Skeptic_v.1

A whole lot of people thought the world was flat...guess what

A whole lot of people have often be found to be totally wrong in what they believe.

Headache

When you have a sword at your head and is given the choice between converting to christanity or die, what would you chose?

Most of the world was not christened because of the religion, but because of the sword that accompanied it!

spin

Love it. After making a fool of yourself citing a page about a prophecy being attributed to dealing with Bahaullah as though it had to be for Jesus, your now trying limply to cover your ass. Well, it's just as bare as when you first ludicrously made the mistake.

Hindsight is not a particularly useful perspective, when trying to understand religious thought. Take things out of context and you get different meanings. Your trivial arithmetic merely hiding your mistake. The mistake itself was a tangent from your original post. You remember: if christianity is a crock of shite, how come it's still going? Hopefully you got an answer: religions don't need to be veracious to attract and maintain the witless faithful. How many millions believe the miracle of Bolsena (transubstantiation)? How many believe in Joseph Smith's golden tablets? How many believe in Xenu? How many believe in a god so crazed that the only way he could get around his own condemnations was to send his own son to do the trick? People will believe anything.


spin

mg01

Sorry, the concept is that there is a "Buddha" in everyone. Sidharta Gautama became "Buddha" following his enlightenment. It's the same idea in Christianity where one is encouraged to "live though the Christ in you".

Half-Life

The verse where Jesus says "This generation shall not pass away" is explained here:

http://www.preteristarchive.com/Part...lip_ca_01.html

I can't wait to hear your spin on God's Holy Word this time.

Toto

From your link:

Really, this is a fine example of scrambling for cover.

Headache

"Firefox can't find the server at www.preteristarchive.com."

Half-Life

Did you even bother reading the explanation?

Here's an excerpt:

In Acts 1:6-7, that first generation of disciples asked Jesus if He was about to set up the kingdom of Israel. This was after the Resurrection. Jesus told them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." Yet Matthew 24 clearly gives signs so that we will know the seasons! And many of these signs were in fact unfolding during that first generation! (We will see why below.) But Jesus is clearly stating that the disciples of His generation were not to know the season.

In referring to the abomination of desolation, Jesus said, "So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel — let the reader understand." (Matthew 24:15). Jesus said, "Let the reader understand." Jesus was not talking about the reader of Matthew. That book was written many years later. No, Jesus was talking about the reader of Daniel. In Daniel 12:4,8-10, Daniel himself is expressing the fact that he did not understand. But Daniel is told to seal the words. Daniel is told that only the wise, in the end time, would understand. And Daniel is told that the wicked would never understand, and the wise would not understand until the end times. Jesus has clearly told the disciples that they were not to know the season. Therefore, the disciples would not understand, even though they were wise. It's only after the end-time signs start to unfold that the wise begin to understand. And in Revelation 5 and 6, Jesus opens the seals of the scroll so that the wise begin to see the signs of the end times, and begin to understand. Today, with careful comparison of the seals of Revelation with the symbols given in Daniel and Zechariah, the wise can identify the first four seals of Revelation 6 as the United States, China, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations. (See chapter C3, "Daniel 7: Four Beasts and Four Horses" for more information.)

Matthew 24:30 says that when Christ does return, that all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. Now I don't believe the wise, those who know Jesus, would mourn at His coming! It's the wicked of the world who mourn. They will mourn because they will realize that they have been wrong, and that their continued sin remains to be judged. So, the second coming will be something that no one mistakes. Not even the wicked of the world will mistake or fail to see the second coming. It's seen by every tribe of the world, according to this verse! (The second coming was not in 70 AD!)

Matthew 24:34 says, "This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place." The context here, of course, are the signs of the End Times. But to really understand this verse, we must go back to the original question that was asked by the disciples.

Matthew 24:3 says, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Jesus and the disciples had been walking through the temple. And Jesus had said that the temple will be destroyed, that not one stone would remain on another. All the world will mourn at Christ's second coming, and this has not yet happened. Given these two facts, what was the real question that was being asked by the disciples? Was it a single question? Or was it two questions? "When will all this happen?" is asking about the destruction of the temple. "When will you come again?" is asking about the second coming. The disciples did not understand, because the seals of the scroll had not yet been opened! The disciples thought they were asking one question. But they were in fact asking two questions. Jesus gave the true answer to the two questions. But since the disciples were not given the authority to completely understand, we have to piece together what they wrote about Jesus' answer in a way that it makes since, given the two questions. Again, the disciples thought they were asking one question. We must re-interpret the answer given to be an answer to two questions.

The first question is when would the temple be destroyed. The second question is when would Christ come again. There are three accounts of Christ's answer to these two questions. The one in Matthew 24 is almost identical to the one in Mark 13. But the answer given in Luke 21 is significantly different. The answer given in Luke 21 fits better the with the first question. And the answer given in Matthew 24 fits better with the second question.

Luke's account says to watch for the armies to surround Jerusalem (Luke 21:20). Matthew's account says to watch for the abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15). If we, like the disciples, interpret this answer as one question, then we would tend to equate the surrounding of Jerusalem by the armies, with the abomination of desolation. But if we see that it's really two questions, then we can see these are two entirely different signs for which to watch. And we must interpret the abomination of desolation exactly the way Jesus told us to do. He told us to watch for the abomination of desolation that Daniel wrote about.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Half-Life: No matter how many threads that you start, my arguments will always be the same. If a God exists, he could easily telepathically communciate the same prophecies to everyone in the world without unfairly interfering with anyone's free will, thereby discouraging doubt instead of encouraging doubt. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion, but the Bible has needlessly caused a lot of confusion. Even Christians cannot agree regarding how to properly interpret the Bible.

Words do not confirm miracles. Miracles confirm words. Consider the following Scriptures:

Acts 14:3

"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." (NIV)

John 2:23

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did." (KJV)

John 3:2

“The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” (KJV)

John 10:37-38

“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.” (KJV)

John 11:43-45

"And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him." (KJV)

John 20:30-31

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” (KJV)

In another thread, you said that if God provided additional evidence, that would force people to accept him. Is it your position that the Scriptures that I quoted show that some people were forced to accept Jesus because he provided them with tangible, firsthand evidence when his words alone were not enough to convince them?

It would certainly not have been unfair for Jesus to accurately predict what the names of the Roman emperors would be for the next 200 years, and their dates of birth and death, which would surely have caused more people to become Christians. That is a reasonable assumption since historically, many people have accepted all kinds of outlandish religions based upon much less convincing evidence than that. In addition, Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce attracted a lot of followers based upon a lot less convincing evidence than that.

Since Jesus made some predictions, Christians cannot get away with claiming that he did not want to use prophecy to try to influence people in future generations.

All Bible prophecies are disputable. I wish to distinguish disputable prophecies from false prophecies. A false prophecy is a prophecy that does not come true. A disputable prophecy does not necessarily have to be a false prophecy. Even if all Bible prophecies are true prophecies, they have needlessly failed to convince the majority of the people in the world that they are true prophecies. If Pat Robertson accurately predicted when and where a natural disaster would occur, month, day, and year, that would be far less disputable than any Bible prophecy. In my opinion, no prophecies at all would be much better than 100% disputable prophecies because 100% disputable prophecies discredit the Bible.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Half-Life: Why does God predict the future?