mata leao

the tyre prophecy was divinely inspired.

Sven

If only your god would also inspire your posts.

mata leao

God does inspire my posts. None of the atheists here have rebutted them.

Johnny Skeptic

But it is you who have not rebutted the opening post. Will you please stay on topic for a change? No texts can qualify as being prophetic unless it can first be reasonably proven that they were written before the events, and just as important, that the version of the texts that we have today are the same as the original versions. Do you dispute this?

Boro Nut

Mata my mate. I hold my hands up. I thought you had me beat for a minute. I've read this seven times all ends up and thought I'd have to reluctantly admit you'd got me. No matter how I weighed it up, I just couldn't for the life of me see the punchline.

Then it dawned on me that it's just not funny. Very poor. "God inspires my posts. I just wish he'd speak in English" or something would have been better. Perhaps you'd be better off starting with some basic lavatorial puns before embarrassing yourself on advanced metaphysical repartee. And remember the golden rule. If you've chosen a career in stand up comedy like evangelism, at least make sure you make us laugh. One to set the scenario, two to set it up, and three to throw in the punchline. Simple.

1st Crucified Thief - Can I really come and live with you?
JC - I say unto you, believe in me and you shall play in my heavenly garden forever, and surely you shall sit on my right hand.
2nd Crucified Thief - You're not Michael Jackson are you?


Boro Nut

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Mata Leao: Why do you continue to refuse to accurately date the Tyre prophecy, and to refuse to provide evidence that the version of the prophecy that we have today is the same version as the original?

bfniii

none of this addresses your mistake that i dated the prophecy. i cited the date that christians believe the prophecy was composed. what i have been asking that you haven't answered is why you think it's incorrect. you just keep dancing around the question with petty banter.


perhaps you are deflecting from your own dishonesty. you've been wasting time by playing petty games with burden ever since we started. you must be the only skeptic who is so shy about advancing your objections to christianity by pretending to hide behind a twisting of debate protocols. who cares? i stated the christian belief about the date but you won't make a case against it. you prop up some crap rule about the christian having to prove to you without you providing what would be proof to you. btw, who made your crap rule about proof authoritative? if you don't state what would be proof to you, why are you even here? no one owes an explanation to you. you have railed on and on about burden but when i show a claim that you made, you won't support it.


no it wasn't.


says who? you? who made you the keeper of claims? no one did. your reasoning is flawed as i have showed multiple times now. ezekiel allegedly records an event. centuries of christians feel like it's trustworthy and they don't owe you an explanation as to why they feel that way. if you feel like they are in error, then prove it. otherwise, stop wasting everyone's time.


whatever. i have stated my case regarding the date which you don't even have the guts to represent here.


you've offered what? since you make the claim, shouldn't you have to support that?


i've got an idea. why don't you try to catalogue everything you think i have evaded. incidentally, you have avoided several of the questions i pose to you. you might want to answer them before you go criticizing someone else.


yes i have. since you are challenging me to reproduce it, i will.

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.

your pathetic response:
"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;"

was addressed in post #95. curiously, i find no response from you.


what you don't have the courage to state is WHY those attempts don't work. you stated your half-hearted ad hominem argument and i refuted it.


so you can't or won't defend your statement. that's all you had to say.


exactly. you make a flawed statement about sources and i am asking you why should anyone listen to you. what makes your position correct? if you would be so kind as to show why your case about sources is valid, then you would be worthy of attention.


stall? i have made my case and i can quote it. you keep hiding behind your "shifting of burden" smokescreen.


this coming from the person who in post #89 refused to follow YOUR OWN (flawed) criteria about burden of proof. you are effusive in your stance about burden, i quoted one of your claims, you refused to support it. that is a credibility issue.


i responded to this response in posts #95 and #62


no, it would benefit you. if you could discredit the source by proving your case more easily, you and your cause are ameliorated. however, you seem averse to this. it's not baiting. it's showing how you are guilty of ad hominem.


interesting. i missed the part where you showed ANY sources were garbage. perhaps you could quote it.


none of this addresses the responses i provided to these points. why do you quote something i have already refuted?


i showed how it is ad hominem, you didn't refute it. you just repeated your original stance. i'll just go over it again since you don't seem to understand it.
claiming a christian position shouldn't be admissible because it is advanced by christians, is quintessential ad hominem. you have stated that christian sources are low quality because they are biased. that doesn't address the fact that all sources are biased and it fails to prove that christian sources are intentionally ignoring pertinent information relevant to the issue.


please stop wasting time. i have shown it. in the above response, i repeated it. you haven't refuted it. all of your statements regarding the charge have been answered. if you disagree, point out the instance.


you haven't shown that it is not a fallacy. in order to do so, you would have to start by responding to my points in posts #62 and #95.


so you can't point it out. that's all you had to say.


no you didn't. in order to show they are biased, you have to show that they are guilty of ignoring information pertinent to the issue.
also, you didn't answer the questions. if they are biased, you should be able to expose that thus villifying the source and the christian position. this makes you look better. apparently, you aren't up to the task.


in order for you to state that it is a lowering, you would have to show that a source is guilty of being "low". apparently, you are incapable of doing so.


once again you make my case for me while demonstrating you can't make yours. you aptly point out that a christian source "could not, would not, print any book that ran contrary to the conservative christian line" thus agreeing with my point that in order for them to do so, they would be ineluctably required to ignore evidence pertinent to the case that would damage their position. what you haven't done is show that they are guilty of doing that. it would require work on your part and you seem averse to that. if you could or would, you would have done so already. the reason tobacco company statistics would be suspect is because they would disagree with other obvious, demonstrable statistics.


what are these "numerous other sources"? since you claim that they don't have bias, shouldn't you have to prove they don't?


you did. i showed how in posts #54 and #62.


i didn't mischaracterize your position. you should be perceptive enough to see that you didn't specified the word "perfectly" when you made your original statement. i addressed your statement as it was.


because you are unecessarily complicating and convoluting the issue. now we're talking about degree. whose standard of taint are we going to use? whose standard of bias factor are we going to use? how much is "minimum" or "high"?


you conveniently insert the word "hypothetically" thus underscoring your inability to show a source does or doesn't have bias.


so you can't define what is minimum and what is bias. that's all you had to say.


no you haven't and for the sake of clarity, i will again show how your answer is inadequate. i point out that you wouldn't even know flaws exist without having a frame of reference or something to compare correct/incorrect to. you are even agreeing with this when you say you might have alternatives. you wouldn't know something is a flaw without thinking a certain alternative is NOT a flaw. your response here and the other "dozens of times" doesn't address this point. all you are doing is repeating your flawed original assertion.


so you can't answer the question. that's all you had to say.


you still don't get it. THERE ARE NO DETAILS THAT WOULD RULE OUT THE POSSBILITY THAT HE WAS GUESSING. your request is incapable of being met by anyone, anywhere. therefore, the request is absurd. in order for you to refute my point, you would need to provide some detail i could provide like from a similar example.


but what you didn't do is show HOW it is tainted or biased.


wait, that's not what i said. i said that i don't care what sources YOU provide. and you accuse me of needing to learn how to read.


no you didn't. you just repeated your flawed assertion.
well known to whom? if you are going to make the claim, you should support it. provide a list of who this is well known to.


by whom? if you are going to make the claim, you should support it. provide who established this protocol.
the definition of the words is not in question. YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THEM IS. you are making claims and not supporting them. more garbage from you.


if they are commonly known, you should have no problem supporting them. you seem incapable of doing so. all you have done is cite some sources that either don't answer the question or don't apply to this discussion. this is another example of skeptics getting upset when their beliefs are questioned. besides, you are the only skeptic i have interacted with that takes this chicken approach. i can quote plenty of other discussions with skeptics in these forums where they are much braver about their position. furthermore, it is less than honest to try to represent me as not supporting my case. i have supported it and quoted it when called for. the other threads i have been in have gone several hundred posts. clearly, i'm not ducking anything.


you didn't answer the point.


you can't do so. that's all you had to say.


yes you do. i'll keep this up as long as you do to see how many posts you'll go without supporting your response.
saw it. already refuted.


yes you did. you said we should only use sources that have minimum bias and are high quality. you went on to state that the source cited can't possibly meet those criteria because it is evangelical. what you didn't do is show that the source, or any for that matter, is guilty of your charge. also, none of your responses exonerates your charge from ad hominem.


none of these three points answers the question i asked.


from merriam-webster: prophecy - a prediction of things to come


"words direct from God, spoken through a human voice" may be uttered by a prophet, but that does not make them prophecy. refer to the defintion given above.
who are these christians you are referring to?


here's another. the NKJ bible claims that ezekiel 26 is a part of the "prophectic messages concerning foreign nations". since the NKJ bible states it is prophecy, we can safely conclude that many christians since the time of NKJ composition consider this the traditional position.


:banghead: how can you not see that we are back to the word "prove". what constitutes as proof to you is different than to someone else. this is why i have been asking you what would prove it to you.


HENCE MY QUESTION TO YOU.


this is not totally accurate. as i have said, many christians believe the date is firmly set and don't care what you think. if you disagree, why should anyone listen to you?


yes it did and i gave a lengthy explanation of how. i can quote it if you like.


no, you still didn't address the explanation i gave. you just repeated yourself.


yes, it can demonstrate just that. this is an example of a tool that has been used to determine composition date in more than one text.
this is another shining example of the hypocrisy of skeptics here in these forums. when authorship of the gospels is questioned, skeptics point to the fact that they are anonymous as evidence that apostolic authorship should be questioned. in this case, the date is even given but you still reject it. some say the gospels weren't written by eyewitnesses because the texts don't say that they were. here, the date is actually in the text, but you engage in a double standard and question it. don't get me wrong, i have no problem with questioning the composition date. i'm trying to point out the double standard and how the composition date can be pinpointed.


so you can't prove when the book was written. that's all you had to say.


all of that can be faked. that's my point. your criteria are flawed.


they themselves aren't flawed. your attempted use of them is.


because of the strawman nature of this post, you haven't shown any circularity whatsoever. furthermore, none of this addressed my reponses i posted earlier about this same charge.


i didn't date the prophecy. i cited a christian source and i have since provided you with another. i can provide even more if you need them, but it would be redundant. you are quoting me but you are mischaracterizing my quote. hardly surprising.


yes you would. you wouldn't know "logical" or "paltry" without knowing what the opposite could be. you just keep repeating yourself using different words without addressing the point i raise here. it's about frame of reference drawn from specific knowledge. you couldn't have a frame of reference without having knowledge of alternatives.


not according to some people. their claims are in direct contradiction to this statement


this is proving my point perfectly. you reject the theft story. you then posit WHY YOU REJECT IT (no evidence for aliens). you are doing here exactly what you won't do in the biblical case. you are rejecting a claim based on your belief that SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED. at the moment, that something else isn't paramount because the vehicle for that belief, existence of the aliens, hasn't been agreed upon. WHY don't you believe in aliens? what would be proof to you that aliens exist?


on the contrary, i think they do have meaning.


i'm not trying to do that. i'm trying to find out what is coherent/rational TO YOU.


no person can form an opinion about something unless they have information from which to form the opinion.


children raising themselves is not what the issue is.


i asked what would be proof to you and you answer proof that aliens exist. how enlightening. thanks for the clarification.

Johnny Skeptic

I have not danced around your question at all. It is my position that we do not know when the prophecy was written, not that it was written after the events. It is also my position that we do not know if the version of the prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version, not that the original version has been changed. I do not assume that

Deuteronomy 13 says that unbelievers can predict the future too. In addition, even if God can predict the future, I would not accept him because of his questionable nature. There is no logical correlation that can be made between the ability to predict the future and goodness. My favorite debate topic is the questionable nature of God. That topic is more important than the Resurrection or prophecy. The supposed goodness of God is in fact the foundation of the entire Bible, and in my opinion is best stated, but not at all corroborated, in John 3:16. The thread on Biblical errors would be the best place for us to continue our debates on the nature of God? How about it?

bfniii

or they may have gotten there earlier

it is possible that you have this issue backwards

what i understand is that you are advancing only one side of the debate regarding the musical instruments mentioned in daniel. it seems suspicious that you would intentionally omit that the ideas you present are not the only ones pertinent to the issue. i guess you expect us to just take you at your word and trust that you have already countered all the opposing ideas, even though you are reluctant to show that here.

Johnny Skeptic

May I ask what this has to do with the opening post in this thread? This thread is about the dating of the Tyre prophecy. Just plain old common sense should tell you that anyone can write about anything anytime that they want to, and anyone can revise anything anytime that they want to. Why is it not plausible that the events in Ezekiel 26 were written after the facts, and that the version of the prophecy that we have today is not the same as the original version? In addition, even if the prophecy was written before the events, what about it indicates divine inspiration? Historically, kingdoms rising and falling has been the norm, not the exception. It is most certainly plausible that Ezekiel found out about Nebuchadnezzar's invasion in advance by ordinary means. Surely hundreds, if not thousands of people would have known about the invasion months in advance.

Do you not find it strange that it took a supposedly all-powerful God and a number of powerful human proxies centuries to get even with two little settlements that were populated by some puny humans? Ezekiel called Nebuchadnezzar a "king of kings," but yet this king of kings spent 13 years trying to defeat the mainland settlement and went home embarrassed. Do you not find it strange that Ezekiel did not mention Alexander? Why would God tell Ezekiel about Nebuchadnezzar and not about Alexander? The most convincing prophecy possible would have been for Ezekiel to predict Alexander's involvement centuries before Alexander was born and not write about anything else. The least convincing prophecy possible is exactly the one that we have since Ezekiel wrote about someone (Nebuchadnezzar) who already existed, had a powerful army, had a proven penchant for conquest, and whose kingdom was in close proximity to Tyre and its riches.

The moral of the story is not to worry about God since he takes centuries to get even, and amusingly that he finally gets even with people who were not even alive when the prophecy was supposedly written.