bfniii

i'm not interested in a thread about subjective personal experiences. what value would that be to anyone? none. if i wanted to do that, i would write a book.



i don't consider it a challenge. therefore, i don't consider my response a refusal.



hmm. i was unaware of these failures. perhaps you could point them out.



sigh. God allows suffering. revisit the other thread if you are still confused.



you didn't answer the question.

bfniii

the text itself. it's what it says.



what evidence could there be other than what the bible says?



that is no different than the date listed in ezekiel 26:1. let's list the reasons why you have to doubt what Jesus said.

bfniii

no, that is what it says.



yes, it says precisely that.



yes, that is precisely what he is saying



bingo. same thing.



no assumption. it is indeed the primary qualification for becoming christian and the primary component of being christian. it is the embodiment of being christian. one cannot be christian without it and everything else a christian does from that point on is an outworking of salvation. a person is a christian because they are saved. there weren't christians in the 1st century. they were hebrews who were called followers of "the way". what is common to both groups is salvation.



john 14:6. same thing



romans 10:9



why them? i've already quoted the bible itself. what more do you need?

bfniii

salvation



Jesus elaborates in john 3. it's all part of the same idea.

Johnny Skeptic

Since an evil God could easily duplicate anything that is attributed to the God of the Bible, the Bible is not of any value to you. Regarding the ontological argument, you have yet to quote even one single ontological argument. If you don’t quote any, I will assume that you don’t have any that you are confident in. Ontology is quite complicated. Most people, including me, don’t know much about it, and many people have never even heard of it. I thought that ontology deals primarily with the existence of God, not his character. You need to quote your sources. Please do not expect me to do your homework for you. You brought up ontology, so it is up to do to post a reasonably detailed ontological argument complete with at least several sources.

If intelligent design is a given, the conversion of energy into matter deals with physics, not with morality. Even if ontology did deal with morality, if God is amoral, that would defeat the ontological argument since an amoral God would sometimes do good things.

What evidence do you have that the God of the Bible is the uncaused first cause?

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, there was such a rule, but it wasn't rigidly enforced. You haven't actually established that Ezekiel's rant against Tyre WAS regarded as an actual, official "prophecy" (after all, he wasn't describing a distant future event), and it seems that a certain amount of exaggerated hyperbole was permitted in such rants (the apologist Robert Turkel, a.k.a. "J. P. Holding" refers to this as "trash talk").

Also, even apologists recognize that many prophecies simply never came to pass, and and have concocted a hirearchy of "conditional prophecies":

1. God promises a cataclysm if the people don't mend their ways, the people DO mend their ways, God doesn't implement the cataclysm.

2. As above, but the conditional nature of the prophecy isn't specified: God promises a cataclysm, the people mend their ways, God doesn't implement the cataclysm.

3. As above, but the Bible doesn't specify the reason for the non-event: God promises a cataclysm, God doesn't implement the cataclysm, presumably it was conditional and the people mended their ways.

Of course, such doctrines make the apologist conveniently oblivious to ANY failed prophecy.

There is also an apologetic belief that God himself doesn't have perfect foreknowledge of events dependent on human actions (because of human free will). From an avowed "inerrantist" here:
So, God was not wrong, except that he was wrong.

In general, I see no reason to assume that ancient Jewish apologists were any less wilfully blind than modern Christian ones.

Doug Shaver

Against that sort of obstinate dogmatism, there is nothing more I can say except that I do know how to read English and I do know how to tell the difference between a text and an interpretation thereof.

bfniii

you are confusing just with amoral.



you're still missing the point, from the other thread, that there is purpose in suffering. from that perspective, He is not amoral.



no, they are not. that is just your mistaken perception which i addressed in the other thread



you have nothing to base this statement on. He has never refused to help



there is no standard whatsoever to determine that those people need more help than others. it may be a different kind of help, but not more. there is absolutely no way to quantify suffering or pain. it is relative to the individual.



yes, a question you never really answered from the other thread. go figure.



the passage you quote does nothing to show that Jesus' compassion was limited. what you are missing is the point that Jesus' atonement was not limited. it was for jew and gentile alike. also, you never resolved the sliding scale you are using regarding healing/compassion. why is your idea of who should get healed/relieved the correct idea? where does your amount of healing/relief stop and why there?



not wholly.



examples of prophecy aren't going to determine divine inspiration. i'm sorry you haven't caught to that after 500+ posts.

Johnny Skeptic

Please tell us how an amoral God would act any differently than the God of the Bible.

Well by all means, please post your sources that state that the ontological argument reasonably proves that God must by definition be good. You haven’t even quoted one single source regarding ontology. How in the world can anyone know what you are talking about unless you quote your sources? If intelligent design is a given, the conversion of energy into matter deals solely with physics, not with morality. Even is there is an uncaused first cause, and even if he is good, there is not any credible evidence at all that the God of the Bible is the uncaused first cause.

Why not?

I thought that you were kidding. Following are some of the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary definitions for the word “bare�:

Unfurnished or scantily supplied b : DESTITUTE <bare of ALL [emphasis mine] safeguards>

Having NOTHING [emphasis mine] left over or added.

Devoid of amplification or adornment [by implication devoid of ANY amplification or adornment.]

Tyre was not a metaphor. It was an actual city, and Ezekiel predicted that that actual city would become a bare rock. However, there is not any indication that such was the case. Regarding “this is not uncommon in biblical prophecies,� please quote your scripture references.

Ezekiel 26:14 says “And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God.� Tyre was partially rebuilt on a number of occasions. In addition, there are currently some buildings where the mainland settlement was. Further, historically, many cities were never rebuilt at all.

I don’t understand what you mean. Surely nets were spread to dry before Nebuchadnezzar attacked the mainland settlement, AND after he went home after failing to destroy the mainland settlement.

Ezekiel 26:7-11 say “For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.
With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.�

There is no credible evidence that Nebuchadnezzar tread down ALL of the streets of the mainland settlement with his chariots. In fact, the best evidence indicates that he did not.

Consider the following:

http://www.middleeast.com/tyre.htm

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, laid siege to the walled city for thirteen years. Tyre stood firm, but it was probable that at this time the residents of the mainland city abandoned it for the safety of the island.

It was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser III, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years, apparently without success, although a compromise peace was made in which Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians.

Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition:

For much of the 8th and 7th centuries BC the town was subject to Assyria, and in 585–573 it successfully withstood a prolonged siege by the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar II.

I assume that the vast majority of non-Jews in the Middle East did not pay any attention Ezekiel's prophecies. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Why would God favor the Jews to the exclusion of the rest of the people in the world? What evidence do you have that God made a land promise to Abraham? Are you an inerrantist? If so, why?

It wouldn’t have to be that way if Jesus showed up and clearly revealed his supernatural powers to everyone. When I told you that some time ago, you said that I would have no means of identifying Jesus. I asked you how you would be able to identify Jesus, but as far as I recall, you never answered my question. What is your answer? Even if I couldn’t identify Jesus, if a powerful being showed up who claimed to be Jesus, and demonstrated that he had abilities that were far beyond the abilities of humans, at least we would have a lot more evidence than we have now that the Bible is true.

Romans 2:14 says “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.� The verse does not have anything to do with what I am talking about. Consider the following scriptures:

John 2:23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.

John 3:2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

John 6:2 And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.

1 Corinthians 15:6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

Johnny: Even after all of that supposed evidence, and even though the Holy Spirit had supposedly come to the church, for some strange reason, even more evidence was provided. In the NIV, Acts 14:3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

The preceding evidence is the kind of evidence that I am talking about. If the evidence was needed then, we need it much more today. We don’t have any eyewitnesses around to verify that Jesus rose from the dead. Why were any eyewitnesses needed? Wouldn’t 100,000 eyewitnesses have been much better than 500? For that matter, why didn’t Jesus appear to everyone in the world? Today, there is no evidence that God selectively heals people of his choice. There is every indication that good things and bad things are distributed according to the laws of physics, or by an amoral God. I challenge you to state a request for a tangible blessing that you could ask God for that you would receive, and reasonably prove that you wouldn’t have gotten your blessing anyway. I predict that you will refuse to accept my challenge because you don’t want to embarrass yourself.

It would be easy to prove that I am right. A poll could be taken that would ask the following question: If a being showed up on earth, claimed to be Jesus, created a large building in front of millions of people and the world media, would you become a Christian? Many people would surely answer yes, but even if only one person answered yes, if Jesus exists, he should show up and demonstrate his supernatural powers to that person.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to bfniii: Please explain why God killed unborn children at Sodom and Gommorah and Tyre.