sugarhitman

I think you are confused about what makes up a "self-fulfilling prophecy" a self-fulfilling prophecy is one in which you control or direct it. Such as saving money to buy a car (a weak comparasin by the way) or walking down the street or plans to cook dinner at seven. The Jews did not have control of these events. They petitioned the Brits then had to fight them too. There were many powerful forces resisting the dreams of Israel. This is not the same as "saving money to buy a car" (unless there are hostile forces with machine guns and tanks to prevent you from reaching a used car lot, you should not use this as a comparasin.) this is not a self-fulfilling prophecy, because Israel could have easily lost the war of independence as well as the other wars. DIVINE PROPHECY. :wave:

Jack the Bodiless

Exodus says you're wrong.

I presume you got that from some apologetics source? They'll only list the stuff they want you to know about.

In the story, God tells Moses in advance that he's going to harden Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 4:21 and Exodus 7:3). Then, from Exodus 7:13, he does it... and keeps on doing it. Here's a list of the person responsible for "hardening Pharaoh's heart" on each occasion:

Exodus 4:21 God

Exodus 7:3 God

Exodus 7:13 God

Exodus 7:22 Unspecified

Exodus 8:15 Pharaoh

Exodus 8:32 Pharaoh

Exodus 9:7 Unspecified

Exodus 9:12 God

Exodus 9:34 Pharaoh

Exodus 10:1 God

Exodus 10:20 God

Exodus 10:27 God

Exodus 11:10 God

Exodus 14:4 God

Exodus 14:8 God

Exodus 14:17 God

...So Pharaoh didn't have much choice in the matter, and he was understandably pissed when God kept trampling on his free-will: not surprising that he managed to get hard-hearted a few times on his own!

Of course, none of this actually happened anyhow. Nor is there any "fulfilled prophecy" here. So you've given up?

FinnHawk

Exactly! Is it so hard to believe that Israel was setup by people who did it so that they could claim to prove biblical prophecy. It's not like God setup the nation of Israel in 1948.

martini

uh, like JEWISH leaders in Britain convincing CHRISTIAN leaders to cut out some land for this "restored" Israel? yep, sounds exactly like that. they had DIRECT CONTROL which was your criteria, correct? CHRISTIAN Brits wanting they favorite CHRISTIAN prophecy to be fulfilled sounds an AWFUL lot like a self-fulfilling prophecy. perhaps YOU are confused?
so say my grandfather once said that one day his progeny would go to college. decades later, he was right! that is hardly prophetic or supernatural.

the point is that once this "prophecy" was noted and known, ANYONE can begin the events necessary to fulfill that prophecy. it is BY THEIR OWN WORKS that these events came to pass.

further, there is NOTHING supernatural about an ethnic group of people getting land together to form a country. we see it happen from time to time WITHOUT some sort of supernatural gobbledy-gook.
IT WAS GIVEN TO THEM by the Brits. please proffer up some evidence for your claim that they had no control over these events or had to fight to get this Balfour Declaration passed. Britain was and is a Christian country. they had every reason to want their myths to come true as much as the Jews did. this is exhibited by their very actions of signing the Declaration!
please offer evidence of this, as well. there WAS no "Israel" before the Brits GAVE THEM this land. i hope that much is clear.
if they did not have powerful CHRISTIAN allies, i might have agreed with you. . .

Sheshonq

1. No, he didn't. Not even in the book of Exodus. When the story in Exodus opens, the Jews were already enslaved.

2. Not that it matters; there is no evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt in the first place. Nor were they ever slaves there, obviously.

What about people whose heads grow harder and harder? Like fundamentalists who repeat errors, even after they've been shown their mistakes? How do you explain that?

Sheshonq

No, it could not have. Besiedes having the US military assisting and standing behind it, Israel also had the participation of other European militaries.

No. At no point was this ever in question.

Sadly wrong.

makerowner

The saddest part of all this is that no matter what happens, fundies will claim that it's a fulfilled prophecy. If tomorrow morning Israel nuked all the Muslim countries and destroyed all their enemies, they would claim that God gave Israel victory. But if Iran or whoever nuked Israel and killed all the Jews, they would claim that it was punishment for rejecting Jesus or something.

C_Mucius_Scaevola

ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant

C_M_S

Johnny Skeptic

Message to sugarhitman: I always know that I am making progress and influencing the undecided crowd when a fundamentalist Christian become evasive like you have become. I have posted the following post on several occasions, and you have conveniently refused to reply to it because you did not want to embarrass yourself. Thank you very much for helping to build my confidence, and for letting the undecided crowd know that you know that you have made some bad arguments.

What restoration are you referring to? God promised Abraham and his descendants ALL of the ancient land of Canaan. Today, Jews do not occupy even 90% of the ancient land of Canaan.

Why did God allow Titus to kill 500,000 Jews in the early part fo the 2nd century A.D.? Well, you might claim that if God had not protected the Jews that Titus would have killed 1,000,000 of them.

The Bible claim that God's protection of the Jews was dependent upon good behavior is utterly absurd. What kinds of good behavior, and by what percentage of Jews? What if 90% of Jews had had good behavior, and 10% of Jews had had bad behavior? What about Jews who were babies? What did God have against them?

What is admirable about stealing other people's land by force? There is not a necessary correlation between power and good character.

What evidence do you have that God made a land promise to Abraham? The current Jewish presence in Palestine is not sufficient proof that God made a land promise to Abraham.

Which Scriptures are you referring to? I am particularly interested in why God predicts the future.

If the prophecies had not been written, what is odd about Jewish history? Without military and financial help from the U.S. and Britain, Jews would not have been able military take part of Palestine. What is odd about superior military forces helping a much weaker military force acquire land? If Jews had taken parts of Palestine without anyone's help, your arguments would be much better, but such was not the case.

Johnny Skeptic

Sugarhitman loses no matter what since he has not stated any sensible reasons why God predicts the future.

Regarding assessing the character of a being, motives are everything, and power is nothing. There is not a necessary correlation between power and good character. All that it takes to predict the future is power. Good character does not necessarily have to have anything to do with predicting the future. There is not anything admirable about the Jews acquiring parts of Palestine by military power, just like they stole some land from the ancient Canaanites.