Sheshonq

Except that:

1. the "historical homeland" contradicts the amount of land promised by the prophecy;
2. the majority of Jews live outside Israel;

A quaint sentiment. However, you can't predict that and in fact the Jews have already been 'uprooted' from several places.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Why would God want to protect Jews from humans but not from anything else? 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. It is utter nonsense for anyone to assume that God would protect Jews from being injured or killed by humans, but not from being injured or killed by anything else.

Even if I believed that God did chose Jews to be his chosen people, I would still reject him because I do not approve of favoritism. I also do not approve of him forcing Jewish babies to suffer because of their parents' disobedience.

Isn't it true that God could easily have made indisputable predictions regarding everything that he wanted people to believe?

How in the world is 2 Samuel 7:10 going to be fulfilled in this life? It says that Jews will have a homeland of their own where they will not be bothered by anyone. That is not going to happen. The Jews are surrounded by hostile enemies. Some terrorists live in Israel. Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The Bible says that there will always be wars and rumors of wars in this life. The Bible says that in the last days, nation will rise against nation. No rational person would believe that Jews in Israel will never be bothered by anyone in this life. 2 Samuel 7:10 refers to this life. There is not any doubt whatsover the Old Testament Jews believed that one day, Jews would have a homeland of their own in this life where no one would bother them. Obviously, God mislead the Jews.

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, and that Pontius Pilate would become governor of Palestine, there are not any doubts whatsoever that a lot more Jews would have accepted Jesus.

A God who wanted to use prophecy for anything would make lots of indisputable predictions that would discourage dissent instead of needlessly inviting dissent. No reasonable motives for God's refusal to make indisputable predictions, thereby needlessly encouraging dissent instead of discouraging dissent = no God of the Bible.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: If God did not make a land promise to Abraham and his descendants, all that it would have taken to fulfill the prophecy was the belief that the prophecy is true, the motivation to make it come true, and the military power to make it come true. The same is true regarding all fulfilled prophecies.

Please answer this question, which you have conveniently refused to answer many times: If Jewish and Palestinian history had been reversed, and Hitler and other parties had persecuted Palestinians instead of Jews, would the U.N. have awarded control of Jerusalem and a grossly disproportinate amoung of land per capita to the Palestinians like the Jews got? If so, what evidence do you have that that would have been the case. If not, then you will have admitted that the Partition of Palestine is a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Please read my post #53 in a thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=235501 at this forum. I reasonably proved that the God of the Bible does not exist.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: If all that you are trying to reasonably prove is that God is able to predict the future, I will concede for the sake of argument that God can predict the future, but I still reject him because he is immoral. No decent man would ever accept a God just because he is powerful. Why are you so interested in God's power? You ought to be more interested in his character than in his power. Power does not have anything to do with character.

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, and so does the Bible since it says that there will always be wars and rumors of wars in this life, and that in the last days, nation will rise against nation.

Johnny Skeptic

That is because God deceived them. Micah 5:2 is a good example of where God deceived the Jews. It says that a messiah will come who will become ruler of Israel. The Jews expected the ruler to rule an earthly kingdom, not a heavenly kingdom.

Why not? The only reason that the Partition of Palestine happened is because Abraham falsely believed that God had made a land promise to him and his descendants. You are obviously not aware that all that it takes to self-fulfill a prophecy is the belief that it is true, the desire to make it come true, and enough military power to make it come true, and, in the case of the Partition of Palestine, a majority vote among the 46 nations in the U.N. that voted for and against the partition, 32 of which are Christian nations. The deck was stacked in favor of the Jews before the vote ever took place. Would you like to claim that the Bible did not have anything to do with the Partition of Palestine?

Now let's discuss some arguments that I made that you conveniently refused to reply to:

Obviously, I demolished your utterly absurd argument that said "Question: How many governments supplied troops for the State of Israel to defend itself in 1948. Answer: 0." No rational person would make an argument like that. First of all, if the U.N. had not voted in favor of the partition, the Jews would not have tried to partition Palestine at that time. Second of all, the Jews got a lot of their military equipment from non-Jewish sources. Third of all, since the U.S. did not have any troops in Europe during the first part of the Second World War, but still saved the British from getting defeated by the Germans, that is proof enough that you do not have any idea whatsoever what you are talking about.

Why should anyone care whether or not God is able to predict the future. If he is able to predict the future, what does that prove about his character?

Jack the Bodiless

And yet: every single "prophet" who has EVER made such a prediciton, throughout the entire history of the Jewish religion, has ALWAYS been proved wrong.

Maybe that's why their successors, the Christians who wrote the NT, stopped making such dumb predictions?
...Good point.

Arnoldo: since the foundation of the "permanent this time, honest" modern nation of Israel, Jewish settlers have been forced to ABANDON several settlements on what is now Palestinian territory (but which was once part of the "promised land").

God's guarantee has FAILED AGAIN since 1948!

arnoldo

God didn't deceive them. Israel simply didn't have the military might to establish the earthly Kingdom of Israel 2000 years ago. Instead the Roman utterly and completely destroyed Jerusalem. Exactly as Yeshua prophesied,ie no two stones, would happen. Historical facts.

makerowner

Not really. As has been explained to you several times on here, we have no record of this 'prophecy' from before the destruction took place.
And what does Israel's military might have to do with it anyway? Surely God could set up a kingdom of Israel no matter how weak they were.