"Just because there are alternative explanations doesn't mean the original claim of resurrection is false."

Sure. But, y'know, Occam's Razor.

"Those explanations didn't work back then and they still fall short today."

Because...?

"They had it down to a science. It would be strange that these experienced executors would suddenly not be able to tell a dead man from a living one"

Unless they were bribed. Or overworked. Or corrupt. Or a hundred other things.

Maybe it wasn't typical to fuck up an execution, but I bet it happened sometimes.

"One of the very things they safe guarded against was those sneaky disciples somehow stealing his body and claiming he resurrected. This explains the guarded tomb with two soldiers."

It also explains why the Israeli Resistance Front would know the soldiers out, roll away the stone, and steal the body.

Now, I'm not sure Jesus ever existed. There's some evidence, but the strongest evidence is probably forged. But if I knew Jesus existed, then I'd believe that over the Resurrection story for the same reason: Occam's Razor.

"Wild speculations. There is no reason to not trust the eye witness accounts of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ."

Dude. You said yourself that a human rising from the dead is impossible. There's your reason, right there.

Now, you might believe on faith, but as far as I can see, you don't have much better evidence than the Mormons, the Scientologists, the Muslims or the followers of Charles Manson.

Once you realize why you disbelieve in all other Gods, etc.

All alternative explanations to what happened to Jesus' body really point to the fact that his enemies were unsuccessfully scattering to explain the resurrection away, since they couldn't legitimately counter the claim. Just because there are alternative explanations doesn't mean the original claim of resurrection is false. Of course there would be alternative explanations, since the Jewish leaders had to formulate some type of response. Those explanations didn't work back then and they still fall short today.

It's their word against that of the disciples; you have no reason to believe one side or the other, side from the fact that resurrections are so improbable.

Furthermore, I'm now starting to be confused: again, what kind of evidence would you possibly consider a disproof of the resurrection, either today or if you lived in contemporary Rome? After all, the only available evidence, objective non-cult witnesses, all claimed that Jesus did not in fact resurrect. If you don't consider the resurrection disproved after that, then what available evidence would you consider a disproof? (This question is, after all, your original claim- that had the resurrection not occurred, there would evidence to convince you that it had not occurred.)

The Romans were not inexperienced executors. They had it down to a science. It would be strange that these experienced executors would suddenly not be able to tell a dead man from a living one. Maybe it was Billy's first day on the job? Also, I should think that Joseph Arimathea, who you mentioned earlier, would have noticed that Jesus was still alive before placing him into a tomb, which was guarded by 2 combat hardened soldiers may I add. The Jewish leaders were not stupid, they were quite meticulous. They knew Jesus had made claims to a resurrection and safe guarded against anything that might mislead the public into believing that he actually resurrected. One of the very things they safe guarded against was those sneaky disciples somehow stealing his body and claiming he resurrected. This explains the guarded tomb with two soldiers.

These kind of screwups happen....not all the time, but there are a fair number of recorded and verified instances. (As opposed, again, to zero recorded resurrections. 5 seconds googling found Maggie Dickson, Anne Green, Zoleykhah Kadkhoda, and William Duell as execution survivors.) Also, the Jews were not in charge at the time, the Romans were- and the Roman leader, Pontius Pilate, didn't want to kill Jesus, according to all of the Gospels.

It is not an un-biblical claim because I got it straight out of a passage in the Bible;

1 Corinthian 15:6 - After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.

Fair enough; I'd been only looking at the accounts in the Gospels. (Again, though, there are plenty of easy, non-supernatural explanations. This undoubtedly sounds like hedging to you, but that's because you do believe, and your belief is high status. Your explanations of why UFO sightings are wrong would sound the same to somebody who had actually seen the alien ships.)

Wild speculations. There is no reason to not trust the eye witness accounts of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Ah. So, you do trust the soldiers who reported that the body was stolen, then? ;)

More broadly, we simply don't have much solid evidence; it's a he-said she-said kind of situation- only it's also one where one side was entirely made up of fanatical cultists (or, equivalently, extremely faithful believers) who were claiming something impossible by natural means.

"At least you are giving them some credit. It really wasn't that easy to fool people with "fabricated" events involving prominent cities and countries. News traveled through trade as well; one way people verified info about farther away places back then.

I just can't write about a major event involving two prominent cities being obliterated and get away with it unless there was some level of truth to it, even back then."

There are just so stories about both the recent and distant past invented all the time. Even when disproved people continue to still believe them. Religion isn't a special case; these are every where.

There are all sorts of widely believed bullshit about foreign cultures, unfamiliar occupations, and everything else. Just read snopes.

"Also, even if there is no remaining evidence (sometimes being all lost in times past), it does not mean that the event did not occur. The lack of evidence does not mean the lack of existence."

In Egypt? With all the evidence we have? Unlikely.

"but that is impossible for you to assume because you begin with the presupposition that the Biblical writers are lying about everything."

Is it fair to say that you'd agree that the authors of the Epic of Giglamesh were lying about everything?

"The ancient Egyptians don't have any incentive to leave records of this embarrassing occurrence. If anything, they would want to cover this event up so as not to be ridiculed by neighboring nations or by their posterity who would view them as weak."

You can't have it both ways: either the Ancients were smart and skeptical enough to believe in miracles based on evidence, or they were a bunch of plebs who only believed what the official history was. Not both.

"If most of those 1000 people are still alive, live in my city, and are accessible by me for interview and they affirm your claim it does add credibility to your claim. "

But they weren't. The symmetry isn't there. They were all or very, very mostly all dead at that point.

At this point, we aren't even talking about a world religion, just a particularly successful cult. How many people alive have personally met L Ron Hubbard? How many people are Scientologists? There you go.

"And for a note, it was not written a hundred years after Jesus death; more like a few decades."

There's no evidence of that.

"The CIA has whatsoever no incentive to care about Elvis sightings, whereby the Jewish leaders had every incentive in the world to care about the claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead and they did care a lot. I don't have time to go into proof that they cared but just understand that the Jewish leaders had the same level of incentive to care about this claim as Homeland Security will have if multiple people claim they sighted a well known most wanted terrorist in their city."

I think the authorities in this case refer to the Romans, who had been pretty successful with the whole religious tolerance thing. They let all sorts of insane mystery cults hold sway over small groups of followers as long as they recognized Roman law. The Romans would see a new cult, the eigth messiah in just as many years, and made sure they paid their taxes and didn't make trouble, at least as long as they couldn't be viewed as a threat.

The Jews are another matter, of course:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/false_prophets/dt13_01.html

The ancient Egyptians don't have any incentive to leave records of this embarrassing occurrence. If anything, they would want to cover this event up so as not to be ridiculed by neighboring nations or by their posterity who would view them as weak.

It's not just about history books and monuments. It's about every facet of life that gets effected. For example, when the black death hit Europe, we were able to see massive changes to everything.

• Economists, archeologists, and historians for example can trace the massive economic disruption of the black death. The deaths of a large percentage of the population created economic pressures, increasing the demand for workers. You then see greater economic mobility for peasants because of the demand, creating a free-er marketplace for labor. Every single written word we have regarding economic exchange from that time notes the massive inflation of wages for peasants (along with Lords grumbling that peasants were getting uppity and greedy demanding wages). But it's not just that. We can go back and look at how working conditions improved in the state of buildings from back then, as lords suddenly had to compete for peasant labor.

• Peasant wages skyrocketed, in some cases 500-1000%. And even though long distance trade went down, consumer-good trade went up since peasants could now afford more. What's more, archeologists have looked at those times and noted how there was a sharp decline in exotic goods and wealth in the elite holdings, and how there was a sharp increase in goods/tools found in peasant houses. The proof is not just in words (although it's there too), it's in the ground.

• We can look back, not just at records but at land (keep in mind, there are also extensive records too). Year after year, lords stopped trying to cultivate land and can look at a field and see how decreases in labor translated to more fallow fields. Additionally, we can look in trash piles, and note the increase in animal bones. You see, animals could be fed on lands without much labor, so as you became unable to work land for agriculture, you could increase animal production to compensate. What's more, we can also note products in the trash-piles. Dramatic shifts in clothing as wool/leather replaced plant based fabric. Additionally low-labor crops like apples, grapes, vegetables, etc replaced high labor crops like wheat.

• This is just one aspect of it. You can look at the sizes and styles of buildings during that era. You can note how the Sondergotik, and Brick Gothic, and Rectilinear architecture styles all suddenly appeared at the same time. You can note how technology development and usage changed. You can look at public works. You can look at weapons and armor in war. You can look at the mass graves from plague deaths. You can look at the bones of those who died before and after the plague and note the nutrition differences. Everything felt the ripple effects. An event like that creates massive ripple effects that can be seen in every aspect of life.

I used the Black Death as an example because it's the most dramatic and most famous shift, but similar results happen with every civilization that has dramatic events occur like wars/plagues/natural disasters. We can look at the Greco-Persian wars and see the impact to villas and peasant homes and trash piles etc. We can look at the end of the Zhou Dynasty in China and see the effects on trade and trash piles and buildings ect. But we can't look at the plagues in Egypt and the exodus of the Jews. Every piece of evidence... not just writings and monuments but every piece of evidence from trash piles, to agriculture field samples, to architecture, to graves... everything shows that the stories in the bible never occurred. There never were any plagues, there never was a massive die off of first born sons, there never were a bunch of Jews who left. It simply never happened.

It was just a fairy tale made up out of whole cloth by the bible, a complete fabrication.

NB: As a meta-note you can make quotes by using the > command. So instead of using quote marks to quote, you can quote...

like this.

Just because you find the God of the Bible unpalatable to your personal tastes of what God should or should not be, doesn't make it any more true or false, does it?

Your claim was that you had not met a skeptic who read the Bible while expecting it to be true. I provided evidence that I am a skeptic, and that I had read the Bible while expecting it to be true.

You are, of course, free to take the No True Scotsman route and declare that I didn't really presuppose that the Bible was telling the truth, but I might as well declare now that doing that would end this conversation.