spin

Don't be dogmatic with me, Helpmabob. Hindus have their "gospel". Jews have theirs. Muslims theirs. You may be right that at best only one can be a reflection of a true god, assuming there is such a thing, but you have no way of establishing yours over theirs.

You have talked generally and rarely given anything substantial to demonstrate your claims. In fact you have actively argued that you cannot demonstrate them and that one should take them on faith.

How can I hate something I don't know exists? Be reasonable, Helpmabob. If I knew your god existed I could then have the opportunity to hate him.

You need to do more than keeping to the title. YOu need to engage in argument about it, but it seems to me that you've spent most of your time proselytizing.

To someone who cannot face up to the parallel I have given you consistently about your beliefs not being demonstrable, ie the one that I have made between your position and that of the schizophrenic, you are not able to sustain a case.

Your comment doesn't deal with what I said about gospel power. You haven't justified your notion that your disembodied gospel can have power. You have only assumed that proposition then reworded it or built on further unfounded propositions. We need to start somewhere tangible, rather than building on the disk which is on the egg, which is on the turtle's back which is on... whatever it was on and on ad infinitum.

I have seen lives transformed for all sorts of reasons. The will to believe things can have effects. Placebos can have effects. There doesn't need to be anything in what one believes for it to have an effect.

This is a sad recourse to creative interpretation of the Hebrew bible. Few Jews would be caught dead making the errors that christians do with the literature to force readings to refer to Jesus. You need to justify your statements with solid evidence. But you've already admitted you can't, haven't you?


spin

Gullwind

Everyone's entitled to an opinion. I still see no reason to treat this account differently than any other.

But Satan had to be in the world in order to do that. Therefore Satan brought sin into the world first, and not Adam.

Doug Shaver

I have tried and tested yours. It doesn't work.

jakejonesiv

Both of those options are very unlikely.
But there is a third option; it is just a story, it didn't really happen.

Jake Jones IV

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Helpmabob: Will you please give us an example of a Bible prophecy that came true? One will do for now.

Why does God refuse to do everything that he can in order to help ensure that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell?

In the U.S., why are a much higher percentage of women Christians than men?

Why did God allow hundreds of millions of people to die without telling them about the Gospel message?

Why does God hurt and kill innocent animals?

Why does God kill people, including some of his most devout and faithful followers, and babies?

Helpmabob

Mine come from God and relate to the God, the work of whose hands can clearly be seen.You must believe what you feel is right on the basis of all that you know. I am merely telling you what the truth is.

I would be delighted. There are examples of prophecies which came true. There are other examples of prophecy that are coming true now and further examples of prophecy that we can trust will come true in the future. You are seeking one from the past, and I have the very one for you here. Here is where Malachi prophecies a new covenant to be ushered in with the advent of the Lord on earth: "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. [Malachi 3:1]It is clearly prophetic. Not only that, it was clearly and most marvellously fulfilled probably beyond the wildest imaginings of Malachi many years after his death when the Lord came with the message of forgiveness by grace through faith alone. Not only does God meet expectations – He exceeds them because He does things His way, not ours.

To answer some of your questions, why not read the book of Job, Johnny?

Why do you bother keeping God’s commands? Would you promote yourself and your outlook on life as a role model for others to follow?

I have personally tested it, spiritually. That is the litmus test for me. If I am to believe in something of this magnitude, I am diligently checking it out for myself where it matters – in the spirit. I have checked it out and it passes muster. It has been tested: by me for me.

But Jack, I agree, when we allow others to do the checking for us, of spiritual matters that concern us not them, and allow them to use man-made scientific tests or whatever it is you are alluding to, there is no substance to their findings. They have been looking in the wrong place, in the wrong way, for the wrong motives - in short they get it wrong on your behalf. I would not for a second entertain such second-hand second-rate mindless exploration of the meaningfulness of life.

I don’t agree that there is not only one gospel that can describe part of God. The distinction is whether or not a gospel is from God. For example all of the gospels deal with some sort of creation. So if we assume that one gospel has it right, then it means all of them contain some sort of truth. They do differ however, most notably in the nature of Christ and the means of salvation. It might help to focus on the differences to decide where you think the truth rests.I don’t think that was aimed at you. Take Johnny Skeptic as an example. He appears to hate a God he does not believe in.Would you insist on arguing about things if it were conclusively proved to you that the way to clarify a point is not by arguing. If you could see the end could be achieved by other means, would you not rather follow them? So it is with biblical prophecy. Arguing will not make it clearer. Demonstration may.This is off-topic rendering it invalid. If you say that I am schizophrenic because I believe in God, it is additionally frankly ridiculous. There is no substantial parallel for me to ‘face up to’ contained in your comment.It’s not a notion – I have personally observed the effects of it in my own life. It was prophetically written in the book of Acts that this gospel would die out if it were from man rather from God, but it cannot be denied that it has prospered and influenced men throughout the ages since then.It follows that we must start somewhere. In fact it is crucial that we build with the correct foundations in place. I also say that we need to go somewhere. If you want my advice, if you’re looking for God, don’t start in Discworld.It is crystal clear that Jesus was prophesied in several parts of the OT – a prefiguration that I’m afraid is simply irrefutable by any commonly understood methods.

Fair enough. However, I would be interested to know how you make sense of good and evil, both in the world and in your actions.Being ‘of the world’ means to be human – part of humanity. Satan was not and has never been ‘of the world’. Sin therefore did not enter ‘the world’ (humanity) through him.

It did when I tried it, after the way of the atheist had consistently and repeatedly left me confused, worried and bitter.

How do you decide what to believe in the realm of morality then?

Jack the Bodiless

But many of the Bible's errors don't require faith in the judgements of others: Biblical contradictions, for instance, are visible to the reader. Also, those failed prophecies where the Bible admits the failure, and those where the failure can be readily confirmed just by switching on your television (e.g. Israel, while "living in peace" with its neighbors, bombs the city of Tyre, which "doesn't exist anymore").

But, where scientific findings contradict the Bible: this means that the Bible is bunk. There is indeed substance to them. Your personal ignorance of this "substance" won't make it go away.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Helpmabob: 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish. That claim is a lie because there is not any doubt whatsoever that if Jesus returned to earth and performed miracles all of the world, at least some people would become Christians who were not previously convinced. No man can fairly be held accountable for refusing to accept a message that he would accept if he knew that the being who delivered the message exists.

The Bible says that killing people is wrong, but God routinely kills people with hurricanes (this proves that God is a hypocrite), including some of choicest servants, babies, and innocent animals. God punishes people for sins that their grandparents committed, reference Exodus 20:5. God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11. God tells people not to sin, but because he transfers a sinful nature to each generation he has ensured that everyone must commit some sins. Today, the best indicates that tangible benefits are distributed in a completely RANDOM manner. While tangible good things are frequently DISTRIBUTED to those who ARE NOT in greatest need, they are frequently WITHHELD from those who ARE in greatest need, which is exactly the situation that rational minded people expect would be the case if the God of the Bible does not exist. Can you, meaning you yourself, expect to get ANY tangible blessing from God? Well of course you can't, which is exactly what rational minded people expect would be the case if God does not exist.

Your mention of the fairy tale of the book of Job is a joke. The book is of no value whatsoever to Christians. God caused the Devil to viciously attack Job, who was God's choicest servant in the entire world. Job was patient for a while, but eventually he started complaining, which he had every right to do. A threatening, powerful God shows up and scolds Job, Job is afraid of God and apologizes to God, which anyone would do under such circumstances, whether they were good or evil, and then God tries to compensate Job by giving him more family members and wealth as compensation. How utterly detestable. When God kills a devout Christian's family members with hurricanes, and destroys their property, he frequently DOES not restore what they lost because of his vicious attacks. Everything that happens in the world is caused or allowed by God. God is easily the most dangerous and unmerciful being in the world. No merciful being would endorse eternal punishment without parole and kill some of his most devout and faithful followers. Even Attila the Hun would not have killed his most faithful followers. In addition, if he had had the power to heal people, he most certainly would have healed his most faithful followers as a reward for their faithfulness. Any human who hurt AND helped people would be considered irrational, bi-polar, and mentally incompetent. Why should the behavior of a God be judged any differently?

Do you by any chance have any evidence that there is a necessary correlation between power and good behavior? No?, I didn't think you did.

Regarding your example of a fulfilled prophecy, do you by any chance have any evidence that there is a necessary correlation between the ability to predict the future and good behavior? No?, I didn't think you did.

jakejonesiv

I don't see anything marvelous or prophetic about it Malachi 3:1-4 from an NT perspective.

Whoever it was who was to come to the temple was supposed to ... "..purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver" (Mal. 3:3). Where in the gospels is Jesus alleged to purify the Levites? Answer: Nowhere.

And the result of the visit to the temple will be "and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years." That statement is directly contradicted by numerous texts in the NT including Hebrews 10:1.

No fulfilled prophecy here.

Jake Jones IV

spin

Hindus don't have a christ in their "gospel", and muslims only have a prophet Isa (Jesus). I seem not to have communicated the problem. Let's narrow the field, remembering that Paul talked about various (to him false) gospels. What do you think of the gospel advocated by so-called heretics like Marcion or Valentinus? How does one choose your gospel over each of theirs? You insist on one gospel, but obviously it isn't that simple. You claim that there is only one true one, but I'm not necessarily so optimistic: at most only one can be correct. How do you choose, what is your functional procedure for preferring one over another?

You haven't answered the question though. You have avoided it and claimed that someone you can't speak for hates a god per se. How can one hate something they don't know exists?

Spoken like a true schizophrenic. You can't convince the schizophrenic that their private perceptions don't represent something that can be objectively verfiable.

I didn't say that you. But I will say that you can't say that you are not because you have no way to.

Yes, to the schizophrenic the objectively unverifiable truths they know to be true make the questioning of them "frankly ridiculous".

Deal with the issue. You have placed yourself on a par with the schizophrenic with your lack of grounding in the real world of your claimed perceptions. Why don't you see yourself then as delusional? -- other than the fact that a schizophrenic is usually persistent in the delusion and can't grasp the relevance of some external yardstick to measure the perceptions by.

When asked to objectively test these observations, you suddenly clam up having nothing tangible to offer.

You are assuming that 2000 years is sufficient to demonstrate your theory, but there have been lots of erroneous ideas in circulation longer, the flatness of the earth, the inferiority of women, etc.

Too often if someone wants something they find it.

This house of lies and fabrications has been looked at often here. A famous non-prophecy is Ps 22:16 based on a false translation. Another is Is 7:14's young woman who you lot falsify to say "virgin", who is incidentally already pregnant. Or the perversion of the suffering servant Israel in Is 42. Or the crass misunderstanding of the "one like a son of man" in Dan 7:13. It is perfectly clear that you are building your hopes on the nefarious deceptions of your fore-believers. Quicksand. People have been playing with you.

You need to offer real evidence that cannot be so refuted simply because your sources are wrong.


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