The Resurrection of Jesus

Opening commentsWhat bothers me is how really "weak" the evidence is. It's not so much evidence but rather a very questionable reasoning based on less evidence than that for the miracle claims of Sai Baba in order to justify the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Pro pretty much convinced himself pretty quickly that the believers in the miracle claims of Sai Baba are in error even if sincere. An important point about Sai Baba is about how it's all to easy for people to believe in miracles even in the 21st centaury. So when Pro talks about the belief or growth in the belief that Jesus rose from the dead as some how less miraculous than that belief being wrongly believed in I find this risible. As Sam Harris put it. .. " The fact is people who tell these stories desperately want to believe them, all to my knowledge lack the kind of corroborating evidence we should require before believing before natures laws have being abrogated. "Where is the corroborating evidence ? Competing Hypothesis"H1) The claims of miracle X is false. People lie, people lie all the time. Whether it be sincere mistake, self deception, being conned/manipulated by others or just flat out lying people tell falsehoods. "Pro brings up hallucination. It should be noted that is a very small part within the human scope of people telling falsehoods. Once again consider the people Sam Harris personally has met that claim a guru has performed some miracle. Are most of these people experiencing hallucinations ? or were experiencing hallucinations at the time of said miracle ? probably not. Weak evidence combined with dubious reasoningSo what exactly does Pros justification come down to ? some time ago, there were some people who belonged to one particular religious group, their leader died and it is claimed by them he rose from the dead. Now there is no way for you to actually test this claim BUT you can have confidence that the claim is true because if it was not then the origin of the belief and it's growth in that belief would not of happened. That is not evidence, that a very dubious I would say contrivance of an assertion cause the evidence is so under whelming. Just in case you are tempted to think that is a justification consider the claims of Islam. A man received divine communication his name was Muhammad. After telling other people of his divine communication he is largely rejected, prosecuted and force to leave his home area of Mecca. Fast forward to just before his death most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, and he had united Arabia into a single Muslim religious polity. It could be claimed this outcome is more probable if the divine communication claims of Mohamed are true. People could argue about how miraculous it all is, people could claim how it requires more of a miracle that Muhamed or Islam is false and spread so successfully then successfully spreading because it is true. Are you now convinced that this is solid reason to accept Muhammad claims or Islam claims as true ? Unless you are already a Muslim probably not. Are you willing to accept Jesus rose from the dead because of the bare assertion claim about how it would take more of a miracle for the origin of the belief and successful spread of that belief if it was false ? unless your already a Christian probably not. Less eye witness testimony to the miracle claim than the miracles claims of Sai Baba Can't actually test the claimMade up assertions of what would or would not happen if the miracle had or had not happened. All to easy for people to wrongly believe that a miracle has happenedI submit the evidence is lacking and the reasoning is flawed, and thus it has not being shown that Jesus rising from the dead based on the evidence is more probable than not.