> Would you care to present the one you believe to be the strongest in detail?
Are you serious that you've never investigated these? Possibly some research would be in order before we have this conversation.
> Given the enormity of the universe, 60 is an infintesimally small number.
Actually, it's not, given that many of these things are present throughout the universe as a whole.
> In another universe the parameters for life might be 1, or they might be 10 trillion. We don't even know what life would look like in another universe.
Speculations about another universe is just pure-out guesswork at this point in time, and just a red herring to the discussion at hand. There is to date no evidence for other universes. Regardless, though—the possibility of other universes has no bearing on the fact that our universe is the way it is. That it's possible to be dealt a full house has no bearing on the cards you were actually dealt.
> "The probabilities of evolution by itself (scientific naturalism or scientism) yielding what we now have are so infinitesimally small as to be considered as logically impossible." source?
Let the number of amino acids equal
n. Since there are 20 amino acids, the probability of getting the first one right is one in 20. The probability of getting the second one correct is (1/20)^2. The shortest functional protein reported to date has
n equal to 20, while most have
n equal to 100 or more. If we choose a number in between (50), we get (1/20)^50 equal to 10^-65, an infinitesimally small number.
If we take our probability estimate the next level, we recognize that a single functional protein is not likely to be biofunctional. That is, it would take more than one biomolecule to carry out life-sustaining processes. How many would we need? The best estimates are a minimum of 250. Taking this number as our protein count, for all of them to occur together, we will make the outlandish assumption that they are all relatively short (50 amino acids). Thus our probability to have a working cell appear in the primordial soup using this rather conservative approach would be (10^-65)^250. That number comes to around 10^-16300. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (Evolution from Space: A theory of Cosmic Creationism), through their own calculations using their own particulars, arrived at 10^-40000. The bottom line is that the such a small probability “could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.” If these calculations are even remotely accurate, abiogenesis is a hopeless cause.
> It shows purpose? Do explain.
There are many parts of the universe, the earth, and life as we know it that exhibit purpose—not just the component parts of the universe exhibit purpose, though, but even the universe itself. Every scientist asks “Why?” We assume purpose in what we observe around us. “Why do the planets spin?” “Why is the earth pitched at an angle?” We are always looking for the reasons and the purpose, assuming they are there and, not surprisingly, we find purpose in many parts of the universe and life.
> Noah's flood never happened, at least not worldwide or to the degree described. mentioned
First, Noah's flood wasn't global, but massively regional. There's every reason to believe it happened. It's not a metaphor. Second, I'm not interested in your links. Anyone can write anything they want on the Internet.
> There is scholarly consensus that Moses was not a real person.
There was also scholarly consensus that the world was flat. While hard evidence for Moses is wanting, there has been an intriguing discovery of a statue that possibly mentions him, though that writing is highly disputed. But we all know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. New discoveries are enlarging our knowledge base every day.
> The Roman census described in Luke is a fabrication and did not occur.
Again, you are so quick to jump to conclusions. First of all, our information about Quirinius comes from Josephus, a source quickly spurned when talking about other aspects of Jesus and the Gospel record, but blindly accepted when it goes against the Gospel records. It's a double standard, and hypocritical.
Acts 5.37 mentions the census of AD 6, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Before AD 6, periodic censuses seem to have occurred at less regular intervals. There is a record of a periodical 14-yr census in Egypt that goes back to AD 20, 14 years after the one we know about in AD 6. It's not at all implausible to assume the possibility of a census in 8 BC. *The Deeds of the Divine Augustus* (paragraph 8, lines 2-4) reveals that Emperor Caesar Augustus himself ordered a census in 8 BC —a census that from the record sounds empire-wide in scope (with 4 million citizens in an empire in which most people were not citizens).
A careful analysis of the text of Luke 2 also contributes to the accuracy of a census around the time of Jesus's birth. We know Quirinius was a governor of Syria from AD 6-9, but Luke uses the term
hegemon, not governor. Hegemon is a more general term for “leader” or “ruler.” The title Luke uses for Quirinius is important, since Luke, more so than the other Gospel writers, is very precise in the titles he uses for public officials. What position did Quirinius fill before he was governor of Syria? According to Tacitus, he was doing military expeditions in the eastern provinces of the Empire, with some evidence that he was a co-ruler (
hegemon) with the then governor of Syria, Quintilius Varus. This could be the position to which Luke refers. Secondly, Luke specifies that this was the first registration, which would indicate there were at least two such censuses (and we know of the one in AD 6). The exact idea of “first” (πρώτη, Lk. 2.2) is not certain, however. It seems reasonable to assume Luke's idea is that there was more than one registration under Quirinius. It is the first of a series. Since we know about the one in AD 6, this could be a previous one to which Luke refers. Third, the definite article doesn't occur with “This was (the first)” in v. 2. The text just says, “This was proete…” This grammatical form often points to something previous in time. It could possibly indicate the earliest or earlier of the possible references—in other words, one before the famous one of year 6. Fourth, the verb Luke uses in Lk. 2.2 is ἐγένετο (NIV: “that took place”), a term that is subject to a variety of possible meanings. Perhaps a straightforward alternative translation is warranted: “This census took place before Quirinius was governing Syria.”
The literal reading of Luke 2.2 says: αὕτη ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου: “This census took place proete Quirinius hegemon of Syria.” That’s as tight as we can accurately translate it, not being completely sure what Luke means by those two terms. The text certainly can mean, “This census was the first while Quirinius was governing Syria,” but a Greek speaker would normally expect an article before ἀπογραφὴ (census) and again before πρώτη (first; before) if that were Luke’s meaning. It could also just as accurately be translated “This census was before [one] when Quirinius was governor.” The census in AD 6 under Quirinius was particularly infamous because it provoked the failed rebellion by Judas the Galilean. So it would be natural for a biographer or historian to refer to an earlier census with reference to the later, much better remembered one.
In other words, it’s not as clean as the critics would have one believe.
> Jesus predicted his imminent return and the final judgement of the world. It was supposed to be within the lifetime of his disciples.
This is incorrect. Jesus never predicted or said he would be returning within the lifetime of the disciples.
> Judas death is inconsistent between the gospel
Actually it is not. He died by suicide by hanging, as Matthew says. it was a common literary motif in ancient literature to describe the death of the wicked in very gruesome details. These were literary conventions to speak of the wickedness of the person, not the details of his death.
* Papias describes Judas’s death: “His genitals of indecency were more disgusting and yet too small to be seen. There oozed out from his whole bursting body both fluids and worms. After much suffering and agony, it is said that he died in his own place.”
* 2 Maccabees 9.5-7, 9-10, 28 describe the death of Antiochus Epiphanes as follows: “But the all-seeing Lord, the God of Israel, struck him with an incurable and invincible blow. As soon as he stopped speaking, he was seized with a pain in his bowels, for which there was no relief, and with sharp internal tortures – and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many strange inflictions. Yet he did not in anyway stop his insolence, but was filled even more with arrogance, breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, and giving orders to drive even faster. And so it came about that he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body…and so the ungodly man’s body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain, his flesh rotted away, and because of the stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay.... so the murderer and blasphemer, having endured the more intense suffering, such as he had inflicted on others, came to the end of his life by a most pitiable fate, among the mountains in a strange land.”
* King Joram (2 Chr. 21.18-19): “And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony.”
* When a friend of hated Tiberius Graccus died, it is said that his “dead body burst open and a great quantity of corrupt humours gushed forth, so that the flame of the funeral pyre was extinguished.” (Plutarch, The Life of Tiberius Graccus, section 13).
Acts is not telling the method of death, but only metaphorically describing his wickedness.
> Mark describes Jesus riding in on a foal and a colt, as opposed to the other 2 synoptics which have Jesus on one animal.
The mention of only one animal doesn't require that there was only one animal. There were two. If I'm at a party and I say, "Sean and Emma were there," I am not implying they were the only ones there, but rather that they were the two who mattered to me. For the other Gospel writers, the donkey Jesus actually rode on was the one that mattered to them.
> The nativity between Matthew and Luke is completely different.
The two accounts have many elements in common, referring to the same event, and some elements in distinction, showing their particular reason to writing. The two don't contradict.
> Matthew makes up a prophecy about a potter's field for Judas death, then misattributes it to the wrong OT book.
2000 years ago the division of the OT was different than the division we know today. And it was common practice to call a set of books by the name of one of the books it contained. The Pentateuch (Torah) was called “Moses”. The writings were labeled as “Psalms” or “David”. The same goes for the prophetic writings. They called them “Isaiah” and “Jeremiah”. That is to say that Matthew refers to the prophets as “Jeremiah”. Mark, by the way, did the exact same thing. In the first chapter of his gospel he refers to the book of Malachi using the label “Isaiah”. In brief, “Jeremiah” and “Isaiah” served as a label for all the prophets, maybe since they are the longest prophetic books. By the way, whoever takes a look at the Tractate “Bava Batra” in the Talmud will notice that the sages had the same habit of labeling books.
In other words, you're wrong about ALL these accusations. Some more research would help you in your pursuit of truth, much more than these casual toss-offs without having done the homework.