Sauron

This is the problem with bfniii. As a fundamentalist, he is so used to framing his world in terms of either right/wrong, black/white, or up/down, that he cannot understand the idea of "unknown." The existence of some other option besides "yes" and "no" simply breaks all his models. That is why he assumes that someone who rejects his claims must necessarily hold the opposite view to him, or some alternative view. The idea that someone might have no view, or perhaps hasn't reached any strong conclusions either way -- well, that possibility simply never enters his mind. For bfniii, everything MUST have an answer, and it must be RIGHT NOW. He will force a claim into either the "true" or "false" column, simply because that makes everything nice and neat, and keeps his little world orderly. But in the process, he winds up claiming "true" for some pretty weak and ambiguous positions.

An item that has unknown dating simply doesn't fit into his worldview, and is in fact a threat to his position. Why? Because he knows that it implies that many of his so-called firm beliefs might also be founded upon claims of unknown value. Ambiguity and uncertainty are a cancer that erodes his bible claims. So he fears an unknown answer about something even more than he fears a "no" answer; at least with the "no" answer, he has something to argue against.

Good luck on this one. bfniii doesn't seem to have any such criteria to judge divine inspiration. I offered some excellent ones from a christian website: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

1. Clarity: The prophecy must not be ambiguous.
2. Prior Announcement: The prediction must clearly be made before the fulfillment.
3. Independence: The prophet must not be able to cause the prophecy to occur.
4. Likelihood: The prophecy can’t be just a good guess.
5. No Manipulation: The one fulfilling the prophecy cannot be manipulating the circumstances.

The reason for each criterion is apparent; failure to satisfy any of these would raise doubts about the divine nature of the prophecy in question. It's important to remember the audience here; these tests do not serve the function of re-stating what christians believe about their prophecies. Christians give the benefit of the doubt to all such prophecies; but that does not carry over to the general debate arena. Given that fact, the goal is to convince the skeptic and bring forth the highest quality prophecy examples possible.

The best bfniii could do was toss out several variations of "Nuh-uh" or "we can't possibly prove that." He failed to understand that inability to satisfy the criteria doesn't mean you get an exemption from it.

bfniii

excellent. this is exactly what i have been asking you for. please provide a template that we can use to determine the date of any work from antiquity and we'll apply it to ezekiel.

interesting. you seem to have a habit of just blithely stating "nuh-unh" and thinking it's a substantial response. your claim that christian sources are inadmissible because, in your opinion, they are "tainted" is a blatant ad hominem argument which is a logical fallacy. the problem is you don't show how it's not ad hominem, you just spout off an immature comeback. if you don't want your argument against christian sources to be ad hominem, then just refute the point. otherwise, your second-grade mentality is a waste of time.

i have made it a point to patiently sift through the detritus that are your responses to get to the few actual ideas you present. it would seem that your accusation of laziness on my part is a red herring, perhaps to distract while you sneak in a few substantial positions here and there.

i showed precisely why it is ridiculous but you seem to have completely missed the point. first. who is "impartial"? no two people are going to completely agree on that. this is just more ad hominem. this is what i don't understand about you. why would you care if christian sources are used? it's almost as if you're afraid to face them. if you're argument is so water tight that no debate can refute it, what do you care which sources are used? don't you have the winning hand? you should be able to trump any argument put forth.

if it's a standard procedure, perhaps you could provide the standard. what academic body made/maintains this standard?

you should welcome that. it's a perfect opportunity for you to demolish pitiful christian arguments. but for some reason, you seem averse to them.

you haven't, in any way, shown that the material is biased. how are we to recognize such bias? besides, why does it matter? either the information is correct or it is not.

you seem to have a misunderstanding of what a strawman is. this is the second time you have misused it. perhaps you should review the definition. the response i provided, questioning who is authoritative, is not a strawman because it doesn't misrepresent your point that we should seek authoritative sources.

nonsense. i am asking you who is authoritative and what makes them such. do you respond to that? no. you just ramble about nebulous rules of debate.

i have been persistently trying to set up the parameters for the debate, i.e. what you consider proof or conclusive. it has become a most difficult task to get you to participate.

i don't think you understand what i'm asking. give us your best arguments/sources/positions on how to date a text, how to determine if a prophecy is divinely inspired, how a prophecy is fulfilled. i don't care where or from whom you get it. that's how to avoid ad hominem. i'm asking you to 1) frame the debate and then 2) back up your criticisms. see how that works? now the best possible response from you would be to put forth your irrefutible and ineluctable arguments to trounce the weak christians, which you have attempted on ~4 occasions. however, i suspect you will continue to blabber about why you shouldn't have to do that. the bible claims to record the history of jews/hebrews and nascent christianity. tell us why you think it's malarky. be specific.

here you make my point for me. you haven't shown that any source is tainted. you just merely state that they are. the way to back up your accusation is to take their arguments head on.

it wouldn't be called prophecy if christians thought otherwise. i thought you would catch on to that.

i have asked you multiple times what constitutes as proof for you. how are we to know when something was written?

how do you figure that not being able to prove when the passage was written means the prophecy isn't fulfilled or divinely inspired? i don't see how you are connecting the two.

whatever. this comes from someone who has twice misused the strawman accusation in the span of a handful of posts. i showed earlier how the argument wasn't circular but you either didn't read it or didn't understand it. you are also missing the point i'm making here, but i'll give you the chance to respond.

26:1

and how would someone 5000 years from now go about proving your book was written in 2005?

both of your responses fail to answer either of the questions (which isn't surprising since the second response merely repeats the first).

you keep claiming i make them but you fail to point them out.

now this is an example of a strawman, sauron. i didn't offer it as proof as you say i did. i offered it as one source that outlines the christian position on the date. perhaps if you read my response again, it will become clear for you. this isn't a mistake because my position all along (since you don't seem to have caught on to this despite my asking you over and over) is to establish what you would consider proof of the composition date so that i can attempt to meet your criteria.

same as above. still not a mistake.

my position is that i have asked you questions you either don't want to, or can't, answer; how is the date to be determined and what do you consider proof of divine inspiration.



and i will repeat, stating the argument is weak presupposes that you have to have some alternate idea in mind. otherwise, you would never even have a frame of reference from which to advance the criticism. again, you have yet to refute this idea. all you have done is repeat yourself. repetition shows that you have no refutation for the idea. if you did have a refutation, you could show how my response is false.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron If you try to prove that an alien stole your peanut butter sandwich, I'm not going to believe you. That doesn't mean that I have an alternate theory about where the sandwich went.

yes it does mean you have an alternate theory. otherwise, you would have no basis for disbelief. the logical conclusion of this point is that anytime you are skeptical of anything, your skepticism exists because the event in question does not mesh with your preconceived notions. without these preconceived notions, the mind is a tabula rasa with no reason to doubt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron In truth, I might not know the answer.

you wouldn't have to know the answer, you would just merely have possibilities based on your prior experience or knowledge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron But if your alien argument is bullshit, then I can point out the flaws in your argument without necessarily having a better idea where the sandwich went.

:banghead: you would have nothing to "point out the flaws" with if you didn't have preconceived notions. by definition, you have a different idea. that is what i'm asking for. where do you get the idea that the bible was edited, that the prophecy isn't divinely inspired, that the composition date is not prior to the event?

Sauron

1. I take this as your tacit admission that I was correct: the Wikipedia article does not, in fact, list any methodology other than a circular one.

2. You are the one who needs to prove the date for Ezekiel, as well as the methodology -- it was your claim, after all; not mine. If you are unaware of how this is done in biblical criticism, then you probably ought to explain why you offered a date before you knew how to properly ascertain a date.

3. You are free to submit whatever source and methodology you like; I advise you not to make it circular, however, or you'll face the same objection.

Considering that your claim was nothing more than an assertion, I'm free to disagree with it using pretty much anything.

Already been through this. Let me repeat, since you never get anything the first four times:

In supporting an argument, the requirement is for reliable sources, without the taint of bias. Was that not obvious? Or was that not clear? Otherwise, I can just toss in any old atheist or anti-christian tract here, and you are forced to deal with it on an equal footing. A man's character is known by the quality of friends he keeps; an argument's quality is known by the caliber of the sources used to support it. So if you are unable or unwilling to provide high quality sources, I think that says volumes about the questionable nature of the argument you are making;

Correction: you have been actively engaged in deflecting your responsiblity to support your affirmative claim.

No, it's an accurate portrayal of your debating style. You have consistently ducked any obligation to support your affirmative claim. Instead, you tried several doomed attempts to shift the burden of proof onto me, or onto someone else.

No, I responded to the point. You are engaged in a logical fallacy of false choices; either we have to have (a) 100% impartiality, or (b)nothing is impartial at all. You claim (a), therefore you absolve yourself of the responsibility to avoid tainted sources. How convenient. Since you missed it before, I'll repeat it:
You might not be able to have 100% honest govt; but that doesn't excuse political corruption, just because you can't be perfect. You might not ever be able to have a 100% efficient corporation; but that doesn't mean that you start wasting money left and right just because perfection is not attainable. The same principle exists here.

If you'll check my earlier post from last night, you'll see references that explain that. Since we all know you don't actually read what your opponent posts, I guess I'll just have to re-post it, right?

http://www.pps.k12.or.us/schools-c/p...on/debate.html
Now you begin the Affirmative Construction speech. The burden of proof is on your Affirmative Team so you must present evidence to support your resolution. Remember, the Negative Team is quite happy with the status quo. They are not trying to change anything... YOU are! Your evidence (quoted materials from a nationally published source) is even more important than your use of logic, anecdotal evidence, analysis, reasoning, refutation, and delivery. Be factual!

And:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...-of-proof.html
For example, in American law a person is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty (hence the burden of proof is on the prosecution). As another example, in debate the burden of proof is placed on the affirmative team. As a final example, in most cases the burden of proof rests on those who claim something exists (such as Bigfoot, psychic powers, universals, and sense data).

In this last quotation, your burden of proof is brought forth from two different aspects: (1) the affirmative case; and (2) you claim something exists; i.e. God, fulfilled prophecy, etc. I even put it in red this time; let's see if it sinks in.

1. I would not welcome a lowering of the standards of evidence; how silly. But I can see where that might benefit you, of course.

2.Your argument is already demolished by the fact that you haven't supported your affirmative claim. In fact, you self-imploded here, with very little help from skeptics.

Also incorrect. I pointed out quite clearly that the material comes from a conservative evangelical printing house. That is the bias you were asking for. The contrary position, of course, is to ask whether a conservative evangelical publishing house would print a book that was critical of the prophecy or the dating - I wouldn't hold your breath. :rolling:

You apparently aren't intellectually capable of offering sources that come from history, archaeology, comparative linguistics, or any other true field of research. Your sole refuge lies in biased material printed from sympathetic publishing houses. It's rather like getting your data on lung cancer from the tobacco industry; you probably don't think that is tainted data, either.

I do not have a misunderstanding of strawman. You have a bad memory about what your argument is, however. Your original claim -- the one which prompted my statement about 'strawman' above -- was:

i find that what you are asking for is ridiculous. you want impartial sources. who made them the authority on these matters? well, no one. it's a fallacy to claim their conclusions aren't tainted because they don't have a bias.

I wasn't saying that there were perfectly impartial sources; I was saying that we have a responsibility to seek out the sources with minimum bias possible. So I was correct after all, and your attempt above to mischaracterize my position -- the definition of strawman -- did not work.

1. I answered this already - twice. I even provided links. Do I really need to do it three times?

2. You were already informed that affirmative positions carry burden of proof from previous debates that you had with Amaleq and Johnny Skeptic. I've seen other participants point this out to you as well. Feigning ignorance of the standards of debate simply isn't going to work.

You want the parameters for debate? Please; what a joke.

You have been persistently trying to RESIST the parameters of debate. Every time I tell you that the affirmative position carries burden of proof, you wiggle and try to shift it.

Every time I tell you that tainted, biased sources will not work, you whine and cry that isn't fair.

You don't want the parameters of debate. You want to CHANGE those parameters, so that your lame, crippled arguments and your tainted evidence are magically elevated to meet the standard.

If you were sincerely interested in honest debate, would you be doing this? No. If you were sincere, you would stop your attempts to shift the burden of proof and simply get on with proving your affirmative case for the dating and accuracy of the Tyre prophecy. But you can't do that, can you? No - you can't. Having realized that you cannot win, you now believe that your best hope is to play for a draw by tying up the discussion with your attempts at shifting the rules of debate.

I understand precisely what you're asking. You still don't understand me, however. Let's try it in all caps, maybe that will work:

1. YOU TOOK THE AFFIRMATIVE POSITION.
2. SO ALL THESE TASKS ARE FOR *YOU* TO DO, NOT ME.

YOU, NOT ME.

IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT YOUR POSITION, THEN YOU NEED TO SET FORTH YOUR SUGGESTED LIST OF CONDITIONS AND SHOW HOW YOUR EXAMPLES SATISFY THEM. OR YOU CAN BORROW SOMEONE ELSE'S LIST OF SUGGESTED STANDARDS, TOSS THEM OUT, AND WE WILL DISCUSS WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE SATISFACTORY.

I hope you like large fonts and colored text, because that's my next move if you didn't get it this time.

Noooo, child. I don't think so.

Yes, I have - these are books from a conservative evangelical publishing house.

Really stupid comment. The Mormons have things they call "prophecy"; are the Mormon prophecies the "traditional christian position"? There are also texts that some christians call prophecy that other christians call allegory, and not prophetic. So if one group of christians calls them "prophecy" and another group does not, then what is the "traditional position"?

Bottom line here is that you tried to claim something was traditional, without proving that to be the case. You have some work to do.

And I thought you wouldn't make such an elementary logic error.

1. I take your silence as an admission that you agree the argument of "traditional position" is weak, since it relies upon the appeal to popular opinion.

2. What constitutes proof - I have given you that answer already, in my earlier post. Show historical, archaeological and scientific evidence that Tyre was destroyed, according to the details of Ezekiel's prophecy.

3. Again: if you don't know how biblical dating and textual criticism are performed, why are you even trying to answer such a question as the date of the Tyre prophecy? If you *do* know how dating and criticism work, then why haven't you presented your arguments for the date of this text?

Because if you can't prove the dating, then you can't prove that it wasn't inserted after-the-fact. I refer you to the five criteria I mentioned from the christian website:

1. Clarity: The prophecy must not be ambiguous.
2. Prior Announcement: The prediction must clearly be made before the fulfillment.
3. Independence: The prophet must not be able to cause the prophecy to occur.
4. Likelihood: The prophecy can’t be just a good guess.
5. No Manipulation: The one fulfilling the prophecy cannot be manipulating the circumstances.

And as I just showed above, I did not misuse the accusation, but you do have a problem with short-term memory.

I both read it, as well as understood it - the problem is that your explanation was hogwash. You tried to claim it wasn't circular, when in fact it was: dating a document by reading the claimed date is circular.

Which doesn't change much - the original refutation still stands: mentioning a date inside the text proves nothing about when the text was written. And attempting to date the text by such a mentioned date is circular.

1. If you don't know how books are routinely dated, why are you in this discussion? Are you looking for some kind of free educational ride, where you toss out claims and other people patiently spoon feed you the missing information to bring you up to speed? Another good reason why the rules of debate place the burden of proof on the claimant, by the way -- to prevent this scenario.

2. In the case of my hypothetical book, they could carbon date the organic material in the book to arrive at a minimum age. They could also look for internal clues, verbage, styles of writing, etc. - just like textual criticism does.

Totally incorrect. I did answer the question. You simply didn't like the answer, and are now pretending it doesn't exist:
However, in this thread we are discussing your affirmative claims for the dating of the Tyre prophecy, and the accuracy of that prophecy in general. Your case is being criticized, as well as the claims of the bible. One of the underpinnings of your argument is the fidelity of the texts. But in the context of the OT, we know that several of the books have been tampered with. Because of that, you need to prove your particular book is free of such tampering. I don't need a specific reason to be suspicious of Ezekiel (although such specific reasons do exist). The fact that the OT texts have been tampered with on multiple occasions is all the evidence I need to insist you prove Ezekiel is untainted.

Of course I pointed them out. I even gave you links to the posts where you made your mistakes abour circular arguments. Shall I give them again? Oh, that's right - you're going to quote those links below in your next set of responses. Which means that your claim above -- that I failed to point out your mistakes to you -- was obviously a hasty response, written before you read my entire post.

Ladies and gentlemen - bfniii doesn't read posts before responding to them. Color me surprised.

1. You offered it as evidence for your position on the dating, but the wiki article doesn't give a source for your claimed date.

2. You tried to invoke the four sources at the bottom of the page, but unfortunately the Wiki article doesn't use footnotes. So we don't know that the wiki group blog article even used those sources to arrive at the date.

3. The author of the wiki group blog article may have gotten the date from some other place; we just don't know because the structure of the wiki page isn't set up to tell us that level of detail.

1. And I've already answered that question. See the section in all caps, above.

2. Let's also note that when I have tried to remind you of the criteria for debate (i.e., burden of proof, etc.) you have NOT been interested in it at all; you have instead tried to CHANGE the criteria.

So your current pretense that you "just want to know what I would consider evidence" doesn't wash anyhow. If you were really interested in having an honest debate, you wouldn't be wiggling so hard and trying to change the rules of the game.

Same as above, all right - from the position that they are:

(a) both mistakes of circular reasoning, and
(b) both examples of you trying to get the rules changed to allow you to use such tactics.

Your questions to me are irrelevant; I have no obligation to answer any of your questions until you support your affirmative claims. Your position in this debate is all that is on the table.

You can state it a thousand times; it remains factually and logically wrong, however. As I mentioned several times already: if you tell me that hungry aliens stole your peanut butter sandwich, I'm going to call bullshit on that explanation. I may not have the foggiest idea what happened to your sandwich. But I am damn sure that hungry aliens is not the right answer.

Pathetically, tragically incorrect. The frame of reference is from knowing whether evidence offered supports a stated claim or not. I don't need an alternative explanation to know whether or not yours is a good theory.

Also wrong. I reject your hungry alien theory outright, because it's nonsense. I have no alternate theory, however.

Wrong. The logical conclusion is that I can connect cause and effect in a coherent and rational manner -- so I can also detect when other people are offering explanations that don't make that connnection correctly.

Your busted viewpoint assumes that the default state of man is one of trust and belief. Good luck proving that; let me know when you have your arguments ready.

Which isn't the same thing as having an alternate theory to put forth. Tossing out more reasonable alternatives is not the same as having a fixed idea of an alternate, more believable explanation that a person would be willing to defend or argue. How absurd that you think so.

There are AT LEAST 1,000 reasons why your sandwich might have gone missing. I'm not interested enough in the topic to have an alternate theory. But I'm going to laugh my ass off if you try to tell me that hungry aliens took it while you weren't looking.

* NO alternate theory.
* NO interest in formulating one.
* Yet I can STILL safely reject your ridiculous explanation.


No, I just realize that:

1. your alien explanation doesn't have any evidence to support it - except your verbal claim;

2. the alien claim is an extraordinary claim, so a verbal statement from you does not constitute the required extraordinary proof;

3. if you want to claim that aliens took your sandwich, the first step in doing so is to prove that aliens exist in the first place.

I compare 1, 2 and 3 against the sole piece of evidence you offered, and it's childs play to realize that you haven't successfuly argued your position.

Which brings us right back to you trying to shift the burden of proof. If you want to make an affirmative claim for the accuracy and reliability of the Tyre prophecy, you need to demonstrate it. I do not have to defend the opposite position.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to bfniii: You did not reply to my previous post, so here it is again.

mata leao

lets get real here: if an ancient writer is really willing to outright lie and fabricate a "prophecy" after it has happened, then he most certainly has no reason to use any strategic or tactical ambiguity in the propehyc in order to avoid telegraphing too much info to the "players" in advance (because it is all aready over with!)...so that "fabricator" would be able to and have no reason not to, list in great detail everyhting: e.g. if its a battle then he would list the order of battle of all the players down to the names of their regiemtnal canine mascots! atheists can be such luddites at times!

mata leao

oops. that would be "regimental" .......

Jack the Bodiless

Why should he bother to do this?

BTW, it's quite clear that at least SOME of Ezekiel's book WAS written after the siege of Tyre: the part where Ezekiel promises Nebuchadrezzar success in Egypt as compensation for the failure at Tyre. This is entirely uncontroversial.

mata leao

this is why i get so tired: hello here! Ezekiel is a captive/exile living in Babylon, his jewish people have been conquered, humiliated, enslaved, children forced into prostitution and made sex slaves,etc... the only hope for jewish liberation will come from -playing one mediteranean power off against the other. Ezekeil wants tyre to falll. Ezekeil wants the Greeks to get their come uppance, Ezekeil wants Babylon to waste away its mighty land army from disease and attrition in chasing after spoils and territory in far flung places. Most of these inure to the benefit of captive jews . And that is EXACTLY what happened historically.

Johnny Skeptic

And it is also EXACTLY the case that historically, kingdoms rising and falling has been the rule and not the exception. In addition, it has historically been EXACTLY the case that Jews were frequently persecuted, enslaved, murdered, and conquered. Further, there is no evidence that God made a land promise to Abraham other than "the Bible says so."

mata leao

Ezekiel's prophecy concerning tyre was fulfilled brilliantly, and in detail, His use of strategic and tactical ambiguity concerning the "players" is masterful and shrewd. And this is exactly the typology and pattern of how Hebrew prophets spoke and thought and wrote. The atheist myopically focuses on something to hang its "error" hat on, while completely missing the whole purpose of the prophecy itself. Your "error" is typological of Patton's non existant Army Group in England preparing to invade at the Pas de Calais,while Hitler thinks the Normandy invasion is just a diversion.