Johnny Skeptic

That will not do. If the Partition of Palestine was not a fulfilled prophecy, if Jewish and Palestinian history had been reversed, and Hitler and other parties had persecuted Palestinians instead of Jews, you are well aware that the 32 Christian nations that voted in favor of the partition would not have awarded control of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, and a grossly disproportionate amount of land per capita like the Jews got. If those 32 nations would have awarded control of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, and a grossly disproportionate amount of land per capita, that would have been a good case for a legitimate fulfilled prophecy, but you are well aware that that would not have been the case.

Is it your position that God is not able to provide additional evidence that would convince more people to love and accept him without unfairly interfering with their free will?

You would if Muslims were to one day comprise the majority in the U.S. and chose to legislate the Koran. I refer you to my thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=237228 at the MF&P Forum that is titled 'Is it moral to pass laws based solely upon religion?'

The largest geographic empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder, and theft of property. The victors often warred among themselves for the spoils of victory. Christian missionaries had good intentions, but the main purpose of colonization was to acquire land and resources. If there had not been any native American Indians in the New World, from the perspectives of the colonizers, so much the better.

Regarding the court case 'Lawrence versus Texas,' 2003, two gay men were arrested in Texas for having sex in a Houston home. The men sued the state of Texas, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the men. The three dissenting justices were predictably Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. Scalia and Thomas as conservative Christians. Rehnquist, who died, was also a conservative Christian. As a result of the case, the U.S. Supreme court overturned anti-sodomy laws in Texas and twelve other states. It is not surprising that eleven of the states are Southern Bible Belt states, and that the two other states, Utah, and Idaho, have high percentages of conservative Christians. Such an atrocity could only have happened in a state that has a high percentage of conservative Christians.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered busing, the state of Virginia closed down the public school system so that white children would not have to go to school with black children. Such an atrocity could only have happened in a state that has a high percentage of conservative Christians.

Creationism used to enjoy exclusivity in public schools. At that time, most Christians would have opposed a balanced approach where creationism and evolution would have both been taught in public schools. Today, however, since conservative Christians know that they cannot get away with being bullies anymore, they would be quite pleased to accept the very same balanced approach that most of them would have disapproved of back then. In addition, if all conservative Christians who are alive today were transported at birth back to colonial times, the majority of them would have approved of colonziation, slavery, and the subjugation of women.

Thomas Paine was a Deist. He was one of the first outspoken opponents of slavery at a time when a large percentage of conservative Christians who lived in Southern states supported slavery because they were making lots of money from using cheap slave labor.

I refer you to my thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=238091 at the GRD Forum that it titled 'What is the best evidence that the God of the Bible exists?' The opening post is as follows:

You conveniently refused to participate in that thread, and your explanations in a private message were ridiculous. Do you mind if I post what you said the thread at the GRD Forum?

If anything, the historical conduct of Christians as compared to the teachings of Jesus is some of the best possible evidence that the God of the Bible does not exist. As I basically said in the the thread at the GRD Forum, the moral advances that Christianity provided would not have been possible with many prior non-Jewish moral advances, some examples being Hammurabi's Code (about 1700 B.C.), which was remarkable for its time period, and Buddha's version of the Golden Rule (about 400 B.C.), and the first versions of democracy. Regarding democracy, consider the following from Wikipedia:

If Christianity is a false religion, that means that the moral advances that Christianity provided can be accounted for by secular factors, although all of the secular factors are not known, and that whatever moral contributions Christianity provided would have eventually come along anyway, just like Hammrabi's code and Buddha's version of the Golden Rule. The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia says that Hammurabi's code was remarkable considering the barbaric state of human rights in the world at that time. On the other hand, at that time, Jews were killing their own people for working on the Sabbath Day, for cursing at their parents, and for practicing the freedom of religion by worshipping other Gods. In addition, God was negligent because he allowed the stubborn Jews to get divorced, which was a noted and odd departure from his typically intolerant ways.

It is interesting to note that Baptists have a higher divorce rate than atheists do.

In Denmark, heterosexuals have a considerably higher divorce rate than homosexuals do.

The Bible promises that God will reward Christians for doing good works, and tells Christians to lay up treasures for themselves in heaven. Even if the God of the Bible does not exist, promised rewards would still surely provide Christians with incentives to do good works that atheists do not have.

I will save this post as a Microsoft Word file for purposes of quick and easy reposting since I know that you will conveniently refuse to reply to most of my arguments, even though you recently admitted to me in a private message that it is rude for you to refuse to reply to my arguments, and that no one likes to embarrass themself in a public forum by answering difficult questions. Please be advised that I will not reply to any of your arguments unless you reply to all of the arguments in this post. If you wish, you can reply to them a few at a time.

arnoldo

If is a weak argument. Is(rael) is a strong argument for the existence of the God of Abraham,Issac, and Jacob.

Shalom,
Arnoldo

Johnny Skeptic

As I said in my previous post, which was post #1101, "Please be advised that I will not reply to any of your arguments unless you reply to all of the arguments in this post. If you wish, you can reply to them a few at a time."

You admitted to me in a private message that it is rude for you to be evasive and refuse to reply to my posts, and that no one wants to embarrass themsevles by replying to difficult arguments. Well, I am not afraid to embarrass myself, and you are. Based upon my many debates with you at four forums, anyone who wishes to take the time will find out that intially, you directly replied to most of my arguments, and that it was only when my arguments got better that you started to become evasive. You have now indicated that my arguments are too good for you. I accept your admission of defeat. I do not mind winning by default.

I will not allow you to unfairly insist on choosing whose questions get answered, and which issue get discussed.

Your reply was utterly absurd. It was mere posturing without substance. I could easily have made a similar reply by saying "It is a strong argument. Israel is a weak argument for the existence of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob." I would never make a reply like that without I know that it would not convince anyone of anything. The only chance the you have to convince the undecided crowd it to discuss my arguments point by point and adequately refute them. If you will not do that, as I said, "I am happy to win by default."

Even if you continue to conveniently refuse to reply to my arguments, I will still frequently remind readers about my post #1101, which you know is too difficult for you to adequately refute.

You can continue to try to bait me into replying to your arguments if you wish, but it will not work in this thread, or in any other thread unless you reply to arguments.

You need to realize that you have little or no chance of convincing any skeptic at the IIDB to agree with you, that both sides are essentially trying to influence the undecided crowd, and that the undecided crowd are not impressed with evasiveness, and they are not interested in your approval of your own posts. If you were an undecided person, do you really believe that you would be influenced by "It is a weak argument. Israel is a strong argument for the existence of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob."? I doubt it. Since you have no chance of convincing me of anything, you ought to prepare your posts as if you speaking to the undecided crowd, not me. Bantering back and forth with me will not help you convince anyone of anything. Perhaps you are preaching to yourself, and have plently of precious time to waste in this very short life that we have.

Thanks very much for helping to build my confidence. Evasive fundies are good for skepticism.

angelo

[QUOTE=arnoldo;5189286] I repeat. If Israel is proof of the god of Israel. Then the existence of Greece is proof of the existence of Apollo, Zeus, and all the gods of Mt Olympus. The Wagyle god
of the Australian aboriginees is also proof, as they have been here for 40.000 years. A lot longer than the Hebrews.

sugarhitman

The fact that Israel has been scattered and restored (the only ancient nation to have done so) and the fact that the battle over the land of Israel and Jerusalem which was foretold right down to very specific details proves without a doubt.....that God does indeed reside in heaven....and no matter how you try...you cannot refute what is transparent.

Johnny Skeptic

Why does God predict the future?

It is obvious to Muslim children that President Bush exists, but it is not obvious to them that Bible prophecy is true. Why is that?

sugarhitman

Which does not prove that biblical prophecy....isn't true....

Johnny Skeptic

Which does not answer my questions. What you said deals with results. What I said deals with motives, which is a much different issue that results. If you do not have enough confidence in your arguments to directly answer my questions, that is fine with me. The undecided crowd will interpret your evasiveness as weakness.

When assessing the character of any being, his motives are everything. No reasonable motives regarding why the God of the Bible always makes disputable prophecies = no God of the Bible. 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 vast majority of the people in the world that they are true prophecies. If Jesus had accurately predicted what the names of the Roman emperors would be for the next 200 years, and their dates of birth and death, those would have been indisputable prophecies if we were to define indisputable prophecies as prophecies that could not have been made by humans, and would therefore plausibly have been made by a God. Since the New Testament says that Jesus made some predictions, Christians cannot intelligently argue that if Jesus had predicted what I said, that that would have unfairly interfered with people’s free will. If Jesus had predicted what I said, surely more people would have 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.

In my opinion, no prophecies at all would be much better than 100% disputable prophecies. That is because the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), and yet Bible prophecies have needlessly caused lots of confusion.

I will not allow you to insist on choosing whose questions get answered, and which issues get discussed. You want me to extend the same courtesy to you that you will not extend to me. That is not fair.

sugarhitman

God is not the author of confusion....confusion comes through rejection....prophecies are disputable to those who reject them.

Johnny Skeptic

You are a slow learner. I said:

I will not directly reply to your arguments if you will not directly reply to my arguments. That is a fair and reasonable approach for me to take, right?

No matter what you say, I will refuse to reply to what you say and divert attention back to my arguments. In other words, I have now adopted your and arnoldo's system of debating. Thanks for teaching me your and arnoldo's system of debating. I like it too, and thanks very much for helping build my confidence by being evasive. You ought to know that the undecided crowd interpret evasiveness as weakness, and that you have virtually no chance of convincing skeptics as this forum to become Christians.

I would like to add that prophecies are only useful if people have access to them, and hundreds of millions of people have died who never knew anything about Bible prohecy, and the Gospel message. If the God of the Bible exists, he wants people to hear the Gospel message, but only if another person tells them about it. In addition, he wants people to have enough food to eat, but only if they are able to obtain it through human effort. During the first century, it is quite odd that God preferred to reveal the Gospel message to people who lived closer to Palestine.