lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Yes, I did, that was 20% of the total.

Well you have my name and email address! I made the poll a private poll, so people wouldn't be inhibited by others knowing how they voted. Part of getting people to respond! That would be another aspect of conducting polls.

I have no idea! You were the one who wanted the poll, so you need to tell me what your purpose was for it.

I'm actually thinking people would see that this would be beneficial without a poll. Do you have a poll showing that there is no other way to convince the Iraqi people? If every conclusion must be the result of a poll, I will need a poll to show me that my poll will be effective.

Because that is not the way to get a representative sample.

Certainly, but not so easy to convince other people that this happened. Buildings stand still for pictures, morning noon and night, and are much more indisputable.

Well, you could use my opening post in this thread! That was my attempt to state the challenge.

Actually, the Muslim I talked to did not want to discredit the Bible! He was (I must say) an unusual Muslim.

And I agree with you.

Um, what permanent inhabitants are these? That I am denying? How long were these people you are concluding were there, actually there?

I actually stated my requirements clearly!

Prayer, Johnny. It's called prayer...

Yes, and good proof is available in the failed attempts to rebuild and reinhabit Babylon. Another attempt, knowing what is at stake, would now be very enlightening...

Regards,
Lee

Jack the Bodiless

The inhabitants that Saddam evicted. Do you have ANY REASON AT ALL to deny that these were permanent inhabitants?

And what is this new "permanency" criterion anyhow? If Arabs pitched their tents in Babylon, you'd ignore them as not "permanent" for... a year? A decade? The rest of your life?
So you HAVE now renounced Christianity?

If you have NOT: your dishonesty is indeed enlightening. Though no longer very surprising.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: You will never get anywhere discussing the Babylon prophecy with anyone but the Iraqi government. Only they have the legal right to rebuild Babylon or to grant permission to someone else to rebuild it. Have you contacted the Iraqi govermnent? Well of course you haven't. You are the challenger, and the Iraqis are the challengees, but incredibly you haven't sent your challenge to them. This is unpredecended as far as I know, issuing a challenge but not delivering it to the challengee. The Iraqis will probably require that you provide them with evidence that if Babylon were to be rebuilt, the Christian Church would become substantially smaller, and more importantly that the U.S. would adopt a friendly foreign policy towards Muslims. How do you intend to meet these requirements? The U.S. State Department would be easy for you to contact. Why don't you do it? Just your sayso most assuredly WILL NOT convince the Iraqi government that it is in their best interest to rebuild Babylon.

Whenever you issue a challenge to me, I will issue one back to you and tell you that you have frequently claimed that skeptics and Muslims are missing a golden opportunity to discredit the Bible, and that you have never produced even one single shread of evidence what this golden opportunity consists of THAT THE IRAQIS WILL FIND TO BE APPEALING. NO ONE ELSE'S OPINION MATTERS BUT THEIRS. KAPICHE? COMPRENDO?

Undoubtedly Muslims are quite pleased with how well they have discredited the Bible so far, and without rebuilding Babylon I might add. Islam has over one billions adherents, and it is growing faster than Christianity is. In addition, Christianity had a 600 year head start.

Early in these debates, I quoted you as saying “The prophecy that Babylon will never be rebuilt or reinhabited (Isa. 13:19, Jer. 25:12, Jer. 51:26) has been and is being fulfilled, and this is a clear demonstration of God's supernatural power.�

Let’s take a look at your Scripture references:

ISA 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

What did Sodom and Gomorrah look like when God overthrew them?

You later agreed to include verse Isaiah 13:20:

20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

If Arabs were to pitch their tents in Babylon, that would be the same as if Babylon were to be rebuilt. It would be just as easy to observe Arabs pitching their tents in Babylon as it would be to observe a rebuilt Babylon. If you give the Iraqis some good reasons to have Arabs pitch their tents in Babylon, I assure you that they will be able to accomplish it. What would you require as evidence that Arabs had pitched their tents in Babylon? Possibly some eyewitness testimonies from U.S. servicemen who are Christians, some photographs taken by them, and a letter from the Iraqi government?

JER 25:12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Today, obviously Babylon IS NOT a perpetual desolation.

JER 51:26 And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

Today, Babylon IS NOT desolate.

You have required that Babylon be substantially rebuilt in order to discredit the prophecy, but none of your Scripture references make such a requirement, or even anything close to it.

Deuteronomy 13 says that bad people can predict the future too, so it is not a question of who can predict the future, but of who has good character. I submit that the character of God is questionable, that he is provably bi-polar, and provably dangerous. A good example is that God created Hurricane Rita and diverted it to New Orleans. He never chooses to restore lost limbs, but he is usually quite happy to cure the common cold. Such behavior is bi-polar, uncaring, and inconsistent. You would never trust a human who acted like that.

lee_merrill

You have some good points here, Johnny, glad to address them.

We need to read on, to understand this, though:

Isaiah 13:22 Hyenas will howl in her strongholds, jackals in her luxurious palaces.

So this need not imply that there would be no remains of any buildings.

I agree! Though not so easy to convince everyone else. Again, you get what you pay for here, it seems.

Well, it's not inhabited! And it was not restored, on Saddam's latest attempt, and "shall not take a stone" implies stones would be there, which they are. And here again is what this means:

Jeremiah 25:13 I will bring upon that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations.

It means all the things spoken against it, such as no Arabs using it as a resting-place, no inhabitants, and never again rebuilt...

Well, to make your case, you must prove that they were, though...

Regards,
Lee

Jack the Bodiless

Babylon was inhabited when Saddam evicted 1,000 people, and it is inhabited by troops today.

And it was restored since the prophecy was made (by Alexander, for instance).
1. HOW can I do this, to your satisfaction?

2. WHY should I do this?

YOU are the one making an extraordinary claim: that Babylon can never be inhabited, because of a "prophecy". Yet Babylon WAS inhabited: invalidating the prophecy. There is no indication whatsoever that these inhabitants were not "permanent" (and, anyhow, this is a new criterion invented by you).

This is YOUR excuse, Lee. YOU are the one who is now desperately trying to claim that these inhabitants were "not permanent", in order to cling to the wreckage of a shattered prophecy.

...So, let's see your proof that these people were not living there "permanently".

So far, your objections have made no sense whatsoever. You have attempted to claim that the site was "a swamp", completely ignoring the fact that a great city was built on this "swamp", Saddam had no problems building a huge palace on this "swamp", and this "swamp" has been selected as suitable terrain for a military base (and it sure doesn't look like a "swamp" in the photographs). So why can't people live there, permanently?

Sauron

It was inhabited - contrary to your ad hoc claims.

No, you are the claimant. You need to defend your claim - we're merely shooting down your claims.

Because we have photos of the people, and we know that 1,000 of them had to be moved by Saddam.

1. Didn't seem to stop the Babylonian empire from setting up its capital there.

2. Stores. There are people who live in parts of Alaska without any stores around - gee, I wonder how they do it? Oh, that's right - they can't possibly live without stores, so these people in Alaska are just imaginary, aren't they? Did it ever occur to you that some people might not not need a corner 7-11 as badly as you do?

Says who?

Oh, please. Don't try to put lipstick on a pig and pass it off as a beauty queen. You 'conclude' nothing at all. Your 'analysis' is just a bunch of assertions strung together like xmas lights, backed up by only your wishful thinking.

Lack of archaeological protest? You were corrected on that multiple times - why are you still trying to use refuted claims, pretending as if they were never shot down?

Yet when you asked muslims about this very topic, they pulled the rug out from under you and told you that they accept the bible prophecy.

Why do you keep pretending this claim of yours hasn't been shot down already? Just because *you* are afflicted with the debate version of attention-deficit disorder, that does not mean that the rest of us won't remember how this silly claim was debunked months ago.

Unfortunately it does not work that way. If you have a claim, it's your job to prove the claim -- it's not the audience's job to disprove it.

Which you already knew, but like most christians, you can't back up your claims.

Jack the Bodiless

...Ah, I missed this previously.

There were at least a thousand people living in Babylon (because that's just the number that had to be evicted from the palace site). I think it's reasonable to assume that somebody was selling them stuff: that there would have been a "store" or market of some sort.

But, apparently, there are multiple accounts which say otherwise.

And these accounts are... where, exactly?

Also, when did the claim of 1000 inhabitants become "our" claim? I'm not going to wade all the way through this thread, but I seem to recall the claim originating in an article linked by a guy called "Lee Merrill".

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: You were perfectly willing to reply to parts of my previous post, but in typical fashion you conveniently refused to reply to the following:

Are you aware that the undecided crowd are not impressed with your frequent evasizeness and your refusal to reply to arguments? They are the crowd that you have to most chance to influence, and they want to know why you always refuse to back up your claim that skeptics and Muslims are missing a golden opportunity to discredit the Bible by rebuilding Babylon. You have never provided any evidence at all what this golden opportunity consists of, and incredibly, you haven't even delivered your challenge to the only people who can accept it, namely the Iraqis. This is quite amusing. As always, thanks a lot for the entertainment.

Johnny Skeptic

Nice try, but Isaiah 13:20 says "1) It shall never be inhabited, 2) neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: 3) neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; 4) neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. The verse makes four separate claims, and discrediting any one of the claims would discredit them all. A promise is a promise no matter what the promise says. The verse doesn't mention anything at all about rebuilding. That is why you conveniently did not mention it in your early statements in this thread until I mentioned it and forced you to include it in your list of pertinent references. Item 1 says "inhabited." Babylon has been inhabited to some degree on various occasions. The verse does not mention the degree of habitation. Item 2 is the same situation. 3) It is most likely that Arabs have pitched their tents in Babylon. In addition, you can't prove that they haven't. That alone defeats all of your arguments. To assert that something will never happen is exactly the same thing as asserting that it has never happened. Item 4 is the same situation as item 3. So, your rebuilding argument just flew right out of the window. Care to try again?

How do you know that some people will not be convinced if Arabs pitched their tents in Babylon? Have you conducted a poll or a survey?

Boro Nut

This may be an opportune time to compare the merits of the biblical prophecy concerning Babylon with the puny pagan efforts.

Isaiah : Grrrr! I’ll smash Babylon to smithereens. It will be wiped off the map. Nobody will live there ever again.
Rome : Grrrr! I’ll smash Carthage to smithereens. It will be wiped off the map. Nobody will live there ever again.

Result
After enjoying 1500 fruitful years as a thriving metropolis, Babylon is finally reduced to still being Iraq’s major inhabited tourist attraction.

Sadly, poor old Carthage was smashed to smithereens, and nobody lives there. Don’t believe me? Then go to Tangiers and look yourself. You wont find it I promise.

Boro Nut