Does the Christian God Exist

My opponent states that " It should be apparent already that even if you grant a miracle, like resurrection, it does not lead to proving one is God." To the contrary, if a man performs miracles, heals people, casts out demons, and then raises himself from the dead, that proves that the man is God. My opponent's logic does not make sense at all. My opponent then claims that "This is a non-sequitur. Also of note, even if it is found that Jesus existed historically, it does not follow that this means the Christian God exists." I don't disagree with that. Notice how I will never claim that since Jesus existed, therefore he is God. But many people deny the existence of Jesus so I like to get that out of the way before moving on to my main arguments. 1. The Existence of Jesus My opponent brings up Isaac Newton. While the man did believe in Alchemy, he wasn't insane and he didn't claim that he was right. In other words, he wasn't trying to deceive people. However, a man cannot be a liar and a good person at the same time. Or a man cannot be a lunatic and a moral person at the same time. Therefore Jesus had to be sane and a good person in order for us to accept his claims. Since the people of the time period say that Jesus was a good teacher (Josephus), we can conclude that he wasn't a liar. But we also can conclude that he wasn't insane since he was a good teacher. As for Gandhi, I don't think anything has been proven. But he never claimed to be God and it is also doubtful if he was even a good teacher. Martin Luther King Jr. was a flawed man but again, he never claimed to be God. I now ask, "can my opponent name one person in history that claimed to be God and yet wasn't also insane or a liar?" I doubt that they could. While it is true that people can teach truth even if they are imperfect, you can't be insane and still be a good teacher. And then in response to my argument about the resurrection being the best explanation for the empty tomb, my opponent doesn't address my argument and instead brings up examples of other people that have supposedly done miracles and seems to think this disproves what I wrote. I will quickly address these other people... Muhammad-He died and stayed dead (unlike Jesus), wanted to commit suicide when he thought he heard words from an angel (Quran 74:1-5), he claimed to be a man, married a nine year old girl, his only claimed miracle was the Qur'an (hardly a miracle by the way), he owned slaves, and etc...There is no way you can compare him to Jesus. That said, I realize that the Hadiths record him doing miracles, but these were written much later and are unreliable. Many Muslims do not accept the Hadiths in the first place...so there are ample reasons for rejecting the miracles of Muhammad. Especially since he refused to do them for people and just told them to go read the Qur'an. Also, the link my opponent provided showed Allah doing miracles...but we have no reason to accept that Muhammad was inspired by God since he never proved his prophet-hood by doing any miracles himself. Jim Jones-The source my opponent provided for this was very unclear about the facts...I don't really know what to say here. I can't find much evidence for his miracles and I can't find anyone that swears he could do them. Sri Sthya Sai Baba-Apparently "The Indian Science and Rationalists" Association and various international documentaries have exposed his "miracles" as magicians" tricks and used slow motion photography to expose his materialization tricks" (http://www.equip.org...). So while eye witnesses are helpful for proving things, you got to make sure that they weren't deceived. Jim Jones and Sri Sthya Sai Baba were clearly deceiving people. Jesus was called a good teacher. The disciples were not deceived... My opponent then states that "Furthermore, if resurrection is all it takes to prove one is God, it would seem Pro would have to believe there is more than one God." No, only one God has been raised from the dead and that is Jesus. I extend my arguments from the first round. If my opponent wants to try and prove that another man raised himself from the dead, then they may feel free to do so. "This creates a huge problem as the 'Christian God' leaves no room for other God"s." Not completely true, we Christians acknowledge that people believe in false gods. Even Satan is referred to the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4:4. But only a true God could raise them-self from the dead. "Thus, either we have many God"s and the Christian God is a liar which supposedly he cannot be, or eyewitnesses to a resurrection do not a God make. Either way, the Christian God does not exist." Since Josephus and others said that Jesus was a good teacher, I think it is safe to say that he wasn't a liar. And unless my opponent can somehow discredit the eyewitnesses, my argument will remain safe. 2. New Testament Sources a. I can't believe I didn't provide evidence for how the gospels are 99.5% accurate. I have a lot of this stuff memorized and I sometimes forget to put sources. Here is the sources: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com... and https://carm.org... b. My opponent states that "Tom Clancy writes novels that often deal with real weapons, locations, and plausible events. Perhaps, enough so to make his books 99.5% accurate, does this mean his books are facts?" That is a fair point. The problem is that Clancy never claimed his story was a fact. The gospels writers claimed to be witnesses and we know that Clancy made up some people and there is the fact that no other non-Clancy sources back up what he wrote. The Bible is composed of multiple sources. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each wrote four separate documents that back each other up and other non-Biblical sources back up some of the things as well. You can't really compare Clancy to the gospel writers. c. The embarrassing factor makes the story more likely to be true. I don't know how this is a non-sequitur. Don't you think it is true that things are more likely to be accurate if the person telling you the story isn't just trying to make themselves look good? d. My opponent then states that "the gospels were written well after the supposed resurrection." Not really. Ancient writers such as Polycarp, Clement, and etc...cited the Gospel accounts around 100 AD. And the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and since the writers don't mention anything about it (temple was still in tact), we can determine that the gospels were written before 70 AD. Jesus was murdered around 30-33 AD. So 40 years is not actually that long. Paul's letters were written even earlier. He actually uses sources that date 5 years after the death of Jesus (http://www.reasonablefaith.org...). e. My opponent writes that "we don"t know who the authors are." That is also incorrect. Irenaeus wrote that "Matthew also published a gospel in writing among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter & Paul were preaching the gospel and founding the church in Rome. But after their death, Mark, the disciple & interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what Peter used to preach. And Luke, Paul's associate, also set down in a book the gospel that Paul used to preach. Later, John, the Lord's disciple --- the one who lay on his lap --- also set out the gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia Minor" (Against Heresies 3.1.1). The early church was also unanimous with regards to the authorship to the Gospels. My opponent has no real reason to disbelieve that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John didn't write the gospels. The Wiki articles my opponent doesn't get many things correct. The date of the gospel of Luke was completely off. I don't think these will damage my argument at all. They certainly didn't provide any reason to disbelieve church history. 3. Gospels show that Jesus raised from the dead thus proving that Jesus is God. Eyewitnesses of other miracles were deceived as already shown and Jesus actually had an empty tomb unlike the rest of those so called divine people. I think I have proven my point. Conclusion: I have had fun with this debate. I don't think the evidence of well established eyewitnesses is poor evidence. I have made my arguments and I will await for my opponent's last post.