If a Miracle Came, Would It Convince You?

I don’t think there is a line actually…If something occurs in reality, then it’s inherently natural. Otherwise it could not have occurred

I agree with Able-X. I was just thinking that to myself, which is not really a coincidence, since I come back around to this topic often. But yeah, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, or from the supernatural. If I’d lived 2000 years ago, I might have said that if I saw a cart move itself, it would prove to myself that God existed. But that’s because I didn’t know about internal combustion.

To convince me that God existed, you’d not only have to show me something I couldn’t explain, you’d have to prove to me that the force behind it was a sentient being. Even then, I’d only know that a powerful being exists who can do things I can’t explain. To prove to me that a particular God exists- say, the Roman Catholic God– you’d have to show me beyond a doubt that he was around at the beginning of time, that he created the heavens and the earth, and that he is capable of rewarding my faith in him with eternal happiness that never gets old.

So, as much as I feel like a humbug, it would take quite a bit. And, if something like this rearrangement of stars happened, without some personal contact with God, I’d be wary that it is an illusion– after all, how many people have said the same prayer as I and not been answered? God would have to show me why he preferred to answer my prayer to millions of others.

To some, this is the equivalent of, “nothing could ever convince you, you’ve made up your mind.” But these are the same people who are convinced by anything, who will point out a window and say, there, that’s proof. (I was deeply saddened recently to find that my own Father was one who used this argument.) The point seems moot, because a God who can do anything would not need to act through my powers of observation and reasoning. He could simply place in our mind the certain knowledge that he is there. This wouldn’t even impinge on free will; you can’t tell me criminals don’t know that the Police don’t exist. Knowing that something is out there doesn’t mean you must follow it. If such a thing as free will exists, how is it diminished if you know that the thing you’re basing your life on is actually there? It’s still a long way off, and there are still plenty of temptations in between.

Sorry for the essay. I don’t mean to be so obnoxious, but I have a thing about erasing something I write. I need to– okay, never mind. Bye!

That might be enough to convince me there’s a god-like entity, which for all practical purposes is a god. It would convince me there’s some being, somewhere out there, that could hear what I just said and could then rearrange the stars themselves in response.

It would not convince me that anything “supernatural” is going on. For all I know, the entity is just a super-advanced extraterrestrial with nothing better to do than supervise my life. Again, for all practical purposes, that’s a god. But it’s not necessarily “supernatural,” and I’m not even sure that’s a meaningful concept in the first place. If you can provide evidence in the natural world for the existence of a supernatural world, can there really be a separation between them? Likewise, I can’t possibly tell you what supernatural evidence would change my mind, because if I could describe it, it wouldn’t be supernatural, now, would it? Even if this being does something that defies all known laws of nature, I will just assume there must be other laws yet unknown, and as a scientist I’d probably try to use this opportunity to learn more about them.

The first thing I’d try to do is use it as a cosmic Ouija board to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life, e.g. ask it whether I will be rewarded for worshipping it, and if so, how I should go about doing that. I’d certainly love to get other hidden knowledge from it, too, but if it doesn’t feel like volunteering revelations on its own, I’d feel rude asking it questions out of the blue.

One thing I would never do, without these additional answers, is immediately relapse into whatever religion my parents happened to celebrate and jump to the conclusion that this rearranger of stars is the same one who sent his only begotten son to redeem my sins before I was born (but too bad for the ancients who were already dead). Because that would be an utter leap of faith, and this hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with faith.

I suppose if there was as much evidence for god (some deity) as there was for evolution and this explanation predicted as well as a solid science did, I’d be convinced.

But it seems that the idea of deities have been around for a good long while and we only made progress (in terms of human mortality, longevity) when we became LESS superstitious.

As Able-X and others have said, I categorically deny the very concept of supernatural. That is, if something exists, it is — by definition and by its very existence — natural.

If the stars rearranged themselves, I would look for a natural explaination.

I’m still trying to look for a better way to explain this, but the very idea of “supernatural” seems to be a fallacy to me.

At this point in my life, I honestly can’t think of anything that would make me believe in God, expecially the God of a particular religion. I don’t think I’m closed minded, but after 47 years of searching and exploring these issues, I think it’s fair to have come to a pretty solid conclusion.

If things were different, I might have continued to believe. That is, if every person who prayed to the Chrsitian God was healed of cancer, and no one else ever had cancer go into remission, that would probably be significant. But nothing like that happens. It’s all subjective touchy-feely “evidence” and ridiculous “miracles,*” and all religions make similar claims of authenticity for themselves. Christians “know” their God is real because they feel it in their hearts. Well, I once knew that Santa was real for the same reason. And Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and people of many other faiths have the same internal knowledge. Something is amiss.

*I think a God who would waste his time painting his son’s face on toast or making statues cry or helping one football team beat another or stopping the rain for a church picnic or healing headaches — you get the picture — when there are wars and life-threatening diseases to deal with could not be considered anything but a twisted f*ck. At best, this would display a seriously sense of priority.

Moving stars is certainly impressive. Unfortunately, it only serves as evidence for something that can move stars.

Well, it serves as evidence for something that can move stars and claims to be God. Given that it’s moving stars, I’d take the claim seriously, though I wouldn’t believe it at face value.

That said, I’m with you, writerdd, and Able-X on this one. The phrase “supernatural” is essentially meaningless, and even if God existed, I’d believe that he operates by entirely natural laws that we don’t happen to be aware of yet.

(In Dan Simmons’ novel Ilium, the Greek gods exist and are powered by nanotech and other super-advanced technology. Not that I think God would be powered by nanotech or anything, it was just an interesting illustration.)

The last sentence of my comment was supposed to say “At best, this would display a seriously FLAWED sense of priority.”

The question has been asked rather quite a lot, and I think this is because of how the waves of apologetics wash through the denominations across the country (and around the world).

Christians have been having a hard time of it, Atheists have been studying and refuting apologetics rather vigorously of late, and different types of apologetics have been brought in to stuff the holes. I say “different” but not “new”. Few of the apologetics that I’ve read have been new – they are often just a twist on an old theme.

Apologetics isn’t effective for making new converts, it is fairly effective for keeping current church members from thinking too much.

And as for a miracle that would make me believe? That’s easy. The being in question (supernatural or otherwise) would merely need to change my brain, my thought processes, so that I would believe. I would automatically accept that as proof, wouldn’t I?

Pah! easy answer: Proof….except that by proving that a supernatural event is supernatural then it must have a rational and natural explanation and therefore becomes natural. By becoming natural it is no longer supernatural and so “proof” only serves to deny the existence of the supernatural.

Dammit!

Vincent,

That answer sounds zinggy, but it’s really a failure. Can you think of any other proposition that could be answered that way? “What would make you accept the germ theory of disease? I don’t know but if there are germs, they’ll know.” It’s ridiculous and just seems to confirm all of the suspicions of Christians that atheists have no standards for belief and are willfully rejecting the evidence of God.

Are germs generally described as omniscient, omnipotent and interacting with human beings via revelation?

If not, your analogy fails.

If those qualities actually mean something, then the analogy holds.

Wow, persuasive.

As fun as it would be to try to find an even more dismissive rebuttal saying “God knows” may be accurate, but it’s totally unhelpful and can be actively harmful. It doesn’t say anything about evidence, doesn’t inform the clueless theist about how to build confidence in a theory, doesn’t say anything about the abomination which is modern apologetics and worse, justifiably convinces the theist that atheists are waiting for an individual visit from God.

If that omniscient blather means anything, then it leads to predictions, which means that individual revelations are not necessary. And just as no revelation is suitable for establishing the existence of a god, none is suitable for establishing the existence of germs.

Are you just trying to blast out bon mots or do you have any intention of explaining your point? This smug dismissal thing is only fun for so long.

Can you think of any other proposition that could be answered that way? “What would make you accept the germ theory of disease?

Accepting germ theory and accepting god are totally different. Germ theory can be explained by the scientific method. God on the other hand is beyond scientific explanation. Don’t you remember how whenever a study on prayer shows that prayer doesn’t work all the apologists come out of the woodwork yelling “You can’t measure God” or “God wanted the study to fail in order to test our faith”.

According to most religious people I know, it doesn’t matter if science could prove that god exists because religion is about faith. Would we ever say the same thing about germ theory?

I agree with Reginald, if god really has all the attributes we ascribe to it, then god should know exactly what it would take to make me believe. And if it was so important to god that I believe then god would have done it by now.

Adrien,

Your latest post said so much more than your previous two, which failed to convince.

I’m not sure I agree that we even CAN get into as deep a discussion with most theists as your previous post describes. I also feel that it is possible when discussing this stuff with theists to hold the position that is entirely human and reasonable, and that point is “I have not had the personal emotional experience with religion that you have had, therefore it is not something that I’m going to pursue. If your religion teaches that anyone who prays can see the light and know God is real, well, I have news for you. I’ve followed those instructions to the letter, and they fail. So you need to reasses your simplistic idea that all people who don’t believe do not believe out of a selfish desire not to open their mind or heart to Jesus.”

I think it’s perfectly acceptable to have a conversation on those terms… in fact I’ve had exactly this type of conversation many times, and have had good results in bringing Christians to question this unquestioned tenet of their faith, that all who come with an open mind do convert to Christianity as soon as the light dawns on them.

Bruce,

Accepting germ theory and accepting god are totally different. Germ theory can be explained by the scientific method. God on the other hand is beyond scientific explanation. Don’t you remember how whenever a study on prayer shows that prayer doesn’t work all the apologists come out of the woodwork yelling “You can’t measure God” or “God wanted the study to fail in order to test our faith”.

I don’t see that you’ve begun to show that the germ theory of disease and the existence of God are different, all you’ve shown is that theists are willing and eager to use scientific evidence to support their claims but will engage in dishonest evasion as soon as the observations disconfirm their belief. This says nothing about whether God is a scientific question, but says a lot about apologetics.

Just want to reiterate one more time, you can’t provide scientific evidence for god because god can’t be measured by science.

Why can’t you? (Apart from the obvious answer that God doesn’t exist )

If that prayer study was positive, would this be evidence? If the earth was 6,000 years old, would that be evidence? If the stars really did rearrange themselves, would that be evidence? If Christians didn’t get sick, would that be evidence?

Tell me, if any of these things happened, do you think that anyone especially any Christian, would be taking the line that God cannot be studied scientifically?

Just because there isn’t evidence, doesn’t mean there can’t be.

Why can’t you [measure god]?

Remember, we are playing by their rules here. They are the ones who claim that god is beyond our meager scientific method. So by their definition, you can’t measure god. If they want to change that rule then I’m more than willing to oblige, but for some reason I don’t think they are willing to concede at this point in time.

“then we need to be willing to put our money where our mouths are, and state, the way good scientists do, what experimental outcome would prove our hypothesis wrong.”

Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but as an atheist has no hypothesis to falsify. Sort of like the a-astrologer has no hypothesis to falsify.

It is up to the one making the claim to provide evidence. It is up to me, the atheist, to take any evidence presented seriously enough to examine it closely. And to take the idea of God seriously enough to reject it if there is no evidence.

Which, by the way, is my opinon – atheists take the idea of God way more seriously than theists do.

The germs, by the way, could be said to have known exactly what was needed for us to believe in them. They were deducible from the natural operation of the universe. They were directly observable. Where they were not directly observable their existence was testable. So, yeah, they figured it out.

God, apparently, has trouble with this thing the germs are able to do without thinking.

I would need God to come down, himself, and bring his son along and answer all of my 1000+ questions, face-to-face. I’d ask him why he threw Adam and Eve out of the garden for “sinning” when they had no concept of why it was wrong to sin. I would ask God how the walls of Jericho fell down by just men yelling and playing their trumpets. I’d ask exactly how Jesus walked on water. I’d ask why God damns people to hell even though he can anything, ie forgiving them of their sin. I’d ask why God would damn other religions even though it was their best attempt to get to know him.

And that’s only if it was the Christian God. If Zeus came down, I’d be mighty excited and would throw away my questions, only wanting to play with his mighty Thunderous powers!

A regenerating limb wouldn’t be enough for me. There are other living creatures that regenerate limbs (I’m counting a tail as a limb) so I know that it is possible. OK, not for a human and not at this time but perhaps some scientist researching regeneration will stumble onto a method of granting this ability to a human….

…I should stop reading comic books. )

then we need to be willing to put our money where our mouths are, and state, the way good scientists do, what experimental outcome would prove our hypothesis wrong.

Justin McKean already responded to this just fine, but seriously. What you’re saying is akin to having to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis just to rationally deny the existence of Santa Claus. It doesn’t work that way. If scientists had to do falsifiable experiments to deny every kooky theory some ill-educated crackpot comes up with every day, they wouldn’t get any real science done. And the existence of God is as kooky a theory as any. It doesn’t need to be taken seriously until some tangible evidence shows up, which has yet to happen.

They’ve tried to set the rules to suit themselves – evidence is only allowable if it confirms their beliefs, never if it disconfirms. Why should anyone respect that? Give me an example of a single other field where this happens and we don’t call it for what it is: special pleading and wishful thinking.

I couldn’t agree more. And that’s the whole point! The argument for god has absolutely no credible evidence to suggest that it should even be taken seriously. Thus, atheists have absolutely no burden to prove that a god doesn’t exist or the need to offer any specific scenarios in which they would be convinced to believe in a god. To ask us to provide such things is playing by their rules, which as you’ve stated, is wishful thinking.

I think a lot of the confusion stems from the notion that atheists are making a positive assertion that “god does not exist” and thus must defend their assertion. This is not the case. As I mentioned earlier, the burden of proof falls on the believer. If this were not the case, we would spend the rest of our existence having to disprove every crazy assertion that any wackjob could think up and if we couldn’t disprove it, then we would have to say “well, you could be right so I guess the best we can say is that we are agnostic about it.” Now that is just plain nonsense.

If there is no reasonable, credible evidence to support an assertion then it is perfectly reasonable to state that until new evidence crops up to the contrary, you don’t “believe” it. You don’t have to say “well, you can’t prove it but I can’t disprove it so therefore you may be right”, otherwise we are tacitly agreeing that everybody may be right about every weird belief they hold in their heads.

In other words, the default position is atheism because nothing we know about our world suggests otherwise. Therefore, we have nothing to defend and do not need to offer up any . When we fall into the trap of trying to defend our views we are merely agreeing to play their game of “wishful thinking”, a game in which we cannot win because the rules are set up against us.

Follow-up question. If Hemant announced on this site tomorrow that he’d witnessed a miracle and was now a Christian… how much weight would you give it?

p=0.01 reliably.

I agree with MikeClawson on this one, sort of.

The comic does probably portray the way that Christians perceive many atheists: even if God moved the stars in the sky, we wouldn’t believe. I think that this reaction is based on some big misunderstandings and probably an unhealthy ignorance of the scientific method, but there’s no reason to exacerbate it by saying thing which can easily be misconstrued.

Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but as an atheist has no hypothesis to falsify. Sort of like the a-astrologer has no hypothesis to falsify.

What you’re saying is akin to having to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis just to rationally deny the existence of Santa Claus.

I think you guys are confused about the meaning of “hypothesis”. A hypothesis is just a statement that can be either true or false. It doesn’t have to have the burden of proof, but to be useful, it does have to be falsifiable.

The atheist hypothesis is “there is no god”. The a-astrologer’s hypothesis is “astrology doesn’t work”. The a-Santa-Claus hypothesis is “there is no Santa Claus”. None of them have the burden of proof, but all of them are hypotheses, and all of them are falsifiable if the people who do have the burden of proof (theists, astrologers, Clausists) present enough evidence.

Not having the burden of proof means that you’re not obliged to support your own case in the absence of evidence, not that you can ignore evidence if it does turn up.

Shishberg: “The atheist hypothesis is ‘there is no god’.”

You do need to be more careful here, since the “atheist hypothesis” is more like “There is insufficient warrant for belief in God.” That said, you’ve pretty much got Greta Christina’s point, which several posters misunderstood. It’s not so much that we have to do “falsifiable experiments to deny every kooky theory some ill-educated crackpot comes up with every day,” that is, to go out and falsify our opponents’ beliefs, but rather that we understand what could conceivably falsify our own beliefs.

To put it another way, we ought to know what would be the rough equivalent of “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian” for our own beliefs or philosophical stances.

Mike Clawson wrote:

Quite honestly, if anyone here cares how this comes across to theists like me (though I know that these days that’s a big “if”), it certainly doesn’t help bolster the frequent claim that atheists are more “open minded” than Christians.

Hey, mike, the water’s fine, jump in! What would convince you that God doesn’t exist?

Wrong question, sorry.

Who had “leaving a comment here in person”?

This sort of begs the question: If there is a God then why does he want some people to believe that he does no exist? If a theist believes that miracles did occur in biblical times but no longer occur then what has changed? If they believe that miracles (actual events that occur contrary to the known laws of the universe) still occur then shouldn’t we be able to witness them more often. I mean people capture stupid videos of all sorts of strange events, are there really no “miracle” videos?

The question I find pointless, but the subtext bothers me a lot.

Does anyone else hear the question less as a genuine inquiry, and more as a “What the hell is it going to take to CONVINCE these people of what they should already believe? Why don’t they just stop being STUBBORN and admit they are wrong?”

Or is it just me that hears the question that way?

I also don’t like to see the converse posed to believers, as to what would convince them not to believe. In either direction, it just seems like a pointless attack on their sincerity, looking for an opening to say “See, I told you they were unreasonable!”.

Claire I appreciate your points and my post above was made in spite of them not because of them.

Claire,

I absolutely agree with you about choice. I don’t believe it is a choice…not in the sense that most of us think of choice. But about faith, I don’t know if I agree. Believing requires knowing but faith requires open-ness. They are not synonymous.

What would cause my belief in an interactive god would be precicely that… interactivity. It wouldn’t have to be for myself… if people who double-blind prayed for people had their subjects get better in any way that could be confirmed… but no. If as others have written… the fruits of christians were, present company greatly excepted, something better than the bog standard of what human nature produces.. then I might think there was something worthwhile to it. But atheists and christians and anyone else you want to throw in there are no better or worse people than anyone you’d meet, which tells me that nobody has any secret key to living life any better than anyone else.

You summed it up exactly, for me, right there.

Theism – an interactive god – obviously makes no sense. I’ve examined the apologetics that are brought forth to justify it (free will, Satan, etc) backwards, forwards and sideways and they do not hold water for me.

Deism – maybe. I don’t have enough information to say yay or nay to that notion, but more importantly, I don’t think I need to. An unattached, uninvolved deity doesn’t seem to demand anything specific of us, let alone worship or belief. Even if I were a deist, I would answer ultimately to myself for my life and beliefs.

If there’s a benevolent deity and an afterlife in another, as-yet-undetectable dimension, I’ll be pleasantly surprised after death. If there’s not, I’ll be dead so I can’t be disappointed. This is why it makes the most sense to me to live as an agnostic atheist.

I don’t know, but if there’s a god, He’ll know, and He can provide exactly what’s needed to convince me. So far nothing

I’m usably not one given to ranting but in this case I made a bit of an exception. The idea that God is going to somehow magically make you believe or not as suggested above sort of struck a sour cord with me.

although i don’t necessarily agree with everyone’s point of view I respect your rights to have them.

What would convince me that Christianity is false?

Well, Christianity is based on the historic truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. If a person could show me that the Resurrection never happened, then, as the apostle Paul put it:

. . . your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:17-19)

simple z,

So, exactly what is scientific proof then? Can we trust our senses at all?

Science doesn’t prove anything, only mathematics and formal deductive logic can.

I don’t follow how you can leap from “can’t prove 100%” to “can’t trust anything”, I’m sorry.

Cory,

You aren’t being very specific. For instance, what would convince you that any of these “facts” weren’t facts? What convinced you that they were?

To me, just glancing at the list it’s very apparent that none of these are facts, but conclusions, and as far as I can tell, all of them are based solely on the gospels (the entire secular “history” of Jesus boils down to a couple mentions of Christians written two generations after Jesus’s death). Is that good enough for you? I imagine that you’re willing to dismiss similar pious accounts from other religions.

Adrian

What i meant was: The cartoon above shows that no miracle could be proved to be a miracle anyway, so there is really no point in discussing the issue with atheists since no example of/argument for miracles would be accepted by them anyway.

Cory,

With respect, I’m not talking to Craig, I’m interested in your views.

You’ve said that you could be convinced that Christianity was false if it could be shown that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Do you require absolute proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead or just reason to doubt that he did? Hypothetically, what sort of observations could shake your faith?

Incidentally, Craig is not using any secular sources in that article. Does this mean that you think pious accounts of miracles are sufficient evidence? Under what circumstances would you accept non-Christian accounts of miracles?

Linda,

I completely agree that sources are great for elaborating on a point we wish to make. And if Cory wants to argue that Jesus really did rise from the dead, then academic sources are the way to go.

But right now, we’re just talking about ourselves. Why do we believe, and what would make us change our minds. If you check out both links, neither begin to touch upon either points and both just boil down to apologetic arguments defending a Christian belief. That’s fine, but don’t begin to answer the question.

Re: original thoughts, what’s so bad about having an idea “rejected” or at least dissected? If it’s brilliant, then it survives and you become famous, if it’s good then it gets modified and survives and kudos all around, if it’s not good then we get to see why it’s not good and we all learn. Win-win-win. How else can anyone learn if they aren’t willing to voice their ideas?

As for crazy, there really are genuinely crazy ideas, some that are based off faulty information/reasoning, some that are inspired but turn out wrong, and a very small number that survive. Everyone benefits if we can quickly identify the first two, especially the people that put them forward. Again, what have you really lost if you voice an idea which gets shot down? Stings for a second, but if you learn something, that lasts a lifetime.

Adrian,

Secular histories include the dozen or so that mention Jesus. They don’t condone the New Testament view that Jesus rose from the dead, but sources like Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Phlegon, and Mara Bar-Serapion (according to McDowell’s Evidence for Christianity pp. 171-174) confirm the basic outline of Jesus’ life and ministry.

Yes, the New Testament is the primary source for information about Jesus. I believe that the NT is reliable as a historical source–the four Gospels, for the differences in the stories that they tell, clearly are independent attestations and the differences lie in the peripheral details (not the central narrative). This means that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren’t huddled together in some corner trying to cook up a good story to sell. They were relaying the facts as they understood the facts to stand.

Is that a problem with Biblical inerrancy as some claim? Perhaps. But that’s really a different debate.

As to requiring absolute proof, I will admit that there is no absolute proof for the Resurrection (or any other event from 2000 years ago). So, no, a well-documented hole in the chain of reasoning that leads one to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead would be sufficient.

Bear in mind that I probably won’t abandon belief right away; I’ll attempt to construct an apologetic against your case. But if I can’t sufficiently find a way to do so, then you may have succeeded in winning me over to the “dark side,” so to speak. (I mean that as light hearted humor–please don’t flame me!) I really want to follow the evidence where it leads. Right now, as the I see it, the evidence points to a historic Resurrection.

Secular histories include the dozen or so that mention Jesus. They don’t condone the New Testament view that Jesus rose from the dead

Cory,

Doesn’t this end your argument all together? This proves Jesus lived. Isn’t the ressurection part pretty important?

As to requiring absolute proof, I will admit that there is no absolute proof for the Resurrection (or any other event from 2000 years ago). So, no, a well-documented hole in the chain of reasoning that leads one to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead would be sufficient.

Well,…okay then!

Adrian,

You should probably look into those claims in much more detail, as you would probably be shocked and insulted that McDowell would make such bold claims based on such flimsy pieces of evidence. I too read McDowell and when I did the research on my own, I felt like he had treated me like a fool and an idiot.

Could you recommend some places I might look into these sources? Then I can better answer what you have to say.

Spurs Fan — No, admitting that the secular histories don’t condone the Resurrection does not end my argument. I wouldn’t expect secular histories to do that.

If I may offer a shortcut… the Counter Evidence Principle:

Counter Evidence Principle (CEP): S would be reasonable in concluding that p is true on the basis of the evidence E only if it is reasonable for S to believe that the evidence E would indicate ~ p if ~p had been the case.

In other words, an individual would be reasonable to conclude that the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are accurate accounts of witness testimony based on the evidence in the Bible’s account ONLY IF it is reasonable to believe that the writers of the Gospels could and would have reported honest, accurate testimony of witnesses who disputed the resurrection story.

If you do not think that the writers of the Bible would have reported the witness testimony of people who saw a body in that cave, then it’s not reasonable for you to accept as evidence the testimonies they did include.

“If God presented himself before me today, and I only experienced him with my five senses, I would have no way of knowing that he was supernatural.”

That is assuming that anything supernatural actually exists. We have no need for anything supernatural to explain the universe around us. So inventing something that we:

a. have no need to invent in order to explain anything in our lives
b. can’t even make sure we’ve invented correctly or invented at all

makes no sense doing at all.