Christianity and the End Times

Anyone care to explain why these 'prophecies' are open to interpretation? How come these predictions are so important yet so obscure?Just like miracles, never anything unambiguos. Now why is that?

That's a great example of why prophecy is obscure Hang on, didn't you jusy say.... Black is, indeed, white. It's apparently just enough information for motivated thinkers to make up anything they like but not enough for anyone else to make head nor tail of it. Very convenient. And very stupid if your intention is to demonstrate anything to rational people and change anybody's mind. How can anyone possibly believe such childish crap? It's a miracle in itself. Well obviously the accounts of miracles in the bibles aren't proof of anything miraculous at all, but I'm talking of the endless accounts of modern day miracles. Nobody's amputated arm has ever miraculously grown back.Prophecy is not prophecy if it is ambiguous and requires convoluted interpretaion by those that already believe. Miracles aren't miracles if they are stories in books or just normal events.

It seems that absolutely anything at all will do.

Some fucking prophecy...

So how do you explain your belief that evey other belief and non-belief is wrong? After all, if this is a numbers game, those others outnumber you by an order of magnitude.Then of course you also admit that you only believe what you believe by an accident of birth.So how does all that reconcile Phat?

By inference, you did.You believe that your belief is the truth, but you also agree that you only believe what you believe by an accident of birth, so...

Why would you think a believer has a worthwhile opinion? You've heard Faith say over and over that when a fact contradicts her belief, the fact is wrong.

Wht you've got is hearsay and literary criticism.

*We* don't; you do. You have a needy and addictive personality - you tell us this. There you go again. There is no solution to life. Life is not a problem requiring a solution. Life is just what we have. Stop projecting.

She needs the authors of the bible to be eye witnesses otherwise they're just reporting hearsay. Eye witnessess evidence is weak evidence, hearsay evidence is not even evidence.

Which god?

How? Describe it.

Wow. A total, absolute total, misunderstanding of what science is. After all this time...Scientific papers will NEVER EVER contain faith as being an answer to anything - except perhaps adding a motivation that something can be done against the odds - like praying to win a tennis match or blowing yourself up in a terrorist attack.If any scientist said he believed something to be true without supporting that believe with rigorous, objective evidence he'd be laughed off the campus.Have you really understood this little after all this time?

And that group is allowed to believe anything they damn well like. The second simply asks for evidence before they accept a daft idea. Given that 2000 years ago science didn't exist, you'd place them in the superstitious, believe anything that takes your fancy group because nobody actually knew any better or had any way to decide between fact and fiction. It really doesn't Phat. You still say the same stuff you did when I joined years ago. These days you position it with the reasonable sounding 'on the one hand this on the other that' but you don't mean it or accept to equivalent postions. You actually think that the two positions - science and belief - are not equivalent becaause evidence can't change you mind. You have a higher 'reason', god talks to you so nothing can get through.I call bullshit on that but none of you - repeat none of you - are prepared to explain that. Of course you don't. All this debate and argument is utterly pointless, why do you do it? Is it just so that you can feel that you're right to believe what you believe? Or is there a nagging doubt?

Anyone who says he believes is a terrible source of facts about what they believe. When you say you *know* that god exists and nothing will change your mind or when Faith says that when the bible says something it is by definition true regardless of reality, you must see why you can't be trusted to be objective about it.You're not objective, you just believe stuff. People believe all kinds of stuff. People can and do believe almost anything - the Jesus stuff is just what you've learned to believe. If you'd been born in India you'd be telling us all that Vishnu was alive and walking amongst us. Somehow you can't take in this point but it must be true, it couldn't be otherwise.You say Jesus is alive, I say great produce him. You then talk nonsense about being here in spirit or can only be seen by those who want to believe etc etc. It's not real, it's all imaginary, you're an unreliable witness.