Since you're mostly into link dropping, here's some arguments from the other side:

https://ncse.com/cej/1/1/fatal-flaws-flood-geology

http://www.biblicalnonsense.com/chapter6.html

As you correctly attest, 'miracles' personally witnessed by a variety of sources don't hold any credence. The internet is loaded with stories of people describing being abducted by extraterrestrial beings, does that constitute evidence of alien abductions?

Yes, there are more factual statements in the bible corroborated by geographical and archaeological evidence than there are in L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction writings; this does not make the core tenets of christianity any more credible.

I disagree. The fact that there is some level of historicity to the claims of Christianity (compared to the a-historical claims of Scientology) does make Christianity more credible. We may argue about how much more, or maybe about what your statement about "more credible" is actually referencing as the comparison, but it does allow us to easily reject statements like the following:

Except the accounts aren't limited to one small region. Worldwide, there are a variety of cultures who speak of a great flood.

Exactly my point! I was wondering when you were going to jump in this thread and back me up.

I would argue that the credibility of any religion completely depends on the validity of its core tenets. These tenets are divine/supernatural in nature. The evidence for them is nonexistent.

The fact that L. Ron Hubbard sets his stories in outer space millions of years ago while the writers of the bible set their stories in the middle east thousands of years ago does not make it more likely that Christ died to pay our sins than that we are the descendants of humans infected by Xenu's brainwashed alien ghosts.

What IS more unlikely than Christ having died to pay our sins is that Christ died to pay our sins and then came back to Missouri to tell Joseph Smith that poygamy was a-ok

Why is it remarkable that different cultures have stories about a great flood? Wherever there is water there is the occasional flood. Some are bigger than ours.

You seem to contradict yourself in your third paragraph. You're claiming that 0*0 < 0. You might want to rethink your position.

You're looking for natural evidence of the supernatural. That's like asking someone to show you what ultraviolet color looks like.

But now you're discounting historical accounts of a number of cultures that discuss a great flood as them all just experiencing little floods and exaggerating them. At some point, fishing for any outlandish excuse to explain away evidence of a much larger phenomenon just becomes tedious. Either the Bible is the greatest, most coordinated hoax ever performed on people and used multiple sources from around the world and across generations to fool everyone or it has merit. Every attempt at "rational" explanation, when taken as a whole, is preposterous.

FMP

I never said the bolded.

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do you apply the same standard of evidence to all religions?

Not sure where you're going with this but if it's where I think you're going, you're putting too much on my archeological posts. I'm not saying the reason I believe in the Bible is archeological evidence. I'm saying that having archeological evidence adds more credence than a religion that has none such as Scientology.

But maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're asking in which case, can you clarify your question a bit?

I'm sure Scientology has plenty of evidence. You can't go around making religions without evidence. Acceptable forms of evidence and their quality is the gist of the discussion.

Historicity of related events and places is very poor evidence of religion. I can point to plenty of very high quality evidence that ancient Rome existed, but that doesn't make the myth of Romulus and Remus believable. Sure, you might argue that its better than a story of a city with no evidence - but the difference is extremely marginal.

This is an old thread about the flood/dna :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...rsity-1406838/

Flood stories:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

We can detect UV light, measure, its intensity, determine its effect on skin/eyes/etc. On the basis of evidence we conclude that light beyond what the human eye can detect exists. Evidence also indicates that other species CAN detect UV light. To humans, it does not have a color. That does not mean it does not exist.

Your attempt to defend the occurrence of the biblical flood (a miracle, a supernatural event) was based on archaeological/geological evidence, was it not? I'm not asking for natural evidence specifically but ANY evidence.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you're just going to play the faith card then why even have this discussion?

I never said the probability is zero. I said the evidence is nonexistent.
I'll quote Sam Harris here:

Zoroastrism has a similar creation myth as judaism and christianity.
The epic of Gilgamesh has elements similar to the garden of Eden story.
The notion of the trinity also features in different pagan religions predating christianity.

Did you play that game as a kid where you sit in a circle and tell something in the next kid's ear, and on? Imagine this game being played for centuries by ignorant desert-dwelling tribes....

That doesn't work. I claimed that a historical basis increases the probability of the central tenets being true. You rejected this and asserted that since the evidence for such claims is nonexistent, that they must have the same probability of being true.

But then you went further and claimed that some such tenets are less probable than other tenets.

What's going on here is that you're making a false assertion in the first case. I certainly agree with the concepts of conditional probability. (At some point, you may discover the irony of trying to lecture me on that.) But simply brushing over things and saying "the evidence is nonexistent" and implicitly concluding that both are equally probable (or improbable) is simply an error of reasoning and logic.

My basis for rejecting the assertion that a historical basis increases the probability of the central tenets is that these tenets are supernatural.
I agree that the probability that Jesus died on the cross is magnitudes higher than scientology's fairy tales. The resurrection part, not so much.

Or try this angle:

The prior probability (of the Christian story being true) is so small that, even when you revise your probability estimate (upwards) to incorporate the supporting snippets of archaeological evidence, the revised probability, though larger, is still tiny.

So you are saying that you have no evidence for your belief?

If you're just going to write off the faith card why have the discussion?

More importantly, my point of UV light went way over your head. I wasn't making the claim it doesn't exist. I'm saying, as you said, just because we as humans can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Yet to you, if you can't see God, he must not exist. Do you see the issue there?

No, I'm saying you're not asking the right questions. And you're doing it intentionally. Which is why I normally don't bother engaging in these types of discussions.

The faith card is what people like you play when they have no evidence whatsoever. For people who don't think your precious book is magical this has zero credence. We're interested in evidence-based reasoning.

Please quote where I said that God must not exist. What I said is that there is NO evidence that God does exist. What makes the existence of your God more probable than Russell's teapot or the invisible pink unicorn?

Also why I don't engage in discussions with people like you. You insult someone's deepest held beliefs and have no genuine interest in learning anything. I provided you with various links which you choose to ignore and yet you claim you want evidence. When provided with resources to said evidence, you ignore it and hurl insults. Typical.

If you ever have genuine interest or desire to learn, take a look at the mathematical odds of everything being created by chance and supporting life. But I'm guessing math isn't adequate evidence for you, either. Especially when the truth is you don't care to look at the evidence.

Once the insults start flying, I bow out. I hope someday you have genuine interest in learning about the Bible.

oh the irony
I did not ignore your evidence, I argued that it is not positive evidence for the existence of a divine being.
As for the 'mathematical odds of everything being created by chance', seriously????