# Present evidence for the existence of your deity

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/present-evidence-for-the-existence-of-your-deity/619737>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 23, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/present-evidence-for-the-existence-of-your-deity/619737 "2012-04-23T19:45:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 257

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**Author:** ![GEEPERS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c89c15/32.png) [@GEEPERS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GEEPERS)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/present-evidence-for-the-existence-of-your-deity/619737/257 "2012-04-24T20:47:29Z")

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> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Declaring that the bible is “fiction” is an overstatement. However, noting that the bible includes a great deal of story that is not based in fact is not. On the other hand, your efforts in this posts simply display an amazing lack of knowledge. (Your choice of language is also interesting, although not in the way that you wish it to be.)
> 
> It is pretty much certainly true that the authors of Matthew and Luke created genealogies for Joseph. However, there is no reason to believe that those genealogies actually represented the parentage of successive generations of men living in that region of the world. They do not even agree with each other when they identify the father and ancestors of Joseph. (Leaving aside the Christian belief that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, one would think that “historical” accounts could at least agree on the (step-)grandfather of Jesus.)
> 
> Why would one ever expect to persuade non-believers that a work was factual or historical when it so clearly suffered numerous errors? Similar problems occur when we look at other “historical” references such as a “world wide” census that is not mentioned anywhere in any other work and which is extraordinarily implausible in sending people back to ancestral homes to register for in defiance of any logic. (Authorities order a census to establish taxation; they want to know where people live now, not where some distant ancestor might have lived.) There are also significant errors in the descriptions of the trials of Jesus that require that neither the Romans nor the Jews even followed their own procedures.
> 
> None of this has anything to do with “atheists” dismissing anything with a religious origin. It has to do with people, (including Christians), looking at facts and genuine evidence and realizing that the stories in the bible were not written as historical accounts following the protocols of historiography that have all been developed since the eighteenth century.

How about providing some cites for your claims, or should I take your suggestive errors at face value? Of course, this is the problem when I have to take on a dozen people attacking me from different angles. I have to suddenly be an expert in science, geology, and now geneologies. Otherwise, you insult my intelligence.  
Christian apologists certainly have not run away from any of your challenges.  
From a quick google search:  
From wikipedia:

Several theories have been advanced to explain the divergence of the two gospel genealogies, most notably:

That Joseph had two fathers—one natural and one legal—as a result of a levirate marriage involving uterine brothers.  
Legal inheritance.  
That Luke’s genealogy is actually through Mary rather than her husband Joseph.  
That Matthew’s genealogy is actually through Mary rather than her husband Joseph.  
That one or both of the genealogies are invented.

Frankly, I’m more amazed at the numerous Messianic prophecies in the OT that came completely true with the life and death of Jesus Christ.

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