I know for a fact that the RCC’s teaching is that only God can be worshipped and any one who does worship any saint or person is committing a huge sin. The only one they should worship is God! I have a relative who is a Catholic Priest and he said they could honor Mary, and ask her to Pray to God for them, Just as people ask other people to pray for things. Mary intercedes for the person, and is not worshipped, or they would be( according to the churches teaching) committing idolatry.
It could well be that Jesus was comatose when put in the tomb. Then came to later on. years ago there were people who were buried because they thought they were dead,but were just in a coma. Now we have machines to detect when the brain stops working, once no brain activity they are pronounced to be dead. In a case where the brain registers so low I would guess the person may not be actually dead,but that would be a very rare occasion. If they had truly died, they could not be revived!
And in my opinion, the title asks for the best evidence for the literal, historical resurrection of Jesus, not for evidence against it.
Wait, let me correct that…it is not my opinion-it is a fact.
Calculon said:
At the risk of repeating myself (and others), 3) just seems so obviously inadequate to me. Deception, delusion, hallucination, sleight of hand, and/or trickery easily could account for any historical evidence. Looking at it objectively, I don’t see how it’s possible to conclude that an actual resurrection is more likely than a faked resurrection and/or deceived/hallucinating/lying witnesses and/or stuff-was-made-up.
Basically, why should I believe in a miraculous/supernatural explanation when there are mundane explanations that fit all the evidence?
It’s not an ad hominem fallacy to slam the credentials of a person someone is using as an authority. If someone has signed a statement of faith, I will discount their opinion on anything related to that.
OK, so which is it? Are you going by the arguments, and merely giving reference pointers to the scholars, or are you looking for authority to back up arguements? You’re saying both here.
Oh, bullshit. Describing them as “conservative” Christian scholars is saying that they’re married to specific positions on the questions and are unwilling to objectively evaluate the evidence, so we should be skeptical of using them as an authority. It’s not an ad hom.
Wait - are you actually saying that you think Paul was one of the people who saw the physically risen Jesus? I thought I had heard just about all the viewpoints before, but I hadn’t heard that one yet. How could that be? How long do you think this physically-resurrected Jesus remained on Earth?
This has been repeatedly explained to you. You’re accusing Czarcasm of dishonesty while pretending to not understand the point of the question that’s been explained again and again. No one is saying that we believe Vespasian actually healed people. The question is why you don’t believe it, because the accounts of his miracles are at least as credible as the accounts of Jesus’s miracles. So are the BOM claims, and the superman yogi, etc. etc. We’re pointing out that what you’re doing is special pleading.
My apologies for the length, part 1:
I’m not sure what to make of this - yes, it’s possible there are more sources, but that is not the majority scholarly position. The two-source hypothesis still seems to be the favored one among scholars.
So to definitively state that there are five sources as a matter of fact seems premature. I think you would have to argue for it’s superiority over the two-source hypothesis (which, again, is the dominant view of scholars).
The text of Mark demonstrates that it’s not written from a historical point of view. I’m not sure of your distinctions between ‘biography’ so I’ll just say that I do not think it could be said to be historical/based on eyewitnesses.
It’s anonymous, written around 70 AD, and in Greek, for three things (which make it unlikely, but not impossible, for it to have been written by someone close to an eyewitness). For another, in your previous paragraph you say that “These sources may be comprised of other sources, like for instance a passion narrative which may form part of Mark”, which indicates to me that you don’t think that Mark was writing history (or you are not certain of it, at least) - he was forming a narrative based on the stories going around.
For another thing - if it’s supposed to be history, then who was doing the witnessing of the empty tomb? The women who told no one? If it’s history, where’s Jesus’s early life? Why does Mark have a poor understanding of the geography of Palestine?
(From here):
There’s more to suggest suspicion in my mind on that page. There’s also curious information in the Gospel itself (some of which I mentioned earlier):
Who witnessed Jesus’s temptation by the Devil? When Jesus is in Gethsemane his disciples fall asleep and Jesus prays to God about the crucifixion.
Who was the eye witness for this?
Actually the dates range from 65-80AD for Mark according to scholars.
It may have been written earlier and it may have been written later - both are possible, but not probable and not backed by the majority of scholarship.
I only know of one scholar who thinks that the earlier source contains an empty tomb account - and that scholar is an apologist. This is not the consensus position and I think it would have to be argued for.
Also:
- Why does the proximity to the events lend any sort of credibility towards their historicity?
- What evidence is there that the actual crucifixion took place in/around 30AD? Certainly you could argue that the church/Q/early Christianity may have started around there, but that does not mean that the events they are describing started there. This seems like a leap to me.
It should be noted that this page you give, provides scholars who disagree with the premarkan passion. That said, the conclusion that the passion narrative ended with the empty tomb is still in doubt, I see nothing from your source to support it.
Further, you mistake the belief in a passion account with “giving a solid historical basis for the resurrection accounts.”
Just because a group of people believe it, doesn’t make it so. People believe that Manson levitated a bus (and they were historically closer to the events), does that give the story any further credibility?
From here:
As Till asks Horner, I ask you, do you believe this?
This simply isn’t true, as I’ve argued elsewhere on the SD and as Carrier puts forth in the book The Empty tomb. There were pre-Christian jewish ideas of a spiritual resurrection.
The link I pull Philo’s words from has been suspended, but here’s the post I made and Philo’s words:
To say that there was only one ‘Jewish thought’ out there is simply wrong.
More from Philo (from this post):
More Philo, and some Josephus.
I’m not sure how this matters, it’s clear from the text that Paul radically changed his Pharisee belief. So maybe you could argue that Saul wouldn’t have believed in a spiritual resurrection…
Had Paul been referencing the rest of the NT, which hadn’t been written yet, this might be valid. However, anastasis has a variety of meanings, from here:
(for the sourcing, go to the original link).
Why go to what the Christians may have believed decades later as opposed to what was probably meant at the time?
I’m not sure I agree with your interpretation of Philippians and since the ancients did not have a monolithic view of ‘spirits’ or what happened after death, I see no reason to simply take your word on the matter - especially considering that I have shown that a spiritual resurrection was a belief of some Jews apart from Christianity (philo/josephus).
This is speculation on your part, while possible, I do not think it’s likely. I’m persuaded by Carrier’s argument here:
Paul’s idea was not just a spiritual resurrection - it was an exchange of bodies, the physical for the spiritual. Our ‘inner man’ gets new garments.
As to Pneumatikos soma I’m not sure what you mean, it seems to fit perfectly; a spiritual body, as opposed to a physical one - it’s a differentiation. Your argument seems to presuppose what Paul meant - you are begging the very question that I’m raising.
I’m not convinced - I find Carrier’s explanation more plausible:
I would also point you to Carrier’s chapter in the Empty Tomb, which does the topic greater justice than I could, since I have no training in Koine Greek.
Part 2 (again, apologies):
This presupposes a monolithic Christian belief, which I do not think was the case. I think the early Christian church had a variety of beliefs. Some more literal and some more gnostic. Carrier’s view is that Mark actually supports his view of Paul, from here:
I have - both in this post and others. One would be the Saints flying out of the grave.
In any event, I’m not sure how you reconcile this with your other belief that the Gospels were derived from various different sources. If that’s not embellishment, what is? Do you consider Luke/Matthew embellishing on Mark with the expansion of the empty tomb? Why or why not?
Urban Legends have historical groundings. There are urban legends involving the Bunny Man for instance.
The bunny man seems to have a historical grounding - but not the one that is purported in the urban legends (briefly, from the site above):
Later from the same site, the origin is revealed:
My point in bringing this up is that this is an obvious urban legend that had its basis in fact, yet the legend purports of radically different origins. So, just because there is some kernal of truth doesn’t mean that we can trust the entire account.
So there might have been a man named Jesus and he might have been crucified. His resurrection, his miracles, and his origin as purported in the Gospels aren’t necessarily true simply because there was a man named Jesus who was crucified.
This is absurd, of course, as even very conservative scholars such as Mike Licona have raised doubts towards some of Matthew’s writings. I’m specifically referring to the account of Saints raising from their tombs.
Just because an author puts in details does not mean that those details are true; again, the bunny man has a detailed origin, which is completely fictitious.
It is useful to show how the texts were added to and embellished.
Textual criticism tells us that the Gospels are filled with later additions. We do not have the original manuscripts - I agree with Bart Erhman in this regard, we don’t know what the originals say so our confidence cannot be that great.
The following from here:
Even conservative scholars admit that there are numerous differences in manuscripts. In his debate with Erhman, Craig Evans admits this at several places, most notably with the passage regarding Jesus sweating blood.
Acts was written between 80-130 AD, so pointing to that and saying that it represents what the earliest Christians believed is not conclusive. That being said, Acts and Paul’s letters both state that there were rival beliefs (Acts, Simon Magus, Paul, 1 Timothy 1:3-5).
As to evidence that contradicts it - I point to the numerous other gospels out there that are not part of the Canon and what little we know of the Gnostics.
I don’t think this is necessarily the case, especially regarding ancient history - but in any event, my point is that you haven’t shown that these people were particularly close to the actual events.
In an episode of Bullshit, Penn and Teller bring up the point of what Elvis’s favorite food was. While trivial, it demonstrates that simply being closer to an event (time wise) doesn’t mean anything. The same goes for the Bunnyman thing that I pointed to early - AND Sabbatai Zevi, who had miracle stories going around about him during his lifetime.
Not to mention Haile Selassie, who was revered as the second coming during his lifetime.
Why? Again, this doesn’t square with other accounts of the same type. We don’t believe Travis Walton was visited by UFO’s simply because we can go up and ask him.
Further, Paul says precious little about the life and death of Jesus - he wasn’t an eyewitness. He could be said to be writing about what Christians at the time believed, but his accounts get us no closer to the historical bedrock.
This is simply false - another trick of apologists. Urban legends can spread very rapidly. I’ve presented two that spread during the lifetime of the people (Manson, Sabbatai Zevi). Kim Jung Il is another - his moods supposedly control the weather.
This ‘not enough time’ thing is simply a canard.
This is special pleading - so only miracles related to resurrections should be considered?
Why?
Other miracles may happen - but the point is that Sabbatai denied these things (as did Haile Selassie), yet the belief persisted.
I could also point to the cargo cult tribes and Prince Philip with regard to this sort of thing…
What arguments have you produced here? I was pointing out that the only scholarship you presented was bias. You didn’t say something of the sort like “Craig’s argument here …”, you simply said scholars back your positions and then you linked to them.
While those scholars might have interesting and compelling arguments, you haven’t really presented them here.
Further, you can point out that you are the only one making reference to scholarly work, but that would be incorrect - I’ve referenced several scholars and their work.
I do not ‘hate’ Craig nor do I think that he’s simply a good rhetorician - he is clearly versed in the proper material. I find his arguments weak upon examination - for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
If you say so.
I would agree with all of these things, generally.
Persuasive is slippery - I do not find his arguments particularly convincing nor are they all supported by the evidence. I find his arguments supported by his rhetoric (gish gallop). So when he has an able opponent, he can dwarf them through tactics.
None of your points address my point about the Gish Gallop. I have already said that employing the gish gallop (a common debate strategy) leads to argument inflation. The opening person usually has the advantage. This is why Craig generally leads off with several arguments as opposed to just debating one. When he debates one argument, it’s actually a series of arguments, each conclusion/premise requiring more and more time to address.
His statements have been refuted in written form - Jeffrey Jay Lowder does so in the Empty Tomb - addressing all of his resurrection material in one place. Take note of how long Lowder’s chapter is and then you might appreciate how difficult it would be to put this forth in a formal debate.
Out of all of Craigs debates, how many times has he not opened? Once (that I can recall)? And that was determined by coin flip (I’m referring to Jessup) and even he admits that it was a very difficult debate for him.
He opens and then he attempts to put a burden of proof on the opposition (the opponent must justify atheism as opposed to simply refuting Craig’s argument).
You say this, yet you also do not find my characterization of his tactics to be why he wins debates? I don’t see how both these views can be combined coherently.
No, it’s not. Historians do not think that miracles are the ‘best explanation’. Conservative Christian historians when referring to the passion narrative do.
This is nonsense - if what you are saying about the historical method were correct, then please list the scholars who think Vespasian actually did the miracle!
I know of none.
As to Tacitus, he was not the only source I used, AND I responded to that criticism of Meier’s on this page.
I’m pointing out that you are making unsupported assumptions. You rely on conservative scholars as authorities - I point out the problem with those authorities and then you cry ad-hominem.
You didn’t provide their arguments, you simply relied on them as authorities.
The point of your statement was an attempt to undermine my position.
An atheist statement of faith? Trying to paint with a broad brush, eh?
You have not provided evidence of 1, 3, or 4, you have maybe provided evidence of 2.
Even if 3 is true, that does not entail 4. You should realize this, so you need to provide evidence of 4.
Part 3 (final):
Your evidence for what Paul’s writing shows is what, exactly? I’ve provided evidence that Paul’s writings do not comport with your position.
No, it really doesn’t - you can toss out the entire ‘physical/spiritual’ debate and still conclude that Paul had a mental hallucination on his trip to Damascus.
It’s a good thing that I’m basing the mental phenomenon on the account as opposed to my own personal feelings then. His account is similar to mental hallucinations.
Can you name those witnesses? Do we have any accounts of theirs?
Further, the miracle of the sun provides accounts of multiple witnesses hallucinations.
I’m not a trained psychologist - there are many different mental phenomenon that could account for the experience. Temporal lobe seizures, Schizophrenia, other mental things I suppose. We have evidence of those things and of people hallucinating.
We have no evidence of what you are suggesting - outside of the anecdotal - so please present some evidence of it to the same degree that we have evidence of mental phenomenon causing hallucinations.
As to the anecdotal, if we are to accept the anecdotal consistently, well then, do you believe in Vampires? UFOs? Etc?
No, you ask for other evidence in favor of those things because they are not common to our experience. Neither is the miracle that Paul presents - so it requires more than just his say-so to convince.
Or rather, it should, if you are to be consistent.
All of this comes after 65 AD (being charitable). All of this supports the early Church’s existence.
Common sense dictates that if the events happened the church may have risen soon after.
So basically if you believe what the Gospels say, you’ll believe that there was an early Jesus who died in the 30’s. So this all depends on whether or not you believe the Gospels then.
I question the Mormon Scholars who arrive at the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a prophet as well. I question a number of things.
While I would say that the best explanation is probably that Jesus existed somewhere around the 30’s, my point in this exercise is to show that it’s not a definitive conclusion.
I think this is true.
I do not think we should accept the miracles of Vespasian because we have no evidence outside of the anecdotal for miracles in general.
We have evidence of people:
- Being mistaken in what they perceive (not necessarily a ‘trick’ as in 3).
- Making up things.
- Being able to be fooled by tricks.
We have no solid and convincing evidence of miracles taking place, the best we have are anecdotes and anecdotal evidence is among the worst type of evidence we can have.
BTW - our exchanges Calculon are a good example of debate inflation. Imagine doing this in a live debate with a strict 5 minutes per side.
I think you and Calculon agree here, it’s just that he’s calling the parts of Matthew that aren’t found in Mark a source (“M”), and the parts of Luke that aren’t in Mark a source (“L”), and John is its own source.
You and I would say that Matthew is based on the sources of Mark and on Q, but Calculon is saying that the extra stuff added by the writer of Matthew is a “source” too. Same for Luke and John.
Perhaps - but I think he’s referring to something similar to the four document hypothesis.
The difference between the two is that “M” and “L” would have been created prior to Mark, as opposed to during the time of Matthew. So they would be of a similar date to Q, for instance.
And I gave you my reason for ignoring it. I have a significant body of evidence to tell me that I should.
- I have evidence that magic is not real.
- I have evidence that the gospels were written significantly after the real events, by people who did not witness it, and who are prejudiced towards believing anything they hear, during a time where historical accuracy was not a major concern of authors.
- There is no evidence otherwise to support the Gospels. No one of the thousands who were fed with magic food seem to have told anyone about it, nor seemed sufficiently impressed by it to become a follower of Christ. No one who was healed by him seems to have told anyone about it, nor seemed sufficiently impressed to become a follower. Only a small handful of people, decades later, seem to think any of these things occurred. Whereas, in real life, any major display of miraculous feats will radiate out to greater and greater numbers of people, from the moment it occurred. You would have reports from all over the continent of such happenings, within a couple of years. Instead, Jesus went so wholly unnoticed that later authors had to insert fake evidence into Josephus’ accounts, so that there would be any reference to him at all. The one line which is believed to be real, in Josephus, isn’t even clearly about the Jesus we mean.
- There is direct, archaeological evidence, that Jesus was entirely unaware of the history of Judaism. The idea of Yahweh as the sole creator of the world was due to a henotheistic political movement around 500 BC. Previous to that, Yahweh was simply one of the children of El, and one of the pantheon of gods of the Canaanite people. You can watch the development of the religion and how it pulls elements from the surrounding territories through the centuries. But for Jesus to believe the same things about the Old Testament god as the rest of the people of his time displays that he either had no superhuman set of knowledge, or that if there is such a god for real, he is a liar.
- Nothing within Jesus’ set of rules for life is particularly novel. The Golden Rule is something that exists in many philosophies and many religions from both before and after Jesus. The same is true of everything else he taught. Similarly, there were already plenty of people who believed in Yahweh as the creator of the world. If there was a real Yahweh, what purpose is served by dropping his son onto the planet just to tell everyone everything they already knew? For Jesus, he gets a cult with followers who bow down to him and bring him food and so on – there’s a measurable bonus to being the Son of God. But what is the benefit to the actual God to put Jesus on the Earth?
- Similarly to how we can trace the development of Judaism, Christianity appears to simply be a modification of Judaism to incorporate Grecian philosophy (specifically, Neo-Platonic philosophy), something already begun by the Sethians and Ophites. So not only was Jesus’ teachings not novel, you could predict that just such a religion would be flourishing in that place at that time, because that was the flavor of the day.
- Similarly to how Jesus’ teachings were not novel, they were not useful and are in fact wrong. For nearly two thousand years after Jesus’ death, the level of morality of the world was unchanged. It wasn’t until the 18th century that people started to use rational debate and science to figure out ways to reduce suffering in the world, to make sure that all men had a say in their own life, that women were equals to their partners and also had a say in their own life, etc. If Jesus had known anything special, he could have saved us 1800 years of sin and suffering. He actively taught against the modern way of life, by urging such things as poverty and inequality while reproaching interest based loans. Technically you could view us all as sinners according to Jesus, but personally I’m happy to say that he’s factually in the wrong.
- Christianity is no different from any other number of religions, each of which have as equal a right to be the correct religion. However, they are all mutually exclusive. With thousands of religions through the millenia, putting your faith into any particular one is ludicrous minus evidence otherwise. As yet, there is no evidence of deities, souls, an afterlife, nor anything else commonly taught by religion. This is just the same as we had no evidence of the magical healing powers of beads, of balancing the four humors, nor of getting your chi aligned – and now we know they are bunk. The popularity of something and the sincere, intelligent belief in those things, throughout the millenia simply aren’t evidence.
Meatros, nicely done. As a point of clarification, I will mention that Early Christian Writings, cited by both you and Calculon, is Peter Kirby’s site.
In all honesty, some of these threads are melting together for me - I’m forgetting what I posted where… 
I’ve posted primary source material at several points too - in this thread, I posted quotes from Philo (although the original link doesn’t work, the text is the same).
They had less, actually. They were in no position to know anything at all. We at least have the benefit of critical scholarship and historical perspective. The authors of the Gospels had no connection to the events they wrote about (and sometimes demonstrably fabricated) historically, geographically lingusitically or culturally. The Gospels were written by Gentiles outside of Palestine to a Gentile audience in a Gentile language 40-70 years after the alleged events without any access to witnesses. In point of fact, the supernatural claims in the Gospels cannot be shown to have existed as having been made by Jesus cultists before the Gospels themselves.
[/QUOTE]
I was comparing various claims.
1.) NT claims that Jesus was resurrected by God.
2.) Your claim that Jesus was resurrected by ice ants from Pluto
3.) Meatros’ claim that Jesus was resurrected by aliens.
4.) Your claim that all these things are equivalent.
We have evidence for the existance of only one of these theories from the first century. The only evidence we have for what the earliest Jesus followers believed comes from later sources, (the gospels and the book of Acts,) but they only speak of one of these theories. You may not know which of these theories may have been in use at the time, or the most likely… but… Mark, Luke, and Paul had a heck of a lot more reason to know than you do. And your claim that they didn’t know which of these theories was most likely, that they didn’t meet first hand witnesses, who had more reason to know than you, is pure speculation.
I didn’t start with the tautology. You have presented one as your argument on more than one occasion, though.
I couldn’t prove it to you for two important reasons.
1.) It would be met head on by your tautology that things like this can’t happen, so things like this can’t happen.
2.) God is not subject to his creation. He is not our bitch to order around. Jesus is consistantly recorded as not providing proof to those demanding it. He performed miracles when he felt like it, and usually as an act of compassion when impressed by people’s faith.
Dio won’t be able to respond to this, but I think he made a good point by the suggestion that once you introduce ‘magic’ into the equation, how on earth can you then decide what is more probable?
What we have evidence for is that people in the first century believed number 1. This does not translate into evidence for number 1 - rather, I should say it does not translate into good evidence, since technically speaking anecdotal evidence is still evidence. My friends from highschool relating an urban legend about a serial killer in a bunny suit is evidence, yes, but it is highly dubious evidence and not the type that is trusted.
Your assertion that these people had a heck of a lot more reason to know that we do is unfounded. It would be entirely similar to me claiming that my friends from highschool had a lot more reason to know about the serial killer than you do (presumably, if you have not heard of it). The fact is, what they ‘knew’ was almost entirely wrong. If what you say is true, then you would have to also accept the miracles of Vespasian as true (after all, the witnesses were closer to them then you are) or the miracles of Sabbatai Zevi.
What the fact is, at best, we have anecdotal accounts and vague ones at that.
Now when we are trying to determine what is most likely, out of the 3 claims (excluding 4), it seems that 3 is the most likely, since aliens and their methods are presumably natural entities and their methods of resurrection would be natural. 1 and 2 require us to accept entities that are entirely unlike anything we have experience as would their methods of resurrection.
That said, I’d think that it’s most likely that none of those three are the case and that the Gospels/Paul are simply mistaken, as are the sources for Vespasian and a host of other miracle claims.
I mean, why accept third hand accounts and anonymous accounts in the case of the Bible, but not accounts from the best historians at the time (regarding Vespasian)?
Again, you won’t be hearing from Dio, but let me take a stab at this:
- How do we know these things actually happen? What we know is that people can be mistaken in what they witness, that their memories can be distorted, and that they can hallucinate. What good and solid evidence do we have that these things can happen? Because it’s logically possible? If that’s all you have, then the other three are also logically possible.
- Jesus was not ‘recorded’ in the sense that someone was going around writing down what they were witnessing. What Jesus supposedly did was written down decades after the fact by people who did not actually witness what he did.
I can easily see premodern people ascribing miracles to someone like Penn Jilette and then embellishing these feats. Shoot, this type of thing happens during the person’s lifetime (Sabbatai Zevi, Charles Manson, and Haile Selassie) and one need only look at modern urban legends to confirm this sort of thing.
Also, I should point out that you are engaging in an ad-hoc rationalization - one that doesn’t necessarily comport with the Bible. There are several places in the Bible where God does exactly what you say he doesn’t - providing ‘physical evidence’ to Thomas for example.
This is from a prior page, can you please comment on it?
I don’t really consider it to be evidence at all. In science, claims require evidence to support them. The accounts in the gospels are the claims. We don’t have evidence.
Not only that, but there are several places where he goes out of his way to show off. A couple of quick examples:
In Exodus, he keeps hardening Pharaoh’s heart so he can bring more plagues down on Egypt. And in Judges 7, he has Gideon reduce the number of men in his army from 32,000 down to 300, to make sure that nobody thinks they could have won without God on their side.
Not to mention Jesus killing the fig tree, and using the occasion to promise that believers will get ANYTHING they pray for.
A promise that fails a million times a day.
I can understand why you would say that, but I’m not sure that I can go the full way with you there.
Anecdotal evidence, while particularly poor, is a form of evidence - or support for a claim.
For instance, if I said “People like ice cream” and someone asked for evidence of this claim, it seems reasonable that all I would have to do is find someone who liked ice cream.
Now, I recognize that this is completely different from the sort of claims you are talking about - scientific. Further, I also recognize that this sort of evidence (a person saying they like ice cream) is completely noncontroversial; there is objective evidence that people prefer ice cream as a source of sustenance. We could do empirical tests to confirm it. Finally, as I alluded to, we have direct experience with it (experience that can be empirically confirmed).
It’s not remarkable at all if someone claims to like ice cream.
This is not the same, at all, with miracle claims - or even non miracle claims that have a low probability. For instance, if I claim that I like chocolate ice cream, you wouldn’t bat an eye. However, if I claimed I’d won the lottery, you would ask for evidence - even though my winning the lottery is a completely possible event. It’s one that you’ve seen evidence of (people win the lottery all the time), however the probability of me winning the lottery is so low that my word is not good enough to substantiate the claim.
Miracle claims are even worse since the contain claims that are completely outside of our experience. We have seen no empirical evidence of them. As I pointed out before, even adherents admit they are extremely improbable - out of billions of people who have lived on the earth, the claim is that one was resurrected - so excluding everything else, the probability would be far lower than the probability of me winning the lottery.
Good points. I also had in mind a chapter in the Old Testament where one of the prophets summons God to light wet wood on fire with the intent of showing the watching people that their Gods were false and that Yahweh was real.