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Author Topic:   Fulfilled Prophecy
Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3447 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 171 of 303 (375554)
01-09-2007 12:11 AM
Reply to: Message 162 by johnfolton
01-08-2007 11:19 PM


Re: Virgin Birth: Sept 11, 3 BC : Rev 12:1-2
It says the wisemen worshipped the Lord Jesus bringing gifts of gold, incense, and mryh. The gold for his being King and overcoming Satan and incense for his being God of heaven and earth and that he would rise from the dead, Myrrh his passion and drinking bitter gall and feel the pains of hell from Satan, etc...
But I thought the gifts were completely arbitrary
Family Guy interpretation on the wisemen's gifts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by johnfolton, posted 01-08-2007 11:19 PM johnfolton has not replied

Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3447 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 173 of 303 (375561)
01-09-2007 12:33 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by crashfrog
01-09-2007 12:14 AM


Re: On Prediction
Is it your assertion, then, that Jews do not read the Bible?
Prophecies that are fulfilled because people who heard about the prophecy wanted to fulfill them aren't prophetic, a point that has been made to you on a dozen occasions; moreover, a point that has been obvious to literally everybody since the days of classical Greece.
It's the same reason that you'll never have RFID ID chips implanted in the hand or forhead - everybody knows about the "mark of the beast", and no marketing department would allow themselves to be associated with the herald of the latter days.
It's astounding to me that you haven't thought through the implications of putative prophecy on human behavior, especially when people want it to happen. It should be obvious to any thinking person that legitimate prophecy has the following characteristics:
1) is specific and un-retrodactable;
2) comes true in a specific, predicted narrow time frame; and
3) is unknown to those whose actions fulfill the prophecy.
The "prophecy" you've put forth fails on all three counts. Anybody can generate false prophecy that has the appearance of clairvoyance. In fact, the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook II gives detailed instructions on how to do it, which I illegally reproduce here:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't use names; use titles. Instead of saying "Kind Derath of Veronia", say something like "Veronia's Lord" - or better yet, "the Lion of Veronia" or even "the Lion of the East"...
Use metaphors instead of clear statements. Don't say "dies", or "is killed"; say "falls unto darkness," "stands before his fathers", or "goes into the night." Add a random, unconnected remark like "The traitor sees it all" or "Now the door stands open to the night."
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and so on. Much like the work of Nostradamus, the Bible "prophecies" aren't magical predictions about the future - they're veiled attacks on the contemporary state powers, delivered ambiguously so that the audience catches on to the hidden meaning at the same time that they preserve plausible deniability for the author. It's a time-honored technique, used by everyone from the first storytellers gathered about the campfire to puppet shows in the streets of Rome, from Shakespeare to Stephen Colbert.
The fact that you can retrodact current events into ancient statements is meaningless. We would expect a fair bit of that to occur naturally as a result of translating the Bible into modern languages. And your own obvious need to believe in Bible prophecy supplies the rest
Thank you for that crashfrog.
The other side of the coin is the people who actually believe in these prophecies as prophecies and want to see their fulfillment. This ties into (I think it was subbie, or iceage maybe) the self-fulfilling prophecy. Certain people who believe that a certain prophecy has yet to be fulfilled, namely the return of christ, and hinge their entire lives and salvation on this certain thing happening may have a certain interest in seeing said prophecy fulfilled. Which does not mean, of course, that the culmination of the prophecy will occur (ie the return of christ), just that certain people would like to put all the pieces in place no matter what that means to anyone else.
Just like certain people quotemine the bible in order to make their beliefs make sense to them, others quotemine the bible in order to make their beliefs come true.
I think that the role of self-fulfilling prophecy (both those that have been "fulfilled" in the past and those that have yet to come to pass) should be addressed here or in another thread. Maybe I will take on that task, but not tonight.
Thanks again for your post (and your D&D reference )

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by crashfrog, posted 01-09-2007 12:14 AM crashfrog has not replied

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