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Old 11-21-2005, 08:37 AM   #231
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Originally Posted by John A. Broussard
Since scientific guesses about what happened in the biblical narrative are inadequate, I wonder if you could tell me what happened in this instance:

JOSHUA10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Thank you.
Sure, it is a tall tale with zero historical credibility.

Jake Jones iV

"The things that you're liable to read in the Bible - It ain't necessarily so ..." Porgy & Bess
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Old 11-21-2005, 09:16 AM   #232
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Originally Posted by aChristian
I am curious. Do you really not understand that once the fact of the resurrection is established and along with it the truth of Christianity that it is no problem for God (not a human being) to make the sun stand still?
A naive assertion. Does one alleged miracle prove another? The parsimonious answer is that neither happened.

But by all means continue. I always enjoy tales of talking asses (Numbers 22:28).

Jake Jones IV
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Old 11-21-2005, 07:24 PM   #233
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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle
AChristian, I note you did not respond to my comment about a god who can stop the earth revolving for a battle but did not intervene in a little local difficulty involving six million of his chosen people and 30 million plus other people.

Slight moral contradiction - someone who has the power to sort it not taking action. That is a sin of ommission - it is in fact evil not to intervene when you have the power to do so. Oh and mumbo jumbo about free will and mysterious ways do not cut it.

Maybe it is time for you to say goodbye to your ridiculous beliefs - which by the way - I used to hold before I got tired of believing six impossible things before breakfast (apologies to Alice for getting that wrong!).
My answer to the comment about Hitler is included in my comment about the problem of evil. It is man's responsibility because he truly has a free will.
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Old 11-21-2005, 08:22 PM   #234
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Originally Posted by Antlerman
Respectfully, I do not play silly word games. If I lacked substantive points to make, I would not say anything. You did state in these words, "Paul said that if the historical fact of the resurrection is not true, our faith is in vain�? (see post #168 in this thread). You stated it as “Paul said,�? The reason I make a point of this is not to strain at minor technicalities, but the effect is you are stating in such as way as to give the impression to someone that Paul viewed it as a historical fact, something that is debatable.
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To me it is so patently obvious from reading the NT that it is not debatable.

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Originally Posted by Antlerman
That is ascribing a lot of motives to someone you’ve never met. The reasons I don’t state things dogmatically as fact is because I learned as I passed through my teens and early twenties that things I believed were “indisputable�?, had in fact numerous other valid possibilities. In a word, I won’t state things as though I know them as absolute facts because I’ve been humbled too many times. As a result I am open to other possibilities, and my knowledge is ever growing because of it - which by the way is my main grievance with fundamentalism: it strives to reject different ways of looking at something and greater knowledge becomes halted.
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You are correct that I don't know you and it is good to be open to new facts and to modify your world view to accomodate them. However, there is a difference between being cautious about assuming your position is correct and refusing to admit what you know is true. God loves each and every one of us and wants us all to know the joy of fellowship with him and the forgiveness of our sins. For this reason, he has made himself obvious to anyone who seeks him. As I quoted from the gospel of John, the reason men do not come to Jesus is because they "love darkness rather than light". To come to God, we all have to be honest about our own sin and wickness and humble ourselves before our Father who loves us. Are you open to the possibility that Jesus is the only way to heaven?

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Originally Posted by Antlerman
You state that so definitively. Is it not possible that it was simply taken by someone as something other than was originally intended, and then they shared what they believed was a factual historical account with the next person, and then it spread as such from there? I see no one being deliberately dishonest in that scenario, do you?
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I think that the essentials of Christianity are so unmistakable that no one could be confused over what was intended. Jesus said he would be delivered to death, that he would be mocked, spit on, scourged, and killed and that on the third day he would rise again. And he said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:33,34,45) The gospels tell us that he arose on the third day and met with them many times after that over the next forty days, eating with them, letting them touch his wounds to confirm their doubts that a dead man could really rise from the dead, and as Luke says he presented himself alive with many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3). God made it clear.

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Originally Posted by Antlerman
The Gnostics did not believe it was historical. That is one group of Chistians who viewed things differently back then, than what was later defined as accepted beliefs through chuch councils. Clearly they didn’t view the resurrection as rock-solid historical fact.
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They were not Christians. They also had no evidence to back up their beliefs.

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Originally Posted by Antlerman
To state they had to have been lying is to make the implied argument that the Biblical writers would never do such a dishonest thing; therefore we should accept them as stating a fact (which ironically would of course agree with position of the one making that argument!). I don’t think “lying�? necessarily had would have to have anything to do with it. There is more than one possible way to look at this.
Although I think that the evidence is firm that they were not liars, I was not making that point. I was just pointing out that your position that they could tell the story as if true although they knew it to be false is lying. Just because they do it for some greater purpose does not cease to make it dishonest. The ends do not justify the means.
I am interested in you answer to my question above, "Are you open to the possibility that Jesus is the only way to heaven?"

P.S. I like your name (Antlerman).
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Old 11-21-2005, 08:25 PM   #235
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Originally Posted by Antlerman
I just saw this in catching up on this thread.

You're not being really serious, are you? Are you just playing around with us here, or hoping to get us to sharpen our arguments against these sorts of fringe doctrines? I won't get any more off subject than this, but I'm sensing something "off" here.
I am quite serious. Go to ICR's website if you are interested in information in this area.
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Old 11-21-2005, 08:33 PM   #236
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Originally Posted by Jack the Bodiless
This is, of course, baloney. And I suspect that you know it: you certainly haven't posted anything on the thread set up for this purpose.

However, EVEN IF the historicity of the resurrection HAD been established: this would NOT make the REST of the Bible true. Billions of years of the history of the Earth and the Universe would still exist. It remains true that ancient peoples such as the Egyptians were entirely unaffected by a Great Flood that supposedly wiped them out. Biblical contradictions would remain. Failed prophecies would still be defunct. And so on.
I think that you can inductively prove that something exists (you cannot deductively do this, you have to assume something, i.e., that something exists) and from there use deduction to work your way all the way to proving the resurrection. From there you can establish divine inspiration of both OT and NT including all history and science contained within them. In addition, without even doing this, just from the study of science and history, I believe that you can show the earth is thousands of years old, the flood destroyed all the earth, prophecies have been miraculously fulfilled and there are no Biblical contradictions.
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Old 11-21-2005, 08:54 PM   #237
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Originally Posted by jakejonesiv
Nope, you are wiggling off the hook that easily. 2 Peter is divinely inspired Prove your assertion.

Jake Jones
It is never rejected as spurious (except possibly by Didymus who nevertheless quotes from it), Origen didn't consider the grounds for questioning it to be serious enough to reject it, Irenaeus may be using a couple of the examples the same way Peter did in II Peter, and the church councils weighed the evidence and accepted it. There are more reasons I'm sure if you check a conservative website. I think all of your evidence is negative. In addition, as I stated above, I believe the church recognized the inspired writings immediately and just because they were questioned later (and re-affirmed) does not mean the early church didn't recognize them as inspired. I also believe (and have good reasons for doing so) that God guided the preservation of his word.
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Old 11-21-2005, 08:57 PM   #238
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Originally Posted by John A. Broussard
Since scientific guesses about what happened in the biblical narrative are inadequate, I wonder if you could tell me what happened in this instance:

JOSHUA10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Thank you.
I already answered this above.
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Old 11-21-2005, 09:06 PM   #239
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A naive assertion. Does one alleged miracle prove another? The parsimonious answer is that neither happened.

But by all means continue. I always enjoy tales of talking asses (Numbers 22:28).

Jake Jones IV
You really don't get it? Once you prove the resurrection, you can logically deduce the divine inspiration of both OT and NT (I filled in a few of the logical steps above, but you can fill the rest in). Once divine authorship is established, I come back to the same point I made earlier. Do you really consider it difficult for God to do any miracle??? You don't appear to be interested in knowing the truth.
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Old 11-21-2005, 10:09 PM   #240
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Originally Posted by aChristian
I already answered this above.

You just gave it a name. "Miracle."

You didn't explain what happened.

Since the sun does not move around the earth, how could god stop it from moving around the earth.

Miracle or no miracle, there must be some explanation as to what happened.

I'm looking forward to your explanation.
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