Common Sense Is Tingling: Debunking Christianity: My Responses to a Christian Scholar

I have not seen very many posts from John Loftus where he takes something written by a Christian Scholar and respond to portions of it. To be fair, he doesn't say who the scholar is but that doesn't really matter. I'd suggest reading the post to see how Loftus thinks and argues. Your common sense should be going off like fire alarms.  He doesn't raise anything new or interesting to object or argue about because his points have already been answered elsewhere. Instead I'd like to comment on something he says at the end. Quoting the scholar, and then making his comments (in bold), Loftus posted:

If it was not the remarkable person of Jesus of Nazareth himself, culminating in his death and resurrection, what was it? They shrug and say they don't know. Something happened.

This is a gross mischaracterization. Plenty of views have been suggested, as I do. The visionary basis for the view Jesus arose from the dead beginning with either Peter or Mary Magdalene works just fine. But non-believers emphatically do not have to propose an alternative scenario at all. A historian can look at an argument purporting to show what happened at Custer’s Last Stand and say that scenario is improbable without having to suggest a better one. It could well be that there isn’t enough evidence to say one way or another after showing one such scenario is improbable.

Loftus suggests that as long as non-believers can show that Jesus' Resurrection is improbable, they don't need to propose alternate scenarios to explain the historical facts that we do have. We don't have a single account of Peter seeing Jesus when he was alone. And last I checked there is proof of groups of people experiencing the same vision or dream at the same time and most of the accounts we do have of people seeing the risen Christ it was in groups of two or more people simultaneously. The only glaring exceptions are Mary Magdalene and Apostle Paul. I point this out because I wonder if Loftus and other non-believers think that they don't need to offer better plausible explanations for the historical evidences of the Resurrection, why do they keep falling all over themselves offering alternate scenarios other than the one the Bible gives? The other problem is none of the alternate explanations are good explanations! It something is not improbable then it can't be miraculous. Something can really happen and be true yet seem improbable or even seem impossible. If you ever seen what happen to liquid helium in room temperature, you'll have an idea of what I mean. Loftus and other non-believers have failed to offer alternate scenarios to explain what happened the Sunday after Jesus' crucifixion and calling the Resurrection improbable adds nothing to the discussion because all miracles are improbable and tells us nothing about whether or not it happened. That is why such events are called "miracles".

Debunking Christianity: My Responses to a Christian Scholar