Jesus Christ rose from the dead

Many thanks to my opponent for beginning this debate. I'll begin respond to Pro's assertion that Jesus definitely existed in the first place. Pro mentions that the Jesus of the Bible at the very least existed historically. On the contrary, there are many reasons to speculate that Jesus Christ did not even exist as a human being (let alone God). First, there is no primary source of Jesus ever existing. No historian from the time (Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, etc.) mention THE Jesus in question explicitly, so Pro's statements and citations are false. Sure, they mentioned Christians i.e. people who followed Christ, however, I could write about people who worship the flying spaghetti monster and that would not necessarily make the flying spaghetti monster real just because certain people worship him/her. Just because some people believed in Jesus' divinity and those historians wrote about it doesn't confirm that any of the divine qualities applied to Jesus were real. Another thing we must consider is that while Jesus was mentioned by a few historians, Jesus was indeed a popular name at the time. Also, there is no evidence for the story of the birth of Jesus. Additionally, there is a complete absence of evidence for the events described - no authors mention the phenomenal events that supposedly occurred at the time of Jesus' resurrection, and there are no records of Jesus being crucified in the first place. This is despite there being multiple historians of the time who kept extensive records of events in that era, especially of unusual events and the misdeeds of rulers. The only records we have are those written by Christians themselves which is not very accurate or reliable testimony for obvious reasons [1]. Still, let's consider the fact that Jesus quite possibly existed. Most people accept the reality that Jesus was nothing more than a man who claimed to be a prophet and a messiah. His life story has been intermingled with older pagan myths, most notably that of the Egyptian god, Horus. In fact, the entire description of Jesus is completely paralleled with the story of Horus -- In other words, Jesus' tale is a complete myth and copy-cat of many mythical stories that came before him. The story of Jesus is effectively without historical basis because the real figure is obscured by the mythical ones. A list of the parallels between Horus and Jesus can be found here [2], [3]. So, in short, we do not even know if the historical Jesus even existed, and if he did, all of the attributes given to him were stolen from other myths. Pro submits that if Jesus existed, he would have had to be risen from the dead in order to be God and validate the Bible. I agree with this assessment. However, Pro's "argument" is basically a series of steps all of which can be dissected and refuted one by one. For instance, number one states that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. As I've already explained, there is no proof that Jesus was ever crucified meaning number one is already based on mere speculation. The same goes for number two (that Jesus was buried). Number three states that the disciples were discouraged and lost hope, which is again nothing but speculation. Fourth, Pro writes that Jesus' tomb was found empty at some point after his death. Now, even if we accept that Jesus was a real historical person and was crucified, there is certainly no evidence of this (number four) ever happening. This negates the entire resolution alone. For laughs, let's continue. The fifth point again speculates that the disciples claimed to have seen Jesus post-crucifixion. Again, there is no historical evidence of any of this except for what the Christians have written in the Bible. For obvious reasons this is a biased source of information, especially when you consider the fact that at the time Christianity was thought to be a cult following. Nevertheless, Pro (nor anyone) can prove that who/what the disciples saw was really Jesus. In addition, they could have been hallucinating, under the influence or just straight up crazy. Since Christianity was likened to a cult, there is also the possibility that they could have been brainwashed or imagined the whole thing. Since "raising from the dead" is not really possible in logical, physical or biological terms, these possibilities must be seriously considered if not chosen to be believed over the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. For number six Pro writes, "These experiences changed the disciples to the point where they were willing to die for Jesus. This probably where the Christian church as we know it began." This is obvious and entirely irrelevant; it proves nothing. Next Pro says, "The disciples publicly testified to having seen Jesus" and eight reads, "Their whole message centered around the apparent death and resurrection of Jesus." Again, none of this proves anything at all, nor does his ninth statement, "Jesus' brother James was a former skeptic but had been converted after Jesus' death." Pro's tenth statement is similarly random and entirely irrelevant. Nevertheless, Pro's whole point here seems to be that many former skeptics were eventually converted to Christianity. While that may be entirely true, it still does not prove anything. The most devout atheists in the world could have a change of heart and become priests, and that still would not make any of the claims necessarily or even probably true. Pro also mentions the fact that the tomb in which Jesus was supposedly buried was later found out to be empty. A Christian site admits, "Stealing bodies from graves was well known in antiquity and was the most plausible alternative explanation to the one offered by the disciples" [4]. The disciples themselves acknowledged that Jesus' body was probably stolen; as such, it explains the missing body. Roman guards accused the disciples of stealing Jesus' body in order to make it appear as if a prophecy had been fulfilled. So again, the empty tome does not validate the myth. Now, Pro does address the idea of the possibility of Jesus' resurrection being a hallucination; however, dismisses this notion by proclaiming that mass hallucinations are all but impossible. On the contrary, when a bunch of people are walking in a desert, they all might hallucinate the same mirage. When a bunch of people watch a magic show, they all hallucinate the same illusion. When people take psychedelic drugs (which was not uncommon during Jesus time), many times they hallucinate the same thing. In fact, the book Apples of Apollo by Carl Ruck even discusses Jesus' direct links with psychedelic mushrooms [5]! So as you can see, there are indeed many possible explanations that explain people's similar visions or experiences, and all of them are more plausible and sensical than Jesus defying the laws of logic. In conclusion, Pro has not offered one shred of evidence proving that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Not only is Jesus' life entirely in question, but EVEN IF he lived, and EVEN IF he was crucified, there is still no evidence that he rose from the dead just because his body was missing from the tomb he was allegedly buried in. The disciples themselves believed that his body was stolen, and the only "proof" were the testimonies of a few Christians which is obviously biased as well as inconclusive. A few people said they say Jesus post-death, but thousands upon thousands of people have claimed to see UFOs and yet we don't automatically accept it as truth. There are other possible explanations to Jesus' mystery, and no proof in Pro's round. Thanks and back to ye... [1] http://www.vexen.co.uk... [2] http://www.bobkwebsite.com... [3] http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com... [4] http://jesus.christ.org... [5] http://www.cap-press.com...