Christianity VS White Magic (Only for Spiritualist/WhiteMagicians & Christians)

[Vince Twelve]

I read the prophecies that you spoke of.  Predicting the events of a battle that would take place 200 years after the writing of the passage would be incredibly impressive.  I'm an open minded person who is still unsure about what I believe God to be or not be, and such a persuasive argument might be hugely influential.  If it were substantiated by concrete evidence.

HOWEVER, for a prophecy to be a prophecy, to me, it needs to have three factors:

I) The written prophecy must be clear and unambiguous about what it is predicting.

Most of what you discuss would pass this point. 

II) The events predicted must happen in a way that can be verified by history (I.E. not verified by the same writing that the prophecy was made in).

And again, most of what you discuss is in the (non-religiously-biased) history books.

III) The prophecy must have been verifiably written before the events predicted.

And this is where your prophecies break down.

You can say that the book of Isaiah was finished by 732 B.C.E. but is it a solidly verified fact?  Absolutely not.

Many (I purposefully avoided the word "most" here because I wasn't able to take a poll) biblical scholars believe that the book Isaiah is the work of two or more writers.  These scholars (who are more well versed in the bible's history than me and likely more than you) believe, consequently, that the book was the product of an extensive editing process.  Specifically, they note a visible divide in writing styles after chapter 39, which is where the prophecies that you quote come from.  It is impossible to place a date on the actual writing of the verses that you quote.

So, if we go by TheYak's system of choosing which scenario seems the most likely, I'm going to go with:

5) The prophecies were actually written after the events which you claim that they predict.

It is a logical conclusion, or at least a logical possibility.

So again, I can't describe this as "evidence."  But this is where I would enter faith into the equation.  At least my definition and TheYak's definition and Mirriam-Webster's definition of "faith."  You have faith that these are true prophecies made by Isaiah.  That is to say that you believe that they are true despite not having concrete evidence.

[rmullen]

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[Vince Twelve]

I fail to see how the dead sea scrolls, which were written between 150 B.C.E. and 50 B.C.E. could possibly be evidence that the book of Isaiah was not added to or edited by a third party after 539 B.C.E.  That's 400 years unaccounted for. 

If there were proof behind your claims, surely there wouldn't be so many men and women, better versed in the bible than you or I, who are skeptical of the document's authorship.

[SSH]

Well, if there were changes made to them over time, then it would be liekly that differing versions would be extant. The differences in known copies are generally somewhat minor enough to be manual copying errors.

[Nacho]

The "believers" like to say "Wow! The prophecy worked 200-300... 1,000 years after the prediction! That' s impressive! How long the time to the prophecy to become true can be! These are LONG TERM PROPHECIES! Woah!" And they assume that, the more time happens till the prophecy becomes true, the better. That' s uncorrect. As much time happens, the most plausible a vague prophecy becomes.

For instance.

"A person coming from the sun rise will attack the leader, and a war will start, and the fidels will get closer between they each other, and they will prevail. Jerusalen will burn when the moon shines"

In less than 500 something simillar will happen... Am I a Prophet?

[GarageGothic]

The vast majority of prophecy found in the Hebrew scriptures (commonly called the Old Testament) was concerning the life of Jesus and therefore reveals that the Bible supports Christianity.

The Messianic prophecies are about The Messiah, whom the Christians acknowledge to be Jesus whereas the Jews believe he hasn't come yet. There were loads of people around that time claiming/claimed to be the Messiah and Jesus was just the most succesful. If any of the prophecies happen to match part of Jesus' life, keep in mind that he himself had studied the Messianic prophecies.

[rmullen]

~

[Nacho]

Were you there to confirm that Ieoshua Bar Iosef was born in Belen? Because many people claim that he was born in Nazareth, and the birth was after placed in Belen to make it "match" with the prophecies. Actually, I think that even the gospels don' t agree in how Ieoshua bar Iosef reached Belen, if he previously lived there, or if Iosef' s family went there to record Iosef' s name into it' s birthday place log, Belen, according to a rule of Herodes.

And can you explain me how can Ieoshua bar Iosef descendant of King David if Mary never had contact with Iosef, who was the one with the blood of King David? Mmmm...

[HillBilly]

This is the same rebellion against God that was started back in the Garden of Eden.

I'm just going to take this sentence out of context to ask you something: Most of the christians I've discussed christianity with, claims that alot of the content in the old testament(Garden of Eden, Noah's ark etc) is symbolic. What's your stand on this?

[Vince Twelve]

Well, if there were changes made to them over time, then it would be liekly that differing versions would be extant. The differences in known copies are generally somewhat minor enough to be manual copying errors.

If the currently accepted version of the book of Isaiah or any other book closely resembles the version found in the dead sea scrolls (which I'm not sure they do... but I didn't look very hard, so feel free to educate me), that suggests that no major changes were made after 100 B.C.E.  However, it would not prove that the book was not altered over the four hundred years previous.

The Messianic Prophecies are similarly plagued by problems.  Each one is either A) not a prophecy or not meant by the author to be a prophecy, B) Not-verifiably fufilled (the new testament is not a verifiable source), or C) So vague that it's application to Jesus is unconvincing.

Of course I take a skeptical approach to any supposed prophecy.  If you're looking to believe, there are more than enough stories in the bible to put your faith behind.  But faith, in the sense that it is belief in something without evidence, is required to plug the holes in the arguments.

Those who follow Jesus command to love their neighbors, to love their enemies, and therefore do not participate in war of any kind.

If you really are teaching love, an all inclusive love, including homosexuals, foreigners, Muslims, atheists, and everyone else with a view of the world that differs from your own, then I wish you all the best.  Some people don't know how to do this instinctively and need some direction to help them accept people different from themselves.

Do you love me?

[TheYak]

I wasn't going to reply since rmullen had stated that he'd said his 'peace' (sorry for the grammatical fun-poking).  However, it's my turn to virtually shake Vince's hand as I absolutely agree.  I am completely for anyone abiding by a religion that loves people as people, regardless of their faith, race, sexuality, etc., and wish rmullen all the best if this is the case. 

I don't want to divert the already-diverted thread any more, but I've had a difficult time convincing Christians to abide by a hate-the-sin/love-the-sinner message that Jesus preached. Between my parents & peers and living in the San Francisco area, the issue of homosexuality is one plagued by fear and hatred rather than simple compassion and understanding.  If I've come across my first Christian that attempts to abide by the doctrine I was taught that the religion was all about, then I'm certainly more open to an exchange of discourse than I was.

[Helm]

Wow I go to a comics festival for 4 days and this is what you do behind my back.

Lots of slabs of interesting, thanks for posting, Yak, Vince. I'd like our current resident christian apologist to reply to my original question:

why did God change his methods after the events of the old testament? What could this change signify? Remember, God knows all, sees all, makes no mistakes. Please answer this succintly if possible. I aim to destroy your faith. Thank you.

[SSH]

If the currently accepted version of the book of Isaiah or any other book closely resembles the version found in the dead sea scrolls (which I'm not sure they do... but I didn't look very hard, so feel free to educate me), that suggests that no major changes were made after 100 B.C.E.  However, it would not prove that the book was not altered over the four hundred years previous.

Well of course, there is no proof unless you have the absolute original, but then how do you prove that is authentic? Rather, when it comes to authenticating ancient documents you have to go by indications and evidence rather than absolute proof. Remember, too, that if there were edits made to the book, it would be unlikely that the edits would be able to be made to absolutely every copy of the book available. We're talking ancient tech not wikipedia, here, so for someone to decide to edit what is in the book of Isiah they'd have to ride a horse round ancient palestine with the new approved copies, get hold of the old ones if they were able to wrench them from their keepers and replace them with the new copy. It seems unlikely that such a process would be entirely successful. And those copies would be copied down the years and some of them would survive to today in some form. And thus there would be greater differences between our current versions than there are.

why did God change his methods after the events of the old testament? What could this change signify? Remember, God knows all, sees all, makes no mistakes. Please answer this succintly if possible. I aim to destroy your faith. Thank you.

I know you were going at rmullen, Helm, but one point is, if God says "here are some laws, stick to them" and then immediately says "Nah, you'll never manage it, I know I'll have to do something else in the end..." then it would hardly seem fair. Part of the Old Testament's purpose is as a "testament" of the fallibility of human nature.

[Helm]

I know you were going at rmullen, Helm, but one point is, if God says "here are some laws, stick to them" and then immediately says "Nah, you'll never manage it, I know I'll have to do something else in the end..." then it would hardly seem fair. Part of the Old Testament's purpose is as a "testament" of the fallibility of human nature.

You are a smart man, SSH. It won't take you more than a few seconds of further pondering to realize the unfairness of 'testing' that which you know fully well will fail.

I'd be very glad to discuss this further with you if you want, down the linear path towards the model of the cruel god playing with the will-less toys that are men, but also I'd like to see what our resident apologist has to say on the subject, so lets not scare him off.

[SSH]

You are a smart man, SSH. It won't take you more than a few seconds of further pondering to realize the unfairness of 'testing' that which you know fully well will fail.

Isn't it also unfair to NOT test someone without even giving them the chance to prove themselves, even if you're sure they will fail? I mean, I think that people have free will, so therefore there are not 100% certain to fail. And after all God already provided some provision for forgiveness in the Old Testament too.

[Helm]

No concept of 'fairness' enters the picture when a machine does as it is ment to do. When you use your toaster, you are not conducting an ethical experiment, you are making toast. This is scary because then you start to consider what our purpose is as machines. Are we here to keep this god of yours company? To feed is ego with our adoration? Are we just a passing plaything?

There is no free will when God knows all, has designed all, knows past, present and future down to the fucking bitter end of the apocalypse (there's no Free Will sans god of course, but that's a different discussion). The difference is that god made us little machines with self-awareness and the capability to SUFFER and then he punishes us for doing as we're ment to do. THAT is unfair by my petty human standard, and I spit at him and curse him, as he has designed me to do. Your God is a cruel master.

[SSH]

Are couples who have children feeding their egos with their child's adoration?

What if God is omniscient of the future in the sense that he can "calculate" what will happen in any given situation, perhaps by some mechanism similar to running a simulation. Now, if he is to do that, any consequences of that simualtion although they don't happen to us happen to the equivalent of us in the simualtion, which some philosophers is exactly the same from the point of view of the "other us". So, perhaps God doesn't do this simulation exercise on things unless he needs to, So its more a case of God being potentially omnipotent than actually knowing everything ever at once... it's like Schrodinger's cat in some ways. Perhaps quantum mechanics is God's way of letting us understand his omniscience to a degree?

[Nacho]

But then, God has any power over us, or the things around us? Because if he has, no free will... If he hasn' t, why worshipping him any longer than just the gratitude to something he did 20,000,000,000 years ago?

It' s great to respect the craddle where you've been breed. But it finally reaches the time to abandon the craddle, no?

[Helm]

Are couples who have children feeding their egos with their child's adoration?

Partly. I don't know if you know, but people are not perfect, nor do they claim to be. They fail all the time. GOD DOESN'T HAVE FAILINGS. GOD IS PERFECT. GOD IS FOREVER. Please understand what I am saying, I can't make it any plainer.

So, perhaps God doesn't do this simulation exercise on things unless he needs to,

what is this strange limitation of need you place on your God here? This is such a stupid cop-out. It's like answering 'He doesn't create it 'cause he doesn't feel like it' to the God-destroying question :" can your all-powerful god create a stone he cannot lift?". Potential omnipotence? What the hell are you talking about? Either god KNOWS ALL, or he doesn't. No middle ground, no gray area. We are talking about the ultimate being. If you're so willing to cut down on his 'potential' ultimate skillsets then present me a modest god, that is failable, not all-powerful, not existing before time, not forever, and I will tell you, that's a god more likely to exist.

[CaptainBinky]

The truth is not complicated.  God has made it available and easy to understand.  It is not my responsibility to establish truth, simply to offer it to others.

Do you know something? I'd be much more inclined to listen to the theories of religious people if they didn't keep on dealing with absolutes, and simply voiced their opinions as a possible explanation which they choose to believe. Saying "the truth this..." and "the truth that..." from my cynical standpoint just sounds like a ploy to get idiots to believe you - "Oh, it's the truth is it? Well it must be right then"