Sheshonq

How does knowing the Hebrew word change the flaw in your argument?

Already fully acquainted with the belief system -- still waiting on the evidence for your belief, though. Will you be providing that anytime soon, hmmmm?

arnoldo

In order to truly understand scripture you have to interpret it with other scripture. Yet, when I do this you state I'm "preaching". Despite your skepticism Israel is a nation again,in part because Abraham believed God's promise. Note the following in the book of Acts 7:

Of course Abaham never obtained all of the land (he will when he is resurected), and when the promise was made he had no child either. He did have faith though and that is a major reason his descendants are currently occupying the land of Israel this very moment.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Since you cannot reasonably prove that the Jews never occupied all of the land of Canaan, you lose because if they did occupy all of the land of Canaan, according to Genesis 17:8, that would have been the beginning of an everlasting covenant, which obviously did not happen.

Your claim that God's protection of the Jews was conditional upon good behavior does not work. It is reasonably possible that the writer of Genesis 17:8 mistakenly believed that Abraham and his descendants would always occupy all of the land of Canaan as an everlasting convenant, and that when, contrary to expectations, the Jews were kicked out of Palestine, that is when the claims about disobedience and the Jews being scattered and eventually returning to their homeland were invented to explain away why the Jews were kicked out of Palestine. You cannot reasonably disprove this possibility.

If God's promise to protect the Jews was actually conditional upon good behavior, that means that God would have forced babies to suffer for their parents' disobedience. I would never be willing to accept an immoral God like that.

Even if Jewish history is unusual, mathematically, the odds that very unusual things will sometimes happen are astronomical. Such being the case, when very unusual things sometimes happen, they do not beat the odds. Rather, they fulfill the odds.

Jesus did not fulfill any Old Testament prophecies. The Old Testament predicts that the messiah would be a genetic descendant of David. Since Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, he was not a genetic descendant of David. It will not do you any good to claim that Joseph and/or Mary were genetic descendants of David because they were not the messiah.

Since there is already reasonable proof that God is a liar, God might not keep his promise to give all of the land of ancient Canaan to the Jews. For instance, God broke his promise to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for his failure to defeat Tyre. I challenge you to refute this argument.

Why are you so interesting in prophecy? If Bill Clinton was able to predict the future, you certainly would not worship him. You ought to know that there is not a necessary correlation between power and good character.

If God really wanted people to accept Bible prophecies about Israel, all that he would have needed to do was to gain a lot of credibility by predicting when and where some natural disasters would occur. By "when," I mean month, day, and year. That would have been irrefutable evidence that God is able to predict the future. The fact that God did not provide irrefutable evidence that he can predict the future is reasonable proof that he does not exist.

You are not nearly as interested in Biblical evidence as you claim 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 to heaven for the same reasons that I do not accept it now, but I would hope that the claim are 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 them. 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.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: It will not do you any good to quote the Bible because you cannot reasonably prove that God inspired any of it. Let's conduct an experiment. Please pick one Bible prediction that has come true that reasonably proves that God inspired it and we can discuss it.

arnoldo

How about in the last days there will be mockers and scoffers just as in the days of Noah?

makerowner

That assumes you know when the last days are. ""But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (Matt. 24:36)

Johnny Skeptic

But my request was also conditional upon you reasonably proving that God inspired it. Skeptics have always scoffed at all religions.

If God really wanted to prove that he can predict the future, he would have indisputably done that long ago. For instance, he had had predicted when and where some natural disasters would occur, that would have been irrefutable proof that he can predict the future.

A God who wanted to communciate with humans would never choose written records as a primary means of communcating with them. He would know that doing that would unnecessarily invite disputes over authorship, interpolations, lies, and innocent but inaccurate revelations, and that even Christians would sometimes kill each other over disputes regarding interpretations. Rather, a God who wanted to communicate with humans would make frequent personal appearances all over the world to people of every generation. He would know that refusing to do that would not benefit him or anyone else.

Why are you so interested in prophecy? If Bill Clinton was able to predict the future, you certainly would not worship him. I have asked you this question several times. Why have you refused to answer it?

I would still like to know why God predicts the future. So far, you and sugarhitman have not given any reasonable answers.

arnoldo

God choose the Jews to write his Word which has survived for thousands of years, all of the prophets have been Jews, and Yeshua himself was a Jew. The nation of Israel existed thousands of years ago and now exists. Do you know of any other ancient country that ceased to exist and then came back?

makerowner

It didn't cease to exist. There have been millions of people identifying as Jews throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia for the past 2000 or so years.

sugarhitman

So are you saying that Rome did not take the Jews captive? Even you Spin would not go against this fact....will you? :wave: