Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been too busy with school to set aside a block of time to address this yesterday.
I understand that you want a high standard for proof, and I agree that, if it’s available, you definitely want the highest quality proof available before you make a commitment that’s going to alter your life and eternal destiny. But if all you have is medium-low quality proof for a god and a “we can’t be sure” for there being no god, it doesn’t make strictly logical sense to default to no god. I know Pascal’s wager isn’t going to save souls, but if the risk of getting it wrong is being tortured by some other deity, then it’s better to take n-1 risks of eternal torment than n risks, especially if the only evidence available points towards a god. For a mundane comparison, if you’re in a burning building and a helicopter lowers a rope ladder to get you out, while the burden of proof would be on them to demonstrate that the ladder is strong enough to hold you, if all they can offer you is a “Billy said it should work,” you’re still better off taking the ladder (with a risk of falling back into the fire and dying) than staying in the fire and certainly burning to death.
If I were you, I would have made the case about life on Earth instead, because when it’s about choosing your lifestyle, there’s little risk of the ultimate bad time in the equation, so it makes more sense to be picky about the quality of evidence. You’re not going to commit 10% of your income, half a day a week, and obligate yourself to study a book just for a “Billy said it’s true.”
If you do want to make the case about life on Earth, I’d be happy to meet you on that front, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth and then immediately punch them back out without waiting for you to respond. I mean, I’m not planning on throwing punches anyways, I’m more just talking about fair debate principles.
It’s historically confirmed that Jesus existed at least as a human. The disciples were, at least after Acts, prominent enough that if one of them made a statement that they never actually saw Jesus resurrected, word would have gotten around and been recorded somewhere. To me, that means there are one of three possibilities:
The disciples really saw Jesus resurrected. Impossible if God isn’t real (unless time traveling aliens or something,) but we don’t know that.
The disciples conspired to fabricate Jesus’ resurrection. It doesn’t seem far fetched for 11 people to make something up for clout. There are far more people than that who claim to have seen aliens. But there are three key differences here:
It was a singular event, and everyone present was in agreement. That puts it above most alien sightings, but not all. I’m sure somewhere a group of 20 alien fanatics got together to claim an alien sighting.
The disciples were prominent figures who were subject to investigation and much persecution, pressuring them to concede that Jesus was not the real deal for most of their lives. The scope of that far exceeds any other conspiracies I know about. 5 professional liars couldn’t keep Watergate under wraps for even a few years.
Prior to the resurrection, the disciples believed that lying was a sin, and they continued to teach it afterwards. It’s not out of the question that a few of them could have reasoned that getting the Gospel out was more important than telling the truth, but for all 11 of them to unanimously decide on that, and not one of them lets it slip in a moment of guilt at any time? These people weren’t chosen for their commitment to the cause or their ability to keep a secret.
The disciples hallucinated Jesus’ resurrection. It’s a known phenomenon that sometimes happens to widows. The person I originally talked about this with told me that 30-60% of widows have this hallucination. I think that number looks a bit too high, but I took 60% for a generous estimate. For all 11 disciples to hallucinate Jesus’ return would be 0.6^11 = 0.36% chance tops. Even if 60% is accurate, the chance would still be lower, because they’d all have to hallucinate him in the same place at the same time.