Johnny Skeptic

But you do not have any credible evidence that it took divine inspiration to predict that.

Please quote the pertinent Scriptures.

Future events are just guesses.

But no government would indiscriminantly kill people like God does. Even Attila the Hun did not do that, at least as far as we know. Indiscriminate killing is good evidence of evil or amorality.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, it is a given that it would always be up to humans to feed hungry people, to tell people about the Gospel message, to perform surgery on people, to build houses, and to do all other tangible things.

The issue of God's motives, and of every being's motives, is of paramount importance. It is not possible to reliably assess any being's character unless you first know what his motives are. After that, it is necessary to try to determine if his methods of achieving his agenda are sensible. If the Goid of the Bible's methods do not complement his agenda, he probably does not exist.

James says that if a man refuses to give food to hungry people, he is vain, and his faith is dead. Why do you believe that God inspired James to write that? If Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after he rose from the dead, why did he do it? If Jesus fed hungry people, why did he do it? If Jesus healed people, why did he do it? If God has predicted the future via Bible writers, why did he do it? Why didn't God spread the Gospel message himself? If God kills people and innocent animals with hurricanes why did he do it?

If you do not have any reasonable answers to those questions, you lose. Regarding character, motives and methods are everything.

It is interesting to note that no rational God would ever use written records as a primary source of communicating with humans. He would know that doing so would cause doubt and confusion, and would cause hatred and wars among believers over interpretation, and would cause skeptics to question authorship, eyewitnesses, lies, interpolations, and innocent but inaccurate revelations.

Historically, many millions of people died without ever reading a written record, and without ever meeting a person who had read a written record. Even today, there are natives who live in remote jungle regions who do not know how to read and write, and have never met a person who is able to read and write.

It is interesting to note that an evil or amoral God could easily predict the future.

One good thing about replying to your posts is that they are always easy to reply to, in fact, much easier than some Christains who I have debated.

-Jay-

Lee, diana has posed a very straightforward and direct question to you. I doubt she could be more straightforward and direct if she strolled into your living room and stapled the question to your forehead.

Please do her (and us) the courtesy of answering her with the same directness. It's crucial that you do, really, because all of your responses to all of the questions that have been asked of you turn on this issue.

regards,

NinJay

Jack the Bodiless

It's in a book called "the Bible", Lee. A book you have apprarently never read.

Specifically, it's in Isaiah and Jeremiah: the very same places that your ludicrously misinterpreted "Babylon prophecy" came from in the first place. How could you have missed this, Lee?
Nope, still no prophecy: written after the event (the sacking of the temple and dispersal of the Jews).
And yet it is a FACT that it HAS been overturned. Indeed, the difference between "UNINHABITED" and "BIGGEST CITY IN THE WORLD" could not possibly be greater!

So, by your own argument, we have ABSOLUTE PROOF that the Bible is false.

...So why are you still here, Lee?

Johnny Skeptic

Who says that the Tyre prophecy is a prophecy? In order for a prophecy to be a prophecy, it has to be made before the events. What evidence do you have that the Tyre prophecy was made before the events?

Why would God want to predict the future?

Why wouldn't God want to make indisputable predictions?

shirley knott

And lee continues to evade the elephant in the living room -- there is no way to distinguish "prophecy" from prediction.
There are no prophecies, none. There are only predictions, most of which have failed. That some predications succeed does not suffice as grounds, on lee's own definition, for claiming that they were prophecies.

So I repeat -- there are no prophecies.
Kindly demonstrate otherwise or begin using the correct and unpretentious term -- "predication".

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott

lee_merrill

Well, we may note that prophecy is distinguished here by being written in Scripture, in this case, in a book claiming divine origin, that would help to distinguish it from any sort of prediction. I don't want to wrangle over this, though, because the Christian claim rests on "the Scripture cannot be broken," so if you break it, you refute the claim, whether we call Isaiah prophecy or just prediction.

Right, after of course, it becomes uninhabited.

I believe A, and how is it a failed prophecy if Jesus hasn't come again?

lee_merrill

Do recall here the verses I posted, this proves God has supernatural abilities, he is therefore the living God.

All it takes is one indisputable one, if the event predicted is not to be expected in nature.

For instance, it would not be expected that nature would make it a point to prevent Babylon from being rebuilt or reinhabited.

lee_merrill

I must then repeat that you cannot know this for sure unless you are omniscient!

diana

That's a rather amusing claim from a man who cannot give a good reason to believe a thing is prophecy and not mere prediction or guesswork. It also argues from ignorance.

If you keep this up, I'll give you a shovel.

d

Johnny Skeptic

Since three fourths of the people in the world dispute Bible prophecy, that is obviously not true. What would be indisputable would be if God were to predict when and where a number of natural disasters would occur centuries in advance. What would God have to lose by doing that? What would anyone else have to lose if he did that?