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Saturday, October 4, 2008

Prophecies Schmoceties

These prophecies are bullshit and everyone knows it. Pat Robertson better have his latest prophecie correct about us getting nuked or I am going to Virginia Beach and make a fucking issue out this. In the spirit of prophecy I have a couple failed ones to point out.

Fundies have siezed on a few prophecies that they think the can explain, but there is a plethora of prohecies that that won't touch with a ten foot pole.

One long Post deserves another, as they say, so here we go:

Genesis 26:4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed~~~~~
Here God tells Isaac that his descendents (Hebrews) will be as numerous as the stars. Considering the number of stars there are in the universe, that would have to be on the order of 1020 to the umpteenth power Jewish people.

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.~~~~~
Christians say that this verse is a prophecy of Jesus' birth to a virgin. There are a couple problems with this prophecy...First, virgin in this verse is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word "almah", which actually means "young woman". A young woman is not necessarily a virgin. "Bethulah" would have been the correct word to use if the author meant virgin. Second, nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus referred to as Immanuel.

Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.~~~~~
Damascus is still inhabited today with over a million people, and hardly a ruinous heap.

Isaiah 19:4-5 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.~~~~~
The river mentioned here is the Nile. The Nile is still one of Egypt's greatest natural resources.

Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.~~~~~
The Canaanite language has never been spoken in Egypt, and is now an extinct. Also, if the Hebrews would have been held in Egypt for all those years, there would have be common words shared by them, yet there are none.

Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.~~~~~
There are uncircumcised people living in Jerusalem even today.

Ezekiel 29:10-11 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.~~~~~
Never in its long history has Egypt ever been uninhabited for forty years.

Amos 9:15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.~~~~~
Many times, Jews have been pulled up out of their land. The ownership of their land is still being fought for.

Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Nineveh was never overthrown. Why? Because God changed his mind in verse 3:10, despite what Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19 and Ezekiel 24:14 says about God never changing his mind.

Matthew 1:22-23 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.~~~~~
Again, Jesus is never referred to as Emmanuel (Immanuel).

Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.~~~~~
Nowhere in the Old Testament is such a prophecy found, so how could such a one be fulfilled?

Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?~~~~~
There is no passage in the Old Testament that can be attributed to what Jesus is saying here.

Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.~~~~~
Jesus states that all the signs marking the end of the world in Matthew 24 would be fulfilled before his generation ended. That generation ended 2000 years ago, and the world has not come to an end, neither has all those signs been fulfilled.

Matthew 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.~~~~~
This prophecy was never spoken by Jeremiah.

Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.~~~~~
Jesus tells the high priest that he would see his second coming. The high priest is long dead, and Jesus hasn't returned yet.

Throughout the New Testament, the end of the world is prophesied as being very near, at hand, to be witnessed by those living at the time. Paul often told the people he preached to that they would be witnesses to Jesus' second coming. They are all long gone.

So Ray Comfort is one crazed fanatic in a long line of crazed and delusional fanatics. Sad, that.

/d

30 comments:

  1. I also like how most of the prophecies that happen seem to come from this list

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  2. Hey, I just got through read The Blank Slate a few weeks ago.

    Dale, you are so right about this.
    Also, a lot of so called prophecies are just taking current events and making them fit the language of the bible. Nothing more. A lot of preachers have figured out that fear sells books, dvds and such and they are more than happy to feed the fear of their minions in order to line their pockets.

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  3. That should have been 'I just got through reading The Blank Slate'...not read.

    I'm sleepy. Skip my typos.

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  4. I posted an article on this cartoon on my blog.

    Hey, why can't Ray come up with a title for that post. It messed with my rss reader.

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  5. There is no example where it can be demonstrated that 'almah' refers to a young woman who is not a virgin.

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  6. Over at Ray's blog I'm arguing with some guy about Messianic prophecies and such.

    me

    him

    me

    him


    I've asked if he's amenable to taking it over to a different site, since Ray's posts get "older" almost as fast as the ones here.

    I've put in two more replies to him (one dealing with Messianic prophecies and one dealing with Micheal Brown's video discussing anti-semitism). I'm waiting to see if they get posted.

    Ray's been good to me in that regard at least.


    I've also gottten an email response from a Jewish scholar about the cessation of the Yom Kippur sacrifices about 30 years before the destruction of the temple. Scott alleges that it's because after christ's "sacrifice" it was no longer needed or something.

    I had to email someone about that, because every reference on the net I could find only had the Christian version of events!

    If the scholar doesn't give me permission to quote him for a later response to Scott, I'll just have to summarize what he said in my own words, which will, of course, suck.

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  7. I almost wish I was a member here so I could post this, it was so weird.

    My roomie and I went to see Religulous tonight (which is awesome, by the way; I count at least 10 belly-laughs) and were walking back down the street to catch the bus to campus, and lo' and behold 3 blocks later what did we run into? A street evangelist. This wouldn't be big news, except that Mr. Gospel had a table full of religious literature/paraphernalia/tracts and they were all Way of the Master tracts. Well...Since I read this blog every day, and Ray's at least a few times a week, and since Ray himself had a little nod in Religulous, I figured I had to stop.

    He was a Rayzombie, no question; I counted at least 2 references to Pascal's wager, multiple "No True Scotsman" fallacies and a whole lot of, "You just want to disprove the Bible" (because there's something wrong with that...?) At some point we ended up briefly on the topic of Noah's flood, which after multiple attempts on my part to examine in a scientific light (I'm an oceanography major... we care about the ocean basins) he could only defend by saying I was just "leaving God out of it." (Right. That clears things up.)

    Finally, however we ended up at the unverifiability of scripture, which he refuted by bringing up "fulfilled prophecy," at which point I was like, "what about the unfulfilled prophecies?" And, silly man, assuming I would have no answer, he asked for specific examples of unfulfilled prophecy. Freakin', Raytractors to the rescue! I had Raytractors open on my iPhone and just started reading the list of prophecies aloud for him. It was baller. Massively.

    Unfortunately, it all dissolved into him claiming (again) that I was only interested in disproving the Bible. (Call me crazy but if the Bible can be disproved that's sort of a big deal...)

    Anyway. Sorry for the uber-long comment, but this is officially a Raytractor's testimonial. Thanks Raytractors; you helped me make someone look stupid! :)

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  8. Genesis 26:4:
    yes Christianity is spreading all over there are lots.
    Isaiah 7:14
    Go to the thread on this topic. People provided quotes from people with Phd's in semetic language and biblical translators as to the correct translation of almah and betulah only to see you guy regurgitate this false crap.
    Isaiah 17:1
    Can't a city be destroyed temporarily?
    Isaiah 19:4-5
    Couldn't the nile dry up temporarily?
    Isaiah 19:18
    Evidence for this?
    Isaiah 52:1
    Refers to the people not of god. it speaks of a future time.
    Ezekiel 29:10-11
    Provide evidence to the contrary. I've read archeologists (like David Rohl) who think it did happen. Unless youprovide evidence to the contrary I cannot say much.
    http://www.kent.net/DisplacedDynasties/Book1.html
    Amos 9:15
    Conditional promise
    Jonah 3:4
    It was a warning
    Matthew 1:22-23
    I guess you grew up in a western soiety where it was unthinkable for people tohave different names for religious purposes? Or you never considered the name could be referring to hs characteristics and not his literal name?
    Matthew 2:23
    Its a composite citation. it ties into the idea of a messiah coming lowly.
    Matthew 12:5
    What? Jesus is describing how the desecrate the sabbath
    Matthew 24:34
    One word-preterism
    Matthew 27:9
    Conflated citation.he is conflating some of the words of Zacheriah and Jeremiah.Normal in rabbinical literature.
    Matthew 26:64
    preterism

    It's sad that that poor evangelist wasn't so informed.This stuff is bunk.

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. @ mrfreethinker

    Don't worry, there were several arguments he seemed to have trouble with. ;) It was just his misfortune to walk straight into this one at the end.

    Incidentally, however, it seems like it takes an awful lot of mental, logical and historical gymnastics to try to explain how the unfulfillment of those prophecies is not a valid argument / they really were fulfilled. You'd think God's inerrant word, intended to save us all from hellfire would be a little more straightforward...

    Just my opinion.

    Additionally, would you care to furnish some proof that Damascus was "temporarily" destroyed, the Nile "temporarily" dried up, why Jesus words shouldn't be taken at actual value (in reference to the generation he addressed not "passing" until end times prophecy was fulfilled) etc? Not necessarily picking a fight, but as we all love to point out, the burden of proof is on you if you want to defend the miraculous fulfillment of bronze-age prophecies, so I really would like to hear your reasoning more in-depth. ("Bronze-age" You can tell I just got done watching Religulous lol.)

    Thanks :)

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  11. The Immanuel is self-fulfilling, coz the Christers call him Emmanuel in church and in their songs. QED.

    It's annoying because if the scripture had said "He would be called The Chowmeister" then they'd sing that too.

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  12. Exactly as mrfreethinker pointed out, the "prophecies" have the best loophole ever -- no time limits! So, like, yeahhhh, a river may have dried up on several different occasions. A city may have fallen into ruin in between empires. And as for the biggies, such as famine and war, you show me one moment in the entire continuum of human history where there hasn't been famine or war SOMEWHERE, even if it was just one small African nation or an island in the Mediterranean. But the Bobbleheads love to come back with "Oh, no, not THOSE wars and famines. They were nothing compared to the one that's GONNA come! Just you wait..." Blah. Blah. And Blah. I'm still waiting.

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  13. I personally think using prophecy is a poor argument because you all go end up arguing dating and whetheri was self-fulfilling and sometime archeology. The argument isn't worth its trouble.
    But I'm not the one who claimed they were fulfilled,you guys claimed they weren't fulfilled. The burden of proof is on you guys making the claim.

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  14. mrfreethinker said...

    But I'm not the one who claimed they were fulfilled,you guys claimed they weren't fulfilled. The burden of proof is on you guys making the claim.


    Exactly.

    I began to research the prophecies listed in Froggie's post and stopped after 3 or 4 of them. As I've said before, get a good commentary and study Bible if you want to tell Christians what the Bible says and what it means.

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  15. freed,

    Do you think that instead of relying of someone else's word that you should come up with a way of evaluating prophecies on your own. For example, how would you determine what make a valid prophecy. Also, what criteria do you use to determine if a prophecy has been fulfilled properly.

    Why can't the fulfillment of prophecies be evidence-based? Do you think there is no better way than saying "[insert bible scholar here] said this is a fulfilled prophecy.

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  16. mjarsulic said...
    freed,

    Do you think that instead of relying of someone else's word that you should come up with a way of evaluating prophecies on your own.


    I do. I use the Bible to prove itself.


    For example, how would you determine what make a valid prophecy.

    A prediction of a future event.


    Also, what criteria do you use to determine if a prophecy has been fulfilled properly.


    One would have to study history if it was already fulfilled. Josephus
    is a reliable source. If not fulfilled, then the obvious is we are waiting for a future fulfillment.


    Why can't the fulfillment of prophecies be evidence-based? Do you think there is no better way than saying "[insert bible scholar here] said this is a fulfilled prophecy.


    I don't say that. I do say studying the Bible, not simply reading it, and looking for commentary on certain scripture will help you find the evidence.

    Word study is good also. You need to study an english word compared to it in Greek or Hebrew, whichever the case may be. The Bible explains itself, you just have to look for it.

    Take a verse using the terminology "God's Kingdom". Most would think this means the end of the age or last days. It doesn't.
    The Bible tells us that "The Kingdom of God does not come with observation...The Kingdom of God is within you." (That's in Luke).

    The fact that I use my Bible, 3 commentaries, and take advantage of the studies 13 men of God, and Bible scholars have done, makes me confident in what I say to you.

    I'm not just sitting here spouting words. I really do search things out.

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  17. Freed said-
    "I do. I use the Bible to prove itself."

    That's a bit circular is it not?

    "If not fulfilled, then the obvious is we are waiting for a future fulfillment."

    How convenient. As someone already pointed out, there's no time limit on these so called prophesies. A few thousand years is quite a long time. I could make 1000 predictions right now that eventually, a lot of them will come true. That doesn't mean I was told by your god that these things would happen. It means I made a buncha shit up and people waited a few hundred or thousand years and saw stuff happening!

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  18. That's a bit circular is it not?


    No. I gave a specific example, muffin. The challenge was to not use someone else's words.


    "If not fulfilled, then the obvious is we are waiting for a future fulfillment."

    How convenient.



    What other answer would have sufficed, muffin?



    As someone already pointed out, there's no time limit on these so called prophesies.

    I'm sorry, but I don't see any reason there has to be a time limit. We are all still here.


    A few thousand years is quite a long time. I could make 1000 predictions right now that eventually, a lot of them will come true. That doesn't mean I was told by your god that these things would happen.


    Very true, muffin, you weren't.


    It means I made a buncha shit up and people waited a few hundred or thousand years and saw stuff happening!


    Yes, muffin. You would have to make it up and I'd still be waiting eternity x infinity.

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  19. Freed officially wins the internets for double-plus-excessive overuse of a commenter's name in a reply.

    Maybe he thinks it's intimidating...?

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  20. freed,

    I would not say a prediction of a future event is a valid prophecy. You are leaving it open to any and all predictions, including the mundane.

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  21. Freed is falling into the old trap.

    The bible clearly states that no one would ever be able to change it's meaning but now they are saying that we have to learn Greek to understand it.

    That is plain horsehockey through and through.

    The bible also claims that those who read it will be given the gift of discernment so that they can understand it. I read it and I have discerned that it is just what it is; an expository of early pre-scientific authoritarian and controlling men who are trying to perpetuate their society..

    God heads all over the world have used their supposed understanding of their supernatural beings to control their people.
    It's nothing new and nothing unique.

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  22. mjarsulic said...
    freed,

    I would not say a prediction of a future event is a valid prophecy. You are leaving it open to any and all predictions, including the mundane.


    Correct. I'm sorry, I overlooked the word 'valid' in your question.

    I've never given that exact question any thought before, but without looking elsewhere, I would say a valid prediction would concern Israel and/or for the church (in the NT). That is in my opinion only.

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  23. freed,

    What I mean is a prophecy in general. For example, if you were to provide criteria for evaluating predictions from a psychic, what would that criteria be.

    I'm just seeing if we can find some common ground on how to evaluate prophecy/predictions.

    BTW, in 2003, I predicted that the starting pitchers for the Chicago Cubs would suffer arm/shoulder problems in the near future. Here's the results:

    Sean Estes: elbow surgery (2006)
    Mark Prior: shoulder surgery (2007)
    Kerry Wood: torn rotator cuff (2006)
    Matt Clement: shoulder surgery (2006)

    Would you consider a prediction like this to be out of the ordinary? Am I a prophet?

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  24. mjarsulic said...
    freed,

    What I mean is a prophecy in general. For example, if you were to provide criteria for evaluating predictions from a psychic, what would that criteria be.

    I'm just seeing if we can find some common ground on how to evaluate prophecy/predictions.



    Outside of the Bible, I don't have any criteria to list and wouldn't approach a psychic for any reason, so no evaluation necessry.



    BTW, in 2003, I predicted that the starting pitchers for the Chicago Cubs would suffer arm/shoulder problems in the near future.

    Would you consider a prediction like this to be out of the ordinary? Am I a prophet?



    No, I'd consider you a good guesser.

    :)

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  25. Froggie,



    The bible clearly states that no one would ever be able to change it's meaning but now they are saying that we have to learn Greek to understand it.



    Somebody had to.

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  26. freed,

    One of the things I've been trying to come up with is a flowchart for evaluating prophecies. One of the reasons I've never taken prophecies seriously is that religions, psychics, cults, etc. all have their prophecies that they claim were all fulfilled. My goal is to develop a criteria for evaluation that theists would agree with in order to evaluate the claims.

    BTW, the Cubs prediction was flawed in the following ways that would not make it a prophecy:

    1. It was not divine revelation or any revelation. I developed an hypothesis based on pitcher injuries on teams managed by Dusty Baker and applied a Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP3) metric to determine what pitchers were is danger of injury.

    2. Stating the injuries would happen in the "near future" makes the prediction vague.

    3. In my results, I did not state the misses. Carlos Zambrano had a high number of Pitcher Abuse Points but has remained healthy to this day.

    4. I have good data showing that Tommy John surgery is usually performed on pitchers under the age of 30.

    Do you prefer a word-for-word or thought-for-thought translation of the Bible.

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  27. mjarsulic said...
    freed,

    One of the reasons I've never taken prophecies seriously is that religions, psychics, cults, etc. all have their prophecies that they claim were all fulfilled.


    I understand the confusion. It seems everyone thinks they have the truth, and or course you know where I look for truth. I personally am not aware of the unbiblical prophecies out there. Practices yes, but not prophecies.

    My goal is to develop a criteria for evaluation that theists would agree with in order to evaluate the claims.

    I may be wrong, but I can't see theists having criteria other than what I mentioned before, making it divine revelation concerning Israel and/or the church. Of course there are those who are much smarter and more aware than I am, so maybe you should poll AC.



    Do you prefer a word-for-word or thought-for-thought translation of the Bible.

    I would prefer word-for-word but I don't believe that's possible.

    Thanks for clearing things up for me concerning your goals. That helped.

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  28. A good book on Biblical prophecies is Bible Prophecy: Failure of Fulfillment by Tim Callahan. His The Secret Origins of the Bible is good as well.

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  29. Failure of Fulfillment, I meant.

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