It's very likely that when you've talked about your Christian convictions that God created the world, even that God exists, or that Jesus (man and God) came to Earth and died on the cross for sin and lived a perfect life, that people will say to you, "Well, that's an extraordinary claim, and you've only presented (if you have) just some ordinary evidence, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Doesn't that just sound really compelling? Like, well, it is an extraordinary claim that a God exists, I guess, from a certain perspective, so ...

Now, if you're anything like me, which maybe you're not, but the first time someone says this to you, your reply might go something like, "Whose evidence are you saying isn't extraordinary? What's wrong with my evidence?!” Joking aside, you're probably going to feel stuck. That has been my experience in the past, but here's what I want to suggest to you, that you not accept their claim, their assertion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

What if you replied, "That sounds like an extraordinary claim to me. What evidence do you have that that's actually the way it should work? Why should I just believe you that an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence? I understand that that sounds pithy and nice, but why should we believe that? What is your evidence for that assertion, that an actual extraordinary claim requires actual extraordinary evidence?"

This puts the burden of proof back on them. Now, I will admit that's a slightly odd type of question, but I think it fits. I want them to do the explaining here. I want them to explain to me why it actually has to work this way.

If they're able to, or even if they're not, my next question is going to be, "What type of evidence would you accept? Not specifically what type, but what specific evidences would you accept to prove to you that God exists, to prove to you that Jesus rose from the dead?" I want them to lay out for me what they are going to accept. Because oftentimes they're going to keep asking the Christian, "Yeah, well, present evidence. Well, that's not enough. Present more evidence. That's not enough. Present extraordinary evidence. Well, that's not enough for me."

Let's get them to set the ground rules here. What evidence will they accept? A lot of times you're not going to get an answer, even in professional debates. A lot of times when the atheist is asked this question, they don't have a good answer, and a lot of times the answers they do give, if they give one, pretty much renders all of history unknowable.

In fact, oftentimes some of the evidences that are required for Christian claims would make it where we couldn't even know that George Washington was President of the United States or anything else in even recent history. We're going to get standards in these types of conversations that aren't really capable of being applied in the real world. They don't function in any other area of knowing accept when the atheist wants to apply them to Christian or religious claims.

I once asked a guy this question, "What evidence would you accept?" Or, "Why don't you believe Christianity?" He said, "Well, I don't know everything about it, and I can't believe in something I don't know everything about." I said, "Do you understand gravity?" He said, "Well, it holds things down." I'm like, "Well, do you understand why or how or what produces the force of gravity?" He said, "No." I said, "But you believe in gravity." He said, "Well, yes." I said, "Well, doesn't that seem inconsistent? You don't understand everything about it, but you're willing to say, 'Well, I believe in gravity.'"

I said, "What about the i…