Johnny Skeptic

But is would be much more indisputable if God showed up and issued his challenge himself.

Are you not aware that Persians live in Iran, not in Iraq? According to a web site at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohisto...pages/651.html, "Arabs constitute the majority in Iraq and the second largest group of Iraqi migrants to Chicago." At any rate, even if you were right that Persians live in Iraq, it would be easy to import some Arabs from other places. Of course, you already knew that, which invites the question "Why did you make a ridiculous argument like that?" I've got it, you wanted to be evasive in spite of the fact that you know that Arabs are as easy to find as Jews are, but your evasive tactic did not work.

There is not doubt that Isaiah 13:19-20 give three ways to overturn the Babylon prophecy, rebuilding Babylon, a shepherd grazing his flock in Babylon, or an Arab pitching his tent in Babylon. Logically, overturning a prophecy that is easy to overturn discredits the Bible just as much as overturning a prophecy that is difficult to overturn. A lie is a lie regardless of how difficult it is to overturn.

Would you like to acknowledge that Persians live in Iran, not in Iraq, and that you were already well aware that even if Persians lived in Iraq, it would be a simple matter to import to Iraq one of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of Arabs who live in many countries in the world?

If God really wanted to issue challenges, he would know that the very best way to do that would be tangibly, in person, in front of everyone in the world. If the God of the Bible does not exist, his methods would never complement his goals, which is the case.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: What evidence do you have that the Tyre prophecy predated the events?

What evidence do you have that God inspired Isaiah to write Isaiah 13:19-20?

Johnny Skeptic

That is obviously false since about three fourths of the people in the world dispute that the Bible predicts the future. What would not be indisputable would be if the Bible had predicted when and where a number of natural disasters would occur. Why wouldn't God do that? By the same token, if God wants people to believe that intelligent design exists, why doesn't he show up and demonstrate that intelligent design exists? Why does God always refuse to provide the most indisputable kinds of evidence, especially if heaven and hell are really at stake?

blackrayne

ok im a little confused someone help me out here...babylon was never going to be inhabited again....ever.....ok but.....why is it still like a town with a different name? So these folks arent really living there? im confused now........

"Before 1971 it was known as Hilla province. [1] The ancient city of Babylon in present-day Babil province was the capital of the Old Kingdom of Babylonia situated on the Euphrates River south of Baghdad in modern Iraq. The city was occupied from the 3rd millennium BC but became important early in the 2nd millennium under the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The sixth king of this dynasty was Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) who made Babylon the capital of a vast empire and is best remembered for his code of laws. This period was brought to an end by the Hittites when in 1595 BC Babylon is sacked by King Mursili I. The city then had a mixed history until the Neo-Babylonian Period of the 7th-6th centuries BC."

Johnny Skeptic

Since I have debated Lee Merrill for years, let me explain some things to you. Lee always tries to set up the goalposts his way. In the past he has required that Babylon must be rebuilt to its former splendor. He always asks skeptics for indisputable evidence, in spite of the fact that God could easily provide indisputable evidence by predicting when and where some natural disaster would occur.

Lee has attempted to replace the widely accepted burden of proof with the burden of disproof. He wants skeptics to disprove the Bible, thereby relieving himself of the burden of proof when in fact he and the Bible are the claimants. As I showed in some of my posts, some fundamentalist Christian scholars believe that if Babylon were to be rebuilt, it would be a FULFILLMENT of Bible prophecy. I have conducted a lot research on the Babylon prophecy, and I have never found even one single fundamentalist Christian source that agrees with Lee's arguments about the Babylon prophecy. Lee has been careful not to quote prestigious expert sources because he knows that there aren't any. He hopes that a few guillible, naive people will accept his own uncorroborated personal opinion. Other than Lee, I have never come across a fundamentalist Christian who has chosen to defend a position that less than 1% of fundamentalist Christians agree with, and that virtually no prestigious fundamentalist Christian scholars agree with. The Babylon prophecy is possibly the worst argument that Lee has ever made.

Logically, if God really wanted people to believe that he could predict the future, he could easily accomplish that by predicting when and where some natural diasters would occur. That would certainly eliminate a lot of doubt, but obviously God prefers to create doubt.

lee_merrill

Well, they may just be regular predictions, and we note they can be readily falsified, is my point, and thus doing what is said cannot be done would refute the claim of infallibility of Scripture--in fact, of its divine inspiration--if this prediction is in the original text, which I doubt anyone would dispute.

lee_merrill

No, it's not, as far as I know.

Yes, and it fell into ruin, and hasn't been rebuilt, nor can I talk to a mayor there...

TomboyMom

I might remark how much I enjoyed my vacation in Tyre. This will immediately reveal his double standard special pleading interpretation to mean the opposite approach.

blastula

Yes, or even the dates relating to Babylon ruin or inhabitation. If it was a date thousands of years in the future and it came about, that would be a very impressive prediction.

Yet as it is, the Bible predictions are lacking in any impressive specifics. Apparently, general, vague predictions are all the Great Omnipotent, Omniscient Supreme Ruler of the Universe can muster.

shirley knott

But the Bible has been falsified on so many points, so often, it is surely absurd to try to raise (bad) predictions to the awesome status of 'prophecy' just to bolster claims of some sort of special status for that worthless piece of dishonest trash.

No flood. No destruction of Tyre. Grasshoppers, Bats, leprosy, all matters of fact on which the Bible is wrong, wrong, wrong. Etc., etc, et bloody etera.
Solid refutations of the Bible's "special status", each and every one.

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott