arnoldo

I dunno, when do you think Israel came into existence? Archaelogical evidence proves it is an ancient country. More archaelogical evidence here:
Israel Stele Genesis 47:27 - And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt

Johnny Skeptic

You frequently refuse to directly reply to my arguments, and to arguments that other skeptics make. You frequently insist on choosing whose questions get answered, and which issues get discussed. You use that unfair tactic because you know that some of skeptics' arguments are good, and are difficult for you to refute. You would never pass up an opportunity to directly reply to an argument that a skeptic made that you believed was easy for you to adequately refute. Now what would you do if skeptics treated you the same way that you treat them? How would you like it if you posted a link, and skeptics refused to visit the link, and posted links of their own?

Consider the following post from a thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=237693 at the Evolution/Creation Forum:

In typical fashion, you conveniently refused to reply to that post. Here is the way that things are going to be: If you refuse to directly reply to all of the arguments in this post, I will ignore whatever you say and repost this post until you directly reply to all of the arguments in this post. I will not allow you to be a bully. The undecided crowd are not impressed with your evasiveness, and for the most part, they are the only crowd who both sides have a chance to influence. It will be quite interesting to see how you will deal with being treated the same way that you treat skeptics.

On the contrary, you have never reasonably proven that the Partition of Palestine was not a self-fulfilled prophecy. If the Koran said that a temple would be rebuilt in Mecca by Muslims, and Muslims rebuilt a temple in Mecca, would you call that a legitimate fulfillment of prophecy?

If God did not make a land promise to Abraham and his descendants, and Abraham falsely believed that God made a land promise to him and his descendants, since all that it takes in order to self-fulfill a prophecy is the belief that it is true, and enough military power to make it come true, that explains why Palestine was partitioned in 1948.

All Bible prophecies are disputable. I wish to distinguish disputable prophecies from false prophecies. A false prophecy is a prophecy that does not come true. A disputable prophecy does not necessarily have to be a false prophecy. Even if all Bible prophecies are true prophecies, they have failed to convince the majority of the people in the world that they are true prophecies. If Pat Robertson accurately predicted when and where a natural disaster would occur, month, day, and year, that would be far less disputable than any Bible prophecy. In my opinion, no prophecies at all would be much better than 100% disputable prophecies because that would mean that God needlessly creates doubt and confusion. Since the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion, it is obvious that he does not exist since if he did exist, he would easily be able to prevent confusion.

One thing is for certain: If a God inspired the Bible, there are not any doubts whatsoever that he would be able to convince more people to love him and to accept him without unfairly interfering with their free will. It would certainly not have been unfair for Jesus to accurately predict what the names of the Roman emperors would be for the next 200 years, and their dates of birth and death, which would surely have caused more people to become Christians. That is a reasonable assumption since historically, many people have accepted all kinds of outlandish religions based upon much less convincing evidence than that. In addition, Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce attracted a lot of followers based upon a lot less convincing evidence than that.

Since Jesus made some predictions, Christians cannot get away with claiming that he did not want to use prophecy to try to influence people in future generations.

Regarding modern day Christians, you have already refuted your own argument. Consider the following from the GRD Forum:

That contradicts the following argument that you used in another thread:

[quote=arnoldo] It's the job of the church to end confusion, explain scriptures, and spread the gospel into all of the earth. I admit the church hasn't done it's job adequately.[/quot]e

Since I will save this post as a Microsoft Word file, it will be quick and easy for me to repost any parts of this post that you conveniently refuse to reply to.

My favorite arguments against Christianity are in a thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=235279 at the GRD Forum that is titled 'If a God exists, he is probably not the God of the Bible.' That is just one of many threads that you conveniently vacated when you got into trouble.

arnoldo

My favorite argument is that archaelogy backs up the Israel has existed for thousands of years due to the Abrahamic covenant.

Egyptian Execration Texts

Sheshonq

No such evidence exists, as I've already pointed out to you. As is typical of your crappy reading skills, you ignored it and r-posted claims that are already refuted.

Uh, wrong. As I noted above: the Merneptah stele is old news, and doesn't confirm what you think. And by the way, there is no "Israel stele".

Sheshonq

That's not an argument, it's a cartoon. Entertainment, but not real world. You've been asked multiple times for independent proof of any such covenant, but you run like a scalded dog each time.
:rolling::rolling::rolling::rolling::rolling::roll ing::rolling::rolling:

Which proves nothing. Your abysmal reading skills are only excelled by your lame research skills.

arnoldo

The Moabite Stone is an accurate extra biblical source which confirms the events described in 2 King 3 of events which occured in Israel in the 9th BC. Earlier archaelogical evidence confirms contact between Israel and Egypt previously. I leave this archaelogical evidence for you consideration and will not be posting any more since it's easy to do your own research at your local library. Some examples of books which you may find at your local library to continue research in this area is;
1. Encylopedia of Jewish History, Alpher,Joseph
2. The Timetable of Jewish History, Geenstein, Edward

blastula

So Yahweh had already obtained a deed to Palestine?

Sheshonq

1. Uh, no it does not.

This inscription can be interpreted as supplementing and corroborating the history of King Mesha recorded in 2 Kings 3:4-27, thereby earning it a prominent place in the corpus of Biblical archaeology. However there are significant differences. In the Bible it is Ahab, Omri's son, who conquers Moab, and the rebellion is against Ahab's son Jehoram. Further, in the Bible, it is not Chemosh who gives victory to Mesha but Jahweh who gives victory to Jehoram. Israel withdraws, according to the Book of Kings, only because they are disconcerted when they see Mesha sacrifice his son.


So it does not, in fact, confirm the bible. See what happens when you rely on biased fundibot sources like christiananswers.net, arnoldo? They only tell you half the story - and as usual, you get it wrong!
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

2. Mesha stele - another item that everyone here already knew about; old news to us, even if it's new information for you. But I don't even know why you brought it up. That isn't independent evidence of a covenant.

That's what you claimed you had, remember?
That's what I asked you for, remember?

You don't have any. Admit it.
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

No it doesn't. Your other examples have already been addressed.

1. Your evidence fails to support the claims you've been trotting out here.

2. I've already done far more archaeological research than you'll ever do. That's why I know your examples by heart, and it's also why I know that you're wrong.

Fish in a barrel.....fish in a barrel...

Johnny Skeptic

But I have been discussing your favorities arguments all along, and you usually refuse to discuss my favorite arguments. Whenever I adequately refute your arguments, which I have done in a number of threads at four forums, you always refuse to discuss them anymore. As I said in my post
#1052, "Here is the way that things are going to be: If you refuse to directly reply to all of the arguments in this post, I will ignore whatever you say and repost this post until you directly reply to all of the arguments in this post. I will not allow you to be a bully. The undecided crowd are not impressed with your evasiveness, and for the most part, they are the only crowd who both sides have a chance to influence. It will be quite interesting to see how you will deal with being treated the same way that you treat skeptics."

This will be my standard reply from now on unless you directly reply to my arguments. If all other skeptics adopted my new policy, which I suggest that they do, you would have to directly reply to skeptics' arguments if you wanted skeptics to reply to your arguments. Your approach to debating is not fair.

arnoldo

You seem to ignore the fact that the Moabites would be biased to record their history in their favor and admittedly the writer of 2 Kings would also record history from their perspective. The greater fact is that both record the same historical event. It seems that your are BIASED to accept the Moabite version while discounting altogether the biblical account. Note the following interpretation which seems to be more balanced than your rants.
Source: Archaeology and Biblical Accuracy by Farrell Till