Sauron

Ah, me. Tossing out the lies so early? This was not your original set of conditions. You changed that set of conditions, once it became obvious that they were easily met. Faced with that situation, you decided to move the goalposts. As badger3k said:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...14#post2690414
When confronted with the fact, you move the goalposts. Notice that your original requirements did not include two miles of streets, and ziggurats as well. What goalposts? Lee, they are already outside the stadium, and you keep moving them even further. To prevent further goalposting on your part, let's be more specific - how wide are these streets, how long (ie, to what extent are they counted from (edge of house? edge of what? center of mass of houses?), what are they to be made of (paved, stone, dirt, sand, diesel-packed road?)? What counts as a house? Wood, adobe, stone, yurt, mobile home? What if there is a store on one street - that's not a house - does that invalidate the entire strip of road? Do these roads need to meet, cross, can they be parallel? What about other structures? Can these ziggurats be mosques instead? Do these temples/ziggurats/whatever need to be built of clay brick, or can something more modern be used? Do they have to be dedicated to the Babylonian Gods, do they have to be used, and if so, by how many worshippers? Can there be modern structures and utilities, or is electricity a no-no that would invalidate the "rebuilding"?

As for your new set of "conditions" -- that was already addressed, and you have not come back to fix the problems with it:

John A. Broussard:
So even if we have a thriving metropolis built there with skyscrapers, over a million inhabitants calling themselves Babylonians, a mayor, an airport, dozens of mosques, synagogues and temples, but no wall--then no Babylon.

Sauron:
You're quite specific and detailed in the rigorous standards you ask other people to achieve for their arguments. But when it comes to your own positions, ou've never offered ANYTHING that even approaches such level of detail. Always trying to shift the burden to *anyone*except yourself, eh, lee?

You don't even have enough intiative and self-respect to poll the members of your church on this issue; yet you expect others to set up a poll for the published authors of Biblical Archaeology Review? You can't be bothered to write the faculty of Wheaton College, yet we're supposed to calculate the responses and divide by 1000?

THe photographic evidence is clear: Babylon is rebuilt. In addition to the rebulding by Cyrus, Alexander, and the successors (the Diadochi). We have photography and history on our side. If you want to claim that Babylon has not been rebuilt, you're going to have to do the legwork to prove that, instead of always trying to shift the burden onto the skeptical audience.

Given how poorly you reason through items, and how frequently you make basic errors about history and archaeology, lee, quite frankly no one cares what "seems to you". You have no credibility.

On this latest nonsense, you apparently are hoping that everyone forgets that you have already moved the goalposts from your first set of fulfillment criteria. Add that to the denial you're in over how many claims you've piled up; well, it's clear that *you're* the one doing the wiggling:

1. You claimed that rebuilding Babylon was a "golden opportunity" for muslims, yet you could not produce any muslims who agreed with you -- and in fact, the only muslim who answered your kindgergarten challenge actually agreed with you;

2. You also claimed that rebuilding Babylon was an opportunity for skeptics -- yet you duck and dodge when it has been pointed out that the prophecy has already failed for a half-dozen other reasons;

3. In spite of repeated requests, you have not provided any evidence that christians would give up their beliefs if the city were rebuilt, thus demonstrating that skeptics do not have any motives to take you up on your lame challenge;

Johnny Skeptic

The answer should be obvious to you. Skeptics attempt to discredit Scripture because they are skeptics, and I am a skeptic. I am trying to discredit the Babylon prophecy and other prophecies because they are Scripture. I have already irrefutably discredited the Tyre prophecy because you have not accurately dated it. Without an accurate date, the Tyre prophecy is not a prophecy. I have also discussed the survival of the Jewish people in another thread, but you have not participated in that thread for a number of weeks. Why not?

You questioned my motives regarding discrediting other prophecies, but my motives do not apply to the undecided crowd who have not yet chosen a world view. That crowd is not in the least bit interested in my motives. They are the only crowd that you have a chance to convince, and what they want to know is why you have become so evasive regarding defending a prophecy that you originally brought up to me in a private e-mail, and why your arguments are not accepted EVEN BY THE VAST MAJORITY OF FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS, not to mention virtually every skeptic and Muslim in the entire world.

Regarding my comment "The quickest and simplist way to settle this....," by "this" I was referring to your absurd and completely uncorroborated assertion that skeptics and Muslims are missing a golden opportunity to discredit the Bible by rebuilding Babylon. You know that I have demolished your assertion, so now you are attempting to divert attention towards other prophecies that do not have anything whatsoever to do with the Babylon prophecy. What difference does it make to you which prophecy I discredit? Does not discrediting one prophecy also adequately call into question the validity of other prophecies? The Babylon prophecy is much easier to discredit than most other prophecies because all that is required is a tangible act, namely having Arabs pitch their tents in Babylon. That is why you are afraid to discuss that prophecy anymore. I have accepted your challenge to attempt to do this, but now you are backing down from your challenge by deceptively and evasively attempting to divert attention away from the Babylon prophecy towards other prophecies. We skeptics have come to except this kind of behavior from you, and the undecided crowd have no doubt come to that conclusion as well.

lee_merrill

Actually, that would be fine! I said just that, previously, did I not? This, by the way, refutes Sauron's point about the pointlessness of disproving the prophetic passages about Babylon. But I went on to add (as I recall) that a building shining in the sun would be much more undeniable, so I recommend that approach as being most convincing.

You will at least convince me! So give it a try, your efforts in this will not be totally useless...

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Yes, they will.

Sauron

Uh, no. It does not refute my point. How typical of you to leave out what the opponent says.

What I said was that it was there was no such thing as undeniable evidence to christians, because they will always find a way to deny it. You have provided many individual test cases of my statement.

In this latest challenge by Johnny, he is saying that if he gets Arabs to pitch their tents in Babylon, will you concede that the prophecy is defeated and give up christianity? Are you willing to do that? A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.

If "No", then my original statement is still true: there is no such thing as undeniable evidence, because you're going to find a way to deny it, no matter what Johnny Skeptic does.

John A. Broussard

Better find out what the tent material has to be.

Lee won't accept ordinary canvas. It has to be camel hides.

It's important to get acceptance of all the criteria, beforehand. E. g., if those Arabs don't speak Babylonian, then obviously Babylon hasn't been rebuilt.

Johnny Skeptic

[quote=Johnny Skeptic] The Babylon prophecy is much easier to discredit than most other prophecies because all that is required is a tangible act, namely having Arabs pitch their tents in Babylon. That is why you are afraid to discuss that prophecy anymore. I have accepted your challenge to attempt to do this, but now you are backing down...]

A building shining in the sun would not be much more undeniable, or more undeniable at all. Isaiah 13:20 says "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there." Those are three separate, independent assertions, and to discredit any of them would result in the other two automatically being discredited as well. If Babylon were to be rebuilt, would that not automatically render the other assertions in Isaiah 13:20 invalid? Well of course it would.

You have said that Arabs pitching their tents in Babylon would discredit the prophecy, but even if the requirement for discrediting the prophecy is the rebuilding of Babylon, why should skeptics and Muslims make such an attempt? You have said on a number of occasions that skeptics and Muslims are missing a golden opportunity to discredit the Bible by rebuilding Babylon. That is the same thing as saying that if Babylon were to be rebuilt, the results would be favorable to skeptics and Muslims, but you have never stated how the results would be favorable. I have told you on a number of occasions that it would be a simple matter to find out if the results would be favorable to skeptics and Muslims. Christians could be asked the following question: If Babylon were to be rebuilt, would you give up Christianity? The U.S. State Department could be asked the following question: If Babylon were to be rebuilt, would the U.S. adopt a more favorable foreign policy towards Muslims? I will bet that President Bush has never heard of the Babylon prophecy, and that if he has, he most certainly does not interpret it like you do. In addition to those two questions I will now add the following question that could be asked to skeptics: If the current Iraqi government attempted to rebuild Babylon a good deal more than it has already been rebuilt, if the attempt failed, would you become a Christian?

Why do you continue to resist conducting the simple research that would back up your assertions if your assertions are valid?

Now this is cute. The chance to convince you is a golden opportunity for skeptics and Muslims, right? The point is, HOW MANY MORE PEOPLE OTHER THAN YOU WOULD BE CONVINCED? It is you who are missing a golden opportunity by not conducting the simple research that I recommended, that is, if your assertions are valid. Since the results of a future rebuilt Babylon can easily be predicted in polls and by contacting the U.S. State Department, and since the results would surely discredit your arguments, which you already know would be the case, why should the attempt be made?

cajela

Hang on, is this building not shiny enough??




ETA: How come this picture is so huge here when it comes up smaller in my browser from this url? I think I'll leave it as is: one BIG f***er of a building shining in the sun.

But is there a way to resize an image? I tried the html height & width tags but they don't work with the markup language here.
I was trying for something like this:
<img src=http://www.arcent.army.mil/cflcc_today/2003/april/images/apr12_16/Babylon%20palace%20(small%20version).jpg height="750" width="600">

Sauron

No, don't resize it.

Less opportunity for lee_merrill to avoid it. :rolling:

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Well, here is what I was referring to: "... you have not provided any evidence that christians would give up their beliefs if the city were rebuilt, thus demonstrating that skeptics do not have any motives to take you up on your lame challenge."

Is that not clear? And is Johnny's willingness to have Arabs pitch tents there not a refutation of what you said here?

I said I would, why are you asking me this question yet again? Yes, I will.

I would refer here to my previous response to Badger when he made this same point. I don't mean that one building would be rebuilding Babylon, I meant "a building" in the sense of some physical evidence you could point to, rather than having to make a case that shepherds had pitched their tents here for the last umpteen weeks. Concrete is well, very concrete! and you couldn't argue that it wasn't there.

Have you not read my previous post? It seems you consider this issue important enough to try and convince me...

Well, when you give up trying to convince me, I shall be motivated to conduct this research. As long as you pursue this issue of the Babylon prophecy with me, I will conclude that you think it is profitable to try and convince just only this one person.

I wonder how John knows this about me, that is what I am wondering. Are you, by any chance, a prophet? We will see if this turns out to be a true prophet or a false prophet speaking...

Regards,
Lee