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first is prayer
Lots of people pray and to many different gods. I know you'll hate this question, but what makes your God special? Why pray to him over any other? Circular answers don't count.
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second is archaeology, do the places of the old testament exist?
Yes, of course. The Isrealites were not living in a vacuum. They mentioned the people and the cities around them in their writings, just as everyone else did and as people still do. The question should be, what does this prove? Nothing, really, just that the Isrealites were living in and around Egypt, Babylon, etc. It does not prove anything 'metaphysical' about the Bible, any more than the mention of a city is a movie makes the storyline of the movie true.
Another way to look at it is that if the mention of real cities in the Bible, serves as evidence for the veracity of the religion presented in the Bible, then the mention of real cities in any other religious work serves as evidence for the veracity of that religion. I don't think you desire this consequence.
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if so how well do they match up to the events/is there evidence of the events taking place?
The short answer is "not very." The Bible does not match up very well with anything we know from other sources. There is no evidence for most of the major events described-- the captivity in Egypt for example, or the Flood. The time-frames are frequently wrong, placing people of events in cities that didin't exist at the time or attributing activities to kings at times when those kings were not in power.
Why not pick an event and we'll look at the evidence for it?
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third is God is interactive, he is fully well willing to answer our queries...
In what way? The 'still small voice'? If this is evidence for the Biblical god then every other god on the planet is equally validated. People all 'talk' to there gods and those gods all 'talk' back in some form or other-- revelation, prophecy, the lives of avatars, dreams and trances. You must accept all those gods on the same grounds that you accept your own, or you must reject your god on the same grounds that you reject those false gods.
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[This message has been edited by John, 03-31-2003]