From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 10:26 PM
To: 'Kevin Lo'
Subject: RE: Debate atheism pls

existence of jesus i believe is historically accepted. it is impossible for him to be a fabrication.

If you're going to use "impossible" to describe a situation that is obviously possible in at least the logical, metaphysical, and nomological senses, then you simply aren't engaging my arguments about gospel probabilities.

if you must entertain the possibility he didn't exist, then it would be infintessimally small.  there are just too many other historical (non-bible) texts that speak of his existence.

I myself have written non-bible texts that speak of Jesus' existence. What counts are texts that are demonstrably independent of the New Testament as a source. The only solid example is Josephus (and the passing mention therein is not at all what we would expect if the gospels were true). The few other candidate texts -- of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius -- are quite disputable as to whether they independently attest the historicity of Jesus. See http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html for details.

next, "jesus was deluded." i find this section to be quite impossible: first, possibility of jesus surviving crucifixion is 0. 

See above regarding possibility.

Jesus crucifixion was especially brutal.

Circular reasoning: you assume the truth of the gospels in order to establish the truth of the gospels.

no one survives a roman crucifixion. i also believe none of your scenarios where Jesus does not survive crucifixion are possible.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/2.html#v.

discussions of the tomb story have a guard (group of guards) posted at the tomb which was sealed.

The guard story is in only one "discussion", that of Matthew. See "Was the Tomb Guarded" at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/2.html#viii.

 these guards have circulated a story that they fell asleep and the body was stolen.  yet they were never punished. i'm sure you've read/heard such arguments before, but that theory is quite illogical.  1. the guards were never punished.  if they really fell asleep, they would not be circulating a story, they would be dead. 

You again circularly assume the truth of a gospel in order to establish the truth of the gospels. All we really know from the presence of the guarded tomb story in Matthew is that there was a story of a tomb-emptying conspiracy that was so widespread that this gospel author felt the need to try to rebut it. Thus Matthew's guard story makes the resurrection less likely, not more.

2. it's absurd that the frightened (and hiding) 'lost-our-leader' disciples (see Peter's denials) would have had the cunning and ability to sneak past guards, move a large HEAVY stone and sneak out a heavily perfumed corpse.  (and remove the wrappings...why would they do that?)

You here commit three more instances of circular argument, by assuming that the gospels' guard, stone, and wrappings stories are true in order to argue for the truth of the gospels.

3. why would they have all suffered to martyrdom never recanting. what made them so bold?

You apparently didn't even bother to read my remarks about martyrs at http://humanknowledge.net/Philosophy/Metaphysics/Theology/Christianity.html. See also http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/2.html#iv

as for wrong tomb or innocent reburial, this is also very illogical.  the guard was sent to protect the wrong tomb?

Circular reasoning yet again.

a person of Jesus' fame had his tomb mistaken?

Judging from Josephus, Jesus was in his day not famous at all.

this should have been easily disproven immediately,

http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/christianity/disproof.html

instead a debate has raged on about the guards falling asleep since shortly after Jesus death. (Jews: it's the truth, the guards fell asleep, Christians: guards were bribed to lie) said debate would not exist unless Jesus' correct tomb was truly empty.

Your reasoning here is still circular. 

as is, i propose i am claiming that you have no plausible explanation for the suggestion that a deluded Jesus' died on the cross and by some human (non-supernatural) action, the empty tomb story came about.

You didn't even address my explanation. I see no evidence you even know what my explanation is.

essentially, the only one that is 'plausible' (of the headings in the human phenomena section) is that jesus was deceptive.  and your tree is left with .98 probability that jesus was a liar.  logically i believe it to be the most valid of the 3 human phenomena headings,

You claim that the disciples would never die for a deception, and in the same email claim that Jesus might do so.

you seem put supernatural and evil jesus to be the same probability

No, I say that super-human non-benevolence is roughly nine times more likely an explanation than super-human benevolence. I've still never seen a Christian address this issue.

As for your challenge, i think it's an unfair challenge.  few people are ever (i don't know of any) convinced through logical proof that Christianity is correct, and Atheism is not.

"Logical proof" is too high a standard. Are you saying that your deity threatens eternal punishment for disbelief, but gave us an unconvincing amount of evidence about him?

 inherently, the debate is almost invalid, because Christianity assumes supernatural beings, whereas Atheism (supposedly) assumes nothing.

The disagreement is not just a matter of differing assumptions, though it's suspiciously convenient for you to think so. In fact,  Christian apologists usually claim to start from the same epistemological foundation that atheists claim they start from.

i think that it can be argued that atheism is logically inferior to theism; that to deny the existence of some supernatural being is illogical. but i will leave that to another email, as this current one is getting quite long.

Any argument you might have for the existence of a supernatural being is fully addressed at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html.