Thanks for the video, will check it out!

I think that my main issue is that this stuff is just straight up supernatural, to the point where I would need hard evidence, for example contemporary accounts from people neutral towards or opposing Christianity before I could believe it. I’m not going to commit to believing in something unless there is appropriate evidence for it, and Jesus’ miracles just happened too long ago to be verifiable.

I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this!

I suppose my issue there is that you have shown the reasons I believe in the other events, but not in Jesus’ miracles: we have archeological evidence for Pompeii, and a separate source for Pontias Pilate. If Pompeii had just been the offhand reference by Pliny then I don’t know if it would be so easy to believe. But I’ve grown up able to literally see the ash covered bodies. And I think you’ve summed up the issue with Pilate exactly, that he was only known of from one source, until we had another corroborating it.

Should any extra evidence present itself for the rising of the dead on Good Friday, I’ll be a lot more likely to come around, but I still don’t think that it can be appropriately corooborated.

I really appreciate you taking the time to talk this out, I’m definitely something of a bible novice so your help is very appreciated :)

Thanks for the detailed response! It’s helping Camus’ writing make a bit more sense, still not 100% convinced but this is getting me closer.

Okay, I’ve watched the videos, but unfortunately they don’t fix my main issue with the bible, that being there are no contemporary (as in written within the subsequent decades), non-Christian sources for any miracle alleged in the bible. In particular, the dead rising and walking around the towns on Good Friday as talked of in the Gospels isn’t recorded in any Roman source we have from the time, and I think that such an act would have been recorded. It seems to me that it is more likely that these stories of miracles survived with Christians for a few hundred years, before being disseminated into the popular account of Jesus’ life as Christianity grew in popularity.

They also don’t fix any of my other problems with Christianity, such as the problem of evil, principally relating to animal suffering, or divine hiddenness. Still, I feel more informed than before, so thank you!

I hope that I can come around to the absurdist perspective sooner or later, it does seem quite appealing to me, but I’m still yet to be convinced by Camus’ argument that the rebellion against the absurd has any more value than your other options. How would you say you find that sort of value?

I’ve got a lot of respect for theists, and would truly love to be convinced of this sort of perspective. Thanks for bringing it to the table!