The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by DOC

A 95% correct translation might be all you need to understand.

Your sky fairy is only 95% omniscient then, eh? You do realise that 'omni' things aren't available in fractional fittings, don't you?

Originally Posted by DOC

There are mediocre preachers, good preachers, and great preachers. Even a mediocre preacher can convert people. Even a bad preacher might give a rare inspired sermon and convert people .

I can point to 6,542 individual pieces of evidence that say there are some preachers so bad that all they're ever likely to do is deconvert people.

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by zooterkin

How would you know it was correct, and why would your hypothetical God be happy with less than 100%? Have you heard about the Wicked Bible? It takes considerably less than 5% to be wrong to give entirely the wrong message.

The devil's in the detail, as they say.

[Rincewind]

Originally Posted by DOC

A 95% correct translation might be all you need to understand. There are mediocre preachers, good preachers, and great preachers. Even a mediocre preacher can convert people. Even a bad preacher might give a rare inspired sermon and convert people .

Hey Doc,

Way to miss the point.

The point is that God had a message - this has been shattered into hundreds upon hundreds of DIFFERENT messages.

At the very least He's an incompetent...

Surely He must have known this was going to happen, but still didn't do anything?

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I now have a prediction: DOC will suddenly be too busy to respond to my specific debunkings of Ross's prophecy fulfillments or his claims of scientific principles in the biblical text.

DOC: Admittedly, the post above was intended as a bit of a goad. However, it was not meant as any kind of personal insult. My point is merely this: Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. Also, specific claims of fulfilled prophecy require specific, testable fulfillments. As yet the only specific prophecies that I've been able to find fulfilled are those that would be reasonable predictions given the historical situation, for example, Nahum's prediction of the fall of Nineveh, made at the time that the Assyrian Empire was collapsing, and its enemies were closing in on Nineveh. I've found all other specific prophecies made before the fact - including those attested to by Ross - to be false.

How do you respond to this?

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by DOC

Even a mediocre preacher can convert people.

You even managed it yourself in one of your other threads.

[carlitos]

Originally Posted by Mojo

You even managed it yourself in one of your other threads.

[ddt]

Originally Posted by Mojo

You even managed it yourself in one of your other threads.

... though maybe not in the way DOC expected it.

[TimCallahan]

I'm curious, DOC: How many specifically failed prophecies would it take to convince you that, even assuming there is a God, the Bible couldn't possibly be the word of that God; or, to turn the question around, in the midst of a number of failed prophecies, how many fulfilled prophecies should it take to convince a skeptic like me that the Bible is indeed the word of God?

[welshdean]

Originally Posted by Akhenaten

I can point to 6,542 individual pieces of evidence that say there are some preachers so bad that all they're ever likely to do is deconvert people.

Now where could those 'pieces of evidence' be?

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I'm curious, DOC: How many specifically failed prophecies would it take to convince you that, even assuming there is a God, the Bible couldn't possibly be the word of that God; or, to turn the question around, in the midst of a number of failed prophecies, how many fulfilled prophecies should it take to convince a skeptic like me that the Bible is indeed the word of God?

Shame on you Tim. An intelligent fella like you asking questions like that of DOC. The answers are obviously 0 and 1.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by welshdean

. . .(snip) . . . Shame on you Tim. An intelligent fella like you asking questions like that of DOC. The answers are obviously 0 and 1.

Oh, I get now. It's binary code.

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

Oh, I get now. It's binary code.

Too bad you can't do anything useful with this particular breed of binary.

[Fast Eddie B]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

Oh, I get now. It's binary code.

Well, it either is or it isn't!

[Mister Agenda]

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie B

I think I've said before that I have read and own Mr. Callahan's book, "Bible Prophecy".

I think it effectively shoots down the entire prophecy myth.

Just like "rabbits in the pre-Cambrian", I can envision an ancient prophecy that would blow my mind and change my view of the world:

"And it shall come to pass that an enterprise named "Apple Inc" shall close on a date which will be known as 1-13-2011 at 419.81"

That level of specificity might or might not lead me to a supreme being, but it would certainly raise hard questions about rigid world time lines and/or time travel and/or free will.

To date, I have never seen a prophecy that could not be covered by one of Mr. Callahan's explanations.

Would be cool, though!

I read his book too, years ago. It was quite an eye-opener.

[Multivac]

Originally Posted by Rincewind

The point is that God had a message ......

Message? I thought he had a massage! Not sure if there was a "happy ending".

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Multivac

Message? I thought he had a massage! Not sure if there was a "happy ending".

Is that the same kind of 'happy ending' that the Thai massage parlours advertize?

[tsig]

Originally Posted by dafydd

Is that the same kind of 'happy ending' that the Thai massage parlours advertize?

This I say and prophecy

If you go to the land of the Thai

And there you buy what money can buy

It's happy endings 'less the girl's a guy.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie B

Well, it either is or it isn't!

Sort of like Schrodinger's cat, though I don't think she's on this thread.

[Cainkane1]

Originally Posted by DOC

This PHD, astrophysicist, says the odds of all the bible prophecy that has been fulfilled occurring by chance is 1 in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000...
I'll stop there but the 1 should be followed by 2000 zeros

from the article "Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the reliability of the Bible: by Dr. Hugh Ross.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apo...prophecy.shtml

This is wrong. If enough so called prophesys are tossed out and after centuries pass something similar to the prediction would eventualy happen.

Nostradamas predicted airplanes but I doubt if anything supernatural was involved.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Cainkane1

This is wrong. If enough so called prophesys are tossed out and after centuries pass something similar to the prediction would eventualy happen.

Nostradamas predicted airplanes but I doubt if anything supernatural was involved.

So did Roger Bacon in the 13th century and there was nothing supernatural involved.

[Fast Eddie B]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

Sort of like Schrodinger's cat, though I don't think she's on this thread.

Have you looked?

[Pacal]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

Is the Book of Job actually a science text? Here are Ross's assertions that it is:

a4) The Bible says light is in motion (Job 38:19-20). Science then said light is fixed in place. Again, I have no idea where he got this notion, since there's no attribution. Science today says light is in motion.

a5) The Bible says air has weight (Job 28:25). Science then said air was weightless.

Let's look again at what Job actually says about light (Job 38:19, 20):

Where is the way to the dwelling of light.
and where is the place of the dwelling of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?

Okay, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see in these poetic verses a scientific concept about how light moves. Perhaps we'll have better luck with Ross's assertion that the Bible say air has weight (Job 28:25):

When he gave the wind its weight,
and meted out the waters by measure;

The Hebrew words translated as "wind" and "weight" are, respectively, ruwach and mishqal, and they do translate one-for-one as 'wind" and "weight." Of course the winds having weight might well refer to their force. Yet, it's possible that the ancient Israelites did understand that air had weight. What then of Ross's assertion that everyone else tought that air was weightless? Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article on the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaximenes (emphasis added):

While his predecessors Thales and Anaximander proposed that the arche, the underlying material of the world, were water and the ambiguous substance apeiron, respectively, Anaximenes asserted that air was this primary substance of which all other things are made. While the choice of air may seem arbitrary, he based his conclusion on naturally observable phenomena in the process of rarefaction and condensation.[6] When air condenses it becomes visible, as mist and then rain and other forms of precipitation, and as the condensed air cools Anixemenes supposed that it went on to form earth and ultimately stones. In contrast, water evaporates into air which ignites and produces flame when further rarefied.[7] While other philosophers also recognized such transitions in states of matter, Anaximenes was the first to associate the quality pairs hot/dry and cold/wet with the density of a single material and add a quantitative dimension to the Milesian monistic system.[7][8]

Considering the boldface sections above, that Anaximenes understood that air could expand and condense, and that heat and cold affected density, it would seem he, and the ancient Greek philosophers in general, understood that air had substance, hence weight - contrary to Ross's assertion.

I remember reading about an experiment performed by an Ionian Philosopher (c. 600-500 B.C.E.), who noticed that a divice used to get water from a narrow necked storage vessel indicated that air had substance. The device was a container with small holes at the bottom and a narrow tube opening at the top. As you dipped the divice in water it filled up. As you lifted it out you sealed the tube end with your thumb. Air pressure kept the water in until you removed your thumb than the water was released.

The Philosopher note that this showed that "air" was something, a material thing.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by Pacal

I remember reading about an experiment performed by an Ionian Philosopher (c. 600-500 B.C.E.), who noticed that a divice used to get water from a narrow necked storage vessel indicated that air had substance. The device was a container with small holes at the bottom and a narrow tube opening at the top. As you dipped the divice in water it filled up. As you lifted it out you sealed the tube end with your thumb. Air pressure kept the water in until you removed your thumb than the water was released.

The Philosopher note that this showed that "air" was something, a material thing.

Thanks for that. Looking up the Ionian philosophers, I found this bit on Empedocles from the Wikipedia article:

In a famous fragment,[38] Empedocles attempted to explain the phenomena of respiration by means of an elaborate analogy with the clepsydra, an ancient device for transmitting liquids from one vessel to another.[41] This fragment has sometimes been connected to a passage in Aristotle's Physics where Aristotle refers to people who twisted wineskins and captured air in clepsydras to demonstrate that void does not exist.[42] There is however, no evidence that Empedocles performed any experiment with clepsydras.[41] The fragment certainly implies that Empedocles knew about the corporeality of air, but he says nothing whatever about the void.[41] The clepsydra was a common utensil and everyone who used it must have known, in some sense, that the invisible air could resist liquid.[43]
[edit]

[ddt]

DOC, we're all waiting with bated breath for you to respond to the various posts that have appeared in this thread since your last appearance.

[Ocelot]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

b6) how to control contagious diseases (Lev. 13:45, 46)

Here are Lev. 13:45, 46:

The leper wo has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shal cover his lip and cry, "Unclean, unclean." He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.

Again, are we to believe that nobody but the Israelites isolated lepers?

Certainly not, they are funny looking and to be shunned by everyone for no other reason than the ick factor. As for doing so to prevent disease that's rather a contentious subject. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_leprosy_contagious

I knew that reading half a Stephen Donaldson book would come in handy one day.

[Helen]

Originally Posted by ddt

DOC, we're all waiting with bated breath for you to respond to the various posts that have appeared in this thread since your last appearance.

In this case, and this thread, only, I think perhaps baited breath would be the correct spelling.

[ddt]

[Fast Eddie B]

Originally Posted by Helen

In this case, and this thread, only, I think perhaps baited breath would be the correct spelling.

The whole thread is a little fishy, if you ask me!

Seriously, the concept of contagion appears to be something that even a primitive people could sort out.

If God had revealed something like germ theory or the concept of inoculation via holy books, that might get my attention. DOC's assertions, not so much.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie B

The whole thread is a little fishy, if you ask me!

Seriously, the concept of contagion appears to be something that even a primitive people could sort out.

If God had revealed something like germ theory or the concept of inoculation via holy books, that might get my attention. DOC's assertions, not so much.

It seems that this brainless god was more concerned with not boiling a kid in its mother's milk and stoning Sunday workers to death.

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by dafydd

It seems that this brainless god was more concerned with not boiling a kid in its mother's milk and stoning Sunday workers to death.

I don't know; maybe not boiling a kid in its mother's milk was based on practicality. After all, not that many mothers could provide enough milk in which to boil one of there kids. I mean, even kid in kindergarten might be to big.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I don't know; maybe not boiling a kid in its mother's milk was based on practicality. After all, not that many mothers could provide enough milk in which to boil one of there kids. I mean, even kid in kindergarten might be to big.

Yes, it was a primitive society, they didn't have milkmen back then.

[Rincewind]

Originally Posted by dafydd

Yes, it was a primitive society, they didn't have milkmen back then.

But did they have Mothers milkmen?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Rincewind

But did they have Mothers milkmen?

The bread at the Last Supper was this. Source? Billy Connolly.

[kmortis]

Originally Posted by Rincewind

But did they have Mothers milkmen?

I have a Methodist coloring book....does that count?

[ddt]

Originally Posted by dafydd

Yes, it was a primitive society, they didn't have milkmen back then.

Who then did the adultering?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by ddt

Who then did the adultering?

Naughty adults? Our believers seem to have turned tail and ran away yet again.

[welshdean]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I don't know; maybe not boiling a kid in its mother's milk was based on practicality. After all, not that many mothers could provide enough milk in which to boil one of there kids....

They could have bought more milk from the local shop, but they were all closed on the sabbath.

Except the 'corner' shop.

Hooray for the Sub-Continent and it's immigrants with their flexible attitudes to the EU Working Time Directive.

[welshdean]

Originally Posted by dafydd

<snip>
Our believers seem to have turned tail and ran away yet again.

No mate, they're just waiting 'til their preacher done git right back to them.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by welshdean

No mate, they're just waiting 'til their preacher done git right back to them.

Cahn ah git an amen!!!!

[pakeha]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan

I wonder if I'll hear from either DOC or Nodoubt with respect to my analysis of the prophecies Hugh Ross listed as so astounding.

Add me to the list of those who admire your work!

[pakeha]

Originally Posted by DOC

Yes, Ross provided enough info to keep people busy for awhile. If Ross or myself or anyone else made any mistakes interpreting something as a prophecy when it wasn't, that is our mistakes, not the bibles.

What does this mean, DOC?

Originally Posted by DOC

A 95% correct translation might be all you need to understand. There are mediocre preachers, good preachers, and great preachers. Even a mediocre preacher can convert people. Even a bad preacher might give a rare inspired sermon and convert people .

Does this have anything to do with the thread, DOC?