Apikorus

I specifically requested the prediction of something unusual. Or, if you like, it can be mundane but very detailed.

There certainly are several biblical prophecies which are not vaticinia ex eventu. The problem is, pretty much all of them are wrong.

Liastaob

Read carefully.

--Dan

Coragyps

Hey Howard! Is your cousin Nostradamus still ghostwriting for the Enquirer?

MalignantPrion

I agree with an earlier member that the scope of the prophecies are so broad they can be interpreted to refer to practically anything. Also, the Bible makes thousands of predictions, only a handful of which comes true (how very typical of "prophets"). My second objection is you cannot verify that the document was written before the predicted event, e.g., Daniel wrote his prophecies in the period during which his "prophesied" events were occuring around him.

Vibr8gKiwi

SingleDad's list of what makes a prophecy is good, but there's an additional factor that should be noted as well. It is possible (even probable!) that successful religions will appear to have made prophecies that have come to pass and yet this needs no supernatural explanation. Please bear with me as I explain:

What are the odds of winning a coin toss? 1 out of 2, or probability of 0.5, right? What about 10 coin tosses in a row? 10 coin tosses would be 0.5^10 or the tiny probability of about 0.00098. This is highly improbable yet I could have someone do 10 tosses, win every one, and introduce you to this amazing person right after! This is how I could do it:

I could hold a single-elimination coin-toss contest of 1024 contestants. The 1024 people form 512 pairs to square off with a coin toss each in the first round. Then the 512 winners of that round pair up and square off for the second round, and so on for 10 rounds total. At the end of the contest I can introduce you to the winner--a person that just won 10 coin tosses in a row! With this sort of setup--a pool of competing contestants and a targeted selection process--I can "find" highly improbable properties easily. Notice though that I only know the winner after-the-fact, and that I'm left with a lot more coin-toss losers.

This ties to religious prophecy in a subtle way. In the above example I used targeted selection from a pool of contestants (coin-toss winners in a single-elimination contest) to "discover" a highly successful/lucky person without any supernatural tie. In a similar way successful religions can be "discovered" from a long history of many competing religions where humanity itself selects the winners of each "round" in history. If humans decide "prophecy" is an important 'selector' of the contest of history, then the religions with the most convincing "prophecy" (by luck, vague predictions, or whatever) will be selected out over time. It is possible even if a religion was to have a history of many correct prophecies that this was merely a reflection of luck and a targeted selection process from a pool of "contestants," rather than a tie to the supernatural. History is littered with failed cults/religion "contestants" and the selection process of the most successful religions continues even today. Again notice that the "winner" will only be found in hindsight and will not likely be able to make accurate predictions into the future (our coin-toss winner would not likely be able to win 10 more coin-tosses).

I'm simply not impressed if someone shows me a highly improbable item if the item was found as an after-the-fact result of targeted selection from a pool of contestants. Afterall, a highly improbable item is the targeted result of such a setup. To impress me, you'd should remove the after-the-factness of the above. If a religion was to have a real tie to the supernatural then such a religion could continue to pump out improbable prediction after improbable prediction off into the future (like a magic coin-toss player could continue to win forever off into the future). However I'm unaware of any such religion (or coin-toss player).

Given the above I'm actually surprised that we don't see some better religious prophecy in our selected religions, but then again prophecy is only one selector humanity has for selecting successful religions.

----
On a completely different note, targeted selection (or at least non-random selection) from a pool of varying contestants is the powerful engine of discovery that evolution uses also.

[ December 26, 2001: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

critical thinking made ez

This looks like an UNFULFILLED prophecy to me. If God "destroyed" their nation, they wouldn't still be in existence, now would they?

When something is destroyed, it can't be put back together again, otherwise it is just broken.

Yet another unfulfilled prophesy.

Demiurge

Hi ventin.

Interesting topic. I think it is worthwhile to consider that theists may really believe their God is real, based on the evidence of fulflilled prophecies. The question I have is, how many theists really believe because of fulfilled prophecies?

I'd like to see a list of all biblical prophecies, with commentary. You've cited the ones about Israel, which are of course often touted. Indeed, this prophecy has been fulfilled. The nations of the Jews were destroyed, they were scattered, and their nation was recreated.

The first thing that pops into my mind about that particular prophecy, however, is: I wonder if it could be self-fulfilled? Jews knew about it. For years, they have wanted to retake Israel, the land in which they believe God gave them. Did "God" make this come to pass, or did it happen due to their own determination, and favorable political circumstances at a certain point in world history?

A prophecy like this, although perhaps impressive on the surface, is vague enough upon examination. For example, the prophecy did not say "In the year 1948 AD, the state of Israel will be recreated" or even "twenty centuries after it is destroyed it will be recreated." There's no time frame here, nothing very specific.

Now, on to other prophecies. There are many prophecies about the Jewish Messiah. But even these are controversial. If they weren't, then the Jews wouldn't contest them. I'm not going to recount all the debates here, many Jewish rabbis have already laid out their objections to why they think Jesus did not fulfill all the prophecies about him.

In the final analysis, I have to say Biblical prophecies (like many other prophecies) are vague and open to interpretation. The Christian response to the rabbis is that they "aren't interpreting the prophecies correctly and they really were fulfilled." My own opinion is, for a prophecy to be worthwhile and verifiable, it needs to be specific and incontestable.

critical thinking made ez

At the time of that prediction on the destruction... It was a given that most all nations would be destroyed at some point. I would be more impressed if a prediction is something more than generalities. There is not one impressive prediction in the Bible.

Kenny

Yabba Dabba Do

SingleDad

You da man, K!