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  • Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
    Because your keys have nothing to do with the supernatural or God. You continue to use poor analogies. No one is claiming miracles are everyday so analogies to every day events don't form any parrallel. You also continue to dodge the context. lets say you are told you will find a car at a particular spot with keys in it. You go and find it and you are told it will break down exactly at the corner of 8th street and ninth avenue of your city and that a blue tow truck driven by a brunette in a plaid shirt will tow it home and charge you $53. All of this and more happens as prophecied. Finally you are told the person telling you all of this will come into your house and remove the keys while you sleep. You lock all the doors tight, put on the alarm, verify the keys are on the side table and go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning (and living alone ) they are gone and all doors are still shut. Why should you discount that yet another prophecy has come true? `Add a few more prophecies to it and all that stops you from accepting the reality of the supernatural is in fact YES your disbelief in the supernatural.
    And Mikeenders brings up a particularly important point here. When God takes action, the fact is announced beforehand. You get some natural disaster occur, and someone claims that "goddidit - it is a punishment-for-whatever-the-someone-happens-to-disagree-with" ... Nope, no-one announced that God was going to do it, therefore God didn't do it. And as indicated by Mikeenders post - there needs to be some specific tie to the event, not just a generically applicable prediction.
    1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
    .
    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
    Scripture before Tradition:
    but that won't prevent others from
    taking it upon themselves to deprive you
    of the right to call yourself Christian.

    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
      Well just in case you heat up again i think you should realize something . You are probably getting heated because you had false expectation. You seem to think that everyone's responses to arguments you have and that you have read should be like your own. You are really ignoring where you are. christian forums like Tweb and other places where skeptics and atheists are allowed to register and post get hammered repeatedly by both. You are not the first and you won't be the last. As such I would bet most people here have heard it all before and rather than needing to open their eyes which you think are shut they already have dealt with them some of us even decades ago.

      Yes if you tell some Christians about variant NT manuscripts, alleged contradictions they might be amazed but a lot of us have had Bibles (pretty popular ones too) that openly and upfront note these things (like the ending of mark and the triune confession in 1 john). However at any rate Tweb participants are not going to be among them. Given the way atheists and skeptics like to come on boards and attack Christians, coming here expecting that you are informing them of things they don't know and don't already have answers for is like going to the front lines of a war and trying to inform the soldiers of what a bullet is.
      You are most likely correct for most conservative/fundamentalist Christians in general: No amount of evidence to the contrary is going to change their mind. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good and worthy effort to continue trying. If anything, it may move them toward a less literal interpretation of the supernatural claims in the Bible, such as accepting that Jesus was resurrected in some spiritual sense, not that his three-day-dead body and brain cells were reanimated.

      It takes time to realize that a long-held, long cherished belief is false. It doesn't happen overnight. My hope is that by repeatedly pointing out the many discrepancies and errors in the Bible that one day a light will go on and the this thought will come to mind: If that, that, and that in the Bible can be shown to be wrong, then maybe the resurrection claims were wrong.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by tabibito View Post
        I have already given you enough information that you can answer the question yourself. If I see some serious attempt on your part to do so, assuming that you can't get the answer, I will provide it.
        No, Tabby, you simply assume that Jesus had something to do with your miracle. If the existence of the miracles in Craig Keener's book are real, then all it proves is that miracles happen, it does not answer why and by whom they are caused. Miracles could be caused by a multitude of supernatural beings. Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, and many other religions claim multiple miracles and attribute these miracles to their gods. So it is possible that Allah or Lord Brahma or Krishna is responsible for your miracle. Or maybe Satan is responsible. Maybe Jehovah is the one, true god. Maybe Jehovah has turned you over to Satan for worshipping other polytheistic gods (the three gods of Christianity), therefore Satan performs miracles to keep you convinced that Jesus is god so that you will be condemned to the Jewish Hell for disobeying the key commandment: thou shalt have NO other gods before me (Yahweh).

        You don't believe that any of this is true, but you can't prove it isn't possible.

        Your miracle may well have happened, but as to the cause of your miracle, you can only guess.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by tabibito View Post
          In short: you would be impressed by a lie!? Why would we tell people that there are no consequences for their choices? There are a number of Christians who have directly evidenced knowledge of the existence of God. (and sadly there is a good percentage of that number who don't allow the fact to influence their attitudes and behaviour). For those who have performed miracles in the name of Christ or witnessed miracles, the existence of God is not based on belief, but on evidence. The whole, "God is loyal to those who love him, righteous, merciful etc." bit - that is a matter of faith, certainly.
          Your miracles only validate the existence of miracles. They do not validate that Jesus is a god or that Jesus is the Creator. If miracles only happened to Christians, that would be good evidence for the veracity of Christianity, but since miracles happen in many religions, miracles cannot be used as evidence for the veracity of any one religion.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
            Because your keys have nothing to do with the supernatural or God. You continue to use poor analogies. No one is claiming miracles are everyday so analogies to every day events don't form any parrallel. You also continue to dodge the context. lets say you are told you will find a car at a particular spot with keys in it. You go and find it and you are told it will break down exactly at the corner of 8th street and ninth avenue of your city and that a blue tow truck driven by a brunette in a plaid shirt will tow it home and charge you $53. All of this and more happens as prophecied. Finally you are told the person telling you all of this will come into your house and remove the keys while you sleep. You lock all the doors tight, put on the alarm, verify the keys are on the side table and go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning (and living alone ) they are gone and all doors are still shut. Why should you discount that yet another prophecy has come true? `Add a few more prophecies to it and all that stops you from accepting the reality of the supernatural is in fact YES your disbelief in the supernatural.

            you continue to try and misrepresent that Christianity starts out with and is based on the resurrection when its not. The title Christ makes it very clear it does not start with Jesus but a context before him which you always ignore. Put the context around your key analogy and it falls apart.



            Forget the cliched atheist nonsense that everyone that references the supernatural is saying God did it. We've heard it all before. Stop thinking in generalizations and cliches. It doesn't advance any decent discussion . No one said anything about "God did it". We are at that point not talking about what the identity of the supernatural is but the the reality of ANY supernatural explanation. We do know and your claiming we don't as i said is just a dodge.

            All science and logic tells us that

            A) the universe either had a beginning
            B) or its infinitely old

            A thousand years from now or a million those are the only two options. claiming we just don't know that now is just trying to escape reason and reality.

            if the universe has a beginning then that beginning was not from a natural cause because natural refers to whats in our universe. Going outside our universe and claiming its natural is gibberish. so choose A and you are buying into the supernatural

            Choose B and an infinitely old universe has no ultimate cause (thats the whole idea behind infinitely - its endless). NO one in their right mind would claim that something that happens for no cause is a natural event as we understand it.

            do we know all the specifics from this? nope. but claiming we do not know this general reality of choices now is just dodging the facts and denying where science has already led us..
            "Because your keys have nothing to do with the supernatural or God. You continue to use poor analogies. No one is claiming miracles are everyday so analogies to every day events don't form any parrallel. You also continue to dodge the context. lets say you are told you will find a car at a particular spot with keys in it. You go and find it and you are told it will break down exactly at the corner of 8th street and ninth avenue of your city and that a blue tow truck driven by a brunette in a plaid shirt will tow it home and charge you $53. All of this and more happens as prophecied. Finally you are told the person telling you all of this will come into your house and remove the keys while you sleep. You lock all the doors tight, put on the alarm, verify the keys are on the side table and go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning (and living alone ) they are gone and all doors are still shut. Why should you discount that yet another prophecy has come true? `Add a few more prophecies to it and all that stops you from accepting the reality of the supernatural is in fact YES your disbelief in the supernatural."

            If all of that happened, I would very likely be a believer. However, the evidence for Christianity is not anything like the evidence you have presented in this analogy. For one thing, in your analogy I am told of the events prior to them happening. If the first gospel, Mark, was written after 70 AD and the fall of Jerusalem as most scholars say is very probable, then all the "prophecies" mentioned in the gospels are not prophecies but historical events written into stories as if the stories were written earlier. You don't believe this happened, but you cannot prove it didn't and that is why your comparison with your analogy fails terribly.

            We have already discussed how every Jewish scholar living today denies that any prophecy or text in the Hebrew Bible predicts the birth, life, or death of Jesus. Christian scholars may disagree with this position, but since the overwhelming majority of Jewish scholars of the Jewish Bible deny the Christian claim, most neutral observers are going to accept the position of the religion and people who wrote that particluar holy book and not the scholars of some other religion.
            Last edited by Gary; 09-20-2015, 01:38 PM.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
              Because your keys have nothing to do with the supernatural or God. You continue to use poor analogies. No one is claiming miracles are everyday so analogies to every day events don't form any parrallel. You also continue to dodge the context. lets say you are told you will find a car at a particular spot with keys in it. You go and find it and you are told it will break down exactly at the corner of 8th street and ninth avenue of your city and that a blue tow truck driven by a brunette in a plaid shirt will tow it home and charge you $53. All of this and more happens as prophecied. Finally you are told the person telling you all of this will come into your house and remove the keys while you sleep. You lock all the doors tight, put on the alarm, verify the keys are on the side table and go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning (and living alone ) they are gone and all doors are still shut. Why should you discount that yet another prophecy has come true? `Add a few more prophecies to it and all that stops you from accepting the reality of the supernatural is in fact YES your disbelief in the supernatural.

              you continue to try and misrepresent that Christianity starts out with and is based on the resurrection when its not. The title Christ makes it very clear it does not start with Jesus but a context before him which you always ignore. Put the context around your key analogy and it falls apart.



              Forget the cliched atheist nonsense that everyone that references the supernatural is saying God did it. We've heard it all before. Stop thinking in generalizations and cliches. It doesn't advance any decent discussion . No one said anything about "God did it". We are at that point not talking about what the identity of the supernatural is but the the reality of ANY supernatural explanation. We do know and your claiming we don't as i said is just a dodge.

              All science and logic tells us that

              A) the universe either had a beginning
              B) or its infinitely old

              A thousand years from now or a million those are the only two options. claiming we just don't know that now is just trying to escape reason and reality.

              if the universe has a beginning then that beginning was not from a natural cause because natural refers to whats in our universe. Going outside our universe and claiming its natural is gibberish. so choose A and you are buying into the supernatural

              Choose B and an infinitely old universe has no ultimate cause (thats the whole idea behind infinitely - its endless). NO one in their right mind would claim that something that happens for no cause is a natural event as we understand it.

              do we know all the specifics from this? nope. but claiming we do not know this general reality of choices now is just dodging the facts and denying where science has already led us..
              Why must the universe have a beginning? If your god does not require a beginning then why should the universe require a beginning. Maybe we will never know the origin of the universe, but not knowing is not a reason to throw up our hands and say, "A god must have done it!"

              That is exactly what primitive humans said about rain storms, floods, droughts, thunder and lightening. Some Christians were irate with Ben Franklin for his claim that lightning is just an electrical charge. It is not the result of a god having a temper tantrum. Let's stop trying to answer the question when we do not yet have the facts to even formulate a good hypothesis.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
                Since you brought it up.....When??

                Judaism and Christianity both teach the world and universe operates by laws of God. Where and when has this been proven wrong "many times before". You've been listening to too much Neil Tyson strawmen statements.
                Rain storms, floods, fires, droughts, insect infestations, disease, fatal illness, epilepsy, thunder, lightning, to mention a few.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                  And Mikeenders brings up a particularly important point here. When God takes action, the fact is announced beforehand. You get some natural disaster occur, and someone claims that "goddidit - it is a punishment-for-whatever-the-someone-happens-to-disagree-with" ... Nope, no-one announced that God was going to do it, therefore God didn't do it. And as indicated by Mikeenders post - there needs to be some specific tie to the event, not just a generically applicable prediction.
                  Would you give me a couple of examples from the Bible where God announced an action before he did it, AND, provide the historical records and/or archeology that confirms it, with these two criteria:

                  1. The event happened as God prophesied.
                  2. We have absolute proof that the text that announces the prophecy was written prior to the event prophesied.

                  Let me give you an example: The Book of Daniel makes a number of prophecies about a number of ancient empires. However, many scholars now believe that the Book of Daniel was written AFTER these events had already occurred. I know you don't believe that, but since there are a number of scholars who think it did, you cannot claim that you have "absolute proof" that the Book of Daniel is not a fraud. This same argument can be made for many other "prophecies" in the Bible. Many Christians simply accept as historical fact the traditional dating and authorship of these ancient books, when the fact is most of them either can't be dated or can be dated but to a later date.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Gary View Post
                    If all of that happened, I would very likely be a believer. However, the evidence for Christianity is not anything like the evidence you have presented in this analogy. For one thing, in your analogy I am told of the events prior to them happening. If the first gospel, Mark, was written after 70 AD and the fall of Jerusalem as most scholars say is very probable, then all the "prophecies" mentioned in the gospels are not prophecies but historical events written into stories as if the stories were written earlier. You don't believe this happened, but you cannot prove it didn't and that is why your comparison with your analogy fails terribly.

                    We have already discussed how every Jewish scholar living today denies that any prophecy or text in the Hebrew Bible predicts the birth, life, or death of Jesus. Christian scholars may disagree with this position, but since the overwhelming majority of Jewish scholars of the Jewish Bible deny the Christian claim, most neutral observers are going to accept the position of the religion and people who wrote that particluar holy book and not the scholars of some other religion.
                    First, Mark was probably written before 70, which is why the description of Jerusalem's destruction is far less detailed than it is in Matthew or Luke. The dating of the gospels, though, as well as Acts, is very arbitrary. They were definitely written between roughly 40 and 100, but anything more specific than that involves some guesswork. There are good scholars (and non-evangelicals, specifically), who have dated the gospels earlier than 65, but I think most find their arguments unpersuasive (e.g. James A.T. Robinson's Redating the NT). For what it's worth, I see little reason to date the gospels earlier than roughly 65, for a variety of internal and external reasons.

                    Second, about the Hebrew Bible prophecies, I would agree. The thing is, however, that a huge number of the prophecies that Jesus refers to (or the evangelists refer to; it's kind of tough to know how much Jesus actually said) are traditionally non-Messianic. I've never found the argument from prophecy to be particularly persuasive, especially seeing what we now know about the formation and development of the Bible.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Gary View Post
                      Let me give you an example: The Book of Daniel makes a number of prophecies about a number of ancient empires. However, many scholars now believe that the Book of Daniel was written AFTER these events had already occurred. I know you don't believe that, but since there are a number of scholars who think it did, you cannot claim that you have "absolute proof" that the Book of Daniel is not a fraud. This same argument can be made for many other "prophecies" in the Bible. Many Christians simply accept as historical fact the traditional dating and authorship of these ancient books, when the fact is most of them either can't be dated or can be dated but to a later date.
                      Correction: almost every scholar thinks Daniel is written after the fact (2nd century BC, probably). Daniel seems to be eerily accurate on events that happened before then, but gets it wrong afterward.

                      Also, Daniel is conspicuously absent from the canon when it's first "formally closed."

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Gary View Post
                        Why must the universe have a beginning? If your god does not require a beginning then why should the universe require a beginning. Maybe we will never know the origin of the universe, but not knowing is not a reason to throw up our hands and say, "A god must have done it!"
                        Do the words "necessary" vs. "contingent" mean anything to you?

                        Also, advances in science are not evidence for the non-existence of God. God is not some sort of cosmic magician who hides in the gaps of human ignorance.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by psstein View Post
                          First, Mark was probably written before 70, which is why the description of Jerusalem's destruction is far less detailed than it is in Matthew or Luke. The dating of the gospels, though, as well as Acts, is very arbitrary. They were definitely written between roughly 40 and 100, but anything more specific than that involves some guesswork. There are good scholars (and non-evangelicals, specifically), who have dated the gospels earlier than 65, but I think most find their arguments unpersuasive (e.g. James A.T. Robinson's Redating the NT). For what it's worth, I see little reason to date the gospels earlier than roughly 65, for a variety of internal and external reasons.

                          Second, about the Hebrew Bible prophecies, I would agree. The thing is, however, that a huge number of the prophecies that Jesus refers to (or the evangelists refer to; it's kind of tough to know how much Jesus actually said) are traditionally non-Messianic. I've never found the argument from prophecy to be particularly persuasive, especially seeing what we now know about the formation and development of the Bible.
                          "First, Mark was probably written before 70..."

                          Is that your opinion or who are you quoting for this statement?

                          I agree that Mark could have been written in 65 AD, but it is equally as possible it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. If it was written after 70 AD, the "prophecy" of the destruction of Jerusalem is most likely not a prophecy but a later interpolation. But even if Mark were written in 65 AD, is this proof that Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple by General Titus? Maybe. But isn't it also possible that there are other possible explanations? Again, the "prophecy" could have been a legend that developed or was invented during the Roman-Jewish wars of the mid 60's with someone guessing that the Temple would be destroyed at the end of those wars, or, Jesus did predict this event, but instead of actually having the supernatural powers to see the future and prophesy the event, it was a lucky guess.

                          If we and Russia go into a nuclear war, would it be a "prophecy" for someone, living at the beginning of that nuclear war, to predict the total destruction of the capitol building??
                          Last edited by Gary; 09-20-2015, 03:34 PM.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by psstein View Post
                            Correction: almost every scholar thinks Daniel is written after the fact (2nd century BC, probably). Daniel seems to be eerily accurate on events that happened before then, but gets it wrong afterward.

                            Also, Daniel is conspicuously absent from the canon when it's first "formally closed."
                            Interesting. I didn't know that about the canon.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Gary View Post
                              Why must the universe have a beginning? If your god does not require a beginning then why should the universe require a beginning.

                              Sorry doesn't work. My God doesn't claim to be natural. In the natural world one thing leads to another - everything has a cause, Everything that happens is an effect. But sure you can pick no beginning and then you have an infinitely old universe which has no ultimate cause and your naturalism still dies a horrible death :). How can you talk about everything being natural when nothing has an ultimate cause? You are stuck (although you will never admit it). You end up with a supernatural thing and the theist ends up with a supernatural person but you both must invoke a supernatural or hide like you do from the reality. See? this is the kind of thing your skeptic sites can't handle which is why all they gave you to rebut with is "God did it" when thats not even the point at his juncture of the argument

                              Maybe we will never know the origin of the universe, but not knowing is not a reason to throw up our hands and say, "A god must have done it!"

                              A supernatural must have been involved . We know this. You were given the two alternatives and you were unable to deny those ARE the only two alternatives. Its a fact which is why every scientist working on the issue ends up with ideas that for all intents and purposes are supernatural whether they care to admit it or not - a rose by any other name - multiverse, everything out of nothing etc etc. you are just running and hiding into the "god did it" canard every atheist runs to to hide from this. We are talking about the supernatural - beyond naturalism at this point - NOT identifying a god or a person. Thats another argument but its not the issue we are on.

                              That is exactly what primitive humans said about rain storms, floods, droughts, thunder and lightening. Some Christians were irate with Ben Franklin for his claim that lightning is just an electrical charge. It is not the result of a god having a temper tantrum.
                              Yawn......you don't have a single solitary Bible verse NT or OT to back that up. Its all skeptic rhetoric. Ben Franklin and in fact most of the founders of Science were theist and none of them found their science incompatible with figuring out how God did things. IF Christians were all primitive and just said "god did it" as many foolish skeptics claim then why oh why were so many founders of science Christian?

                              learn to think independently. Thats proof positive of the skeptics lies that "early primitive human" Christians before science said "God did it " and that was it. They invented many of the sciences. Why would they if "God did it " was all they thought? THINK!

                              Yes they all believed God and his law was at the bottom of it but nothing in science has proven otherwise. When you can explain away laws of the universe then get back to me. This is a common silly myth propagated by the likes of Dawkins and Tyson trying to lump all religions together with Greek mythology. In the Bible we often have God saying he would destroy a nation. In almost every single case he used humans to do that. Still he says he does it because he controls the circumstances and the laws. Simple. Further the Jewish God rested on the seventh day. He maintains the natural order he created. He is not directly running around throwing lightning bolts....lol.....If so he could not be said to be at rest in regard to creation. Study some theology before you claim to know it. Does he take the credit for it...yes his law/word establishes it...Does that mean we cannot understand how it works? No more than understanding how a car works does away with the engineer that created it.


                              Let's stop trying to answer the question when we do not yet have the facts to even formulate a good hypothesis.
                              lets stop trying to dodge because you can't handle the fact and point. IF God of the gaps is wrong then invoking that common sense and what we already know will go away with more discoveries is just as weak. we know the two options available and there will be the same two a million years from now. beginning or no beginning. either one leads to a supernatural premise. Like it or not - thats reality.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by psstein View Post
                                Do the words "necessary" vs. "contingent" mean anything to you?

                                Also, advances in science are not evidence for the non-existence of God. God is not some sort of cosmic magician who hides in the gaps of human ignorance.
                                Where did I say that advances in science disprove the existence of a Creator God?

                                "Do the words "necessary" vs. "contingent" mean anything to you? "

                                Please clarify.

                                Comment

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