Questions about God?
- Thread starter worrywort
- Start date
Redzer
1
ok i submit to you, seems like u devote all your time to god something that has never been proven as we all know. why is it that you can put all your trust, faith, whole life in to a thing that might not even be real and i cant? forget about upbringings and such for a minute as u said ur only a christian about 8 years what is it that made you decide wait a mintue yes now i think i will be christian? if someone came out now a days and said ohh wait no this is the real god or went against what the bible says you and every single christian who say yeah right ya crackpot. i mean why waste your life praying and going to church i mean for what? what the hell is the point... so we can go to heaven? no matter what way you look at it this "god" cant do a thing for you. were all gods children..gimme a break! what kinda crap is that?
I just cannot see why people can believe such crap really, what are wanting? whats ur driving force behind this? i dont believe a thing untill i see it or its proven i'm just not that naive. Think about this for a minute, back in the 1940 & 50's in Ireland children were scared into going to church they were told they would die and go to hell if they ever missed it what kinda crap is that? course now u will just blame the priest here no doubt, but what it really is control over people by fear...hmmm yes dont go to church...ok then go to hell is what they were told
Peolpe have beliefs be it god, science, whatever its just a shame that you and so many people waste the rest of your lifes...no really you do though at the time you dont think thats what your doing, when you could be doing so much more with it, why not wonder and become intrested in whats happening in space? our would the mystries around it why things happen? are the blackholes? how stars are born? or why the expolde. Christianity haha it makes me laugh really it does there is so much more important things i have to think about. Now answer me them questions and answer me this what do u feel u will gain from this? and how do you know when you will have it?
I just cannot see why people can believe such crap really, what are wanting? whats ur driving force behind this? i dont believe a thing untill i see it or its proven i'm just not that naive. Think about this for a minute, back in the 1940 & 50's in Ireland children were scared into going to church they were told they would die and go to hell if they ever missed it what kinda crap is that? course now u will just blame the priest here no doubt, but what it really is control over people by fear...hmmm yes dont go to church...ok then go to hell is what they were told
Peolpe have beliefs be it god, science, whatever its just a shame that you and so many people waste the rest of your lifes...no really you do though at the time you dont think thats what your doing, when you could be doing so much more with it, why not wonder and become intrested in whats happening in space? our would the mystries around it why things happen? are the blackholes? how stars are born? or why the expolde. Christianity haha it makes me laugh really it does there is so much more important things i have to think about. Now answer me them questions and answer me this what do u feel u will gain from this? and how do you know when you will have it?
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worrywort
Well-known member
Thanks for the questions Redzer. Sorry to hear you're banned?! I hope everythings ok? I dunno if you're still interested in my reply, but I'll try to answer your questions as best I can....
Because we're different people. At this moment your views and beliefs of the world seem totally rational to you, while mine seem totally rational to me. But somewhere along the line one of us is going to be wrong and the other right. How do we find out who's right and who's wrong? We present our reasons for believing what we believe, then rationally and logically deduce what is and is not true
Right now I have an abundance of evidence that leads me to believe the bible is true. That's why I trust it. So why don't you believe in the bible?
either
a] you sincerely have never heard the arguments in defence of the bible that I have [i.e. the cosmological argument,evidence from design & morality, prophetic evidence, etc]
or
b] you HAVE researched and studied the evidence for the bible fully, BUT reject it believing it to be false.
The evidence. Everybody has a reason for believing in what they believe. Whether that reason is good or not is the question. How do you find out if it is good? You test it. You hold it up to the light of scrutiny. Many people's first steps into Christianity begin with a spiritual experience. Maybe a supernatural answer to prayer, or unexplainable feelings that pull you to the bible. This is fine to begin with, but that reason won't sustain you when the storms of life come. So you build your case, and the more your belief holds its ground under attack, the more trust you will put in it.
I'd test it first. See what the religion claims. See what evidence it provides to support those claims. Then compare it to the bible.
Because if God really does exist then I believe it would be a waste of life to do anything OTHER than to devote your entire life to exploring and understanding God. You know what I mean? think about it. If God, the ultimate source of love and goodness, REALLY existed how would that change your life?....well, I believe I can provide you evidence that proves Gods existence.
yep, i fully agree! that would be crap of the bull kind!
But I believe these are misunderstandings of the bible. God never forces anyone to do anything. I also don't believe hell is a place of eternal torment. That's a misconstrued concept from the early catholic church. I believe the original use of the word hell in the bible means simply "death" or "the grave". The choice is heaven or death, not heaven or hell.
if God created the universe, then to explore the mysteries of the universe further would be to explore God further, and that's what I love to do. A Christian who doesn't embrace the wonders of science, doesn't embrace God.
Because we're different people. At this moment your views and beliefs of the world seem totally rational to you, while mine seem totally rational to me. But somewhere along the line one of us is going to be wrong and the other right. How do we find out who's right and who's wrong? We present our reasons for believing what we believe, then rationally and logically deduce what is and is not true
Right now I have an abundance of evidence that leads me to believe the bible is true. That's why I trust it. So why don't you believe in the bible?
either
a] you sincerely have never heard the arguments in defence of the bible that I have [i.e. the cosmological argument,evidence from design & morality, prophetic evidence, etc]
or
b] you HAVE researched and studied the evidence for the bible fully, BUT reject it believing it to be false.
The evidence. Everybody has a reason for believing in what they believe. Whether that reason is good or not is the question. How do you find out if it is good? You test it. You hold it up to the light of scrutiny. Many people's first steps into Christianity begin with a spiritual experience. Maybe a supernatural answer to prayer, or unexplainable feelings that pull you to the bible. This is fine to begin with, but that reason won't sustain you when the storms of life come. So you build your case, and the more your belief holds its ground under attack, the more trust you will put in it.
I'd test it first. See what the religion claims. See what evidence it provides to support those claims. Then compare it to the bible.
Because if God really does exist then I believe it would be a waste of life to do anything OTHER than to devote your entire life to exploring and understanding God. You know what I mean? think about it. If God, the ultimate source of love and goodness, REALLY existed how would that change your life?....well, I believe I can provide you evidence that proves Gods existence.
yep, i fully agree! that would be crap of the bull kind!
But I believe these are misunderstandings of the bible. God never forces anyone to do anything. I also don't believe hell is a place of eternal torment. That's a misconstrued concept from the early catholic church. I believe the original use of the word hell in the bible means simply "death" or "the grave". The choice is heaven or death, not heaven or hell. if God created the universe, then to explore the mysteries of the universe further would be to explore God further, and that's what I love to do. A Christian who doesn't embrace the wonders of science, doesn't embrace God.
worrywort
Well-known member
hmm....that's a good question, I've not thought about that much before. My honest answer is I don't know, but I do have some thoughts.
Firstly, I don't believe the fact that I don't know should affect my faith at all. God tells us what we need to know. If a boss wanted his employee to do a job, he wouldn't be expected to give a complete history of the business and a detailed description of the inner workings of the company before the employee can do his job. God provides us with enough evidence for us to trust him and to get our purpose on earth done....and If the employee was genuinely interested in the history of the company, I'm sure a good boss would find the time to eventually enlighten that employee, but it's not vital information.
Secondly, the bible is not the only way God can reveal himself to people. Is it possible that God was around and amongst human life before the bible was written? Yea, absolutely.
"since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" [Romans 1:19-20]
"Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. [Romans 2:14-15]
So I guess the question you have to answer is, when should God have shown up? At what stage of evolution would it become necessary for God to reveal himself in written text? When we were still apes? How about Neanderthals? Would they have benefited from Gods revelation if it were in the form of a book like the bible?
I believe God tells us what we need to know, and his revelation can come in many forms depending on who we are and at what time in history we happen to be living in.
Thelema
Well-known member
Your boss analogy isn't a good one; the Bible starts out with the creation story, which is supposed to be the literal history of the World. It also happens that the story is factually wrong. So it's more like the employer sitting you down and telling you the story of the company, but the story is a lie. Unless you believe the creation story is true?
God revealed himself. The important word is "reveal." Reveal means to uncover or make visible, so he wasn't around in any tangible or knowable way. And that doesn't make sense since God deemed fit to make one of the commandments not to worship other gods, and since God is supposedly unchanging, he was sort of contradicting himself while we worshiped false gods.
He showed up, he proclaimed the other gods false and a major no no to worship them, which doesn't make sense that he'd be so hostile towards other religions when he sat on his hands as they were started. Keep in mind that some religions are still around that are older than the Jewish one, so God is still supposedly fighting these gods. Why would he do that? He's fighting gods that don't exist, that he allowed to be created, still? Why would he let Zoroastrianism flourish?
If God is the light, then by God not showing up, he left us in the dark for maybe a million years of us being humans. Did you know that the human species nearly died out in Africa? We almost stopped existing. We were down to the tens of thousands. That would have been a good time to show up. Right then. That's the point that he should have stepped in.
And he obviously felt he had to show up, so you can't argue that he didn't need to, if he didn't have to, he wouldn't have. Even if we somehow knew the world was created by a god, it doesn't tell us what god and the qualities of that god and what he feels about us. I think that would be the major reason in his showing up, except that doesn't jibe with the other gods that came before him.
I also don't buy the Bible somehow proclaiming God is the One that did it, since Gods earlier than yours claim the same thing. So you can't use the Bible as evidence that God is the One that did it. We can go around in circles with gods claiming to create the world and being around forever. Do you have any evidence that puts your God above the other ones that isn't just the Bible saying so? Asserting the Bible as evidence doesn't make sense since you haven't established the Bible as credible.
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worrywort
Well-known member
Yes, the prophecies. Almost 1/3 of the bible is prophecy and it's claimed to be 100% accurate. Many of the prophecies are not vague but include specific names, places, events and times.
For example, in the book "science speaks", mathematician, Peter Stoner, works out the probability that any one man could fulfil just 8 of the over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, and they conservatively estimated it to be 1 in 10^17 [that's 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000].
Some say the prophecies must have been written after the time, but the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the old testament] is dated at 250BC.
Some say Jesus could have deliberately fulfilled the prophecies, but many were beyond his control, such as place of birth, time of birth, manner of birth, betrayal, manner of death, piercing, burial and people's reactions.
1 in 10^17, and this is just from 8 prophecies about Jesus. There are thousands of prophecies in the bible. In the same book Peter Stoner works out the odds of just 11 various old testament prophecies being fulfilled, and it comes to 1 in 5.76 x 10^59!
Coincidently he also examines the genesis account of creation and shows that the order of events matches perfectly with modern geological findings, and places the probability that Moses could've known this at 1 in 3.1 x 10^22.
the book is free to read here, and if it's evidence you're looking for, then I highly recommend you read this book.
Thelema
Well-known member
Can you acknowledge the other points I made? I think I made some good ones.
You still aren't getting anywhere. To accept those prophecies as evidence of the Bible's validity, I'd already have to accept the Bible is an accurate record of the prophecies, and that the Bible is an accurate record of their fulfillment. So you're still saying the Bible is true because it says so. Other religions also claim fulfilled prophecies and have books that supposedly prove that. You need to find another way.
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worrywort
Well-known member
sure, sorry, yes you did make some very good points...I just didn't want my posts to become too lengthy! I have a habit of babbling a bit sometimes!
How do you know that God left us in the dark? He may have communicated to those people in ways that we don't know about. Giving a bible to a society of Neanderthals is unlikely to help them. They wouldn't understand it. According to Wikipedia, [history of communication], speech began around 200,000 years ago, symbols around 30,000, writing around 7000, and then the first alphabets emerged around 2000BC. Moses wrote the first books of the bible around 1500BC, so I'd say Gods revelation in written form came about on time.
But why do you care? God's provided us, today, with evidence in the form of the bible, so why not investigate that first, and worry about Neanderthals later?
No, the prophecies can be verified using sources outside of the Bible.
Take the Genesis account of creation. Peter Stoner [link] matches the order of events to modern geological findings to produce the figure 1 in 3.1 x 10^22.
Or take the prophecy of Tyre. You can look in any history book or encyclopedia and match up the events with the prophecy. The entire Bible is rooted in history, so you can accurately date when the prophecies were written then verify their fulfilment externally. I'd be happy to provide examples if you'd like to hear some.
I'm yet to find even one prophecy from another religion that comes close to the accuracy of biblical prophecy. The Prophecies in the Koran are seriously lame! [link] They're really vague. Whereas biblical prophecies often include specific names, places, times and events sometimes hundreds and thousands of years before their fulfilment.
p.s. let me know if I missed any questions out that you wanted answered?
Thelema
Well-known member
I agree with you-a book is a poor way for God to convey knowledge, it's confusing, boring, and an easily destroyed medium. God should some day think of learning to go beyond books.
I'd like you to try and explain why God would show up after many other gods and even after other monotheistic religions. Your God showed up late to the party. Why?
How does Eden fit in with World history and God not being around? When did Eden happen? Eden happened and then God dumped us off in Africa, dumb, violent and barely surviving, almost becoming extinct? Explain how this fits in with the historic record, the whole rib into woman thing.
If God decided to give us the knowledge of let's say...farming. That revelation alone would have catapulted us from near extinction to prospering societies very quickly. You are putting a limitation on God when you say we would not be able to understand knowledge, because God surely has the power to make us understand. If God showed up 500,000 years ago, gave us farming and a basic knowledge of germ theory, proclaimed his presence and wrote the record of the World and who he is on the side of a mountain in magic letters that anyone could understand, I'd believe in him too. It's surprisingly simple and easy for God to erase all doubt.
Moses didn't write the Old Testament. The only record of Moses, which is kind of disheartening, even for me, is only in OT. The Jews most likely made up those stories and made up Moses. There's absolutely no archeological evidence for Moses or the exodus.
You can't use prophecies as evidence. Why? Because if someone knows full well the prophecies for the messiah can then go and fulfill them or the book about him can say that he fulfilled them or even go so far as to write down prophecies in the very book that also claims their fulfillment. Any so called prophet can do that. It gets us nowhere and doesn't do anything to validate the Bible.
What if someone came to you about Scientology and then claimed they had a guy that 40 years ago fulfilled all of the prophecies of the messiah of Scientology and it says so in his book. Does that prove the book true and Scientology true? That's what you're doing. Telling me the Bible says Jesus fulfilled this or that is meaningless to me.
Tyre being conquered in antiquity by a very powerful army? That isn't a prediction, that's an educated guess. I could make several prophecies about certain high risk nations in our time and many of them might come true and the ones where I am wrong can be swept under the rug. It's too easy.
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Thelema
Well-known member
Right. Philosophy has been dealing with seemingly unanswerable questions for centuries. Using your logic, we should destroy philosophy because it deals with complicated topics that are debated frequently.
What's so bad about discussing complicated topics?
And a circular argument is different from what you're talking about.
Pookah
Well-known member
I didn't mean "circular argument" as in the phrase "circular reasoning" but just as what the two separate words mean. An argument that goes in a circle. Sometimes I hate that all these terms were invented when sometimes they interfere with the meaning of one word + another meant in another context. Perhaps it would have been better to say "closed circle argument" or unfalsifiable.
We aren't really being philosophical and having a civil discussion and expression of ideas here are we? We are playing the game of who is right and who is wrong. No one wins and it only gets hurtful.
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Thelema
Well-known member
How disheartening. Philosophy has been philosophizing on religion since day one. What do you think philosophy is? Two old farts with a long beard speaking Greek?
Unfalsifiable? God either exists or does not and if he does, he manifests in some way. That is not unfalsifiable.
Where are you coming from with this stuff? You sound so apathetic.
Pookah
Well-known member
I've been on the internet long enough to know when something isn't going to be constructive in any way. Kind of like the back and forth with you right now. The arguments go no where because no one will be convinced. No one wants to be convinced they just want to be right.
So I have said my piece. Let's see where it goes then.
Thelema
Well-known member
How do you define constructive?
Things are asserted and evidence presented. Evidence is considered and counter arguments made with assertions and evidence. I call that constructive. Two people don't have to end up agreeing for it to be worth our time.
If everyone thought the way you do about this, no debates would occur and philosophy wouldn't exist. Discussing different ideas is healthy.
worrywort
Well-known member
that's not what I said. I said "Giving a bible to a society of Neanderthals is unlikely to help them. They wouldn't understand it". This doesn't apply to us today. I happen to think that books are very good ways to convey knowledge.
Have you ever heard of the fallacy of the complex question? It's when a question is phrased in such a way as to assume something not yet granted. [i.e. I could ask someone, "So when are you going to stop beating your wife?!] Before I have to answer your question you need to show me how you know that God turned up late to the party. Personally I think any presumptions made about the spiritual lives of human beings before the Bible, in a period before the written word had even emerged, are only ever going to be guesses at best.
Was God revealing himself to human beings before the bible? I believe he probably was. Does the fact that other religions were around at that time disprove the God of the Bible? I don't think so. Other religions are around today, despite God's revelation to us in the Bible. You need to show me how you know that God was not revealing himself to human beings before the Bible.
this depends on whether you take the Genesis account to be literal or parable. Bear in mind that the rise of modern science has only really emerged the last few hundred years. The vast majority of humans throughout history wouldn't know how to verify the Genesis account. So I don't think Genesis was written to satisfy the scientific curiosities of a few people in the 21st century. I believe it was written in a way the common man could understand.
Having said that, I still believe parables reveal truth, only in a different form. So, just as the order of events in creation from Genesis 1, matches with modern geological findings, I'd expect to find the story of Eden matching with history also. So when and where did Eden happen? Right now, I don't know, but I don't believe it needs to be a specific time. It could be metaphorical for a period of time in evolution.
no
no I'm not.
I said "the prophecies can be verified using sources outside of the Bible".
Can the reforming of an entire nation, to the very day, 2,500 years after the prediction, be self fulfilled? [Israel Rebirth in 1948, prophesied]
Can the rise and fall of every ruling empire from 600BC to present day be self fulfilled? [link]
Can a mans place, time and manner of birth be self fulfilled?
Can death by crucifixion be self fulfilled? Or more interestingly, would anybody WANT to self fulfil that prophecy?!
The prophecy about Tyre gets a lot more specific than that.
1. "...I am going to bring against Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army." [Ezekiel 26:7]
"Early in the sixth century B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, laid siege to the walled city for thirteen years. " [middleeast.com]
2. "and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves" [Ezekiel 26:4]
"In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months" [wikipedia]
"In 315 BC, Alexander's former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later." [wikipedia]
3. "They will....throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea." [Ezekiel 26:12]
"They built a 70-m-wide, 1-km-long causeway using timber, stone, and debris of the abandoned mainland city, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 250 years earlier" [link]
4. "...and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you..." [Ezekiel 26:19]
"A man can ascend the walls of New Tyre and see ancient Tyre, which the sea has now covered, lying at a stone’s throw from the new city."[mainland part of tyre - The Itinary of Benjamin of Tudela []
5, 6 & 7. "I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt," [Ezekiel 26:14]
"Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332 B.C. Tyre recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now as bare as the top of a rock -- a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry" [Philip Myers - Textbook of History - link]
Thelema
Well-known member
that's not what I said. I said "Giving a bible to a society of Neanderthals is unlikely to help them. They wouldn't understand it". This doesn't apply to us today. I happen to think that books are very good ways to convey knowledge.
Have you ever heard of the fallacy of the complex question? It's when a question is phrased in such a way as to assume something not yet granted. [i.e. I could ask someone, "So when are you going to stop beating your wife?!] Before I have to answer your question you need to show me how you know that God turned up late to the party. Personally I think any presumptions made about the spiritual lives of human beings before the Bible, in a period before the written word had even emerged, are only ever going to be guesses at best.
Was God revealing himself to human beings before the bible? I believe he probably was. Does the fact that other religions were around at that time disprove the God of the Bible? I don't think so. Other religions are around today, despite God's revelation to us in the Bible. You need to show me how you know that God was not revealing himself to human beings before the Bible.
this depends on whether you take the Genesis account to be literal or parable. Bear in mind that the rise of modern science has only really emerged the last few hundred years. The vast majority of humans throughout history wouldn't know how to verify the Genesis account. So I don't think Genesis was written to satisfy the scientific curiosities of a few people in the 21st century. I believe it was written in a way the common man could understand.
Having said that, I still believe parables reveal truth, only in a different form. So, just as the order of events in creation from Genesis 1, matches with modern geological findings, I'd expect to find the story of Eden matching with history also. So when and where did Eden happen? Right now, I don't know, but I don't believe it needs to be a specific time. It could be metaphorical for a period of time in evolution.
no
no I'm not.
I said "the prophecies can be verified using sources outside of the Bible".
Can the reforming of an entire nation, to the very day, 2,500 years after the prediction, be self fulfilled? [Israel Rebirth in 1948, prophesied]
Can the rise and fall of every ruling empire from 600BC to present day be self fulfilled? [link]
Can a mans place, time and manner of birth be self fulfilled?
Can death by crucifixion be self fulfilled? Or more interestingly, would anybody WANT to self fulfil that prophecy?!
The prophecy about Tyre gets a lot more specific than that.
1. "...I am going to bring against Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army." [Ezekiel 26:7]
"Early in the sixth century B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, laid siege to the walled city for thirteen years. " [middleeast.com]
2. "and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves" [Ezekiel 26:4]
"In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months" [wikipedia]
"In 315 BC, Alexander's former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later." [wikipedia]
3. "They will....throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea." [Ezekiel 26:12]
"They built a 70-m-wide, 1-km-long causeway using timber, stone, and debris of the abandoned mainland city, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 250 years earlier" [link]
4. "...and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you..." [Ezekiel 26:19]
"A man can ascend the walls of New Tyre and see ancient Tyre, which the sea has now covered, lying at a stone’s throw from the new city."[mainland part of tyre - The Itinary of Benjamin of Tudela []
[island part of tyre - link]
5, 6 & 7. "I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt," [Ezekiel 26:14]
"Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332 B.C. Tyre recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now as bare as the top of a rock -- a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry" [Philip Myers - Textbook of History - link]
For a human, yes, it isn't so bad, unless the library burns down. For God, it's a terrible medium. Magic letters in the side of a mountain would convert me. Why not?
It's not a complex fallacy. You are making the claim that he did exist always, so asking why he showed up late, when there is no evidence that he always existed, is an entirely valid question. I don't need to show anything, because I'm not making any claim. The default position is disbelief, not belief. I'm asking "why aren't you beating your wife?"
He showed up as the burning bush long after many religions and other monotheistic religions. It's an entirely good and valid question to ask why. Why we were left to nearly become extinct, die of hunger and disease, fear evil spirits instead of germs and more or less exist in a pretty crappy state for 99% of our existence. That is neglect. If he was behind the scenes, he has a lot of explaining to do.
Yes, of course you wouldn't believe Scientology because someone could produce a book of supposed fulfilled prophecies by a supposed Scientology messiah. Now you know how I feel. You'd wonder how someone could even present that as evidence and it wouldn't matter how many prophecies were supposedly fulfilled and what the supposed likelihood of them being fulfilled is.
Science doesn't create scientific truth, science is the process of uncovering the truth. Factually wrong is wrong wrong wrong, whether you're a scientist or not. Woman from rib is the Bible proven wrong. In what World does God need to tell a story that is wrong about the creation of man? He can't tell a story that is true? This should be good evidence for you that he doesn't exist, but when evidence that he's wrong shows up, you just say that he, in this instance, wasn't trying to be factually right. How convenient that whenever God is wrong, he didn't mean to be right. Do you think he was just telling stories when he told us Noah was riding on a global flood and perhaps Moses was just a story God thought up?
How many thousands of years was this believed to be the factual truth? How do you know what the writer meant when he wrote those words down?
The prophecy wasn't true at all, except to say that Tyre would be conquered one day. You are taking separate occurrences, such as Alexander, and a sacking of a mainland city, to desperately try and add validity to the prophecy. Nostradamus can best God in many instances, if we're using such wishy washy prophecy fulfillment.
Do you have anything besides prophecy?
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worrywort
Well-known member
ok, fair enough....well, my honest answer is I don't know for sure what was going on 6000 years ago and beyond. But even if the Bible was written in the last 500 years, after thousands of other religions, I'd still be treating it exactly the same, purely because of the supernatural evidence it contains. Of course the question would emerge, why did God wait so long, but that's only after I've established that it's true. You may conclude from Gods timing that God is not good, but that doesn't mean that God does not exist.
But anyway, my best answer to the question, what evidence is there that God existed before 1500BC, would be this;
1. The cosmological argument, which states that
a] within our natural psychical laws it is impossible for something to come out of nothing,
b] at the big bang something DID come out of nothing
therefore
c] something SUPERnatural must have caused the big bang
2. Intelligent Design, which argues that this universe is too complex to have come about merely by natural selection and random mutation. The odds are too great. i.e;
a] if evolution requires DNA to work, then how did DNA evolve?
b] the Cambrian explosion - where the majority of life forms suddenly emerged in a very short space of time.
and as for knowable evidence that would be accessible to people of that time, I'd quote those two passages I gave before [Romans 1:19-20 and Romans 2:14-15] which I agree with. I believe people can know God by the moral law that is written on our hearts, and through nature. i.e. I don't believe you have to have a degree in philosophy to know God.
The question you need to ask first is, does god exist? Because if he does then forming a woman from a part of a man is totally possible. If God can create the entire universe which defies all our best known psychical laws, creating a woman out of a rib is gonna be child's play.
Imagine if the bible contained zero supernatural elements. That's hardly a God worth worshipping.
The very definition of the word, supernatural, is "a power that...violates or goes beyond natural laws". The cosmological argument, intelligent design, and prophecy are all evidences of a power that violates our natural laws.
I didn't say "he wasn't trying to be factually right", I said "this depends on whether you take the Genesis account to be literal or parable". I still expect the truth in parables to align to reality, but I also expect there to be deeper, spiritual levels of truth revealed aswell, something that a purely literal transcription would miss out on.
I strongly disagree and I think my examples show this.
To get an idea of the improbability of these prophecies you need to think of all the possibilities that could've contradicted the prediction. For example, how did Ezekiel guess that Tyre would become flat like the top of a rock. In the words of Peter Stoner, "The sites of nearly all ancient cities are marked by mounds of accumulated debris. I don't know of any other city where the ruins have been so completely cleared away." [link]And what about predicting that Tyre would never be rebuilt? "Nearly all old cities which had great natural advantages were at some time rebuilt. Tyre is in an excellent location and has an abundant supply of fresh water, so valuable in this land." [link]
ok, [without googling it!
], would you be able to know what this prediction is in reference to [this is supposedly one of his best predictions];In the year that is to come soon, and not far from Venus,
The two greatest ones of Asia and Africa
Shall be said to come from the Rhine and Ister
crying and tears shall be at Malta and on the Italian shore.
Now lets compare this to the Bible;
"I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves.....I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock. Out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishnets....From the north I am going to bring against Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.....he will...build a ramp up to your walls......His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust....They will...throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea......When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you....you will not return or take your place....You will be sought, but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign LORD." [Ezekiel 26]
Are you honestly telling me you see no difference between these prophecies?