By the way, i just checked Jeremiah Chapters 50 and 51, to be sure of the text. Jeremiah was predicting the complete destruction of Babylon and all the people and all the land then under the rule of the Chaldeans. He wasn't talking about 1500 years in the future, he was talking about his own lifetime. It didn't happen. It's pathetic the way you god botherers distort everything to try to make it look like you know what's going on
@Setanta,
So far as I know, neither prophet considered the Chinese Empire in their writings. To them, the power of Babylon was immense. Of course, I am offering only anecdotal evidence, no part of which would be sufficient proof for my belief. But that's the case with such evidence; it can be judged only on whether or not it is necessary to support the conclusion. If Babylon were still inhabited, the case would indeed flop.
@neologist,
You just can't give it up, can you. Jeremiah's so-called prophecy was for his times, and what he prophesied did not happen. Furthermore, Babylon's power, far from being immense, was puny enough that the Medes and Persians were able to destroy its armies and then to force them negotiate. When the Persians took over from the Medes, they had no problem taking the city.
Once again, don't make **** up about history when you're talking to me. You just don't know enough. Babylon was no kind of power at all, immense or otherwise, in the lifetimes of Jeremiah and Isaiah.
@Setanta,
Both Isaiah and Jeremiah predicted the fall of the city. I believe Isaiah even named Cyrus as the conqueror and predicted the diversion of the Euphrates.
@neologist,
No, they both predicted the complete destruction of the city, the destruction of the people and the laying waste of all the lands around it. That never happened. People still live there to this day. All we ever get from the god botherers is distortions.
From Jeremiah Chapter 50:
3 For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
The Medes and Persians did not come from the north, they came from the east. The conquest of the Chaldeans did not leave the land desolate, nor did the people depart.
9 For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.
Once again, the Medes and Persians came from the east, not the north.
13 Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.
This simply did not happen.
14 Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the Lord.
15 Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the Lord: take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.
It wasn't the Jews who defeated the Chaleans. The walls were not thrown down. When the Persians took the city in 596 BCE, the remaining few Chaldeans opened the gates to them so that their city would not be destroyed.
16 Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land.
This did not happen.
26 Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left.
This did not happen.
30 Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the Lord.
This did not happen.
38 A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.
This did not happen.
It's a lot of bullshit from a spokesmen of a pack of hillbillies from Palestine, who raged against their masters, and could do nothing.
It was Cyaxeres, the Mede, who took Babylon.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:It was Cyaxeres, the Mede, who took Babylon.
It was Cyrus, his nephew, who diverted the Euphrates, drying up the waters as in ch 50 vs 38. That was in 539 BC.
I understand work is being done to restore Babylon, but this is how it looked in 1932.
It happened. I won't argue with your claim that it doesn't mean what I believe. But, it happened.
BTW, the locations of the king of the north and king of the south do not refer to the compass.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
fresco wrote:. . . If you could wake you might understand that there is no such thing as a "proven theory" any more than there is a "divine book". Theories are merely paradigms which "work". . .
I agree. But how are some able to claim evolution is a "proven fact"?
There is a huge amount of evidence that supports it, and furthermore, tell me how the mechanism wouldn't occur.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
At the time the prediction was made, Babylon was the center of the most powerful empire in the world. Predicting its total demise would have been equivalent to predicting the desolation of Washington DC.
So of all the predictions, a few ultimately weren't false. This is hardly strong evidence. How can this be the best evidence you have of the truthfulness of the Bible? This is barely anything. This is what you've got? There's a reference to the fall of a kingdom which in the end didn't last forever?
@Brandon9000,
You are correct in stressing the issue of "weight of
agreed evidence". Religionists tend to argue from what
they see is a cocoon of agreement when surrounded by fellow believers. They ignore other
parochial out-group beliefs together with the relatively
universal paradigms of science. This perceptual bias is the arbiter of what constitutes "evidence". But the problem for those who would dissent from religion is that they are up against a paradigm which informs
personal integrity and
raison d'etre on the part of the religous, whereas the paradigms of scientists are generally
impersonal pieces in the overall jigsaw of their bodies of knowledge. In short, religionists have more at stake and are therefore likely to attempt to clutch at straws.
@Romeo Fabulini,
Romeo Fabulini wrote:
"Four corners of the earth"
is just a figure of speech and can't be taken literally, or the earth would be a flat square or even a Rubiks cube..
The Bible already says
"God sits on the circle of the earth"
There is that, isn't there?
@Brandon9000,
I picked one prophecy about which I thought there might be the least argument, thinking:
It was foretold.
It happened.
Apparently even that tactic proved a dud.
There are many prophecies written in bible times and fulfilled in bible times. Those who wish not to believe have simply to claim the prophecies were inserted after the fact. Is it smoke and mirrors? I don't think so. And I have reasons for my belief. It's late. I'll be back with another try. Perhaps a new thread.
I am not at all discouraged, since I have drawn the attention of some of the more erudite members of the board. I need the practice whether I succeed or fail.
G'nite.
@neologist,
Jeeze, you're completely unable to see how fanatical you are. 539 BCE was more than two generations after the fall of Babylon. When Babylon fell to the Medes (earlier, in incorrectly said the Persians), the walls were not destroyed, the people and the livestock were not driven away and the land was not devastated. The only part of your alleged prophecies which comes close is that Babylon
eventually faded away. You know, not with a bang but a whimper. In the end you're reduced to saying that north doesn't mean north and south doesn't mean south. That's a typical contorted exegesis. You can't make events fit your claims, so you begin saying that words don't mean what they patently say.
Prophesying the fall of any city is on the order of prophesying the sunrise.
As for the "fall" of Washington, give that a couple of centuries and it will be mostly underwater.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
I picked one prophecy about which I thought there might be the least argument, thinking:
It was foretold.
It happened.
Apparently even that tactic proved a dud.
There are many prophecies written in bible times and fulfilled in bible times. Those who wish not to believe have simply to claim the prophecies were inserted after the fact. Is it smoke and mirrors? I don't think so. And I have reasons for my belief. It's late. I'll be back with another try. Perhaps a new thread.
I am not at all discouraged, since I have drawn the attention of some of the more erudite members of the board. I need the practice whether I succeed or fail.
G'nite.
Sorry I didn't understand that your single piece of evidence was just the tip of the iceberg. Odd you don't know mention some of the other evidence here. Please tell me some more of your evidence.
Don't waste your time. The so-called prophecy was not fulfilled, it did not happen. He's whined about this before, and he'll whine about it again.
@Setanta,
Oh, no. I want to see this mountain of evidence that the Bible is true. If they can look at a chain of scientific logic and say, "step 43 looks a little shaky," then they have to show the evidence for their theory. He says there's more evidence. Okay, I'm waiting.
@Brandon9000,
evidence means entirely different things to the IDers and Creationists. Evidence can be "thought problems" like ;
"The world is too complicated to hve been created by chance"
SCience is attempting to replicate the events and chemicals that COULD explain creation (even though we know that "could" doesn't mean "did".
If science manages to develop a means that replicating /reproducing "organisms" are created via biochemistry, all that does is present a possible means that can cause life to exist by natural means.
Course creationists will insist that science is merely acting as an intelligent designer.
There is no satisfying that worldview because , no matter how much they are backed to the wall, they continue to pose finer and finer points on which to bse their denial.
@farmerman,
You have come very close to identifying the dichotomy, farmer.
I'm no stranger to scientific thought. I majored in chemical engineering for 2 years before switching to psych on a "five year plan". Taught algebra and geometry along the way. So, I have great respect for the rigors of scientific method. All this sometimes makes me laugh at the lengths both deists and atheists will go to rescue their beliefs.
