bfniii

not necessary. you are perfectly capable of going back through the posts and seeing what you didn't answer to.

it's been explained but i will do so again. they either knew the trick just the same as the hebrews and merely repeated it, which is a far cry from "amazing", or they went and learned how and then repeated it. if they knew the trick in advance, they didn't need "foreknowledge" to repeat it. they merely repeated it when called upon. i asked you what you meant by "immediately". you conveniently never answered.

jack, please read some of the prevailing theories on this event. it would really help all of us not waste time by reinventing the wheel. if you would do so, most or all of your questions would be answered. i have already cited one such work you could read. from there, use the amazon feature that shows other, similar works.

evasion indeed. how about answering the points i raise in my posts?

why do you assume he is referring to defensive walls? this is another case of you reading into the text.

you are here assuming that the walls surrounding the island were the only walls in all of tyre.

of course they existed. i imagine they existed in several places to partition buildings and hold up roofs.

if you want to place that unnecessary restriction on your interpretation of the passage, feel free. don't expect everyone else to follow suit.

which of course doesn't affect the fulfillment of the prophecy

yes it is.

if you want to place that unnecessary restriction on your interpretation of the passage, feel free. don't expect everyone else to follow suit.

the passage does not imply that the destruction mentioned will be done by the armies mentioned in other verses. therefore, you are inventing a restriction.

no they are not. "I will" is pretty clear.

some were allegorically fulfilled, some were not.

when written, all of the above. when fulfilled, different.

i explained it. you are free to understand or not.

whatever you say. let me know if you need further clarification.

no, i pointed out how if it's responsible for anything, it's confusion.

not at all. i agree that this is the crux of the conflict. thus, the meaninglessness.

what in the world? this has nothing to do with my position. what evolution doesn't explain is whether these acts are good or evil. why haven't you caught on to the fact that this is what you are being asked to respond to?

please provide an answer to the question of how we can tell if acts are good or evil.

exactly. christianity provides a standard by which we can judge good and evil and why there is conflict.

you are right. i will discuss it further when you explain how evolution, the alleged cause of the nebulous "social instinct" can explain whether acts are good or evil.

nonsense. sometimes people and animals kill their own. the instinct you refer to doesn't exist.

you got that right. thinking that evolution can explain anything moral is confusion indeed.

meaningless rhetoric. i never said it was a moral philosophy. i asked a very simple, straightforward question.

i never said it did.

more gibberish that doesn't address the point. how do we know what is good or evil?

you have a profound talent for building strawmen. your response in no way resembles any position i have taken.

the world you posit is absurd. please explain how God "educating" us is not mechanism but still freewill.

the very phrase you use, "God-implanted knowledge", is clear obviation of any knowledge we would have gained from personal experience as a direct result of our own choice. it therefore obviates freewill. we would be machines programmed to avoid any disobedience.

in order for us to know what pain will feel like, we have to experience it. pain is meaningless without it's neuro-chemical component, i.e. the idea. you can harm yourself in any way, but without the idea of pain, you would feel nothing. therefore, it's not pain, it's damage. there's a difference.

read back through the posts about the canaanites, etc. ground already covered.

good. that means i have been successful in establishing my position as profoundly different from yours.

i asked you why i should have a problem with it. no response. i apparently share nothing with you in regards to the alleged christian God.

i never said that it was. i am not advocating that this passage refers to death-sacrifice in any way. you seem to think this passage refers to child sacrifice or ritual sacrifice when it does not. it merely refers to a person consecrating themselves or holding guilty parites accountible as i pointed out.

no, sir jack, it is YOU who have been defeated. (i can type it too) acquiesce! (i can even add a word)

because your statement is called begging the question. it's a logical fallacy which means that the truth of the position is assumed in the proposition. in other words, you stated something but didn't state why it is so. you didn't show how it contradicts everything (which seems pretty meaningless anyway).

you have no response. that's all you had to say. i provided information that was directly pertinent to the issue. you responded by just summarily dismissing it without providing reasons why it didn't address the point.

i provided a reference. perhaps you didn't understand so i will repeat: the book of genesis portrays God as omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

i stated my case including verse quotes and relevant commentary. i can provide further clarification if you need. just pose your question(s).

if you're going to accuse me of evasion/deflection then i am going to challenge you.

i defy you to show how you responded to the direct charge of appealing to numbers. please cut and paste this alleged response.

i just did but maybe you missed it.

get any christian commentary. take your pick. i'm pretty sure it will refer to ALL of isaiah 53 as messianic prophecy. it's not invention. now just support your position. show how it is NOT messianic prophecy. the christian position is out there for you to read up on. if you want to dispute it, support your case.

this goes back to the original issue. there are two sets of people on both sides of the issue. they each have their interpretation. show how you agree/disagree with each side, if you can.

several of my questions went unanswered here.

asking you to answer your own questions by studying is deflecting? i told you it's pointless to reinvent the wheel when a simple trip to amazon.com will prevent us from wasting time. you might as well ask me to order the books for you and then provide a cliff notes version.

does that thread include you presenting several different theories on the subject and analysis of the strengths/weaknesses of each? if not, why even start a thread?

i think you're right. who knows what it adds up to.

the same could be said for anyone.

now that's just not nice.

fortunately, i'm not relying on you to judge my performance. i too hope i learn wisdom. it's a worthwhile pursuit.

Jack the Bodiless

ANOTHER evasion, and ANOTHER falsehood.

I have REPEATEDLY pointed out the problem, and you have REPEATEDLY stonewalled.
It is quite obvious that YOU cannot answer. And, if you were aware of a workable answer, I think you would have attempted it by now. You are, as usual, either misrepresenting or misunderstanding the situation: I KNOW about the secular theories regarding the origins of the Egyptian "miracles", but those theories aren't based on an inerrantist position, and don't attempt to fit them into the actual Biblical narrative: they cannot account for the miraculous TIMING of the Egyptian priests, and make no attempt to do so.

If there IS an inerrantist version that works, you have not presented it, and it is quite obvious by now that you have nothing to present.
Why would any invader seek to break down ordinary house walls?

This is a part of Ezekiel's "prophecy" in which he's describing military action.
No, it isn't.

There are several posters here for whom English is not their first language, but none of them show the bizarre pattern of basic language errors that you do. I suspect that you would be equally incapable of comprehending in ANY language: that your difficulty lies elsewhere.
Our sense of ALTRUISM (the "social instinct" which evolution accounts for) allows us to do this.
Of course it does! It isn't 100% effective, but "less than 100%" does not mean "nonexistent".

On God-implanted knowledge:
You are STILL arguing that freewill requires ignorance, and this is somehow a "good thing": the freedom to make erroneous decisions based on false information. This is the only "freedom" that would be taken away by God-implanted information. You would still have the freedom to make informed choices: but, apparently, that's not good enough.
Incorrect. What part of the phrase "God-implanted knowledge" do you not understand?

On the sacrifice of Midianite virgins:
Wrong as usual. THIS discussion isn't about "punishment" (just or otherwise): it's about human sacrifice as a gift to God. You have said that you don't have a problem with it, AND you've said that this God is "awful".
You were specifically asked to provide support for your unique "adult sacrificial volunteers" fantasy, and THIS is the passage you cited in response. Now you have abandoned your position.
No, it does not. At least, the section we were discussing (the story of Adam and Eve) does not: and if there IS another section of Genesis that DOES say this somewhere, you have not presented it. I suspect that you cannot: that, as usual, you have nothing to present.
No, you did not. You merely HOPE that these words have your desired alternative meanings, you have not DEMONSTRATED that they do.

Do you understand the difference between wishful-thinking and demonstration? Apparently not.
Yes, it is: an invention of Christian apologists. It doesn't cease to be an "invention" just because an apologist writes it down.

This is another source of your confusion: your inability to distinguish between an apologist and a scholar.
This goes to the very heart of the issue. A Christian apologist will seek to pretend that Isaiah 53 is a messianic prophecy. A Jewish apologist will seek to claim that it is not. A scholar who is neither Christian nor Jewish DOES NOT CARE, and will simply read what is written (and compare this with whatever pre-Christian tradition he can find regarding what was or wasn't originally considered messianic).

On alternative dates for Noah's Flood:
Again, anyone can see that I have tackled this subject, and that you cannot do so.

There are two timeframes, depending on whether you use the Masoretic or the Septuagint genealogies. There was no worldwide Flood at either time. A local Flood is possible, but contradicts the Bible.

You were invited to contribute, and your failure to do so was noticed.

In summary: it is obvious that you have nothing of substance to contribute to this thread, and haven't said anything of note for some time now. This "discussion" is essentially over. I'm not sure why you continue to post (when you find yourself in a hole, it's advisable to stop digging), but I see no reason to continue, and I will use this forum's "ignore" facility to bring this to a close (at least for a while: I won't be able to read your posts, but I'll "un-ignore" you if you participate in the discussion of the dating of Noah's Flood, or if a separate discussion of Jewish messianic prophecies begins).

Goddbye for now.

[places bfniii on "ignore"]

John A. Broussard

Aren't toddlers (and the unborn) innocent people? If you are pro-abortion and don't believe the unborn are people, just drop them from my question.

God definitely enjoys suffering if he is all-powerful, otherwise there would be no suffering since he could easily prevent it happening with no adverse effects.

The best evidence that god is incapable of sparing the innocent is the fact that he doesn't spare them. Ergo, he seems to like watching them suffer.

I don't remember asking anything about god drawing anyone to him/her or it.

You keep asking me questions about god's needs, wants, motives, drives, etc.
However, I don't happen to believe that a god exists. You do. I'm hardly in a position to tell you what your god is like, though I can point out to contradictions in the god you seem to believe in.

E.g., your god is all powerful, yet cannot prevent the grossest kind of evil happening to mankind--floods, plagues, famine, eathquakes, etc. If you believe in the bible, I'm sure you can find many instances where your god has not only condoned but actually encouraged genocide, requiring the Israelites to kill all of the neighboring people (except for saving the virgin girls for purposes of rape).

Nope. I can't describe your god in any way except to speculate about what your beliefs seem to imply.

Thanks for considering my posts. I look forward to your further answers.

Sven

This is getting tiresome. I tell you something: We would all greatly benefit if you bettered your reading comprehension skills. I'll help you out one last time, next time please read what I write and quote. Go to post #261 and really read the end of it. In just quoting it, you omitted what I quoted from you and obviously did not check what came after the colon.

Please tell me something: Which worlview provides more comfort, an "invisible sky daddy", that is, an omnibenevolent being who cares about us, and an eternal afterlife full of joy, or a worldview in which we have to take care entirely ourselves that everything works out as good as possible and in which we are, well, dead after death?
So, to answer your question: Because this claim would not make the slightest sense. But as we already noticed, you don't care that your views make any sense. *sigh*

Quite simply because it did not address what I wrote. That's the meaning of "evasion", didn't you know?

This all tells us nothing about god's plan. Hint: Plans are about what will happen, not about what happened.

I snipped the critique of Matthies article - this is too much off-topic. Feel free to open a new thread about it and copy what you wrote here to the new one.

Only a hint: I don't care what you consider to be "errors" of denominations different to yours. They say the same about your interpretation of the bible - and that's exactly my point.
To repeat: My claim is simply that Christians disagree about central theological themes - as evidenced by the article. If we exclude intentional deception and dumbness (kind of silly to accuse large fractions of people of this; surely there are at least a number of honest and intelligent people in each denomination), the only possibility for this to happen which is left is that the bible is too ambiguous about these themes.
I eagerly await your further evasions.

I just picked one out of your text:
Can you say "No True Scotsman"?

Examples are dime a dozen in the other thread. But providing examples is not even necessary: You disagree with the consensus of the experts. IOW, you implictely call most of the experts dumb. What's difficult to understand about this?

I already provided one at least twice. You simply failed so far to comprehend what I wrote. I don't know, but normally people should know that they missed something when they quote something which ends with a colon. *shrug*

bfniii

might be a good idea to before jumping in at the end.

since it's convenient, wikipedia cites several sources claiming it was written 587, 6 bc.

i think there is confusion. i am saying the mainland was taken but the island was not. however, i have read that he did indeed attack the island with a coalition of ships from various navies.

encyclopedia brittanica

thus corroborating my point that nebuchadnezzar did defeat the tyre mainland.

not sure what this has to do with your original point regarding the mainland

not so. apparently the destruction was so thorough, alexander used the rubble to build the causeway. additionally, nebuchadnezzar deported the monarchy. he was hardly "sent home".

the scripture doesn't specify that particular army would be the one to be the ultimate downfall of tyre.

i disagree.

bfniii

what do you mean by innocent? they are innocent of what?

you are assuming He doesn't have a good reason for allowing it.

how do you know there wouldn't be adverse effects?

i couldn't disagree more. it takes much assumption to make those statements.

Originally Posted by John A. Broussard
So god makes the unborn, toddlers and other innocents suffer in order to develop in them "a hunger to not be separated from God." Your god then seems to be incapable of sparing them

my question stands. you asked if God was incapable of drawing us to Him. are other ways necessary? what other ways can exist?

i'm merely asking about possibilities.

again, what gives you the idea He can't prevent these things?

as i said, God does allow suffering. however, in the vast majority of the cases you mention, those who were punished were guilty of something quite specific. God even goes further in some cases by specifically warning them of the consequences related to such actions.

Johnny Skeptic

Where in Wikipedia? I need to know exactly where in Wikipedia these claims are made. Upon what evidence did your sources date the Tyre prophecy, if that is what they really tried to do? Did Ezekiel write his prophecies down on paper, or on clay or stone tablets? If he wrote them down on paper, those original records are long gone. If he wrote them down on clay or stone tablets, are the tablets in existence today? If the Tyre prophecy was actually first written in say 450 B.C., what would have distinguished it from having been written in 587 B.C.?

bfniii

it is possible that your request was not completely clear to every possible person. clearly, i was trying to honestly provide an answer to your query. that should have been a signal to you. the most efficient way to communicate in this case is for you to let me know HOW my answer is deficient so i can more pointedly respond and we don't have to waste time with personal insults.

i believe you are asking me to show that i am not the only person who claims that God was prepared for the fall, that God knew it would happen and had a plan for that eventuality. to this i have a couple of responses.

the doctrine of dispensationalism states that God "dispenses" experiential lessons to man via distinct human epochs. this progression of ideas moving toward the complete restoration of the relationship between man (those who have accepted God's plan) and God clearly indicates a conscious, deliberate plan.

most systematic theology books will outline that God had a plan for mankind via dispensationalism, but might not present the idea in the same iteration. for example, in wayne grudem's "systematic thelogy", several of the same ideas are presented;

1. why man was created - for fellowship with God
2. what our purpose is - to experience life and a relationship with God
3. define our identity - created in the image of God
4. purpose in the fall - man is free to choose to disobey, free to choose reconciliation, occasion for God to show love and personal interest in man
5. result of the fall - progressive redemption of man indicating we are important to God, worthy of being redeemed

this all seems a bit excessive for the point. if God is omniscient and had what we would call foreknowledge of man's disobedience, how could He not have a plan for that eventuality?

i guess that depends on who you ask. g. k. chesterton aptly points out that to the atheist, sorrow is central and joy is peripheral. conversely, to the christian, joy is central and sorrow is peripheral.

as good as possible? what does that mean? what is good?

how do you know we are dead after death (that man has no soul)?

to whom?

ad hominem

evasion is not telling me how my response was inadequate. again, it's obvious i was trying but sometimes a request might not be completely clear. i feel like my response was adequate and thorough. you tried to build the strawman of me arguing that God wanted man to disobey which i did not do. what i have done is to argue that God allowed the possibility of disobedience and we chose it. God then justly held us to the consequence of our choice. even so, God considers us important enough to provide the possibility of redemption thus fulfilling the oft-requested "painless world".

in this exchange:
Originally Posted by Sven
This entirely misses the point. The point is that god himself makes this pain happen. Why would he do so if A&E did exactly what he wanted them to do (although he said "Don't do it", just to remind you).

Originally Posted by bfniii
it has been discussed several times in this thread that God can use pain and even injustice in this life for ultimate good. the question is why you feel the paradigm of this existence should be different. apparently you feel God should not be allowed to do so. care to elaborate?

you didn't reply to my requests. i would also like to add that God does not make pain happen, He allows it. to state otherwise is to misinterpret the bible. if you have any specific verses you would like to discuss, bring them up.

in this exchange:
Originally Posted by bfniii
i think the main confusion stems from judging God and His intentions for man solely from this one passage. i think it provides an incomplete picture. you think it's sufficient.

Originally Posted by Sven
One problem with the bible is (it's obvious to anyone reading it without a preconceived conclusion) that one can read anything into it. Usually, one reads exactly this which one already believes in. That's called "honesty", you know. So the bias, as you call it, obviously isn't there; they were still Christians when they realized their cognitive dissonance.

Originally Posted by bfniii
what's honest is to acknowledge that everyone operates from a bias.

Originally Posted by Sven
Yes, indeed. Former Christians who deconverted despite their Christian bias. Understood now?

Originally Posted by bfniii
i was referring to how bias colors one's perspective. two people can look at a fact but draw different conclusions from it based on their bias. the fact hasn't changed, but the application of it is in question.

you argue that christians who deconvert should prove that christianity is false. in order to complete that idea, you would have to prove that the remaining christians are not aware of objections to christianity, that they are incapable or unwilling to be exposed to non-christian arguments. besides, you never answered the point that non-christians operate from a non-christian bias.

at one time, this was in the past. additionally, there are dispensations that have yet to occur. furthermore, it does tell us that there is a plan because it gives us insight into the relationship we have with God as outlined above.

if it's off topic, why did you cite it?

my critique did not involve me pointing out denominational errors. it involved me dispelling the errant notions of the author.

that's disappointing. i just posted a thorough critique of how the article is mistaken.

hmm. i post a thorough critique of the article and you respond by telling me i'm evading. you then choose not to respond and conveniently say that my critique is off topic and repeat your original assertion.

not quite. the groups excluded are commonly excluded for a well-supported reason. there is no ambiguity in the proposition.

which thread would that be? the daniel thread split from this one? in that case, i have done no such thing (dispute biblical scholars). if anything, i have supported them in that thread.

perhaps you could provide at least one example and we can go from there. otherwise, this doesn't seem to be true. besides, this is an appeal to numbers and you should know that.

spin

The dating issue of the prophecy is actually quite important.

With the attack of Assyria on Samaria and then Jerusalem, Tyre was functionally excluded from trading in the Jerusalem context. This was followed by Nebuchadnezzar's domination of the whole area, so that there was no chance for Tyre to engage in what it did, commerce, in internal Levant. We have to wait for the Persian peace to provide a suitable situation for Tyrian trade to extend to Jerusalem.


spin

John A. Broussard

Vast majority??? So you admit that god allows the innocent to suffer.

If you believe that the unborn are guilty of anything, I won't argue with you since your belief is "beyond belief."

That god can't prevent suffering without producing adverse effects is obviously a clear indication that god is not all-powerful. I have no problem with that view. Do you?

Do you admit that your god can't do anything about suffereing because if god did so, something worse might happen? If you admit to this, you indeed have a strange view of god.

My guess is that your god--if that god exists--not only doesn't prevent suffering but actually causes that suffering and enjoys every moment of it.