Johnny Skeptic

So what?

But they did not return to ALL of the land of ancient Canaan like God promised, and they certainly have never been the part of an EVERLASTING covenant like God promised.

Anyway, it doesn't matter since the Jews might get kicked out of Palestine again.

Are you proposing that people should become Christians solely because of the partition of Palestine in 1948? If not, then what other evidence do you have?

jamespeach

no, thats bullsh--

How is that debatable?

Its evident, not debatable.

Muhammad must be debatable as well in your eyes...

spin

Why do you talk such rubbish? Palestinians have very little power and unity, having been ghettoized and repressed for half a century. In the most peaceful of these years during the time of Rabin and Barak, Palestinians had space to start getting back to some degree of living peacefully with Israel. That all ended definitively with Sharon's stupid visit to the temple mount.

They'll probably push on to South America and eat your children.

They'd do away with iPods and cellphones and close down YouTube and MySpace.

9-11 was a message: see what it's like to have the sort of aggression and death you cause in your own backyard. How many deaths did that incident cause compared to the deaths in the retaliations caused by non-islamic non-radical elements?

Argument by misinformation.


spin

Johnny Skeptic

Message to James Peach: Consider the following reply that I made to arnoldo:

No, God lied because he promised to give Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of ancient Canaan as an EVERLASTING covenant. The partition of Palestine in 1948 failed on both counts, thereby discrediting the Bible. Logically, the word "everlasting" implies that the writer believed that Jews would always occupy the ancient land of Canaan from the time that they first occupied it. Obviously, that did not happen. There is no other rational explanation for the word "everlasting."

Genesis 17:8 says "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." Now Arnoldo, you are aware that God was speaking to Abraham, aren't you? If you are aware of that, which I assume that you are, then you also know that the "everlasting" part of the verse started with Abraham occupying the land of ancient Canaan, certainly not with the failed partition of Palestine in 1948.

Scriptures that mention the scattering of the Jews and the eventual restoration of the Jewish homeland contradict Genesis 17:8, which indicates that Abraham and his descendants would always occupy ALL of the ancient land of Canaan as an everlasting covenant starting with Abraham and his group. When it became obvious during Old Testament times that the writer of Genesis 17:8 was mistaken since the Jews were driven out of parts or all of Palestine, that is when coverup Scriptures were made up that claimed that the Jews would be scattered, and would eventually return to their homeland.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, there are reasonable secular explanations for the history of the Jewish people. All that it takes to occupy land is power. There is nothing odd about the U.S. and Britain giving military and financial aid to the Jews in order to help them gain control of parts of Palestine. In one of the Arab/Jewish wars, the Jews were close to losing. Golda Meir contacted President Nixon and asked him for help. Nixon sent help, without with the Jews would probably have been defeated. It is important to note that if the Jews had been defeated, just like they had been defeated on many other occasions, you would have many other excuses to make, and you would still be a Christian. Isn't that right?

End of post

What is your opinion of that post?

You are not really as interested in Biblical evidence as you think you are. If the New Testament said that the same number of eyewitnesses saw Jesus injure and kill people with supernatural powers, and that Jesus said that God will send everyone to hell, Christians would reject the same quality of evidence that they accept now because of their emotional perceived self-interest. On the other hand, I would not accept the Bible even if it said that God will send everyone heaven for the same reasons that I do not accept it now, but I would hope that the claim was true. Following are some of the reasons that I do not accept the Bible now:

1 - The Gospel writers were anonymous.

2 - The Gospel writers almost never revealed who their sources were.

3 - The Gospel writers almost never claimed that they witnessed miracles.

4 - The Gospel writers almost never revealed who their sources were.

5 - Matthew and Luke borrowed a good deal from Mark.

6 - It impossible to be reasonably certain how many people saw Jesus after he supposedly rose from the dead.

7 - Today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. There are not any good reasons for anyone to assume that it was any different back then.

8 - I would still question why God injures and kills people and innocent animals with hurricanes. Unlike you, it is not my position that doing some good things justifies injuring and killing people and innocent animals, or setting up circumstances that cause people and innocent animals to be killed.

9 - I would still question God's desire to send skeptics to hell for eternity without parole.

10 - As much as I would like to rubber stamp everything that God does in order to go to heaven, my morals are not up for negotiation, and I am not able to do anything about that. The only possible solution for me would be if God explained to my satisfaction why he does what he does. It is my position that a loving God, a God who I would admire and accept, would provide me with explanations for his behavior before I made up my mind whether to accept him or reject him, especially if spending eternity in heaven and hell were at stake.

So there we have it. While my beliefs would be consistent no matter what the Bible promised, Christians will only accept promises that they believe will ultimately benefit you. Christians have replaced logic and reason with emotional perceived self-interests.

Hypothetical arguments are frequently excellent tools for revealing invalid arguments. Fundamentalist Christians frequently use them when they feel that it suits their purposes to do so. C.S. Lewis' "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" is a good example.

Kosmin and Lachman wrote a book that is titled "One Nation Under God." Billy Graham endorses the book on the cover or on one the inside pages. The book is well-documented. The authors show that the primary factors that influence religious beliefs in the U.S. are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. The evidence shows that in the U.S., the percentage of women who are Christians is much higher than the percentage of men who are Christians. I forget what the exact percentage is, but I can find it if I need to. As far as I recall, the percentage difference is over 7%. It is important to note that every year, the percentage of women who are Christians is higher than the percentage of men who are Christians. That is quite suspicious. Either God discriminates against men, or he does not exist. If he does exist, it is quite odd that he would choose to mimic the percentages of women and men who would become Christians if he did not exist, meaning that since it is well-known that women are more emotional than men are, from a biological perspective, it is to be expected that the percentage of women who become Christians would be higher than the percentage of men who become Christians, and that the percentages would be fairly consistent year after year.

It is well-known that elderly people are much less likely to change their worldview than younger people are. That is why elderly skeptics are much less likely to become Christians than younger skeptics are, and why elderly Christians are much less likely to become Christians than younger Christians are. If the God of the Bible does not exist, that explains why elderly skeptics are much less likely to become Christians than younger skeptics are, and why elderly Christians are much less likely to become Christians than younger Christians are. If God does exists, he discriminates against elderly skeptics, and he mimics the way that things would be if he did not exist, meaning that elderly people would be much less likely to change their worldview than younger people would.

makerowner

Wow, great argument! I love how you made logical connections between your points and backed them up with relevant, reliable sources! Oh wait, you didn't do any of those things.
Jesus founding Christianity is debatable because nearly all Christian denominations today follow Paul's interpretation of Christianity primarily. As you probably know, Paul never met Jesus, only met his disciples a few times, and was opposed to them on various points of doctrine. So you could say Paul founded Christianity. And it was only under the Roman empire that all the creeds and such were established to create a single orthodox church. So you could say that Constantine founded Christianity.
And yes, Muhammad is debatable in my view. I read a book saying that he may actually have lived to see the taking of Jerusalem, two years after the traditional date of his death. It seems likely to me that he was not the author of the Qur'aan, and that the latter was collected from various sources in the 8th century.

arnoldo

Look, the Jewish people two thousand years ago knew the old testament forwards and backwards and yet they didn't recognize that Yeshua was the Messiah. Yeshua himself gave a prophecy on the future of Israel in Luke Chpt. 20

So basically we are living in the times of the Gentiles as prophesied by Yeshua. Once the Jews went back to Israel it signaled that the time of the Gentiles will soon be over. As noted by other writers Israel is not currently occupying all of the land promised to Abraham but that will soon change in the near future when "the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled."

spin

The Jews of the time knew that a dead messiah was no messiah at all. But christians just don't know anything about the Jewish messiah. They think it's the same as a pagan savior.

How do you know that this citation was written before the destruction of Judea by the Romans?

Not the Jews, but some Jews. You are inventing prophecy fulfillment.

Wish fulfillment? The Palestinians will have a homeland. There's nothing the prophecy-mongers can do about that.


spin

Johnny Skeptic

No it won't. The Bible says that God does not tell lies, but God lied because he promised to give Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of ancient Canaan as an EVERLASTING covenant. The partition of Palestine in 1948 failed on both counts, thereby discrediting the Bible. Logically, the word "everlasting" implies that the writer believed that Jews would always occupy the ancient land of Canaan from the time that they first occupied it. Obviously, that did not happen. There is no other rational explanation for the word "everlasting."

Genesis 17:8 says "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." Now Arnoldo, you are aware that God was speaking to Abraham, aren't you? If you are aware of that, which I assume that you are, then you also know that the "everlasting" part of the verse started with Abraham occupying the land of ancient Canaan, certainly not with the failed partition of Palestine in 1948.

The word "everlasting" has defeated you. There is no way that you can explain that word in a sensible way.

As I have told you before, it will not do you any good to refuse to reply to my posts since I will repost my arguments anyway, and the undecided crowd will read them and conclude that your arguments do not make any sense.

This is the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. However, you seldom discuss anything. Why is that? If you debated someone in person in front of an audience, you would lose hands down because you would not be able to refuse to answer your opponent's questions. It is obvious that you do not believe that God will give you the wisdom to adequately reply to my posts, which suggests that you might not be a Christian after all.

How would you like it if you were debating a Muslim, and all that he did was quote the Koran and refuse to directly reply to your arguments? If you keep refusing to reply to my posts, I might start replying to your posts by quoting the Koran. If you want get into a battle of quotes with no direct discussions, please let me know because that would be fine with me.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Since skeptics do not accept Bible prophecy, the only evidence that will do you any good is to leave Bible prophecy out of it and provide evidence that the partition of Palestine could not have occurred without a God's help. Only a very naive Christian would try to impress skeptics by quoting Bible prophecies.

arnoldo

The fact remains that the nation of Israel exists. In the old testament God frequently used men to allow Israel to return to it's homeland. We have the example of Moses dealing with pharoah, daniel & cyrus,etc so it's not surpirsing the God again would move the hearts of men to help create the state of Israel in 1948. Yes, I agree Israel has not obtained all of the land promised by God, that's why it's called a prophecy (something that is yet to happen).