whiskey the hedonist

How can you deny the evidence of your own eyes! Griffith not only rebuilt Babylon, he repopulated it with whores and dancing girls and idols and priests of ba'al and people speaking many tongues, and paraded it throughout the world for everyone to see. He wanted to RESURRECT Babylon, and he absolutely succeeded in bringing it back from the dead. His city is babylon, you only have to look at it to see that. Look at the IDOLS, man! Look at the walls! The false worship! The THEME of the movie, which is that you should TOLERATE such evil!

Since Griffith and his city, the western world has grown more decadent, more corrupt, and the whole hollywood era has come upon us. D.W. Griffith rebuilt Babylon. I don't know how, since the prophecy says he couldn't, but he certainly did.

Biff the unclean

I don't know what Christians you are talking about, but "just because they would" means they are duplicitous, double talking, weasels. Seems pretty harsh of you to imply that.

John A. Broussard

And you've clearly established the criteria of "rebuilding":

"... if you want specific numbers, at least two blocks with a total of two miles of streets with houses along them, three temples similar to the ones we know were there once, if you wish me to define 'similar,' I would say as evaluated by at least 60% of the archaeologists who have published in Archaeology Review and who respond to a poll, where at least ten of them respond, at least 1,000 inhabitants, all on the former site of Babylon, and I would include rebuilding similar [as defined above] walls to those the city had."

Why is everyone arguing with you? Even if a metropolis of 5,000,000 were established on the exact same spot, it would not be Babylon. No way. It's gotta have those walls.

Biff the unclean

Lee, in real life when you bring up prophecy do people laugh as an initial reaction?
I'm glad to see though that after the helicopter photos of downtown Tyre with it's office buildinging and apartment complexes, that it has been dropped from the list.

fast

Something got crossed somewhere. It was not my intention to remotely say anything like that.

I may or may not fire a gun, and I should not be held accountable for firing a gun until I do. Just because I may most assuredly fire a gun still does not mean I have fired a gun, so it should not be declared that I have fired a gun.

Your quote of mine was just short hand of my previous comment. I did not mean to show any disrespect to theists.

Biff the unclean

You are saying that they are holding a position but not claiming that position. That's duplicity, and I've never met one who behaved liked that...(except for a few Christians who claim to be Agnostic.)

RGD

Lee, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what consitutes objective and testable evidence. This misunderstanding makes most of your arguments worthless. Consider: This is a binary prediction: city X will never be rebuilt or reinhabited. It is not possible to state that the prophecy has failed or succeeded until the end of time. No other possible point in time allows you to say anything about whether or not the prophecy is going to succeed or fail.

Same as above. And it most certainly did not come to the balance of a hair, nor was Hitler's development of the atomic bomb related to the existence of Jewish people at all.

Same as above.

Until you learn what testable is, until you learn what objective evidence for prophecy consists of, your claims of Biblical truth are valueless.

John A. Broussard

You have extraordinary patience. I don't know how many times you've posted this for lee's benefit and have received either zero acnowledgement or a rambling response about the fall of Tyre or Nambibia or whatever.

Of course, I keep asking him why god doesn't restore missing limbs, and I get just about the same kind of answer.

I guess god won't let stumps grow new arms and legs until Babylon freezes over.

RGD

I'm alway fascinated by the number of evasions, confusions, and failures of answer regarding that whole 'stopping sun' thing you use as a touchstone.

The question is, is Lee more rational than Ed? Can he be reached? Is there some form of argument that will actually reach the narrowly defined Christian mindset?

John A. Broussard

Someone on another thread asked me what kind of response I get to that question. Here's my answer:

Here are just a few of the many replies I've gotten:

Joshua really stopped the earth from rotating. (This is the most usual one.)

Back then the sun did go around the earth. (This has much to recommend it, since a significant portion of the U.S. adult population believes the sun still goes around the earth)

The sun does move (around the Milky Way) and that's what Joshua did. He stopped the sun from moving for a day or so.

The event was phenomenological. (Which, even after being explained to me still made little sense. Evidently the bible writers were just reporting what they saw, not what happened.)

There was a thermal shield over Canaan at that time, so the events were entirely local. (Don't ask me for a further explanation of this one, since the poster never came back to elaborate.)

It was a miracle. (This was prompted by my question why Babylonian, Egyptian and Chinese astronomers of that day didn't report the sun standing still. The miracle kept them from seeing the miracle.)

The bible was never intended to be a work in astronomy. What happened, just happened--so there!

This passage is metaphorical and not meant to be taken literally. Jehovah simply provided plenty of light that day for the Israelites to win. The sun standing still is merely a symbolic way of saying the day seemed longer.

I have more, along with peripheral commentaries such as, "Why do you hate god so much that you keep challenging the divine word?"