10 Jul 08
Originally posted by BadwaterThere's a difference between judging an act and a person. The only way I could judge you fairly and justly (for example) would be if I knew everything about you. Every hair on your head , every bad experience in your childhood , every nook and cranny of your flawed humanity would have to be known by me.
As an aside, it should be noted that Jesus was not the only one to either claim the right or ability to judge, or to actually do it. There are some OT accounts of angels judging good or evil, or debating whether a person should be put to death, as it were. I can only assume that they have been given authority by God to act on behalf of God.
My only point ...[text shortened]... s is claiming his is divine on equal footing with God. It's a small but important idea to note.
How else could I judge you ? If I was ignorant of any part of your childhood or missed even a single day of your life (when you might have had something bad happen to you) I would not be able to judge your actions accurately.
Now think about this and think about what Jesus means when he says he will judge all of us. It's an utterly astounding claim.
10 Jul 08
Originally posted by WWindmillYou make claims, but don't back them up with evidence or sound reasoning. It's easy to make the claim that 'Jesus walked in knowingly to fulfill his chosen path', but that claim is not true unless that is some evidence/reasoning to back it up.
Why is it hard to believe.
Any fool can make a truth claim, but not any fool can back it up with evidence/reasoning.
I've backed up all my claims with verifiable evidence and what I consider to be sound reasoning, and you haven't presented any evidence or reasoning to refute my claims. You just state the opposite, as though simply stating it will somehow make it true.
Why is it so hard to believe? Like I said at the beginning of my argument: faith should be based on evidence, it should be intellegent, but you want me to believe your claims without any proof or reason - I'm sorry, I'm just not into your kind of blind faith.
Besides, if 'Jesus walked in knowingly to fulfill his chosen path', 'knowingly' orchastrated His exact time and place of birth, 'knowingly' orchastrated his ancestry, somehow 'knowingly' got his enemies to fulfill ancient prophecies by killing him in a certain way, 'knowingly' forced his enemies (who didn't believe that He was the Messiah) to say and do to Him what was prophecied, then certainly that proves that he pre-existed his incarnation in Bethlehem and since He is able to control all circumstances, even His enemies, He must then be God as He claimed.
So even if what you claim were true it would still prove that Jesus is God.
11 Jul 08
3 edits
Originally posted by Henry23All this about the Bible you accept as truth. You call what you are doing "reasoning."
Many people in this thread, though well meaning, seem to have a misconception about faith. True, biblical faith should be based on evidence, since the Bible give lots of it.
Where should our faith in the Bible come from? Here's my reasoning:
If the Bible is the true Word of the true God we should believe it, but surely if God is so smart He would have give ...[text shortened]... filled prophecies. Surely this is good evidence that would convince any honest seeker of truth.
You are not reasoning - you are dreaming. The Bible was written by human beings -- the "prophecies" are about as valid about the future as Nostradamus or any of a number of fairly literate astrology writers throughout recorded history. And its all crap.
It is no evidence at all. You are assuming the truth of it because that's what you want to believe. So go ahead, just keep it between your ears and don't try to impose it on me, because I'm not buying.
Now you may call me a non-believer, and that certainly fits, but what I really cannot believe is just how credulous people can be.
Then again, it has long been said you can never go broke undestimating the intelligence of people. We are all prone to this same fault.
We assume things. Worse, we assume we know things and later refuse to admit that not only did we not know, the fact of that which we thought we knew was completely contrary to how we perceived it.
Today, for example, the news is full of the story that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental companies on which the entire US economy rests, have been described by the Fed Chairman as "insufficiently capitalized." Now, the last time you or I were insufficiently capitalized, what did that mean? We were out of money, that's what.
Now, the part that has me flummoxed and once more marveling at the human ability to deny the reality that is staring one in the face, is the prevalence on the news and from everyone in every walk of life who purports to know anything about this subject of the view that these two giant entities are "too big to fail." Meaning that the US government will have to move mountains but will have to bail them out. To let them fail would bring down the entire house of cards on which the global economy rests -- it would be like allowing a chain reaction to start in a pile of uranium blocks big enough to be called a critical mass. Only the sound it would make would be "crash" and not "boom." see http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/07/10/paulson-gse-update-markets-econ-cx_md_bw_0709markets43.html
Strap yourselves in, folks, because all this gibberish about faith and the Bible and Jesus notwithstanding, all of us in the USA are in for a very very bumpy weekend.
I hereby issue this prophecy: the US economy will be shaken to its very core tomorrow afternoon at 6 pm EDT and the after shocks of the financial earthquake I predict will occur then will make the explosion of Krakatoa look like a smoke ring from the mouth of a pygmy.
Now, so far, that's only a little better than your average biblical prophecy because I gave a specific date and time. So here's more to make my reading of the future -- revealed to me by God himself -- more credible so you will believe me.
That which will come to pass on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 6 pm EDT will be the 2nd largest bad thing of its kind to happen in US history. It will be bad enough to make a whole lot of dominoes fall -- and worse, impair the confidence and the full faith and credit given by the rest of the world to the US economy and its government.
We will be up to our eyeteeth in alligators by tomorrow night, folks. Now you let me know if I turn out to be wrong, ok?
11 Jul 08
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I've heard confession is supposed to be good for one. So I'll confess that I've become incapable of any sort of faith or belief not supported by peer reviewed observation and empirical validation.
You see, my son is dead.
That is the reality that I must accept. But how? By making something up or accepting some nonsense from someone blithering mere words that have no reference to any fact comparable to the absence of my son from this life? There is simply the fact that he is dead. What does that mean? Not something that ought to be, or I would wish for, or someone else can put into ritualistic gibberish, for no words, no concept, no thought can address that which we don't know anything about once we die. What we do know is too hard to think about or face, so we bury it.
A cemetery is only that; and I am not equipped to understand mankind's attachment to its own carrion. Easy to see why we've invented life everlasting, created the fiction of judgment and resurrection. You will pardon the expression, but what rot.
Always I had turned my face toward some dimly felt goal, whether it was the sun-image, the suspected, yearned for warmth of childhood and adolescence, or the bright, steely purity with the resounding name that replaced it in early manhood -- the World State, the Rule of Reason, the Kingdom of God -- or the immense nothingness, the sheer overpowering weight of transcience and unreason, that bows my head and draws me into darkness now that I'm old.
I think of all the words, the billions of words that seemed so important at the time they were spoken. It was possible to live by words, to live so blinded that nothing existed beyond words; and to weave them tirelessly into bright, intricate structures that always collapsed and always were replaced by others.
Only at the end, when you are close to that dark curtain, do their hypnotic hum fade from your ears -- and then the stillness! The majesty of that silence struck me dumb; I saw the universe as it was before words; and I felt that never once, in all the years between, had I seen the truth.
But the truth is not to be borne, and the squeaking little phrasemaker, the cricket of the skull, once more begins to spin its vulgar thread into the silence.
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinEver tried Prozac? 😛
Always I had turned my face toward some dimly felt goal, whether it was the sun-image, the suspected, yearned for warmth of childhood and adolescence, or the bright, steely purity with the resounding name that replaced it in early manhood -- the World State, the Rule of Reason, the Kingdom of God -- or the immense nothingness, the sheer overpowering weight of ...[text shortened]... semaker, the cricket of the skull, once more begins to spin its vulgar thread into the silence.[/b]
11 Jul 08
1 edit
Originally posted by ScriabinI would have to say that the most impressive prophesy I have come across is Daniel 9:24-27. I came across it as I was looking in my concordence for the word "Messiah" in the OT and only found it in this verse. When I first read it I have to admit, I had no idea of the meaning, however, I did some digging in interpretations and realized it was nothing more than a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. Now there are speculations about the accuracy of the calendar because there are speculations about the interpretation, however, there is no speculation that it is a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. I think the most impressive evidence, however, comes from sources that should be able to interpret the meaning of the verse in question and who have no vested interest in interpreting it to mean that it points to Jesus Christ. What I am speaking of are writings in the Talmud made after Christ had walked the earth. A rabbi by the name of Maimonides wrote, "Daniel has elucidated to us the knowledge of the end times. However, since they are secret, the wise rabbis have barred the calculation of the days of the Messiah's coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the end Times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah" (Igeret Teiman, Chapter 3 p.24) Also, another rabbi by the name of Moses Abraham Levi wrote, "I have examined and searched all the Holy scriptures and have not found the time for the coming of the Messiah clearly fixed, except in the words of Gabriel to the prophet Daniel, which are written in the 9th chapter of the prophecy of Daniel." (The Messiah of the Targums, Talmuds and Rabbinical Writers, 1971)
[b]All this about the Bible you accept as truth. You call what you are doing "reasoning."
You are not reasoning - you are dreaming. The Bible was written by human beings -- the "prophecies" are about as valid about the future as Nostradamus or any of a number of fairly literate astrology writers throughout recorded history. And its all crap.
I then ran across a man by the name of Leopold Cohn who was born an Orthodox Jew in 1862. He studied to become a rabbi in Hungry and then became a rabbi after graduating from the Talmadic academy at age 18. However, he became curious that one of his daily rituals was to say, "I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though he tarry, yet will I wait daily for his coming". He then began to enquire why the Messiah tarried and became unsettled by the answers he was able to find. While reading the Talmud, he discovered that other rabbis had also wrestled with this question and discovered that the Messiah should have come long ago. This prompted him to study Daniel 9:24-27 and he came to the conclusion that Daniel predicted that the Messiah should come some 400-500 years after the prophesy had been written. It just so happens that this is the time line that Christ walked the earth. To make a long story short, rabbi Cohn ended up being told to leave well enough alone or find another career. He then opted for the later as he traveled to the US and later began a Jews for Christ movement in 1894.
http://www.preceptaustin.org/daniel_924-27.htm
I guess what makes this prophesy so impressive is that it is of historical fact that it was made some 400-500 years before Christ walked the earth. There is no disputing that. Also, it is of historical fact that rabbi's within the Talmud indicate that this prophesy point to the time of Jesus Christ even though they rejected him as Messiah.
Of course there are a myriad of other prophesies about the Messiah in the OT that are later fulfilled in the gospels which are in and of themselves impressive. However, many people simply shrug their shoulders and say that the gospels were simply written to fit the OT prophesies and that none of them or not all of them were fulfilled. Of course, not all of the Messianic prophesies have been fulfilled because the NT states that he is return to fulfill the rest of the prophesies, however, Christ appears to have fulfilled a great many of them in his first coming.
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by whodeyI totally agree with you, whodey. The Daniel 9 prophecy is spectacular!
[b]I would have to say that the most impressive prophesy I have come across is Daniel 9:24-27.
Daniel received a prophecy (Dan 9:25-27) that was interpreted by the angel Gabriel to mean that from the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem (which is recorded in Neh 2:1-6) on 1 Nissan 445 BC until 'Messiah the prince' (Jesus was acknowledged as 'Prince' during his triumphal entry into Jesusalem on 10 Nissan the year of his crucifixion) there would be 69 sevens (weeks of years - from context; also note that these years are Jewish sacred years which are 360 days and not normal 365 day years).
69 x 7 x 360 = 173880 days
It so happens that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy to the day! Amazing...
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by whodeyAnother related fact from the Talmud:
...he came to the conclusion that Daniel predicted that the Messiah should come some 400-500 years after the prophesy had been written. It just so happens that this is the time line that Christ walked the earth.
Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh (which refers to Messiah) comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.
In around 7 AD the Roman authorities removed the right to pass the death sentence from the Jewish Sanhedrin (that's why they brough Jesus before Pontius Pilate and did not pass the death sentence themselves). Because Judah was no longer ruled by a Jew and then had no Jewish lawgiver the Talmud record:
'Woe is us, for the scepter has departed from Judah and there is no more lawgiver between his feet and Messiah has not yet come!'
Of course they were blissfully unaware of the fact that Jesus the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem just a few years before that.
It is also said that the rabbi's were so troubled when they discovered that the Daniel 9 prophecy pointed to Jesus that they altered the chalender by removing 200 years from is so Jews would not realize that Jesus is the Messiah (I haven't confirmed this, though; it's only something I heard).
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinFrom the posts discussing the Dan 9 prophecy your statement above is clearly wrong and uninformed. Nostradamus never made specific prophecies like this. If you've ever read his stuff you'll know they are so vague and general that they would apprear to be fulfilled in many ways and at many times.
The Bible was written by human beings -- the "prophecies" are about as valid about the future as Nostradamus or any of a number of fairly literate astrology writers throughout recorded history. And its all crap.
In contrast to that the Biblical prophecies about Jesus are clearly very specific and detailed, e.g. Dan 9:25-27 or Ps 22:18-20.
Sorry to hear about your son, Scriabin; I can appreciate that you are disillusioned/angry.
Your view about God and the Bible are based on wrong perceptions and ignorance, though. Just like WWindmill you have stated that these fulfilled prophecies are not credible, but have failed to present any convincing evidence to back up your claim.
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by Henry23Do you have any references to the source of your information on:
I totally agree with you, whodey. The Daniel 9 prophecy is spectacular!
Daniel received a prophecy (Dan 9:25-27) that was interpreted by the angel Gabriel to mean that from the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem (which is recorded in Neh 2:1-6) on 1 Nissan 445 BC until 'Messiah the prince' (Jesus was acknowledged as 'Prince' during his triump ...[text shortened]... 360 = 173880 days
It so happens that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy to the day! Amazing...
1. when the prophesy was made
2. When Jesus was crucified
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by whodeyBut it is not historical fact that Jesus walked the earth.
I guess what makes this prophesy so impressive is that it is of historical fact that it was made some 400-500 years before Christ walked the earth. There is no disputing that. Also, it is of historical fact that rabbi's within the Talmud indicate that this prophesy point to the time of Jesus Christ even though they rejected him as Messiah.
Also, you fully admit that the prophesy has a margin of error of well over 20%. Thats quite a large margin.
Now tell us how many other rabbis made predictions based on prophesies and what those predictions were. If it turns out that your rabbi was the only 'correct' one out of say 1000 rabbis, then it might turn out that it was statistically probably that at least one matched your desired result.
The simple fact that you had to hunt for really obscure rabbis to support your claim shows how weak a prophesy it really is.
11 Jul 08
Originally posted by twhiteheadA good reference for this and related information is 'New Evidence that demands a Verdict' by Josh McDowell.
Do you have any references to the source of your information on:
1. when the prophesy was made
2. When Jesus was crucified
But since you probably aren't really interested and probably won't want to buy the book, here is a website that seems to cover most of the info relating to the Daniel 9:24-27 prophecy that is covered in New Evidence:
http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/weeks.htm