If I tell you I buried my dead cat, and several days later it dug itself out of the grave you would be skeptical...no? There is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe the cat wasn't really dead, maybe I was lying. The idea that the cat actually came back from the dead and crawled out of the grave is, well...ridiculous. You would expect me to produce some pretty convincing evidence before you believed my story, right?
Now imagine I told you the cat was not only still alive, but invisible, can read your mind, and would torture you literally forever if you choose not to believe my incredible story? Would that make it any more palatable to you?
Well, the Bible makes some pretty ridiculous claims, and I feel I'm being quite "civil" in asking for sufficient evidence to support these extraordinary claims. Especially since people want to legislate the "inerrant word" of your particular resurrected cat into laws that affect my particular daily life.
If I told you I owned a field, and one day a 3 bedroom house popped up, and each subsequent day the house gained a room and was increasing in size, you'd be skeptical too. There could be a perfectly acceptable explanation, like maybe rouge carpenters are building the house when no one is around, right? The idea of a house popping out of thin air, and growing in ever increasing size, is ridiculous is it not?
Now imagine that this house isn't just growing but the speed it grows is increasing too. I then tell you that I haven't actually observed this, because the house is far to large for me to be at any particular end of it to gauge the speed of growth. However, I come up with some math problems that explain how it's happening, and you have to accept it because.... well, math.
Why is one story more believable than the other?
Kut (expands the discussion)