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The weight of the apostles' claim is that it was empirically falsifiable at the time. All the enemies of Jesus had to do was produce His body, and Christianity is stopped dead in its tracks (no pun intended) (okay, maybe it was). Little wonder that they placed a guard at the tomb; little wonder that they invented a naturalistic explanation for the disappearance of Jesus' body--and yet in doing so, they provided corroborative hostile testimony (see Matt. 28:11-15). They wouldn't have had to invent a story to explain the absence of Jesus' body if it were available for examination.

• The claim that they didn't have x-rays & DNA is not falsifiable. Oops =)
• People did in fact have DNA at the time (if they didn't, Dillahunty's own worldview has some serious problems)
• The Romans did have at least 2 foolproof means of testing whether someone was dead: a) beheading & b) crucifixion. A person being crucified must push up with their legs in order to breathe (the "up position"), they can then release the pressure on their legs until they need to breathe again (the "down position"). If they are in the down position for 10-15 minutes, they're dead (see article by Habermas here).

The weight of the apostles' claim is that it was empirically falsifiable at the time. All the enemies of Jesus had to do was produce His body, and Christianity is stopped dead in its tracks (no pun intended) (okay, maybe the pun was intended). Little wonder that they placed a guard at the tomb; little wonder that they invented a naturalistic explanation for the disappearance of Jesus' body--and yet in doing so, they provided corroborative hostile testimony (see Matt. 28:11-15). They wouldn't have had to invent a story to explain the absence of Jesus' body if it were available for examination.

• The claim that they didn't have x-rays & DNA is not falsifiable. Oops =)
• People did in fact have DNA at the time (if they didn't, Dillahunty's own worldview has some serious problems)[editorial insertion: for those perplexed by this bullet point, yes, this bullet point was intended as humor]
• The Romans did have at least 2 foolproof means of testing whether someone was dead: a) beheading & b) crucifixion. A person being crucified must push up with their legs in order to breathe (the "up position"), they can then release the pressure on their legs until they need to breathe again (the "down position"). If they are in the down position for 10-15 minutes, they're dead (see article by Habermas here).

The statement there is no way to verify anything right down to, you know, the name or the date or anything is but a reassertion of verificationism; it is self-refuting in the same manner as the comments discussed above.

The statement there is no way to verify anything right down to, you know, the name or the date or anything is but a reassertion of verificationism, which was shown to be self-refuting above.

Why do we believe?

Competing epistemologies

Quote: you are willing to accept that [something]...occurred based only on testimony, and I'm not.

Unless Dillahunty claims to have personally tested every view held by contemporary scientists, he too is accepting all manner of statements based only on testimony (and this includes some claims in the quantum realm that are decidedly not intuitive)

Quote: I will not accept that the physical understanding of the universe was suspended

This is a strawman if applied to Christianity generally. I can't speak for Horn's beliefs, but it is unnecessary to claim the natural order/understanding/laws of the universe were suspended to account for God doing something we cannot explain. This claim is the modern equivalent to a person from the 17th century crying "witchcraft" if they'd had the opportunity to examine a mobile phone.

If we are truly skeptical, shouldn't we acknowledge that just maybe there are things in this universe we do not yet know how to explain?

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Why do we believe?