Hearsay and personal testimony (especially in an age where the population was illiterate and/or ignorant) is one of the lowest forms of evidence usable. It's not even usable in scientific standards.

The point is that it can't be scientifically demonstrated how Christ was able to resurrect and that's why it's considered BS. No one ever considers the dozens of other possibilities for someone surviving torture because then it would make their religion null.

I would take that to mean that unless you personally witness Santa coming through the door on Christmas eve, you will not believe it to be true.

But the resurrection is a historical event.  I would assume that you've also never personally witnessed the Peloponnesian War.  Do you deny that it happened?

So you believe in Santa Claus as well as Jesus? Why or why not?

There are no extrodonary claims of events that violate the observed rules for biology, physics and chemistry surrounding the Peloponnesian war. The historians also have no known motivation to lie and misrepresent the events. Also I'm not 100% sure the historical accounts are accurate. Even non-miracle accounts can be misrepresented.
 

As opposed to unnatural science, and super-natural science?

As opposed to computer science or social science.

"Science" is an umbrella term nowadays.

I'll answer the question when you tell me your rational method for believing in the resurrection vs. Santa delivering presents. You raised the question, so please tell us what the standards and methods should be for believing something is true or not true.

http://www.compassrose.com/grammar/a-vs-an.html

Well proof of an unbelievable event of a person who was followed by wise men and written about would most likely have been written about all over the region accept he wasn't. Even locally no record was kept of his death or life, or his miracle resurrection. Smell fishy to me. So what it would take is real evidence outside of a book that also contains the Adam & Eve story as the explanation for how everything was created. I mean really, are we supposed to take the bible seriously? Lol. I really feel bad for those who do.  

You want a quick list of what the initial hurdles a miracle claim will have to overcome for me to investigate it?

1. I do not start with belief and work to evidence. It has to be the other way around.
2. I do not accept authority or antiquity as reasons for believing.
3. If an event is explicable in natural terms, I am not going to ascribe supernatural causes to it.
4. To prevent bias(emotional, personal or otherwise), an anecdote must be corraborated with empirical evidence sufficient to make a determination about the nature of the event.
5. More generally, any event or item claimed as a miracle has to be open to skeptical investigation, or it is useless as evidence.

1. Present the evidence. Show me independent reports of hostile eyewitnesses confirming it, for example.

2. The Bible would be an appeal to authority. Indeed, a circular appeal. The Peloponnesian war is supported by physical evidence and multiple literary sources.

3. You'll have to demonstrate the resurrection happened like you say it did, and that there is not a possible physical cause.

4. Self explanatory.

5. Self explanatory.

The resurrection story fails all of the above. There is a single source of primary evidence. The writings of Josephus, for example, are not first hand and are only reporting the claims this cult was making anyway.

I could go on, but I hope you see my point. If you wish for me to believe that the resurrection took place, provide the proof.

Ah, the "you don't believe in my magic sky daddy so I have to question your competence to talk at all" argument.

An oldie but goodie for the believers

Well, we don't have any legitimate accounts so the debate is over.

Well, as he doesn't have legitimate sources written by eyewitnesses...

I was actually going to make a legitimate point regarding the fact that most people who lend such creedence to scientific fact have never actually been in a lab themselves.  They simply take at face value what is said by their science teachers.  Most of what they've learned come from science books, themselves second hand accounts of discoveries made by other scientists.  I've personally no problem with learning in this manner.  It's just the inconsistency that I find amusing.  Textual accounts of miracles are automatically disqualified yet claims of things like Big Bang, Lucy, transitional forms, bubble universes, Schrodinger's cat, etc. are automatically accepted.

I'm aware that this forum probably does contain real scientists.  But I'm also aware that it contains a lot of 17 year old kids who just appeal to the authority of their teachers.  I'm assuming EXC falls into the latter category.

Science is not merely eye witness account of an event or phenomenon, it is the systematic study of this universe subject to principles of reasoning that is so far the only way in which knowledge is known to be gained.  It is evidence of a particularly ignorant (or wilfully stupid) individual to equate even good eye witness accounts with the methodology of science and 'claims' like the big bang.  If you can add two and two and understand the principle reasoning behind the conclusion, you are potentially capable of performing equations such as those which lead us to the big bang.  There is absolutely no one who could ever say to have knowledge or to understand a miracle and there is no method by which any understanding or knowledge of it could be gained if one were to happen if it were indeed a miracle.

Take your fail elsewhere.

Have you ever actually done any of these things?

...That a dead man came back to life?

Well, if someone were to drop dead - that is, no vital signs and no brain brain activity - and remain in that state for 3 days, then spring back to life, that's pretty much all I'd need.

Evidence isn't some magical thing that is manufactured behind closed doors in laboratories. It's just any old indicator that something has happened. 

As you might imagine, it's much easier to come across evidence for contemporary events than it is for events that happened in antiquity. Actually, if you read Dr. Michael Shermer's dissertation, you'll get a much better understanding of how we piece together human history, why some time periods (like the medieval Dark Ages) are much harder for us to build a clear picture of and what evidence would be acceptable in order to build a case for a particular historic event (hearsay, for example, is not good evidence; but corroborated testimony from historians that one can reasonably doubt were in contact with each other is good evidence. An account from just one or two historians is borderline, and otherwise inconclusive (particularly in times of antiquity, when there weren't really well established principles for journalism). 

In general, the greater the scope of the event, the more evidence we'd expect to be able to uncover for it (Vesuvi's destruction of Pompeii was already mentioned; we know it happened because we were able to dig-up the city and victims buried beneath the volcanic rock). Jesus's resurrection should've been of huge scope; he flew into the freakin' sky after it happened, or so goes the tale. We should be able to find accounts from nearly every political office (certainly stacks upon stacks of documents from Rome, given that the Roman beaurocracy maticulously recorded any unusual events that occurred in it's jurisdiction) regarding a man that shot up into the blue yonder in the afternoon, surrounded by an unnatural light.

We don't find any such documents at all. The best that any Christian has ever been able to come up with was the order to execute a man that they absolutely insist must have been the Jesus Christ of the Bible. Rather telling that there are no accompanying documents warning of the national security threat posed by this same man who managed to not only apparently survive being killed but also apparently had the power to fly.

All but walking Pompeii. Instead, I've spent time digging for Native American artifacts in two states. Here's another place where science beats religion. I COULD just have faith that a couple of tribes of Israelites plonked down in the new world and had at it, until one tribe killed the other and were cursed with dark skin. Or, I could see that there is absolutely no evidence for this kooky crap despite all of the efforts of the Mormon church to prove otherwise. Which one seems more rational to you? Groundless supposition or a history built on solid archeological evidence?

And how about you? If you are so keen on knowing the experience of everyone else, feel free to pop up with your curriculum vitae.

Wow!  You really can.  I just read it.  Also, in several years I will write it down in an otherwise very poorly written fairy tale (naturally, my bit will be the best written).  Can't beat that kind of truth!

If I thought for a moment that this was anything more than sarcasm, I'd congratulate you on growing past groundless mysticism and embracing reality.

Except there's no inconsistency because scientific writings are independently verifiable, a fact which even 17 year olds can understand.