Can a valid, supportable reason be offered for deconversion

What gave you the idea I thought it was incomprehensible?youve presented no passage, that I seem to not understandDawn Bertot

Dawn, those questions were answered way back in Message 254 where I pointed out to you that:

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Utter nonsense Dawn.

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Whether the writers were inspired by God has absolutely nothing to do with whether what they wrote refers to Jesus.

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The way you test the claimed prophecies is to look at what was actually written and then compare that to what was later written.

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If you think that you can support the validity of some Old Testament prophecy of Jesus, then present the chapter and verse either in a thread devoted to that topic, or here.

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If you wish I am happy to discuss your alleged prophecies just as I addressed the one where you claimed Isaiah 50:6 was about Jesus (see Message 226).

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You have made that claim many times but have yet to actually present any evidence to support your assertions.We know that you like to just repeat points that have been refuted as though they have not been addressed but people here can check back through the thread and actually see what was written, just as we can with the Old and New Testaments.For example in the very post you are replying to I asked for links to the messages where you provided the evidence you claim you have presented. Funny how you don't seem to be able to provide those links.I wonder why? As usual, it appears that all you can do is pretend that your issues have not been addressed (see above and Message 267 and Message 270).In addition you did not even address the issue that you quoted when I pointed out that there is no such thing as "The Bible". There is no universally accepted Canon (you do know what a Canon is don't you?), no universal list of what books are included in the Bible. The smallest Canon recognizes only those books that had likely been canonized at the time of Jesus, the first five books of the Old Testament; the largest Canon includes over eighty books.You did know that didn't you?Finally, your argument is just plain silly. How can you know they did not look hard enough. If YOU can't show evidence of your claimed Unity of Theme and Purpose; and so far you have provided no support for your assertion, what makes you think it is there?Dawn, if I can easily provide links to the messages where I address your issues, why is it you can never provide links to message where you actually provide the support and evidence you keep claiming to have provided?Is it possible that the reason is ... you really have never provided the support in the first place?Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Jar I know you think you understand what you are saying from a logical standpoint and proposition, but you dont.Listen carefully. The same books and prophets you quote are filled with the prophets claiming miracles and involvement in miraculous activity. if that is not true then there is no reason to beleive the physical facts they claim to be speaking about either correctSo if the test is to LOOK AT WHAT IS WRITTEN and what is written is unreliable and inaccurate, what would naturally follow, both logically and factually?Now also, if there is no involvement by God in those claims of the miraculous, then there is no reason to believe anything they have to say, not to mention, Messiahs and kingdoms correct?So, inspiration is both a logical, structural and Biblical concept that has to be accepted or rejected, PRIOR to any investigation about Messiahs, kingdoms and claimsSo now, I will ask the direct question again. Is the OT and the prophets claims to inspiration a reality, in your mind. Yes or No?I know you think you know how to debate this logically, but as indicated by numerous posts you do not.Do you now see the relevance of whether you believe it is inspired or not?If there were no miracles or the miraculous you might have a valid logical argumentBecause there are, you do not, Simply because WHAT IS WRITTEN, about historical facts, may be as unreliable as the claimed miracles, correct?Inspired by God or not?Dawn BertotEdited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.

Ironically you have failed to address the only question that matters. or at best you you have failed to answer it DIRECTLYDawn Bertot

Bullshit.The issue is to actually look at what is written and then we can compare that to your claims or latter authors claims.It is irrelevant whether or not it is inspired; it is what was written.Dawn, all of this was addressed in Message 287, Message 254, Message 226, Message 267 and Message 270.It is very telling that yet again you provide NO support for any of your assertions.Whether or not the writing were inspired is irrelevant, the issue is "What is actually written."

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Dawn, all of this was addressed in Message 287, Message 254, Message 226, Message 267 and Message 270.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Is "what is actually written" about the miracles and the miraculous true and can it be trusted?Dawn Bertot

Circa 1969 and half a decade beyond, I was a fundamentalist "fellow traveller"* . While not becoming a fundamentalist myself (I had become an atheist some 7 years before by having started to read the Bible myself and finding that I could not believe in what I was reading), I did have close associations with fundamentalists during the "Jesus Freak" movement of circa 1970 which swelled the ranks of Chuck Smith's Calvary Church movement. I was extensively exposed to their teachings, even though I remained skeptical throughout. That was also my very first exposure to "creation science", through claims of evidence for Noah's Flood (never investigated at the time, though subsequently shown to be false), "living molluscs found carbon-dated to thousands of years old" (I have subsequently read the actual scientific article behind that claim, in which fresh-water molluscs had been found to be using "old carbon" from dissolved limestone to build their shells), and the infamous "NASA computer program has found 'Joshua's Lost Day'", which at the time was the basis of rejecting the "creation science" claims being presented to me. Even in that time when the only exposure to a computer that anyone had was through a glass window, I knew about GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out", the basis of the US Navy's Data Technician rating badge showing three arrow of unprocessed "garbage in" and one arrow of "garbage out") and knew that there was no possible way for a computer to know that nothing existed past some arbitrary point in history ... unless a human programmer had put it there.One of the things that I was taught as a fundamentalist Christian "fellow traveller" was that a sure test of a prophet was how he was received. A true prophet tells you what God thinks. So a true prophet tells the people what they don't want to hear, which makes him very unpopular, whereas a false prophet tells the people what they want to hear, which makes him popular.{* FOOTNOTE:
I get that term from a German play we had studied (In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer) and which was my first exposure to J. Robert Oppenheimer. He was the leading physicist at the Manhattan Project, but because of his pre-war university contacts was questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, wherein he was accused of being a "fellow traveller" of the Communist Party. The funny thing was that, during that time, the 1930's, the Communist Party in America was one of the very few organizations that opposed Adolf Hitler.
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that should be the end of the thread right there. inspiration is irrelevant. if jesus does not match predictions for the jewish messiah, then he is not the jewish messiah. it doesn't matter if any of those claims are inspired or not. there is a whole thread on this topic. ...well, it's not. see the whole thread on the topic. and if god never intended the jews to have an earthly king, well, he sure messed up installing king david on the throne. and every king afterward, down to zedekiah. they were in a much better position than the prophets themselves? that's interesting. see, this is not about our perspective. it's about what those prophets actually said. and time, frankly, is irrelevant.

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אָרַח

this did, the bit i was responding to:

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can you check to see and understand what Gods overall intentions and purposes were by giving inspiration to the writer?

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the fact that you seem to think it's some outrageous claim we are making that we can somehow divine what the authors meant simply by reading what they wrote. jar presented one in this thread. you never responded.similarly, there are about a dozen more in the prophecy thread, which you are also ignoring.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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אָרַח

jar, the torah and the nevi'im were both likely canonized at the time of christ. he refers to "the law and the prophets" a number of times.

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אָרַח

See my Message 18. I, knowing you had no argument except those of authority, place dibbs upon them. You, using nothing but arguments of authority, owe me royalties upon them. How could that be simpler? Jeez, I learned that back in, like, third grade, dude.My argument as to "Can a valid, supportable reason be offered for de-conversion" is "Any reason one wants to use to dump unreasoned beliefs is valid and supportable if the apostate thinks it's valid and supportable, and no one else has claim to argue his decision otherwise."As to giving you a reason for you to dump your sniveling, little god; why on Earth would I care to do that? I think it's funny. I like funny. I tried it, I liked it, I moved on. The state perennial-ninth-grader is peculiar to you. Were I riding a one-peddle tricycle backwards while wearing flip-flops my dust would settle before you got your shoes tied.

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Nonconformists come one at a time.

Yes, in the Judaic canon that is likely true, but IIRC (and I'm old and so may have forgotten) I believe that the canon of the Samaritan Orthodox Church only recognizes the first five books as canonical.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Again Dawn, that is irrelevant to the topic or the issues.We can read what was written and compare that to what you or a later author claims.We are not discussing miracles but rather YOUR claim that there is some unity of theme and purpose.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Nonsense.We can test the claim that Jesus fulfilled their prophecies without having to form any prior belief on whether they were inspired, uninspired, lucky guessers, unlucky guessers, possessed by devils, lizard-men from the future, prophets ex post facto or what.Just as you can test my prophecy about the gruuflepuff without first having to know whether God was speaking through me Did you see one? No? Then I was wrong.If it turned out that Jesus did fulfill their prophecies then we might ask if they were inspired.Just as if you had seen a grufflepuff you might then have started wondering what my source of information was.Trying to decide whether they were inspired before deciding whether they were accurate is putting the cart before the horse.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.