Johnny Skeptic

But some fundamentalist Christians and sketpics will dispute if Babylon is rebuilt. Consider the following:

http://www.raptureready.com/rr-iraq.html

The article says that "Some [Bible scholars] believe that [Babylon] will be rebuilt on the very real estate once occupied by ancient Babylon." If those Bible scholars are right, let's wait and see if Babylon will be rebuilt. Regarding your use of the word "indisputable," if the God of the Bible exists, he could easily provide all kinds of indisputable evidence of his existence and power. That fact that he doesn't is good evidence that he does not exist.

There is nothing indisputable about Isaiah's claim that no Arab will ever pitch his tent in Babylon. Isaiah 13:19-20 give three ways to overturn the Babylon prophecy, rebuilding Babylon, a shepherd grazing his flock in Babylon, or an Arab pitching his tent in Babylon. Logically, overturning a prophecy that is easy to overturn discredits the Bible just as much as overturning a prophecy that is difficult to overturn. A lie is a lie regardless of how difficult it is to overturn.

That is cute. Not only do Persians live in Iran, not in Iraq, but according to a web site at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohisto...pages/651.html, "Arabs constitute the majority in Iraq and the second largest group of Iraqi migrants to Chicago." At any rate, even if you were right that Persians live in Iraq, it would be easy to import some Arabs from other places. Of course, you already knew that, which invites the question "Why did you make a ridiculous argument like that?" I've got it, you wanted to be evasive in spite of the fact that you know that Arabs are as easy to find as Jews are, but your evasive tactic did not work. Part of Isaiah 13:19-20 says that no Arab will ever pitch his tent in Babylon. That part of the prophecy would be easy to overturn, and has most likely already been overturned many times.

Would you like to acknowledge that Persians live in Iran, not in Iraq, and that you were already well aware that even if Persians lived in Iran, it would be a simple matter to import to Iraq one of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of Arab descendants who live in many countries in the world?

If God wishes to issue challenges, why doesn't he ever issue them himself in person? Why would he want to create doubt and confusion?

If your challenge had any merits, surely at least one prominent Christian would be making it, but such is not the case. How do you account for that?

It is interesting to note that God's methods never complement his agenda. You would not be able to come with any example of where God had a specific task and effectively carried out the task in the best possible ways.

Johnny Skeptic

No they didn't. Their ancient homeland was all of the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan is essentially a house. If God promised to return someone's house to them, he would return all of the house, not part of the house. Following your same line of reasoning, if the Jews occupied only one acre of the land of ancient Canaan, they would have returned to their homeland.

Of course, you cannot produce any credible evidence that God made a land promise to Abraham and his descendants.

It is reasonable to assume that the Jews appointed themselves to be God's chosen people. Why would God choose Jews to be his chosen people and turn his back on the rest of the world for thousands of years?

Old Testament Jews, including the writers of Old Testament books, believed that the messiah would be a genetic descendant of David. Jesus was not a genetic descendant of the house of David, nor of Mary or Joseph. Therefore, if the God of the Bible inspired the Bible, he deceived the writers of Old Testament messianic prophecies, including Isaiah. Nothing in Isaiah 53 comes remotely close to describing what the New Testament says about Jesus.

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.

As always, God's methods never complement his agenda.

Minimalist

Perhaps this will answer you question, Johnny.

http://www.satirewire.com/news/march02/chosen.shtml

diana

So the supernatural explains how the person who selects the winning lottery numbers did so. She did, after all, accurately predict the winning combination.

You don't have a way to differentiate, do you?

May I see the scripture reference for "Babylon will have no mayor"?

So you acknowledge that you can't say the prophecy has been fulfilled yet. Get back to us at the end of time.

d

Johnny Skeptic

Nope, that has not happened.

Who are Ephraim and Judah?

Who is they, where is Philistia, and when did that happen?

That is not evidence. In addition, you are talking about hatred, wars, and conquests that are accomplished by the sword. Such are not the ways of a loving God.

Since the vast majority of Jews have rejected Christianity, why would God want them to occupy part of the land of ancient Canaan? In addition, considering the hatred, injuries, deaths, and expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars that the Jews have caused, it is reasonable to conclude that God had no part of the partition of Palestine in 1948. There are not any good reasons for that to have happened. Many Jews peacefully coexisted with Muslims in Palestine for many centures until in the 1890's when Theodor Herzl, who was a Jew, started a movement to reclaim land that God had supposedly promised to Abraham and his descendants.

As far as I know, there were not any anti-U.S. Muslim terrosist groups until the partition of Palestine in 1948.

If the God of the Bible exists, he is the God of the sword, not the God of peace. In addition, all of his opinions are arbitrary, and are not backed up with anything except for his ability to beat up anyone who disagrees with him. Is a being automatically good just because he has the ability to convert energy into matter, and because he did it before anyone else did? Of course not.

lee_merrill

No, because someone is bound to win, see here for more on this area.

I don't have a total proof, nor do you have an total proof that you exist, but there are indications.

This was a cute way of saying its not inhabited, and this was predicted.

Right, this is a prophecy that can never be completely fulfilled, but it can be overturned at any time, making this a great way to prove the Bible false.

lee_merrill

They are assembling, actually, and have substantially assembled in their homeland. And if every inch must be returned, then I wonder if I got my house back with a corner taken out of the yard for a telephone pole, that belonged to the county, if I would still say I had my house back. I think I would.

Israel split into two groups of tribes, Judah / Benjamin and then the other ten tribes, this split no longer is present, as prophesied.

"They" is Israel, Philistine is a cognate of Palestine, and we note Israel swooping down on the West Bank, as Scripture says.

It will be if and when it happens, I say based on Scripture, that it will, this would be attacks to the east, Ammon is also it seems a cognate of Amman.

He does have a sword. So does, in fact, the U.S. government, does that mean they are for swords, and not peace?

Johnny Skeptic

There is a big difference between assembling and occupying.

But God would not promise to give someone back a house where some rooms were added or subtracted on various occasions as has been the case with Palestine. It is reasonable to assume that it is Jews who are adding to and subtracting from their house, and that God does not have anything to do with it.

On a number of occasions, the Jews have negotiated which parts of Palestine they wish to occupy. Why would any Jew wish to negotiate what God promised Abraham?

Since you do not have any credible evidence that God made a land promise to Abraham, none of your arguments are valid.

If a God exists, I am not aware of any benefits that he or anyone else could derive from him always being invisible, and never audibly speaking with anyone, at least as far as we know.

Johnny Skeptic

If your interpretation of the Babylon prophecy is correct, you would be right, but there are not any good reasons for anyone to accept your own personal uncorroborated opinion. Some Christian Bible scholars believe that the rebuilding of Babylone would FULFILL Bible prophecy, not DISCREDIT the Bible. Consider the following:

Consider the following:

http://www.raptureready.com/rr-iraq.html

The article says that "Some [Bible scholars] believe that [Babylon] will be rebuilt on the very real estate once occupied by ancient Babylon."

I assume that you have appointed yourself as the sole arbiter of which Bible scholars are right.

Following is more evidence that indicates that you have misinterpreted the Babylon prophecy:

William MacDonald's Bible Commentary

MacDonald has done his homework well. He knows that a number of pieces of the puzzle do not fit, and that some future events must take place in order for them to fit. Surely the writers of Bible commentaries have a lot more credibility than you do. Would you be willing to contact a professor at Wheaton College and ask him for his opinion of the Babylon prophecy? Well of course you wouldn't, even though you have said that you like Wheaton college. Your intent since you first started debating the Babylon prophecy at the IIDB over a year ago has been to keep the Iraqis, who are the challengees, and all experts, including fundamentalist Christian experts, out of the debates. Any Christian who believed that he had good arguments would not always refuse to provide corroboration from other sources and expect people to accept his own uncorroborated personal opinions as evidence. Your own personal opinion is not credible evidence. If you delivered your challenge to the Iraqi government, they would laugh at you, and you know it. That is why you have refused to deliver your challenge to the Iraqi government.

If you challenge had any merit, surely are least one prominent fundamentalist Christian would have issued the challenge via the world media, but that has not happened because not one single prominent fundamentalist Christian in the world who has world media access agrees with your interpretation of the Babylon prophecy. Your opinions about the Babylon prophecy have much less support from fundamentalist Christians than any topic that I have ever seen you discuss.

Of course, even if your interpretation of the Babylon prophecy is correct, you still lose. Consider the following:

No rational person would ever use difficult means to prove that a lie was told when he could use easier means.

It is interesting to note that there is not any credible evidence that God inspired Isaiah to write anything about the Babylon prophecy. The same goes for the rebuilding of any cities.

Why would God want to predict the future?

diana

Bound to win? Not at all! More often than not, no one enjoys the divine inspiration of knowing the correct lottery number before it hits.

To recap (and rephrase): 1. I ask if you have a way to differentiate between divine inspiration and extreme improbability.

2. You eventually respond by avoiding admitting that you don't have a way to differentiate between divine inspiration and sheer chance after all.

Instead, you switch from "what are your standards of proof" (implied by my question) to "we can't know anything for certain."

If I ask you for your standards of proof your wife is cooking dinner, you would no doubt list some:

1. I see her moving about the kitchen, from the cabinet and refrigerator to the stove and back.
2. I smell food cooking, and no one else in the house cooks or has the means to.
3. She told me before she began that she's about to cook dinner, and barring a house fire, she cooks dinner when she says she will.
4. I hear the distinctive sounds of banging pans and running water.
5. She popped into my study and gave me a sip of soup to test for spice preferences about 40 minutes after she told me she'd cook, and we had no soup cooked before that point.

This is not to say you have incontrovertible proof she's cooking. After all, maybe she's in the kitchen (1) faking you out, (2) the smell is coming from next door, (3) there's a house fire, (4) she's washing dishes, and (5) she heated up a can of soup, which doesn't count as "cooking." However, you have methods to differentiate between, say, her cooking and food just making itself.

By the same token, I'm still curious to know what your methods are of differentiating between prophecy and prediction. So far, you've listed improbability, but you recognize--judging from your responses thus far--that this isn't enough.

Please keep your eye on the ball.

Exactly. Now that you have the cute out of your system, let's be serious. Johnny Skeptic already attacked your position on this, but I think he didn't go far enough with his rebuttal.

If I may....?

I was going to muse about the parallel nature of Hebrew poetry (which, I'm led to believe, is for the purposes of emphasis of an idea as opposed to literal facts), but I don't see the point.

It says Babylon will never be inhabited, lee. It doesn't say, "it won't be inhabited for more than 10 years," even. It just says it won't be inhabited. (And, uh, demons will haunt it and stuff.)

As you've acknowledged, it's been inhabited. That's the problem with general, timeless "prophecies": all it takes is one clear instance of habitation between the time the "prophecy" was made and the end of time to disprove it.

Done. :huh:

It occurs to me in the course of this discussion that any person who claims a Biblical "prophecy" is valid but just hasn't come true yet cannot at the same time claim any open-ended (timeless) prophecy is true, either. That would be internally inconsistent. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

A centuries-old "unfulfilled prophecy" will count against you if a "prophecy" that something won't happen (because it hasn't happened yet) counts for you. If you appeal to the "but it's yet to come!" factor to excuse a predicted event's failure to materialize, you must logically grant the same (timeless) exception if your god has promised something won't happen and it hasn't happened yet.

The bible contains examples of both, so they cancel one another out, don't they? Either they're all conclusive or they aren't.

Option A: They're conclusive.
- Babylon won't ever be inhabited and it hasn't. = fulfilled "prophecy."
- Jesus will come again and he hasn't. = failed "prophecy."

Option B: They aren't conclusive.
- Babylon won't ever be inhabited and it hasn't, but it may, and there's no way to know. (inconclusive)
- Jesus will come again and he hasn't, but he may, and there's no way to know. (inconclusive)

If you're going to leave the timelessness open on one, you must leave it open on the other. Or neither. Just be consistent. Which do you choose?

d