This came up in another thread but I think it deserves a separate one.

According to Christians, Jesus came to earth either once (orthodox) or twice (LDS). In addition, all sorts of miracles, i.e., unexplainable supernatural occurrences, supposedly occurred during the periods when Jesus was here. While these events occurred after there was some embryonic form of "recorded history", they also occurred before the following technologies:

1. The printing press. This is really important because the invention of newspaper journalism increased dramatically the reliability of information that we had about what was going on in the world. Newspapers recorded things nearly contemporaneously; the best ones also attempted to hold their reporters to some standard of accurate reporting. An appearance by Jesus, or a miracle, would have been contemporaneously recorded once print journalism became commonplace.

2. Sound recording. This would have allowed us to capture the sound of Jesus on a record, tape, or computer file. It would also allow for contemporaneous documentation from the witnesses of any miracles.

3. Radio broadcasting. This would allow us to disseminate the contemporaneous reports described in 2. to anyone who wished to hear them.

4. Video recording and television. This would allow us to fully document any miracles and any appearance by Jesus as well as any resurrection.

The point is, it's really, really convenient to be able to claim that all these miracles, including a resurrection(!), happened but damn, it just happened that it all occurred before we had sufficient technology to properly document it. And that now, God either doesn't feel like or lacks the capability to make another appearance and induce more supernatural miracles, even though such an appearance would greatly increase the likelihood that the humans She supposedly loves will recognize Her as their Lord.

The claim that God made no appearances during prehistory, two during the time when history was being embryonically recorded but there was no contemporaneous reporting and documentation, and none after humans invented the means to contemporaneously document events, is unbelievable on its face, and is especially hard to square with the notion of a God that supposedly loves humanity, wants humans to go to heaven, and conditions entry to heaven on faith in Her.

It is easy to square with religions being false, however. Because in order to create fantastic claims that cannot be obviously and quickly refuted, it is necessary that the events claimed happened after history started to be recorded but before there were reliable means of documenting events. That's the sweet spot, and the major world religions hit it.

I disagree. While video footage and audio recordings would have been great, it doesn't prove Jesus doesn't exist or if he did, that he wasn't christ.

I also disagree - tke Fatima - Christians document that it is a miracle, atheists claim otherwise. Mass technology doesn't seem to help at all.

More currently, Miracles happen all over the world, and this technology is available yet people don't publicize the miracles. Unbelievers will be unbelievers and not believe that a miracle is possible.

FYP.

Kind of a moot point anyway, since many believers will remain believers even when natural explanations for so-called "miracles" are uncovered, as has happened with countless examples of false appearances, stigmatas, and other phenomena that ended up being either hoaxes (which, given the predilection people have to empty their wallets to visit such sites, should make any such claims suspect) or the result of natural phenomena like light reflection or mineral runoff.

Does no one find it funny that the Virgin Mary almost never appears outside of countries where the vast majority of the population is Catholic? Shouldn't she be where she's needed, trying to convince all us non-Catholics (or former, in my case) of her legitimacy?

That argument only works to a certain degree. If someone announced that he was going to part the Red Sea, brought amateur and professional camera operators and broadcasters out to the Red Sea to demonstrate it, and then actually parted the Red Sea before millions of witnesses and broadcast to billions of television viewers, and independent scientists and observers were there to verify it, that would be seen as much, much more reliable than the claim in an ancient document that it happened.

Sure, there will always be skeptics and conspiracy theorists. There are still people who think the moon landings were a hoax. But there aren't that many of them.

Note I didn't say it "proves" it. Read the title of my post again.

The standard isn't that Christianity should be believed unless there is absolute proof against it. The standard is whether this fact renders the belief less reliable.

I definitely know what you mean, OP. Obviously it doesn't prove christianity false, its just doesn't make much sense for god to not wait a little longer to come here to reveal himself. His goal was to reach us and connect with us. To show us he is real. Yet he chooses a period in history where the impact will be much less than if he waited a few more thousand years. Makes zero sense to me personally.

It proves that such a god was either incompetent or did not have foresight, which by Christian definitions, IE the ones where they say that he definitely knows everything, essentially does prove Christianity false.

Something something free will, something something faith.

Yeah, this is actually how i feel about it myself. For me its enough on its own for me to dismiss the religion. There just happens to be a long list of of other reasons as well.

This


Your theory would also disprove any possible existence of life on other planets or other solar systems. Because if they existed, surely we would have a video tape of them somewhere. No bigfoot or aliens either and you know how many atheist believe in those things.

The argument is actually probably better for this example. Say someone had written a book/account/art/whatever thousands of years ago claiming as cast iron fact that aliens had made contact with them (which many South American cultures have).

Out of the two possibilities thrown up by this, which would you agree was more likely?

a) Aliens made contact with a few peoples thousands of years ago but have subseqently decided to hide away/make no more contact with the rest of humanity;

or:

b) It was just one myth amongst thousands used by humans to deal with birth, sex, death, and finding our place and direction in this strange old world.

I remember reading a lot of debate (perhaps here) about why God doesn't simply reveal himself to the world, and the reasons were pretty well established.

Assuming a "miracle" indisputably occurred, was made known worldwide via modern technology, and was for the most part considered to be an actual miracle... that would be tantamount to God revealing himself to the world.

Or if God couldn't wait long enough for technology to record the miracles, he could have written God or Jesus in the language of his choice on the moon in large letters to that we could all see it. Or arranged the apparent position of a few hundred stars to spell the same thing.

But instead, we got a few card tricks and an early version of Chris Angel Mindfreak.

"Yea, this is really good wine."

I think lawdude's argument here is a more specific form of the argument from unbelief. Essentially, the idea is that the God presented to us in the major Western religions would not leave us with reason to doubt his existence. Since we do have reason to doubt his existence, he must not exist.

I would respond to this, but the OP does not attempt an actual logical argument that I can find, and it's difficult to criticize a list of mere personal opinions and impressions. Cute move, OP.

Not really a great argument if that's the case. Makes assumptions about the nature of God (that many would feel humans aren't equipped to comprehend), and some would claim there's "no reason to doubt his existence" even without modern miracles or the return of Jesus.

"Proper documentation" is a highly subjective and a culturally (and technologically) shifting standard.

I stand by my previous claim that you have a very poor sense of how our contemporary understanding of ancient history works, and that it would really behoove you to do some studying before you attempt to continue along this path.

but we have footage of bigfoot and aliens.

Isn't this a response though?

YouTube link?

More like a review. Sending the plate back to the chef.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o0-ay4bVAs

Better because you want it to be better but from a strictly scientific stance...it is exactly the same thing. His point is that since we have become so much more techno-savvy, if Jesus did exist we should have captured something proving this by now. The lack of said capture does no more to disprove his existence than it does to prove it. You can substitute alien, Bigfoot, ghosts or a number of other things for Jesus in the above statement and the probability is the same.

And I stand by my claim that the fact that we can document events better now is unarguable and because you are not a complete idiot, you are simply lying when you claim otherwise. Which indicates you know your religious beliefs are questionable and have to dissemble to avoid confronting what you actually know.

You don't actually understand the argument. The argument isn't that it proves the falsity of the Jesus story, BUT THAT ANYONE WHO WAS GOING TO FABRICATE A STORY WOULD PLACE THE STORY IN EXACTLY THAT ERA, WHEREAS IF RELIGIOUS CLAIMS WERE TRUE SUPERNATURAL EVENTS WOULD OCCUR WITH EQUAL FREQUENCY NOW THAT WE HAVE BETTER DOCUMENTATION.

In any event, you will note that Aaron W. knows this, which is why he has to take the position that in fact we don't actually have any better capability of documenting current events. He wouldn't take such an obviously silly position if he did not know this was a real problem.