Prophecy for Buzsaw

Your point seems to be that since the Bible prophecies aren't good enough the rules should be relaxed. You can't claim that the rules are unfair just because they don't give the result you want - THAT is bias.Buzsaw claimed that there WERE genuinely good prophecies in the Bible. It has been shown that he was wrong - or at least that none of the ones he knew of were good - and your accusation of bias is just further evidence that he was wrong.

YOU seem to be under the illusion that it is your opinion that dictates the truth.If you think that Percy's rules are biased and unfair then you need to support that with reasoning. So far all you can offer is the fact that you say so. Do you have any rational basis for that ? Or is it because the Bible prophecies DON'T meet the rules ?

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Let a neutral party make the rules then. I hereby volunteer the real God. There is no way an evo is neutral that's for sure. Therefore an evo will make rules to fit his mindset. Probably making out that a prophecy cannot come true, but missing the point that it might have actually come true and be true. I am not gullible, infact prophecy isn't a major reason as to why I believe in the Bible. But things like 1947 are good evidence for ahardened and unnaturally Atheistic unreasonable evo touting hardened scrutineer of sorts, if he actually opens up that closed minded bonce of bias inquiry

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This reminds me about the time that Buzsaw was ranting about bias because I preferred to read what the Bible actually SAID rather than what Buzsaw wanted it to say.Now Mike instead of throwing out this sort of nastiness why don't you present something rational. Show that the rules proposed by Percy are unreasonable instead of just insisting that they are biased with no justification at all.Can you offer a RATIONAL way of letting "God set the rules" ? Did you mean perhaps that we should assume that the prophecies in the Bible are good ? THAT would be bias. Or did you mean that you or Buzsaw shoould set the rules ? How would that be any less biased ?

Mike I think the biggest problem is that you havenn't actually demonstrated any problem with the rules. All you have attempted to do is to get the rules biased in your favour by making indefensible accusations against those who believe other than you do.In short Mike you are accusing people of being biased and closed-mionded because YOU are biased and clozsed-minded and THEY don't share your bias. That makes you a hypocrite and something of a liar. If Christianity does that to people then all I have to do is remind you of this saying "By their fruits you shall know them".

1) By your reasoning that two or three witnesses are required any statement that appears in a single gospel only can be ignored. Thus the exile-and-return can be correctly ruled out as it appears only in Luke.2) It must also be pointed out that there is no reliable evidence that ANY of the gospel authors was a direct witness. Mark is supposedly based on what the author heard from Peter - but how much of it came from Peter's own memory of Jesus ? We have even less information on Matthew but most Bible scholars beleive that it was based on Mark - and so it is even further from the direct witnesses than Mark is. Luke is almost universally accepted as an accunt compiled by a man who was not a witness - and aside from Mark and either the hypothetical Q or Matthew his sources are unknown to us.3) It has yet to be established that there is any problem with the required events fitting into the timespan of a single generation. Firstly as I have already stated the exile-and-return must be excluded both on your criteria of needing two or three witnesses (we have only the word of a single person who was not there and who gives no indication of his source) as well as the argument that it can be adequately explained as an addition written after the fact of the exile (Luke is usually dated 70-80 AD) and that having aded the exile the return must also be added for the other prophecies to be fulfilled.
Secondly it must be shown that the events are genuinely impossible even allowing for divine intervention, unless you wish to make a case that God either could not or would not intervene in any way to make it possible.
Thirdly an alternate explanation must be produced which adequately takes account of the fact that a major part of the prophecy - the destruction of the Temple - occurred in 70 AD. Mark 13:1-4 is quite clear on this and therefore the generation referred to MUST be alive in 70 AD. Indeed the whole issue of a gap of over 1900 years between these events and other parts of the prophecy raises a big question against its accuracy. Moreover this explanation must not run into rule 54) Since it is agreed that parts of this prophecy have yet to occur rule 2 applies, even if there were not good grounds to believe that it has failed as discussed above.I note that parts of section 3 were produced in the original discussion. Buzsaw failed to adequately address them then and is now attempting to rule on the issue by fiat WITHOUT refuting the problems with his position. Any accusations of "bias" and "closed-mindedness" shoudl take THAT fact into account.

Ther fact is that you have presented NO good reasons for your accusations of bias and closed mindedness. If the real reaon is your own bias and closed mind that makes you a hypocrite, just as I said. And if you DID have a good reason then why did you never even attempt to offer one ?If you are going to make unfounded accusations against others you are in no position to complain if others offer justifiable criticism of you. That is just more hypocrisy.

Mark 13:30 "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."No mention of either an exile or a return from exile.As for the rest of your post it is equally poor.Firstly your "twelve witnesses" are irrelevant - all you have is the word of one man, who was not there and does not even mention his source.I wrote nothing that was at all controversial on the authorship of the Gospels. They are the standard views you will find in any ordinary refwerence work. It is you who needs evidence if you wish to claim anything elseAnd it goes on - you are the one who claims that the time requires is much more than a single generation - indeed you insisted that your assertion should be accepted without fact. But now you want ME to work out the time required ? It's your claim so it is your responsibility to support it.SO we're down to the fact that the only part of the prophecy you want to deal with is the exile and return which -I have already rebutted. You cannot or will not deal with my rebuttal and you have unilaterally decided to ignore the rules set up for this thread without discussion or even admitting you were doing so (with the implication that your prophecy DID fit the rules - which is negligent at best).You tell me to "get real" and just accept your preferred example - apparently since offerign a genuinely good example is possible the "realistic" position is to set aside the problems and just accept whatever you say. Now THAT'S unrealistic. Why don't you just accept the truth that you picked a lousy example.

Mike I have explained exaclty why I consider your position to be hypocritical. You have not offered any reasonable defence/Let me add that "he did it first" is a rather dubious excuse even if you restricted YOUR accusations to the person you are blaming.Le me also add that your accusation of hypocrisy against me is completely unfounded. Firstly so long as YOU accept the authority underlying the relevant quote it IS a valid rebuke to your behaviour. Moreover even if I do not accept the authority underlying it that does not mean that I must DISAGREE with it - and in fact I would say that it is valid in this case. In other words you are are making a false accusation - yet again - to try to suppress the evidence of your unChristian behaviour.Your position seems to be that throwing around accusations is fine when your side does it - even when those accusatiosn are completely unfounded and false - and wrong when accusations are made against your side even if they are justified and true. And you call THAT fair ?And what is more I certainly CAN find YOUR nastiness. Look at the last paragraph of message 17, this thread (page 2).And am I right in thinking that you beleive that if you make a blanket accusation against MANY people it is not a "personal attack" and thertefore OK ? If I had said that "Christians are lying hypocrites" you would have had no objection at all? I don't think so.
So is it OK when YOU do something similar ?And no Mike it is NOT name-calling to point out that certain behaviour is hypocritical. Your claim to the contrary is just another excuse to deny the truth.[This message has been edited by PaulK, 01-11-2004]

Well indeed your claims about the meaning of the "generation" were discussed but it is also true that the discussion was NOT resolved in your favour.The fact is that you have not presented any clear indication from the context that some future generation was meant. Indeed your example relies on an explicit reference to Company E for it to be correct - but there is no such reference in Mark 13.You are also ignorign other issues I have raised on this such as the fact that the destruction of the Herodian Temple is a central part of these "signs" - and that happened in AD 70. There is no generation which saw both that and 1947.You can rest the matter of the generation here if you wish but that leaves us with the conclusion that the prophecy has probably failed.I really have to wonder why you chose this particular example when it was adequately rebutted in previous discussiosn and you seem to have no new arguments of any significance.BTW I hope your next post will address some of the issues left dangling such as your claims about Mark 13:30. Did you mean some other verse ?

So Mike what you are saying is that you ONLY stated that someone who beleives in evolution is necessarily biased against Prophecy fulfilment ? That in itself is a pretty nasty falsehood.But that isn't what you really said, was it ? What you really said WAS even nastier. Now note that sicne the discussion was based on the rules proposed by Percy, that te followibg statement is in fact directed at him. Let us note that you have shown NOTHING wrong with the rules - you have evaded or ignored every attempt to get you to describe the bias you claim is there.So without ANY grounds at all you called Percy "hardened and unnaturally Atheistic", "unreasonable" with a "closed minded bonce of bias". Does that qualify as nasty ? As a personal attack ?Now let me ask you a question. Is it hypocrisy to call other people biased with NO grounds other than that they do not share YOUR bias ? If you answer "no" can you give a sensible reason why such behaviour is justified ?

You know full well that the rules under discussion were proposed by Percy. How then does it follow that your attack was not directed at Percy ?And let me add that firstly you have accepted that you did indeed accuse others of bias on no grounds other than that they did not share your bias. That you have offered no reaon to conclude that such behaviour is not hypocritical. It seems then that your sole objection is that it was pointed out that such behaviour was hypocritical. In short you appear to hold that you should be placed above criticism while feeling quite free to launch unfounded attacks on others who do not share your views.

So on your complaint that I called you a hypocrite the facts appear to be that:1) You engaged in hypocritical behaviour - and you accept that it was indeed hypocritical. (It certainly is a a fact that you have not denied acting in such a way despite several opportunities nor have you offered a defence of such behaviour, even when explicitly asked).2) I pointed out that such behaviour was hypocritical3) You have offered no reason why it was wrong of me to do so.As to your current claims all I need to do is to point out - again - that Percy's rules were the point under discussion. I think it is reaosnable to conclude that your "He" included Percy.Apparently it also includes me since I hold that 1947 is not good evidence for the supernatural - and all I have is arguments that neither you nor Buzsaw can rebut. Presumably you hold that it is unreasonable and closed-minded to hold that sound arguments have more weight than your personal opinions.

Mike, I have explained several times the reason why your attack should be taken as applying to Percy. You do not address that reasoning at all.Now as to your comment to Rand are you areguing that "wars and rumours of wars" cannot be excluded because Jesus said it ? If so then your argument is just as I said - an attempt to rig the rules in your favour. The rule only stated that "wars and rumours of wars" in itself is NOT a specific prophecy - which is entirely true. "There will be wars and rumours of wars" in itself is NOT a good prophecy at all because it is all but guaranteed to come true. Do you really think that an immediate and permanent end to war for all of humanity was even a remote possibility at the time Jesus would have said it ? Can you name a single century in which there were no wars anywhere in the world ? And this indicates the other point - the one the ruel was really concenred with. War is so common that "wars and rumours of wars" is not useful as a time indicator. If a prophecy can't be tied to a specific time then the probablity that it will come true just by chance is greatly increased.[This message has been edited by PaulK, 01-11-2004]

All I'll say Mike is that you are far from guiltless in this matter.Your first reply to me in this thread was certainly very hostile.And you could have stopped talking about the issue when you said you wanted to. The discussion of that point would have died down soon enough. Or better yet you could have issued an apology then instead of refusing to admit that you had done anything wrong. But you didn't. Instead you took the position that it was automatically wrong to criticise you for any reason (even though you have no problem attacking others with little excuse) and decided to to use excuses, evasions and (false) denials. The thread speaks for itself. And you're still trying to blame others instead of admitting your own part in it.

You can go back and read page 1 yourself.So far as I am concerned you could have ended the whole thing by admitting that you shouldn't have complained about rule 1 without a good reason - or indeed producing a good reason. I am perfectly open to a reasonable discussion of the rules we should use to work out if a prophecy should be considered good evidence of the supernatural. Personally I think the rules suggested in post 1 have a significant loophole that favours your side, while being too stringent in other areas. I've been thinking about offering an alternate set which I think solve some of the problems but I need to spend some moretime thinking on hte matter.