Prophesy or self delusion?

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This an is untrue assertion, based ONLY on this forum and ONLY on your thoughts, in that - you ignore that which we agree on. Listen - I don't always voice what I agree with - there's no point.

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Mike, how many different religions are there in the word that claim that they know the wishes of god/gods/spirit/spirits?How many Christian denominations are there?

Since Mike is... let's be generous and call it "discussing prophecy"... off in the new prophecy thread without cleaning up his mess here, I think we can safely assume he will not take the opportunity before the thread closes to show that God exists, thus preventing him from claiming with any validity that Isaiah has been fulfilled.On the plus side, that makes another fulfilled prophecy for me... at least by Mike's standards. I'm so very holy.

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

That's right Mike, we say that the prophecies aren't impressive. Because that's the truth. It's easy to make predictions - it's making precies predictions that turn out to be true that's impressive. And the Bible fails at that.But thanks again for providing evidence that the "impressieness" of Bible prophecy is pure self-delusion

No Paul, I've highlighted the accurate part of your assertions. But it doesn't matter - because the facts will remain, and escape your biased judgements.So far you might aswell have just winded; " mike - I hate you, and agree with the other none-believers because of your talk ", because basically you've just jumped on the usual train that's aimed at mike, and provided nothing much worth responding to.

Dan - I wouldn't be so unfair as to call you people a mess. I mean, yeah - you got hit by the mike train and now we need some buckets, but have some respect for yourself. The problem is that I have a lot of posts to respond to, in fairness now - atleast look at how many replies I have compared with you. I can't always address every lil point. But I mean, Schraff admitted to Isaiah being accurate by saying that the NT correlates with it.

MTWI am sorry Mike but I cannot see how precision in a prophesy is in anyway detrimental.I would demand it of a prophet myself that I may rest assured that he was not blowing smoke up my ass. But these are fitting the prophecy to the event in hindsight and is not valid because you may interpret to fit the prophecy to the event.
This is not to say you are incorrect in your interpretation, Mike,this merely is insufficient as a means of verifying the event.When the prophesy is not precise and numerous other interpretation are possible then its usefulness is greatly diminished wouldn't you say. Do you mean to say that it is unreasonable to ask for the particular person the particular event and the particular time? How would it otherwise be an actual prophesy if it cannot meet these reasonable criteria? [qs]You see - if you say "vague and easily manipulated" - yet the Holy Spirit is giving the intepretation, who is wrong? The Holy Spirit who made man write it- or Sidelined?If the holy spirit is incapable of some level of precision perhaps a career change would be in order.I,Sidelined,am merely asking for a means to distinguish a prophesy with some backbone from a play on words to impress the gullible and the distressed. Also,why would the holy spirit be giving an interpretation rather than a verbal account of the prophesy? I take no offense since you err in your understanding. I asked that a prophesy presented to me not be vague and easily manipulated.Can you tell me why I should accept vague and easy manipulated? This is a bare minimum of evidencial standards to allow for a clear investigation of a claims veracity. Are you reading that from any of my posts? I ask you to present a proper defense of a very highly suspect phenomena and as such this requires a higher level of critque to ascertain the merit of these prophesies.

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The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Well Mike you could answer that by pointing me to the prophecy that you say is so convincing. At present you're giving me nothing to discuss other than your opinion that there are impressive prophecies in the Bible - but you won't say what they are. The fact is that I've seen several examples of supposedly impressive prophecies - including discussions in this forum - and seen that they are nothing of the sort. And as you point out on the other thread Christians are not very willing to actually support or discuss the actual prophecies that are supposedly so impressive. Which would be rather surprising if there really WERE impressive prophecies in the Bible.So have you really got a prophecy that REALLY fits the conditions ? If so you have to produce it. Don't try evading the issue with hostile rhetoric.

Listen, for the final time Sidelined and Paulk - it is YOUR SIDE claiming prophecies in the bible are vague and un-impressive, pretty soon - I'm going to have to borrow Dan Carroll's hand puppets to explain this to you.Paul, read my first message in this topic, and do so very slowly that you may understand that you have responded to my responses to people who are arguing with me because of that first message.So, like I said - I won't provide anything for you like I have in the past. So therefore, what can we conclude your intentions are in arguing with me, when I've already made reasonable claims, that nothing will convince you and you make rules AFTER reading the bible.1. You read the bible and then make the rules of prophecy - which is hypocritical because your side preaches that creationism starts with a conclusion.2. People have shown valid specific true and impresive prophecy without involving silly man-made rules (made to fit)(and even Dan Carroll and Jar unwittingly helped) in this thread - by quoting Isaiah. What conditions? Mark's, Percy's? Dan's? or the newbies? Infact - my efforts in the other thread complied with all of the rules and STILL your side said they were not valid. ROFLMAO.Notice all of these rule-makers complained about christians (barring Percy and Dan) and are none-believers. (as I quoted in the new topic, their anti-christian messages and also had to remove that rule which was biased against one of Christ's prophecies in yet another thread) - and therefore - I can deduce people's intentions immediately - it's just a talent I have, and boy does it insult me when people pretend to be neutral, and pretend to have rules for all prophecies, while complaining about christians in the same post. LOL my AAASSSSSSOFF! Ahahahaha. I spent a whole thread showing valid, true and correct biblical prophecies to Schraff, Dan and Jar - Shraff ended up saying that they must have sat down and wrote the NT looking at the OT --> THAT is how impressive they - are....So it is apparent, that unbelievers will duck dive and dodge anything I throw at them, vastly contorting beyond all reason - their biased views and bonce of bias inquiry.

Bully for Schraf. Schraf's not asking you the question though, I am. And I'd still like to know how the prophecy can possibly be considered fulfilled when the very existence of one of the major players is in question.The number of times you've dodged this question is kinda astounding by now. I mean... if it's such a "lil point", it should be really easy to answer.

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

Given the amount of self-stroking you do in your most recent post, I'd actually rather you didn't touch any of my stuff until you've had a chance to wash up. The problem with this, of course, being two-fold:1) The rules apply to any prophecy, not just the Bible. Put Nostradamus up against them. Hell, put the Amazing Kreskin to the test. You won't see any variation in the rules, because the rules aren't targeted toward specific prophecies.2) You have yet to explain what you don't like about any specific rules. You've been asked this over and over again... tell us what about the rule riles you so much, or suggest your own set. So far your only response is to either froth at the mouth about how man's rules cannot be put over God's, or make accusations about our motivations, without actually discussing the rules themselves. That would certainly suggest that your only problem with the rules is that Biblical prophecy doesn't measure up. Answer my questions about Isaiah's fulfillment, Mike. Until you do, you just look like an asshat for crowing about what a great example it is. Wow. You're outright lying now. What would little baby Jesus think of that?What was removed, because you threw a hissy fit, was an example of a prophecy that didn't work, not a rule itself.The funny thing is that the rule in question still strikes down the example, you just didn't want that mentioned. This from the guy who routinely complains about arrogance. Yeah, ducking, diving, and dodging really sucks. So in the spirit of answering questions directly, without ducking, diving, or dodging, I'm sure you'll tell us how Isaiah can possibly be considered fulfilled when the existence of God is in question.This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 10-06-2004 09:34 AM

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

Well I looked at your first message again and it was the usual hostility because sidelined came to a conclusion you didn't like. There's the usual sour grapes of "you wouldn't accept evidence if we had it" with nothing to support it.As for your numbered points1) This is an unsupported accusation.2) This is another unsupported assertion. Isaiah 53 is for instance not written as referring to a future event.As for "which conditions" - well you can answer that because it was YOUR claim that you had met them. Whose condiditons did YOU mean ?Then we get to the lies. You didn't remove an "anti-Chrisitan rule". You just said that nobody was allowed to say that one of Jesus' prophecies fell foul of one of the rules. And the example was the ONLY thing you objected to about the rule ! All you demonstrated was your own biases and prejudices by demanding that a fact you found offensive should be suppressed.And if you find the truth insulting, well that's just too bad for you.
Attacking others may make you feel better but it is not the way Christians are supposed to act - even if they were justifed in feeling insulted - as you are not.

Why would I find the biblical prophecies being true, valid and accurate insulting? Infact, the rule promoted Christ's prophecy as a bad example of a prophecy, and now in the new thread - more anti-christian statements.Infact all these rules are made by none-believers - after they have read the prophecies. Therefore - what you preach most about having a conclusion as a premise, seems to be your biggest fault.Oh if only Christ or christians or bible were never mentioned. But those particular evidences, you cannot remove. SO stop whining because you don't get to decide if the prophecies are true.So go to the new thread and agree with all your fellow-unbelievers so mike can have some more giggles at the farce.

Just for comedy value, let's take a look at it. The original rule was:

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The prophecy must be specific. For example, "There will be wars and rumors of wars" does not qualify as a specific prophecy. The determining factor in deciding specificity is that there must be only one event, one person, one whatever, etc, in history to which the prophecy could reasonably apply.

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The revised version, which Mike FULLY accepted was:

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The prophecy must be specific. The determining factor in deciding specificity is that there must be only one event, one person, one whatever, etc, in history to which the prophecy could reasonably apply.

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Now, for serious giggles, let's run the prophecy "there will be wars and rumors of wars" through the FULLY accepted rule, and see if it works.No. No, it doesn't.In other words, Mike simply objects to the fact that the prophecy doesn't work, not to any flaw in the rule itself.

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

Dan, reading that rule - the first one, honestly made me want to throw up. here we have carnal unbelieving man thinking he can decide which prophecy of the bible is true or not, honestly - this really does make me feel physically sick and truly offends the spirit. And furthermore they all think this highly acceptable. Bizarro.Yet despite my utter disgust at arrogant unbelieving mankind - As you said, mike fully accepted the rule and humbled himself. For he knew that no words would convince them. Why? Because mike didn't involve himself in the thread - and the rules were only for that thread, so I thought, "yeah - atleast they can't have Christ's true prophecy in their silly rule now - so I'll agree to atleast win the point"/!Now: Unbeliever reads bible - and doesn't like what it says, s/he then engages in numerous debates with mike - sometimes everyday - trying to judge the God of the bible, and then makes these rules after all that - and tells mike that there is no connection between stubborn preconception and the rules. In essence, it's the biggest farce mike has ever witnessed, and it ends up in unbelievers agreeing with each other and patting each other on the back and mike has to now go and get a bucket.So - I argued against that rule, and when you took the prophecy out, I agreed to the rules for he sake of [tha thread]. But now you think these rules should be abided by by mike also - how audascious. Not only does mike agree to let them have their silly rules for [that thread] - but they actually are convinced that they [unbelieving mankind] - will actually decide if there is truth to biblical prophecy, - you can continue this delusion all by yourself and all I will say is that I will provide no sign, as nothing will match your rules, as you have already read the bible, and then created them.Listen - go and conclude that there is not one valid prophecy, but don't ask mike to, he won't tell God to his face "no God - your prophecies don't pass my rules" WOW, the arrogance of man animal!And so, yes - I agreed to the rules - but this is all irrelevant - as when I passed your rules you still said "no" - henceforth, I shall never abide by that trap ever again. I say - let them convince themselves they can do away with God.

So your objection to the rule was that the example of a vague prophecy was something the Bible attributes to Jesus. And in truth it was vague. And it seems that you were insulted. You even say that it is "anti-Christian" - so you say that Christianity objects to the turth, just like you.And what's more you can STILL find nothing wrong with the rules themselves ! That is proof enough that you are lying when you accuse those framing the rules of bias. We both know that you found nothing unfair about the rules. We both know that your only objection is that they WEREN'T rigged.And if there's a joke it's that you call yourself a Christian.