Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: In the early part of the 2nd century, Trajan went to Palestine and killed 500,000 Jews. Why didn't God protect the Jews?

What exactly has God protected Jews from for thousands of years, possibly from hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamies, plagues, droughts, and famines? It would not make any sense for God to protect the Jews from other humans and refuse to protect them from hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamies, plagues, droughts, and famines, but if the God of the Bible does not exist, then that explains this situation.

If Jews were able to occupy all of the ancient land of Canaan, is it your position that God would stop killing them with hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamies, plagues, droughts, and famines? If not, then God could not possibly care about the safety, health, and well-being of Jews. If God's only intention is proving that he is powerful, he certainly does not have to partition Palestine in order to do that. There would be much better ways for God to accomplish that, such as creating a new planet.

spin

Actively, none. Passively, there are culturally ingrained beliefs that I try to circumvent, when the necessity arises.


spin

spin

Your logic is ridiculous. To the Jews Daniel was never a prophet, false or otherwise. Prophets had communications with god. Daniel suffered from weird visions according to the book. Just because christians misinterpreted Daniel as a prophet, it doesn't make him one. But old mistakes are the hardest to see and get rid of.


spin

spin

Have you proven a single prophecy true? Naaa. Wish fulfillment is not real fulfillment.

You are as gullible as the poor Jews being lured to Israel by the Zionist dream to throw themselves on Palestinian territory. It's not prophecy but political manipulation regarding those people. With you it's another thing. "There's one born every day."


spin

arnoldo

This claim is an outrageous lie. If your refering to the issue between Moses and Pharoah it was Pharoah who decided to sacrifice the firstborn children of Egypt. Besides on what basis do you decide what is moral and what is not moral? Please note how Abraham addressed this very issue.

makerowner

Exodus 11:4-5 (RSV): "And Moses said, 'Thus says the LORD: About midnight I will go forth in the midst of Egypt;and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits upon his throne, even to the first-born of the maidservant who is behind the mill; and all the first-born of the cattle."

spin

More reductionist thinking. You need to understand Daniel for when it was written and why it was written. Daniel is one of the easiest books in the bible to date due to its preoccupation with the Jewish struggle to shrug off the Seleucids. It's purpose was not prophecy, but edification. Its aim seems to have been similar to Winston Churchill saying, "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas ... we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds".

If you read 2 Maccabees and the first part of 1 Maccabees, you will have some understanding of the context of Daniel. The Jews were being persecuted for their culture: Antiochus IV thought he could "civilize" them by force, so anyone who publically gave indications of the old religion were taken away, crucified, women had their babies strangled before their own deaths. The temple was polluted in the eyes of the people. The daily sacrifices were halted. Their cultic calendar was interrupted.

Daniel's message is simple: despite all this god will save you if you hang on; god knows what you are going through; it has all been foreseen, so god is in control and you will ultimately be safe; even those faithful who have died the martyr's death will be resuscitated to enjoy the time to come; and that time is soon. The prophets were social and political critics, but the book of Daniel had a very different aim.

References to forgery regarding Daniel are simply wrongheaded on both sides of our divide. Naive literalism will not help understand the book.


spin

Johnny Skeptic

Well, you used that same argument in the thread on the Tyre prophecy. I asked you prove it, and you said that you couldn't, and mentioned the Partition of Palestine. When I went back to the Partition of Palestine, you went back to the Tyre prophecy. When I went back to the Tyre prophecy, you went back to Daniel. You are playing a dishonest and evasive circular game of bait and switch where you try to validate one prophecy with another prophecy, and whenever someone calls your hand, you continue to go in circles. I may not have gotten the sequence right, but the point is that you need to stop trying to validate one prophecy with another prophecy. From now on, whenever you make an off-topic post and try to validate one prophecy with an off-topic prophecy, I am going to refuse to discuss the off-topic prophecy and tell you that if you want to discuss an off-topic prophecy to start a new thread, or go to a thread that has already started about whatever topic you want to discuss.

Johnny Skeptic

Nope, your evasive bait and switch tactics will not work anymore. I already challenged you to make a post in my thread on the book of Daniel, and you have not done so because you do not wish to embarrass yourself. Either provide credible evidence that Ezekiel knew about Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Tyre in advance or make a post in my thread about the book of Daniel.

spin

There is a precedence in the issue. You make the claim: you have to demonstrate it. If there were no claim made there would be no need to judge it, so the responsibility is for the claimant to prove the claim. You have assumed it.

If people give you examples of how something doesn't need to be the way you claim it, it is an effort to communicate your responsibility.

For Daniel I'll show you that a historical perspective regarding the persecution of the Jews between 167 and 164 BCE fit the last three and a half years of Daniel's structure better than anything you can provide. In fact I can give a coherent analysis of almost all of the latter half of Daniel as focused on that one event. A better explanation of Daniel's visions is merely my means of trying to make you do what you have the responsibility to do: demonstrate your claim rather than assume it.


spin