Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Johnny Skeptic · 01-31-2008, 05:02 PM

Message to arnoldo: What are you trying to prove? Are you trying to prove that God can predict the future? If so, what is admirable about power?

Johnny Skeptic · 01-31-2008, 06:11 PM

Message to arnoldo: In the early part of the 2nd century, Trajan went to Palestine to put down a Jewish uprising and killed 500,000 Jews. Why did God allows Trajan to kill 500,000 Jews. If your answer is that God's promise to protect the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, if you decided that you wanted to protect John Smith from being attacked by his enemies because John Smith was your friend, would you injure or kill him? Of course you wouldn't, which invites the question "If God wanted to protect Jews from their enemies, why did he sometimes injure or kill them with storms and harmful microorganisms? With parasites alone, God has killed more people than all of the wars in history, and he has done so indiscriminately without any regard for a person's worldview. Why would God would God want to protect Jews from being injured or killed by humans, but not from being injured or killed by anything else? If you love someone, and want to protect them from their enemies, you would certainly want to protect them from everything else as well.

Johnny Skeptic · 01-31-2008, 07:25 PM

Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." If the Jews believed that the messiah would become ruler of Israel in this life, which I believe that they did, God deceived them.

Although Christians blame the Jews for not knowing who Jesus was, it was God's fault. If Micah had said that the messiah would become ruler of a heavenly kingdom, and that he would heal people, and that he would be crucified and rise from the dead in three days, and that Pontius Pilate would become governor of Palestine, there are not any doubts whatsoever that a lot more Jews would have accepted Jesus.

No Christian can intelligently that God wants people to believe that he can predict the future. Since a God would not have any trouble at all convincing everyone that he is able to predict the future, arnoldo obviously does not have any idea whatsoever what he is talking about. One advantage of being a God is that you are able to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.

arnoldo · 02-01-2008, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." If the Jews believed that the messiah would become ruler of Israel in this life, which I believe that they did, God deceived them.
.

Yeshua was born in Bethlehem exactly as prophesied by Micah 5:2. FYI not all of the Jews misunderstood prophecy and many Jews accepted Yeshua as the messiah.

Jack the Bodiless · 02-01-2008, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Yeshua was born in Bethlehem exactly as prophesied by Micah 5:2.

Somewhat off-topic, but... it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Both birth-narratives (Matthew and Luke) are clearly fictional, and incompatible with each other (Luke's Jesus was born at least a decade after Matthew's Jesus). In both cases, it appears that the birthplace was "moved" to Bethlehem (Luke uses a "census" that never actually happened).

And the author of John says that Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem: he was born in the Galilee region instead, which is why some people rejected him. John 7:52 "They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

FYI not all of the Jews misunderstood prophecy and many Jews accepted Yeshua as the messiah.

Most (in fact, almost all) Jews rejected Jesus because he failed to fulfil the Messianic prophecies.

Amaleq13 · 02-01-2008, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Yeshua was born in Bethlehem exactly as prophesied by Micah 5:2.

Except that "prophecy" refers to a tribe and not the town.

arnoldo · 02-01-2008, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

My understanding is that no prophecy concerning Israel will be close to being complete until the Next Jewish Temple is built. According to Christian Theology, or mythology if you prefer, we are living in the time of the gentiles. The sign that Israel is back in the Holy Land is just one sign, out of many, that a Jewish temple will soon be rebuilt after the last one was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

So not only has the perpetual possession prophecy been falsified by Jerusalem having been taken out of the hands of Abraham's seed and most of that seed having been lost, you admit here that you have no fulfilled prophecy at all. They will be fulfilled though -- according to your hopes and desires.

But you have nothing, other than the Zionist movement which lured Jews to Israel by pretending to be interested in prophecy and use the prophecy to lure more back to occupy settlements in Palestinian land: "you can be a part of the prophecy!" If you were an average Jew after WWII, wouldn't you feel the allure of that? You'd want to try to fulfill the prophecy, wouldn't you?

spin

Agustine wrote the following which answers your question in his book, Concerning the City of God, against pagans.

Quote:

At any rate, no one doubts that the only land referred to here is the country called Cannaan. Yet the statement, " I shall give it to you and to your seed for ever (usque in saeculum),' may puzzle some people, if the take 'for ever' to mean 'for eternity'. If, on the other hand, they accept the word saeculum here in accordance with our confident belief that the beginning of the future era (saeculum) starts with the end of the present era, there will be nothing to puzzle them. For even thought the Israelites have been expelled from Jerusalem, the will remain in other cities of the land of Canaan, and they will remain there to the end. And the whole land, being inhabited by Christians, is itself the seed of Abraham.

Christians, who are the seed of Abraham, have always inhabited the land of Israel since the time of Yeshua.

makerowner · 02-01-2008, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Agustine wrote the following which answers your question in his book, Concerning the City of God, against pagans.

Quote:

At any rate, no one doubts that the only land referred to here is the country called Cannaan. Yet the statement, " I shall give it to you and to your seed for ever (usque in saeculum),' may puzzle some people, if the take 'for ever' to mean 'for eternity'. If, on the other hand, they accept the word saeculum here in accordance with our confident belief that the beginning of the future era (saeculum) starts with the end of the present era, there will be nothing to puzzle them. For even thought the Israelites have been expelled from Jerusalem, the will remain in other cities of the land of Canaan, and they will remain there to the end. And the whole land, being inhabited by Christians, is itself the seed of Abraham.

Christians, who are the seed of Abraham, have always inhabited the land of Israel since the time of Yeshua.

1. Arguments based on the Latin text are worthless. Go back to the Hebrew, then we can talk.
2. I guarantee that when the author wrote "the seed of Abraham", he didn't mean Christians; he meant the descendants of Abraham. Why is it that you guys have no trouble interpreting these kinds of passages allegorical/metaphorically, but still believe Genesis has to be literally true?

arnoldo · 02-01-2008, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by makerowner

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Agustine wrote the following which answers your question in his book, Concerning the City of God, against pagans.

Christians, who are the seed of Abraham, have always inhabited the land of Israel since the time of Yeshua.

1. Arguments based on the Latin text are worthless. Go back to the Hebrew, then we can talk.
2. I guarantee that when the author wrote "the seed of Abraham", he didn't mean Christians; he meant the descendants of Abraham.

Remember the promise to Abraham that ALL NATIONS would be blessed through Abraham?

Sheshonq · 02-01-2008, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshonq

Having reading problems again?

from before the destruction took place.

Do you have any idea whatsoever when the New Testament was written?

Yes.

Quote:

I have a hypothesis that you will state any time after 70 AD.

And I have a hypothesis that you will cut & paste someone else's argument from a website you've never seen before, without realizing the argument actually contradicts you.

Wanna place some money on which one of us will be proven right? :rolling:

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-31-2008, 05:02 PM	#941
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	Message to arnoldo: What are you trying to prove? Are you trying to prove that God can predict the future? If so, what is admirable about power?

01-31-2008, 06:11 PM	#942
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	Message to arnoldo: In the early part of the 2nd century, Trajan went to Palestine to put down a Jewish uprising and killed 500,000 Jews. Why did God allows Trajan to kill 500,000 Jews. If your answer is that God's promise to protect the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, if you decided that you wanted to protect John Smith from being attacked by his enemies because John Smith was your friend, would you injure or kill him? Of course you wouldn't, which invites the question "If God wanted to protect Jews from their enemies, why did he sometimes injure or kill them with storms and harmful microorganisms? With parasites alone, God has killed more people than all of the wars in history, and he has done so indiscriminately without any regard for a person's worldview. Why would God would God want to protect Jews from being injured or killed by humans, but not from being injured or killed by anything else? If you love someone, and want to protect them from their enemies, you would certainly want to protect them from everything else as well.

01-31-2008, 07:25 PM	#943
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." If the Jews believed that the messiah would become ruler of Israel in this life, which I believe that they did, God deceived them. Although Christians blame the Jews for not knowing who Jesus was, it was God's fault. If Micah had said that the messiah would become ruler of a heavenly kingdom, and that he would heal people, and that he would be crucified and rise from the dead in three days, and that Pontius Pilate would become governor of Palestine, there are not any doubts whatsoever that a lot more Jews would have accepted Jesus. No Christian can intelligently that God wants people to believe that he can predict the future. Since a God would not have any trouble at all convincing everyone that he is able to predict the future, arnoldo obviously does not have any idea whatsoever what he is talking about. One advantage of being a God is that you are able to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.