Sauron

"It has been suggested" - only by you so far. No one else in this thread has suggested it, and -- as usual -- you have failed to support this vague assertion with any sources. So if you think there is evidence of early Greek culture, then let's see it. If you want to argue this point, you'll have to back it up somehow.

I'm aware of no such evidence that you have provided. It's easy: if you think this is true, then show evidence for Greek culture in Babylon at this time, consistent with a claim for a 5th century authorship of Daniel. Waving your hands around and saying "it has been suggested" is the typical christian's way of waffling when they're too lazy to do research.

I don't have to show anything. You made the original claim; it is your responsibility to prove it. Here is your original claim again:

i'll give you an example; the book of daniel mentions greek instruments from much earlier than the 2nd century bc.

Your claim.
Your burden of proof.
Get it yet?

1. "So what"? You made a mistake in trying to assume I had a burden to present both sides of this debate - I do not, since you are already arguing one side. And your question was hypocritical, especially when you failed to give "both sides" in your opening claim;

2. You also made a mistake in assuming that I was even offering the argument about the musical instruments - I was not. In point of fact, poptart, YOU were the one who offered it. I merely pointed out the mistake you made in the chronology, which you still don't have the courage or integrity to admit;

3. There is no opposition to this critique - at least, none that you have provided.

My "critique" is that you have the chronology backwards, probably because you forgot that dates expressed in BC, earlier dates are expressed in larger numbers - the opposite of AD. Greek instruments in the 2nd century are proof of late authorship, not early - the opposite of AD.

You are the first claimant here; the burden of proof still rests on your shoulders, no matter how much you whine, bellyache and twist.

Ah, christian dishonesty again. My comment above was a response to your ill-founded assumption that I had some kind of obligatio to present both sides of a debate. I have no such obligation, especially because:

(a) the other side is already represented by you (weak though that may be); and
(b) your very request is hypocritical, since you failed to present "both sides" when you made your original assertion above (in green font).

As for why people would listen to me? Maybe because -- unlike you -- I understand the obligation of burden of proof and -- unlike you -- I don't spend pages and pages trying to get out of it? Or maybe because I can spot the mistakes in how you have framed your argument, while you pretend to ignore them and try to re-write the rules of debate?

Given those two options, it's easy to see why someone would put credence in my attitude, as opposed to yours.

You did not. You waved your hands and said "it has been suggested". And then on top of that, you got the chronology reversed.

You did not.

Sauron

If that is your point, then your point is irrelevant to this discussion. Unless they are having an debate with themselves , then meeting their own burden of proof is entirely circular. Telling me that you preached to the choir and -- golly gee! -- the choir accepted your every word is pointless. And it certainly does not equate to criteria of success in our debate, because I am not in the choir.

Meeting someone's own burden of proof is non-tangent to the concept of debating someone who does not accept your premises. Holy shit; I would have thought that was obvious.

Moreover, the context of this debate -- historical evidence about prophecies, reliability of scripture, etc. -- has been clear from the beginning. It has always and ever been a discussion about actual, real world, tangible evidence as it relates to these prophecies: not spiritualized, ambiguous subjective beliefs and assumptions taken for granted.

None of which is relevant either. You -- and they -- are the claimants. Burden of proof is on you/them, not the audience. The fact that the choir accepts the preaching matters not one whit to the debate in this thread.

Apparently you do, since you have been asking about what I will/won't accept, and since you have been trying to engage skeptics in debate -- even though you haven't been intellectually honest while doing so.

Of course, at a more elementary level, your question is downright stupid. If you don't care about what the opponent will/won't accept as evidence, then you aren't going to be successful in persuading them of the strength of your case.

I don't have the burden of proof here; you do. And no matter how many times you try to wiggle out of it, I will always catch you and remind you of that fact.

I saw nothing of the kind. What I saw instead was the same behavior you exhibit here: ducking, dodging, gross intellectual dishonesty, and an utter refusal to support your claims with evidence.

Of course, you can prove me wrong by:

(a) adopting the opposite behaviors in this thread;
(b) accepting your burden of proof; and
(c) getting on with presenting your evaluative framework and criteria for success

But we both know that you aren't up to the task, are you poptart?

Not in this thread you have not. Again, feel free to prove me wrong and embarrass me by point out the precise post where you listed your criteria for successfully arguing your affirmative position to skeptics and nontheists.

It is not a misunderstanding; christians bear burden of proof precisely because they are the claimants. With extraordinary claims, of course.

Would you like to argue that christians aren't making any claims? christianity is a religion without any claims? Good luck on that one. :rolling:

I have no misunderstandings at all. You tried to claim that the exercise of stating one's conditions of success was a waste of time; I provided above three very good reasons why your handwave was incorrect.

As to why you are here - nonsense. If you were interested in learning objections to christianity, you would:

a. get off your lazy ass;
b. submit your criteria for success;
c. make your affirmative case,

and then we could discuss objections to christianity -- as framed by your argument. But anything that requires you to spend time in a library or reading books to assemble a formal argument, well -- it simply ain't gonna happen, now is it?

1. I have no burden of proof here, since you and your fellow theists are the claimants.

2. Trying to bait me isn't going to work. Johnny Skeptic isn't going to help you here; you are ducking his questions as well -- and he's even more insistent on setting up criteria for success than I am.

One has to wonder why a christian cannot be convinced into laying out his case for faith, though.....strange......

You showed no flaws whatsoever. I refuted you, but you failed to address the refutation other than to ignore it and repeat your original handwave.

1. No you haven't.

2. If you think you have, then point out the precise post where you gave your criteria for successfully arguing your affirmative position to skeptics and nontheists.

And as I said before: submit your suggested criteria of success. Let's see if we have any such


Lying again? Of course you did that, just above -- you said that

t's a ridiculous exercise because you would never trust it anyway nor would you be satisfied with the process.

You are saying that no such agreement is possible.

And I've already told you: as claimant, presenting the criteria of success is your job. Once you do that, we will see if there is any room for agreement or not.

I have visited the threads, and my evaluation is spot-on-targer. You have been amazingly consistent. As Sparrow said, you have:

- maintained that a document should be assumed to be true unless proven false

- maintained that one must postulate an alternate set of events to prove another set of events false

- failed to provide substantiation for his for his claims

- attempted to refute others claims with little more than sentence fragments such as ‘how so’, ‘not everyone believes this’ or ‘so say some’

No, I've just properly identified your little mind game and refuse to play it. Since you lack the courage and intellectual integrity to debate in the normal fashion, apparently this is your best shot.

Johnny Skeptic

You most certainly did not. I just asked you "Do you dispute that it is just as plausible that the version of the prophecy that we have today is not the same as the original version as it is that the version that we have today is the same as the original version?" You have never answered that specific question because I have never asked it exactly that way. In addition, I just asked you "How is it possible to go back thousands of years and distinguish whether the prophecy was written ten years before the events, or fifteen years after the events?" You have never answered that specific question because I have never asked it exactly that way. I am always happy to quote or restate my positions in order to save readers the trouble of going back through hundreds of posts, but obviously courtesy is not something that you care about. Whenever you know that you have gotten into trouble, you always basically say "been there, done that" so you won't have to embarrass yourself anymore than you already have. Let's see how bold and committed to your faith you really are. I challenge you to a one on one moderated debate regarding the issue of the dating of the Tyre prophecy and whether or not it is plausible that later revisions were made. I predict that you will refuse to accept my challenge, and I also predict that you will refuse to quote or restate your replies to the questions that I asked you in this post.

You asked for adequate criteria for dating the prophecy, but establishing adequate criteria for dating the prophecy to within +/- several years (that is the kind of accuracy that we need) is impossible, and you know it. You have always refused to answer the following question even though I have asked it several times: Even if the prophecy predated the events, what about it indicates divine inspiration?

I told you that chapter 22 in the book of Revelation indicates that tampering with the texts is possible. You asked me for some examples, but none are needed since Protestants and Catholics already accuse each other of tampering with the texts. From a Christian perspective, either Roman Catholics have added to the texts, of Protestants have taken away from the texts.

Why do you object to Deism?

The only way that I can show readers how bad your arguments are is if we have extended debates. You are well aware of this fact, and hence your evasiveness. The nature of God is a complex topic, and it takes a lot of posts just to get started. Entire books have been written on this topic. The nature of God is the most important topic for Christians and skeptics to discuss. It is even more important than the topic of the Resurrection since there is no logical correlation that can be made between the ability to rise from the dead and goodness. We need to know what else Jesus did besides rise from the dead. Would you care to tell us?

bfniii

so now the problem is that you are either:
1. pretending you haven't heard of it
2. should do a more thorough study on the issue




translated (please do the work for me because i have spent this entire thread avoiding it.)

instead of going out to find it, you just keep up this childish game.



oh i get it. people who have really studied the issue know that it's possible greek culture was there. but what's really the issue here is that you aren't capable of showing how there couldn't be greek culture there during that time. remember you insisting that i show tampering of the text could not have happened? more hypocrisy.



no. i'm asking why anyone should listen to you and your non-case-making, time-wasting posts.



bingo. more evidence that you are a waste of time. you believe your arguments are true because you merely type them.



the side i represented was in response to critique. but you didn't catch on to that.



shouldn't you be required to show there couldn't have been greek culture during that time?



translated (i have no point to make. i'm here to get attention and flame people)



yup, it has been and people who have studied the issue know this. so which is it, you don't know about this historical research or you are incapable of finding it for yourself?



do you have some specific objection to my posts there?

Johnny Skeptic

[quote=Johnny Skeptic] If God ends up sending all unbelievers to hell, will you approve of whatever God does to them? Revelation 14:9-ll say "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name." If the verses are literal according to current human understanding, would you object to God, or is your own personal comfort all that you are concerned with.

So if we changed the penalty for murder to death by slow torture, your answer would be “if some people choose to commit murder, any penalty is acceptable,� right?

Ah, more typical evasiveness and semantic word games. Choose whatever word you wish. The point is, what gives God the right to send people to any kind of hell of his choosing?

That is in fact a thorough description. There is no evidence that God has ever appeared in person and promised believers a comfortable eternal life. Why is he so bashful?

Do we have a reason, right now, to believe that God is perfect? I am willing to say that we do not know that answer one way or the other. Are you? Is it not true that only a perfect being could know if another being is perfect?

[quote=Johnny Skeptic] You would readily accept an advanced alien with such abilities, especially if it appeared that the God of the Bible does not exist and the alien demanded that you worship him or he would send you to hell.

My point is that obtaining a comfortable eternal life is your only desire completely independent of who gives it to you. The first commandment in the Ten Commandents is “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,� but you don’t really care at all which being provides you with a comfortable eternal life. You claim that you worship the God of the Bible, but you actually worship eternal comfort. The giver of eternal comfort is completely irrelevant. Hence, the God of the Bible is completely irrelevant.

[quote=bfniii] That depends on what you mean by “verify.�

Use any word that you wish. The point is, why do you believe those claims? You don’t accept the claims of other religions, so why do you accept the claims that I mentioned? In addition to the Resurrection, those claims are the most important claims in the entire Bible, and I want to know why you believe them without questioning them.

I don’t know. Do you?

Well of course. Should we trust those texts? Do you have any non-Biblical, non-Christian evidence that Jesus healed people? First hand evidence would be best, but I will consider second hand evidence if you have any.

Why don’t you ask Jesus and the disciples? They performed parlor tricks aplenty. In the New International Version of the Bible, John 10:37-38 say "Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." The verses cite "tangible" evidence of Jesus' power. More "tangible" evidence comes from Acts 14:3 and Matthew 14:14. In the NIV, Acts 14:3 says "So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders." In the NIV, Matthew 14:14 says "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick."

We need compassion in tangible ways today just as much as people did back then. Where is tangible evidence of God's power and compassion in tangible ways today? An unusual healing can happen to anyone, not just to Christians. In the world today, there is every indication that tangible good things and bad things are not distributed equitably to those in greatest need, and that they are distributed according to the laws of physics, not by divine intervention. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that 1) God used to be compassionate in noticeably tangible ways but is not interested in being compassionate in noticeably tangible ways today, or that 2) he never was compassionate in noticeably tangible ways, or that 3) he does not exist.

Would you like to defend the Bible without mentioning any parlor tricks (miracles)? I sure hope so.

Why did Jesus supposedly convince a lot of people that he had supernatural powers based upon much less evidence than what you just mentioned? When Jesus said “If I do what my Father does,…….� he surely didn’t mean everything that his father does, but that is the kind of absurd argument that you have stated. The vast majority of humans do not demand the kinds of proof that you stated, not skeptics, not Christians, not Muslims, not Buddhists, not anybody. The restoration of lost limbs alone would go a long way towards proving that God has supernatural power and has compassion towards people with lost limbs, but don’t count on it.

Are you conceding that God does not perform miracle healing today? Regarding “Yeah, He's more concerned with paltry stuff like eternal soul destination,� I am not aware of any evidence that God is concerned with soul destination other than what the Bible writers wrote. Are you?

You can’t be serious. Doctors heal people, so why would anyone object if an alien from another planet came to earth and cured all of the sick people, and restored lost limbs?

[quote=Johnny Skeptic] In addition, I am not aware of any skeptic who does not approve of human oversight, and of divine oversight under certain conditions. Further, birds of a feather flock together. Some skeptics are very moral, loving, kind, and helpful.

What I am referring to is skeptics who are considered to be moral by your own standards. Some skeptics are more moral than the typical Christian. What gives God the right to demand salvation by faith instead of by merit? In addition, what gives him the right to refuse to tell us why he does not approve of salvation by merit? You can state that salvation by merit doesn’t work, but we need to hear this from God. Scholarships are awarded by merit, so why not salvation?

Would you mind backing up your assertion that God is perfect? You can begin by defining what perfection is as it applies to God.

bfniii

that's just it sauron, there is no debate in that regard. they are free to believe it if they want, don't owe anyone an explanation and don't have to debate anyone about it.



you are a confounding individual. you have, over and over, in this thread asked me to do JUST THAT and here complain about it. try to catch on to this point; christians being satisfied with what they believe about the bible isn't the point here in these forums. these forums are about WHY THEY ARE WRONG, hence the title biblical CRITICISM. i am trying to find out about your reason for being here, critcisms of the bible, and why you think they are true. i am asking you what would be proof to you. why are you so emphatic about not supplying it? is it because you are ashamed of it or you aren't convinced of your objections?



then why do you keep asking me to do just that?!?



i didn't mean that i don't care about what you believe. the question was one of action. why should anyone give your beliefs any credence? can you convince me that you are right? i'm all ears.



i have been asking you what you would accept so that i can try to persuade you. why is that so difficult for you?



so you make a statement like this but don't provide any specifics nor any links to rebuttals you have made. dishonesty indeed.



it started in post #27



sauron, try to understand this; the title of the forum isn't "christian claims", it is "biblical criticism". do you have a criticism of the tyre prophecy to advance?



(thunderous voice) BECAUSE I AM THE ALMIGHTY SAURON (end thunderous voice)



on the contrary, i have been trying ever so patiently to get you to state your conditions of success like every other skeptic here does.



yeah right. the other threads you claim to have read were several hundred posts long. if i were lazy, wouldn't those threads be short? also, you should be able to point out where i didn't respond to points directed at me.



sauron-speak for "i have no case to make"
what a ridiculous assertion. other skeptics don't have to wait for a christian to "frame" an argument to criticize the bible in a forum called biblical criticism. why are you so special? johnny skeptic didn't have to have that to advance his point. he started with a point, i responded as i have done in the other threads.



it sure did in the other threads i was involved in. the ones you claim to have read. the ones you don't quote.



my faith isn't the issue. BIBLICAL CRITICISM, the tyre prophecy, IS THE ISSUE.



now i'm really starting to wonder if this is some game. i provided a refutation of each one of your "criteria". i can quote them. as far as i can remember, you didn't even try to refute my points. if i missed it, perhaps you could quote them.



yes i have. obviously, you missed it. i can quote it.



it started in post #40



no i'm not and i don't believe your comprehension level is that low. i have asked what is proof to you.



have not



by definition, you wouldn't even know something is false unless you had some other idea of how the events unfolded.



typical, vague garbage



how dare i question the beliefs of skeptics. of all the nerve. don't i know that chrisian skeptics are the masters of the universe?

Sauron

What I have/have not heard is irrelevant. You made the claim for early Greek culture; you need to be prepared to back it up.

That assumes that your claim for early Greek influence holds any water in the first place. So far you haven't shown that.

No, the translation is: do the work for the very first time, since this is your claim to begin with. Either that, or point me to the post where you (claim to) have already provided it.

1. If you're being honest here and you did provide this already, it should be easy for you to find one of your own posts -- assuming, as I said, that you're being honest here.

2. The only one playing games here is you, poptart. We've been waiting for weeks to see you post your evaluative criteria and affirmative case. Instead, all we get is not-too-subtle attempts to change the rules of debate and support your claims with handwaves. Classic christian apologetics: can't win, so cheat.

You haven't quoted anyone who "really studied the issue". All you've done is wave your hands. So it's too bad you haven't shown that yet. You've tried to claim it several times, but that's not the same thing.

Burden of proof - get it yet?

1. You still haven't shown that.

2. This doesn't address your chronology mistake: Greek instrument are used as evidence of late authorship, not early. In other words, the opposite of what you claimed. I noticed that you try not to bring that little foobar up; I have not forgotten it.

1. I don't have to prove anything. This is your claim; you need to show Greek culture in the 5th century was present; I don't have to show the opposite.

2. I wouldn't be enticed into proving a negative anyhow; how silly of you to think I would fall for such a stupid trick.

Not parallel as usual. In the case of the text of Ezekiel, we have evidence of tampering in other texts, so you need to show that it did not happen with Ezekiel.

1. That is not the context of your original response, however. When you originally said "So what", I had just pointed out that you incorrectly assumed a burden of proof on me.

2. As to your (revised) question above - already answered: people would listen to me because I have a proper understanding of burden of proof - unlike you.

Ah, more lying from the christian. I've restored my original comment above, providing the context that you deliberately left out. You tried to imply that I had some burden of proof to show both sides; my response above explains precisely why that is wrong. If you dont' feel that my argument has weight, then fine - prove that. But nothing in my comment above even addresses what opinion I hold of my own posting. It merely refutes your attempt to say that I had some mysterious burden of proof to present both sides.

Given your penchant for editing other people's posts to twist the meaning of what they say, why should anyone trust you enough to debate you?

Irrelevant. The other side was still represented. Thus you were a hypocrite for expecting me to produce both sides, when you yourself didn't see fit to do that.

1. No. You are the claimant and the affirmative position; the burden of proof for Greek culture as early as 5th century Daniel is yours.

2. This still doesn't address your chronology mistake. Greek instruments are used as evidence of late authorship, not early -- the opposite of what you tried to claim.

No translation necessary; my point was clear: you want to make claims, but avoid burden of proof. It ain't gonna happen.

Except that you haven't quoted any such people, so there is no evidence to support your claim.

This assumes that any such research exists in the first place - assuming your desired conclusion is another logical fallacy that will not work here either.

You failed to present the evidence you claimed to present. If you think otherwise, feel free to point out the exact post where you offered such evidence.

bfniii

oh my word. stop playing games. you know that my response to this is to ask you why i should believe that the prophecy we have is different. do we have some copy of the prophecy that doesn't match what you would find in a contemporary bible?



the response required is no different. how do we know what we know about antiquity deapite the fact that we can't go back in time? you are avoiding answering the question by rephrasing your statements.



whatever. in my discussions with you, i have answered the same questions over and over. why don't you address how rude it is for you to continually repeat answered questions? why don't you address the times when i have quoted contradictory statements made by you? your accusation here is insulting.



perhaps you could quote an instance?



i've got an idea. since i've already done that in this thread and this one, why don't you just stop wasting time and respond to the posts i have already made. there is no need for another thread. these issues are already being discussed HERE.



if that's the case, why do you doubt that it was written prior to the event? please keep in mind i can quote you, yet again, that you have implied it was written after.



i actually have responded and you know that, you're just playing games. oh what the heck; i'll repeat my response again. what evidence could possibly exist that it was or wasn't divinely inspired? what would be proof to you?



are you referring to the apocrypha? if so, that's a different discussion. the apocrypha isn't a part of the bible.



what in the world does that have to do with the tyre prophecy? are you trying to convert me to deism? otherwise, why even bring it up?



whatever mr. contradiction



no it is not



reductio ad absurdum



read the bible. afterwards, come back and tell us what you disagree with.

Sauron

However, they are the affirmative claimants, wanting to convince others - that is part & parcel of being an affirmative claimant. They are preaching to an audience that is not the choir. If they want to convince people besides their own circle of feebleminded idiots, that is.

Totally incorrect. I have never asked you to meet your own burden of proof; what a bizarre claim. I don't give a flying rip about what watered-down standards of evidence are sufficient for gullible christians like yourself; how ridiculous.

I have asked you to present your criteria for success in this debate. What criteria of evidence do you suggest for doing honest historical textual research, with an eye to convincing skeptics at IIDB? Present those criteria here, right now, FOR DISCUSSION, to see if we have any common grounds for debate. Do we agree on them or not? Do they need to be modified before a debate can occur?

Since this is my last response (unless you decide to act maturely and properly present your argument) I'll provide you with an abbreviated example. I really shouldn't have to do this - Johnny Skeptic has provided several examples of how a statement should be framed, and there is no doubt you understand the oblgiation. However, just to remove all excuses and fig leafs from bfniii - your statement might go something like this:

"I take the affirmative position that XYZ is true. Using evidence from sources such as A, B and C, I will demonstrate my position. I propose that the evidence must be [characteristic], it cannot be [characteristic], and must be [characteristic]. The debate will follow the customary rules of presentation. If I succeed in this, will you agree that I have met my burden?"


Then we discuss the details and see if we have room for agreement or not. That's how these things work.

As I just showed above, that is not what I have been asking. I'm also sure that by now, you fully understood what I was asking. I have to conclude that your latest pretense of misunderstanding is just another one of your many ploys.

1. I don't have to convince you -- you must convince me. You are the one with the affirmative claim.

2. I have stated no beliefs; this is a debate about your affirmative position; not mine. So naturally your beliefs are the ones under discussion at the moment, not mine.

3. Why anyone would pay atention to me, instead of you? already answered: because I know how burden of proof works, and because I haven't spent weeks and dozens of posts trying to avoid it - as you have done.

Because you have been trying to reverse the burden of presenting your evaluative criteria for success. That is your job, not mine. Before you begin yoru affirmative case, you need to present the criteria by which you propose to meet the burden of proof.

This is standard debating form; it's also common in a court of law; attorneys will tell the judge and jury that "the prosecution will show beyond a reasonable doubt that such-and-such happened, and that there are no other reasonable conclusions that can be drawn from the evidence we will present."

This is what you have consistently refused to do. And I will not let you shift this burden to me.

Also incorrect - I linked to Sparrow and cajela's thread with you, and -- as might be expected -- their summary of your behavior in that thread matches what I saw you doing there as well. And it also matches what you are doing here, right now.

"Started in post #27"? Oh, please. That's merely the first post that you made when you started discussing Tyre/Ezekiel with Johnny in the thread. That is not what I asked for. Since you're feigning ignorance, let's see the request once again:

point out the precise post where you presented such criteria for successfully arguing your affirmative position to skeptics and nontheists.

And if no such post exists, then maybe you should create such a post NOW, so that your criteria are neatly packaged in a single, easy-to-find location. But we all know you won't do that, don't we?

1. Well, in point of fact the title is Biblical Criticism and History.

2. Criticism of biblical texts starts with examining the claims the texts make, and/or the claims that followers of those texts put forth. Your attempt to hide behind definitions and titles of forums is peculiarly lame, especially since it is a well-known practice here to examine claims of christians.

3. Finally, no matter what the title of the forum is, the rules on burden of proof do not change. Burden of proof is still yours, since you are the claimant.

No, because I am right, and you failed to prove your claim. Let's remember something here, poptart: you are the one who claimed that I misunderstood something. Why should anyone listen to your thundering proclamations that I misunderstood? You failed to prove that, so it boggles the imagination why anyone should accept what you say.

1. In point of fact, you *did* try to claim that stating one's conditions of success was a waste; I linked to your comment where you said that;

2. Your "patient attempt" to get me to do your work for you will not work. It is your job to submit evaluative criteria by which you will argue that you met your burden of proof.

No, because typing pages of nonsense and one-liner responses is far easier than doing actual research, reading and evaluating historical arguments.

No, it's sauron-speak for "the burden of proof is yours, not mine, since you have the affirmative claim."

1. Criticize the bible? You apparently misunderstand the word "criticism" as it is used in the phrase "biblical criticism." I noted earlier that your comments showed little experience with this topic; thank you for demonstrating that again.

2. I am not special; I am merely experienced in watching christians try to move goalposts and shift the burden of proof. What other skeptics do is irrelevant. Other skeptics may not worry too much about such issues, so they jump right into a discussion and unwittingly wind up accepting the burden of proof. I've simply seen it too often to be a willing party to it.

1. You don't know what you're talking about. Johnny Skeptic has been trying [i]for months/i] to get christian handwavers like yourself and lee_merrill to agree on criteria for success/failure of prophecy. Check the Tyre thread out, where Johnny suggested contacting several christian colleges, Theologyweb, conducting a poll, asking muslims about rebuilding Babylong, etc. The problem is that all you prophecy advocates are scared to death of standards of evidence / success, because you know your case has all the strength of rotted styrofoam.

2. Johnny has gone on to make stand-alone claims about the text as well. But he is making those IN RESPONSE TO earlier claims that he has read/seen/listened to from christian sources. So he is reacting, not acting, to these claims. And Johnny is also trying to get discussions started. I feel no need to do so.

3. Strange you would appeal to your debate with Johnny here. From watching the exchange between yourself and Johnny, it's gratifying to see that you are pulling the same bullshit in those threads that you are trying to pull here: you fail to answer his posts, you refuse to state your conditions of success, and when you are cornered on such matters, you wave your hands and try to reverse the burden of proof. Gee; who would have seen THAT coming, ya know?

4. So as I told you before: trying to bait me by appealing to Johnny Skeptic will backfire on you.

Funny; I never saw any such thing. Care to point out the specific posts?

More proof that you don't understand logic -- or burden of proof.

If you actually quoted from libraries or dictionaries, then it ought to be easy to quote them. But I can't quote those threads, because there is nothing there to quote - no such references exist.

Wonderful! Then state your affirmative claim in regards to the Tyre prophecy, as well as your evaluative criteria for success. We will see if there is any room for agreement here.

And I showed how your refutations crumbled when examined.

Really? Because above you said it started in post #27 - and as we saw, there was no such criteria presented in #27; it was merely your first response on the Tyre/Bablon topic with Johnny.

Post # 40 also contains no such criteria from you. Are you just throwing out random post numbers again? Let's review the request:

point out the precise post where you presented such criteria for successfully arguing your affirmative position to skeptics and nontheists.

And if no such post exists, then maybe you should create such a post NOW, so that your criteria are neatly packaged in a single, easy-to-find location. But we all know you won't do that, don't we?

1. Yes, that is exactly what you are saying; that is what your quote above shows.

2. As to your (revised) question - I've already responded: it is your job to submit evaluative criteria for success in this debate. What criteria of evidence do you suggest for doing honest historical textual research, with an eye to convincing skeptics at IIDB?

Sparrow and cajela seem to think you have - and from observing that thread, I wuold say they are correct.

You've already tried that bogus approach; it is still wrong. It is not "by definition", no matter how many times you try to claim that it is.

You can derive whether or not something is unproven merely by examining the construction of the argument. Yet pointing out flaws in the construction of an argument does not imply that I have any alternative idea about the outcome. Being as I have spotted the flaws in your case, that doesn't obligate me to have an alternative theory of how the events transpired. I might not know or care.

An accurate assessment, actually. Sparrow's comment mirrors what I have discovered about you as well.

Of course, if you still feel this assessment is incorrect, then here is your chance to embarrass me: point out the precise post where you provided some link or citation for your claim.

Which is not what you are doing by tossing out sentence fragments. "Not everyone believes" or "so say some" is not a refutation, nor is it a serious challenge to anything that a skeptic says. You're merely throwing words at the screen, in lieu of doing actual research.

Sauron

The ultimate attempt to shift the burden of proof. BWAHAHAHAAA!
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

And you actually tried to claim that you never took the position that a document was true, unless proven otherwise.
What raving dishonesty - caught here for posterity, though, so everyone can refer back to it.:thumbs: