This excerpt is taken from my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination, and details why Joseph returning to his ancestral town for a census, as according to Luke is a ridiculous idea.
Tag Gospel of Luke
Christian:
Why is it more probable that your god exists than man made him up?
We have an exceptionally high prior probability that your god is false given that we both believe that every other god claimed to be true (before and after) is false. Thus, on prior probability, the JC God is HIGHLY unlikely to exist. How does the Christian overcome this? They have to provide high CONSEQUENT probability. ie Evidence. But this is poor. Let’s take the four Gospels, written by unknown people at unknown dates in unknown places with ex post facto agendas to evangelise, at least 40 years after the person they are writing about and whom they have never met, has died.
This is the sort of stuff I talk about in my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination, available from the sidebar over there on your right!
From Bart Ehrman’s blog: – Christianity In Antiquity (behind a members only wall):
Ed Babinski has recently kindly written about my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination. Here is his post. Thanks, Ed!
Jonathan Pearce has composed a book titled, The Nativity: A Critical Examination in which he asks questions like these (to which I have added a few comments myself below–ETB):
In order for the Christian who believes that both accounts are factually true to uphold that faithful decree, the following steps must take place. The believer must: