have evidence of Jesus' resurrection that would be enough for a consensus among historians or scientists of this claim. I'm sorry, but you're making extraordinary claims and trying to back it up with very thin evidence. Why is it that all of the Historians aren't regarding Jesus' resurrection as a historically verifiable event if the evidence is so grand? Do so many historians just hate the idea of a god? Are they in cahoots with the devil? Are they so biased against god that they can't take an objective look at the historical evidence and make an assessment just based on the historical evidence? Or maybe, just maybe, it's because the historical case for Jesus having risen from the dead isn't that strong.

> If you don't have solid evidence to back up a claim we shouldn't accept your claim.

I ran into the corner of a table two days ago, and my leg hurts like crazy. But I have no evidence to back up my claim. Should I not be believed?

> You don't have good solid evidence of miracles. It's that simple.

Sure we do. It's not so simple at all. Craig Keener wrote a two-volume work on the good solid evidence of miracles. (https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts/dp/0801039525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500771106&sr=1-1&keywords=Craig+keeners+miracles)

> None of what you are saying there includes any supernatural events.

You didn't ask for evidence of supernatural events. The only evidence we have of that is Jesus' resurrection, and there's reviewable evidence there.

>No, that's not rational, it's negative bias. There is evidence in the Gospels that he performed miracles; miracles are consistent with the kind of person Jesus was, and Josephus confirms that he performed miracles. So rationally we should claim he did perform miracles, since also science can't say whether miracles are possible or not. (Science can only deal with matters within its sphere, like the observation of repeatable natural phenomena.)
If you don't have solid evidence to back up a claim we shouldn't accept your claim. You don't have good solid evidence of miracles. It's that simple. If all that you have is a religious book to say that these miracles were performed, then that's not evidence enough to give me any real confidence that it happened and therefore should not be accepted. If I accept such a claim without evidence, then I might as well accept the claim that Mohamed rode to the moon on a winged horse. That was also in a holy book and not justified by any real evidence. Should we accept that claim?

>You haven't read what I said. Again (this time with more cowbell): "What we do have is the existence of a Galilean Jew named Jesus who was born between 7 and 4 BC and died between AD 26-36. We have that he lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, was called Christos in Greek, had a brother named James, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. It is believed even from non-Christian sources that he had both Jewish and Gentile followers, and that Jewish leaders held unfavorable opinions of him. There are two events (and only two) whose historicity is subject to 'almost universal assent': that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate."
None of what you are saying there includes any supernatural events. Therefore, the miracles aren't justified by the evidence that you have. Therefore rationally we shouldn't accept the claims of miracles if you don't have real evidence. The Bible is no more evidence than the Qua'ran or the Vedas or the Bhagavad Gita. If all that you have to say that Jesus performed miracles is the Bible, then you don't have enough evidence to give any more confidence to that claim than that Mohamed rode to the moon on a winged horse.

>On the contrary, they should be accepted. There's nothing in science that says miracles are impossible. There's nothing in history that says miracles are impossible. If God truly exists, then miracles are certainly possible. The only reason to assert that "any claims about miracles should not be accepted" is if you have an a priori negative bias that forbids you from considering the possibility.
We don't accept a claim unless it can be shown that it isn't true. We only accept a claim if evidence can be presented to give us a high degree of confidence that it is true. Clearly, you don't have evidence enough to back up the claim of miracles, therefore those claims are not accepted. The Bible isn't evidence any more than the Qua'ran or Vedas or other holy texts of which there are many.

>There we go. Now we're talking. This is the same reasoning by which I assess that the Bible is true. Thank you.
It's not. I have solid evidence to back up the idea that the pterodactyls are no longer around. You can present evidence that there was once a Jesus, but not much evidence of any miracles. Therefore, the only claims that should be accepted are those that you can back up with real evidence. The ones that you can back up with real evidence doesn't include anything supernatural. We don't accept claims unless you can back it up with evidence. If we do otherwise, we'll accept the claim that Mohamed rode to the moon on a winged horse simply because it is claimed by the Qua'ran. The Bible isn't enough to justify a claim. It has to be backed up by actual evidence.

> Ok, so rationally we shouldn't claim that Jesus performed any miracles.

No, that's not rational, it's negative bias. There is evidence in the Gospels that he performed miracles; miracles are consistent with the kind of person Jesus was, and Josephus confirms that he performed miracles. So rationally we should claim he did perform miracles, since also science can't say whether miracles are possible or not. (Science can only deal with matters within its sphere, like the observation of repeatable natural phenomena.)

> We should not accept any claims other than that Jesus existed and had a brother.

You haven't read what I said. Again (this time with more cowbell): "What we do have is the existence of a Galilean Jew named Jesus who was born between 7 and 4 BC and died between AD 26-36. We have that he lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, was called Christos in Greek, had a brother named James, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. It is believed even from non-Christian sources that he had both Jewish and Gentile followers, and that Jewish leaders held unfavorable opinions of him. There are two events (and only two) whose historicity is subject to 'almost universal assent': that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate."

> Any claims about miracles should not be accepted.

On the contrary, they should be accepted. There's nothing in science that says miracles are impossible. There's nothing in history that says miracles are impossible. If God truly exists, then miracles are certainly possible. The only reason to assert that "any claims about miracles should not be accepted" is if you have an a priori negative bias that forbids you from considering the possibility.

> I can't shown absolute certainty that the pterodactyl has gone extinct, but I have evidence enough to make me confident that the claim is likely true. In other words, I assess that the evidence is sufficient to justify a high degree of confidence even if I can't claim complete certainty.

There we go. Now we're talking. This is the same reasoning by which I assess that the Bible is true. Thank you.

>You're right that we have no extrabiblical corroboration of Jesus' miracles or teachings. Josephus refers to them in a text that many believe is authentic, but the text is debated, so we can't put a whole lot of stock in it. But, as I said, it does exist, and many regard it as having been written by Josephus. That's the only secular corroboration in existence.
Ok, so rationally we shouldn't claim that Jesus performed any miracles. We should not accept any claims other than that Jesus existed and had a brother. Any claims about miracles should not be accepted. I think that's about it for believe in your religion, isn't it?

>I believe there's a difference. We don't have to vote about whether Donald Trump is a much-maligned president. It's common knowledge, and we all recognize it. That's what it was like with the ratification of the canon. The books of the NT were recognized by common knowledge to be authoritative. All the Church did was make a list to formalize what was recognized. It's different from, "OK, who votes for this book? All in favor say 'Aye'."
I don't think the difference is that significant, but OK. Let's declare it to be significant. Your book was formed by general agreement on what books should be included. This doesn't sound like you have evidence that this organization was being overseen by a deity. It seems that all the we have evidence for is that the people at the time thought that these books were authoritative, not that a deity wanted them to be this way. Yet another claim without sufficient evidence that should not be accepted as true.

> But science can't and doesn't tell us where and when the last one died, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
We can present a tremendous amount of evidence that life forms tend to die after enough time. We know that it is staggeringly unlikely that a pterodactyl would have survived all this time. Science doesn't work in a binary it's definitely true and we can prove it for certain or we have no idea type basis. You have evidence and based on that evidence you asses some level of confidence. In the case of gravity, we have tremendous evidence so we assign a high degree of confidence, but we can't actually prove that gravity is real. Just because all those rocks that we've ever dropped fell to the ground doesn't mean you've proved that the next one will. I can't shown absolute certainty that the pterodactyl has gone extinct, but I have evidence enough to make me confident that the claim is likely true. In other words, I assess that the evidence is sufficient to justify a high degree of confidence even if I can't claim complete certainty.

> Seriously, that's all you've got? Seems to me that if that's all you've got then you can't justify your claims based on history.

You're right that we have no extrabiblical corroboration of Jesus' miracles or teachings. Josephus refers to them in a text that many believe is authentic, but the text is debated, so we can't put a whole lot of stock in it. But, as I said, it does exist, and many regard it as having been written by Josephus. That's the only secular corroboration in existence.

In addition, however, the historical references in the Gospels are proven to be accurate: names and places mentioned, cultural details and practices, religious details and practices, and historical events. Extrabiblical corroboration supports the historicity of the Gospels, and of the Bible at large.

> General agreement is pretty much just a vote. How do you think they decided what books should be included in the NT?

I believe there's a difference. We don't have to vote about whether Donald Trump is a much-maligned president. It's common knowledge, and we all recognize it. That's what it was like with the ratification of the canon. The books of the NT were recognized by common knowledge to be authoritative. All the Church did was make a list to formalize what was recognized. It's different from, "OK, who votes for this book? All in favor say 'Aye'."

> We have scientific objective evidence that pterodactyls existed and therefore the claim should be accepted.

You missed my point. Of course science tells us they existed, just as historical record tells us Jesus existed. But science can't and doesn't tell us where and when the last one died, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Science is not the do-all and tell-all. There are many things science can't tell us, that are outside of its reach. Just because we don't have scientific evidence doesn't mean it should be rejected, as you are claiming, or else we need to reject that the last pterodactyl ever died, because we don't have the evidence of when and where it happened. We have to apply logic consistently.

>You're right that we can't corroborate from extrabiblical sources most of what the Gospels say about Jesus. What we do have is the existence of a Galilean Jew named Jesus who was born between 7 and 4 BC and died between AD 26-36. We have that he lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, was called Christos in Greek, had a brother named James, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. It is believed even from non-Christian sources that he had both Jewish and Gentile followers, and that Jewish leaders held unfavorable opinions of him. There are two events (and only two) whose historicity is subject to “almost universal assent”: that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate.
Seriously, that's all you've got? Seems to me that if that's all you've got then you can't justify your claims based on history. After all, we can do AT LEAST that good for Islam. I'm sorry, but even if you can actually back up that much with writings of contemporary historians, you still have next to nothing. None of that shows anything super natural. All that that's enough for is that there was a guy named Jesus who had a brother and that's about it. I'm sorry, that's pretty slim picking for evidence.

>An absolutely awe-inspiring repository, each strand of which contains more information than the Library of Congress, in a mechanism more complex than the space shuttle.
Yes, and it's filled with a ton of junk. So much of the genome is deactivated genes. So much of it is just a waste. Weird that your god would put in so much junk. Of course, you can say your god decided for it to be that way, but then you just point out how much god is an unstable and therefore meaningless claim since it can be used to justify any observation. That which can explain everything explains nothing.

>The NT canon was ratified by general agreement in the 4th century, not by committee vote.
General agreement is pretty much just a vote. How do you think they decided what books should be included in the NT?

>It would be nice to have more records than we have. But because we don't have documentation of when and where the last pterodactyl died doesn't mean it didn't happen.
We have scientific objective evidence that pterodactyls existed and therefore the claim should be accepted. We don't have such evidence of the events you're talking about in the Bible and they should therefore be rejected. That's how logic and science works.

Wow. We're obviously not going to see eye to eye about this, but you have some distinct misinformation and misunderstandings.

> There aren't much records from the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in the back up the story.

You're right that we can't corroborate from extrabiblical sources most of what the Gospels say about Jesus. What we do have is the existence of a Galilean Jew named Jesus who was born between 7 and 4 BC and died between AD 26-36. We have that he lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, was called Christos in Greek, had a brother named James, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. It is believed even from non-Christian sources that he had both Jewish and Gentile followers, and that Jewish leaders held unfavorable opinions of him. There are two events (and only two) whose historicity is subject to “almost universal assent”: that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate.

> life as we know it.

"Life as we know it" doesn't pertain to the doctrine of the Trinity (a man who is his own father).

> Have you seen the human genome?

An absolutely awe-inspiring repository, each strand of which contains more information than the Library of Congress, in a mechanism more complex than the space shuttle.

> The only eyewitness accounts we have are from the bible itself

Many historical events of the OT are corroborated by extrabiblical sources, and there are many good reasons to believe that the Gospels have their source in eyewitness accounts.

> This Bible is the result of a vote by one of the most corrupt organizations in human history.

This is a grotesque distortion of history and the Bible. The OT canon has never been subject to a vote that we know of. We have no record of its contents ever being debated, questioned, or voted upon. The NT canon was ratified by general agreement in the 4th century, not by committee vote. (Though I agree that the Catholic church of the first half of the second millennium was quite corrupt).

> I assume you are referring to the prophecies that we have no evidence to show that they were fulfilled except for the Bible?

But there is evidence. There were prophecies that the Assyrians wouldn't conquer Judah when the conquered Israel, and history tell us that was the case. There were prophecies that the Babylonians would conquer and exile Judah, and they did. There are a bunch more.

> Given that these were public occurrences, shouldn't we have historical accounts from the time of them occurring? By the time that the first accounts showed up, they wouldn't have easily been checked.

It would be nice to have more records than we have. But because we don't have documentation of when and where the last pterodactyl died doesn't mean it didn't happen.

1. Corroboration with history (history is always a matter of interpretation of records)
There aren't much records from the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in the back up the story.

6. Reason: The Bible gives a well-reasoned and consistent perspective and interpretation of life as we know it. The picture it presents makes sense.
The picture it presents makes sense? I'm sorry, but the idea of a man who is his own father makes no sense. The picture of the world we live in being the design of a deity makes no sense. Have you seen the human genome? It's filled with exactly the kind of junk you'd expect the process of evolution to leave behind, not what I'd expect a deity to design.

9. The eyewitness accounts of the Bible ring true.
The only eyewitness accounts we have are from the bible it's self. At this point, you're using the account of the Bible to say that the account of the Bible is true. If we're going to do that, why not do it for the other holy books? They are all concordant with science (by your standard of what it means to be concordant with science).

7. Testimonial evidence (of people currently alive), consistent from person to person, of life change founded in a religious experience as described in the Bible. People's lives are still being radically changed by what they say is the truth of the Bible and the Holy Spirit inside of them.
There are more Muslims that will tell you of the amazing works of their holy Allah in their life than there are that will tell you of the amazing works of Yahwe in their life. Doesn't that mean that you should also believe in Allah? While we're at it, there's also those personal accounts of Shiva and the Mormons too. Shouldn't you start believing in those?

10. There is no hint of any kind of conspiracy, fraud, or collusion.
This Bible is the result of a vote by one of the most corrupt organizations in human history.

13. Prophecy and fulfillment
I assume you are referring to the prophecies that we have no evidence to show that they were fulfilled except for the Bible?

14. The events they wrote about were public occurrences, not private experiences. Detecting fraud or error would have been easy.
Given that these were public occurrences, shouldn't we have historical accounts from the time of them occurring? By the time that the first accounts showed up, they wouldn't have easily been checked.

15. Their writings have been pored over for millennia and have been accepted by great numbers of scholars.
The same can be said of the Qua'ran. Shouldn't you start believing in that as well?

>We have little to go by here. Mostly I'd have to say Moses would have little motivation to return to Egypt, negligible reason to set himself up as leader of the people of Israel, and an inadequate means of pulling off this whole storyline without what seemed to him a legitimate theophany and palpable help in doing it, which he certainly wouldn't get from the people).
Seriously, he had nothing to gain? Power is desired by almost everyone. Moses gained a lot of power. If this is all you have for evidence of Moses talking to the burning bush, we have just as good for Mohammed riding a horse to the moon. Will you start believing in that claim as well?

> I understand that you are trying to use history to determine what the author meant, but what about whether or not what the author meant was actually true?

Hmm. I gave an example that our "No Standing" signs don't actually mean you can't stand there, but you can't park there. So I am using history not only to determine what the author meant but also what the truth of the situation is. The two are concordant unless the author is a liar and is deliberately trying to mislead. "No Standing" really truthfully means "you can't park here." But it clearly doesn't mean what it sounds like: "You can't stand here."

> I keep trying to find out why you believe in the claims of the bible but it to be honest it feels like pulling teeth to get you to tell me based on what evidence you actually believe in the claims of the bible.

Here are some of the reasons I believe in the Bible:

1. Corroboration with history (history is always a matter of interpretation of records)

2. Corroboration with archaeological finds (becoming more scientific all the time, but still subject to a vast amount of interpretation)

3. Corroboration with known cultural (in history) markers

4. Corroboration with known geographical information

5. Reliable anecdotal evidence from trustworthy sources

6. Reason: The Bible gives a well-reasoned and consistent perspective and interpretation of life as we know it. The picture it presents makes sense.

7. Testimonial evidence (of people currently alive), consistent from person to person, of life change founded in a religious experience as described in the Bible. People's lives are still being radically changed by what they say is the truth of the Bible and the Holy Spirit inside of them.

8. Current realities (like the existence of the state of Israel and the existence of the Church) that don't make as much sense outside of the environments and interpretations described by the Bible.

9. The eyewitness accounts of the Bible ring true.

10. There is no hint of any kind of conspiracy, fraud, or collusion.

11. The writers of the Bible exude nobility, morality, and honor. To accuse them of deliberate deception is unreasonable. There is no hint that these men were insane. While they certainly lived in a non-literate culture, they didn't live in an illiterate one. These people were obviously not buffoons, barbarians, or blockheads, but were demonstrably fairly cogent and logical.

12. The consistency of theme, theology, and focus from over 40 authors from 3 continents over a span of 1600 years is unearthly.

13. Prophecy and fulfillment

14. The events they wrote about were public occurrences, not private experiences. Detecting fraud or error would have been easy.

15. Their writings have been pored over for millennia and have been accepted by great numbers of scholars.

16. The Bible has an unearthly kind of power to change lives for the people who submit to its teachings.

Well, that's 16 off the top of my head, at least enough to stimulate dialogue.

> By what ruler do you actually judge whether or not the claim that Moses talked to a burning bush was actually true or not?

We have little to go by here. Mostly I'd have to say Moses would have little motivation to return to Egypt, negligible reason to set himself up as leader of the people of Israel, and an inadequate means of pulling off this whole storyline without what seemed to him a legitimate theophany and palpable help in doing it, which he certainly wouldn't get from the people).