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Why I Could Conceivably Become a Theist

154 said:
Wrong.
Wrong again.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5789815#post5789815


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5814937#post5814937
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OK, let's take this first prophecy (and I note that the second is a reposting of the first)

The very precise date for Artaxerxes' command comes from Robert Anderson's "The Coming Prince" which is the source for the rest of the calculations here, so it can hardly be regarded as independent.

Scofields notes of 1917 say:

The latter decree is, obviously, that from which the "seven weeks" (49 years) run, unless by "the commandment to restore," etc. is meant the divine decree Dan 9:23. In the present state of biblical chronology the date of the decree of Artaxerxes cannot be unanswerably fixed farther than to say that it was issued between 454 and 444 B.C. In either case we are brought to the time of Christ.​

So it seems likely that Anderson might have been self serving about his selection of the day.

The next point is the premiss that the years can be multiplied out by 360. The Hebrew year had a variable number of days and it would be absurd to talk about a long time frame in term of years with constant numbers of days.

The article itself points out that the Hebrew week of years had a specific agricultural purpose and so this would have referred to seasonal years.

Using seasonal years the prophecy is out by about 6 years by my calculation

Finally, we see that the alleged mathematical precision of the prophecy evaporates when the article talks of things to come which are only referred to as happening in vague time frames like "on the horizon"

So all in all I am not too impressed by this first prophecy.
 
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1. When it comes to people who genuinely believe they're trying to save me from a terrible fate, I appreciate it. When Mormons or Jehava's Witness' or whoever come to my door I let them know they're wasting their time and won't be converting me but I also offer them a drink (I live in Arizona, it's hot out) or my couch for a few minutes. Why? Because they're trying to do something nice for me. I don't think they're right, but THEY do and they're following that belief in a cheritable way.

2. When it comes to the reliegious folk who are here to show us all the error of our ways, the problem is that they can't look at it from our perspective. To them, the Truth is obvious and self-evident. There are a few people here that are downright hostile when it comes to religion unfortunately, but setting those aside you have a lot of people who aren't refusing to believe out of spite but simply have not been given any compelling evidence.

154 - the evidence you have provided is not compelling. It's not that nobody has read it or that we all hate Jesus or anything. We're trying our best to discover the truth. We want to learn, we want to know more about this incredible universe. There are just too many reasons that the bible doesn't convince us of its authenticity. We're not alone in that, either - heck, I go to a Christian church and even the pastor points out contradictions and historical inaccuracies in the bible. If you can't find compelling evidence for your beliefs, why should we choose them over any of the other religions (or lack thereof) out there?
 
Robin said:
OK, let's take this first prophecy (and I note that the second is a reposting of the first)

The very precise date for Artaxerxes' command comes from Robert Anderson's "The Coming Prince" which is the source for the rest of the calculations here, so it can hardly be regarded as independent.

Scofields notes of 1917 say:

The latter decree is, obviously, that from which the "seven weeks" (49 years) run, unless by "the commandment to restore," etc. is meant the divine decree Dan 9:23. In the present state of biblical chronology the date of the decree of Artaxerxes cannot be unanswerably fixed farther than to say that it was issued between 454 and 444 B.C. In either case we are brought to the time of Christ.​

So it seems likely that Anderson might have been self serving about his selection of the day.

The next point is the premiss that the years can be multiplied out by 360. The Hebrew year had a variable number of days and it would be absurd to talk about a long time frame in term of years with constant numbers of days.

The article itself points out that the Hebrew week of years had a specific agricultural purpose and so this would have referred to seasonal years.

Using seasonal years the prophecy is out by about 6 years by my calculation

Finally, we see that the alleged mathematical precision of the prophecy evaporates when the article talks of things to come which are only referred to as happening in vague time frames like "on the horizon"

So all in all I am not too impressed by this first prophecy.
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This was my impression as well. It illustrates that the standard of proof needed to make us all sit up and take notice is going to have to be a lot higher than what those articles actually achieve.

I want to add my two cents on why this particular prophecy doesn't measure up. Some of this will repeat your points.

154,
First, I would like to know how the date for Artaxerxes' decree is arrived at. I ask this because it really is the centerpiece of this prophecy, after all. If the date is just sort of somewhere nearby, it wouldn't be all that significant, but if two highly significant events were compared and it was found that the interval that elapsed was exactly a certain number of days, that would be quite a coincidence, and bear some looking into. Is it the first day of the first month in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes? Or is there some independent historical documentation?

Next, we move on to the calculation of days. The premise is that the Hebrews used a 360 day calendar for a year. That's news to me. I would be very surprised if it were true. It certainly isn't true today, and as far as I know, months have always been measured by the Hebrews as being from new moon to new moon, and that isn't a 30 day interval. The modern Hebrew calendar synchs the dates with the solar cycle by adding months at particular intervals. I don't know how that was done in biblical times, but I think it was, in fact, done, so that the calendar was useful for agriculture. (Aside: The Muslim calendar doesn't do this. A "year" in that calendar is several days short of a solar year, so that important festivals occur in different seasons even in the course of a single lifetime.)

If that's the case, and I would be surprised if it were not, then the average year would have almost exactly 365.25 days in it, not 360. That's about 7 years off, which isn't so much of a bullseye.

Then there's the specific decree of Artaxerxes. In the book of Ezra, it doesn't tell anyone to rebuild Jerusalem. In Ezra, it is clear that at the time of that decree, Jerusalem was an existing, thriving, city, with a rebuilt temple where the God of the Jews was already being worshipped. The letter from Artaxerxes just told Ezra to go there and take some Jews with him, and put him in charge of adminstering some of the kingdom. If I were to pick a decree for the rebuilding of the temple to start some sort of prophetic clock, it would seem to me that Cyrus' edict would be a good choice, far better than Artaxerxes' letter to Ezra.

So, it seems as if maybe this prophecy isn't quite as impressive as the article made it seem. It is by no means certain that the decree of Artaxerxes is in any way related to the prophecy in Daniel. The calendar calculation seems a bit wrong. I haven't looked into whether he got the date of the first Palm Sunday correct, but it's certainly possible. There is some doubt about the date due to a lack of specifficity in the Gospels (some might assert contradictions, but that's another story.) However, the 360 day year seems to be simply an invention in order to make the dates work out. It's almost as if the author wanted a specific answer, and worked the facts around until he got what he wanted.
 
I think that in Nehemiah, Artaxerxes gives an order to rebuild the city walls and strengthen some buildings around the Temple.

So it might refer to this, or to Cyrus's edict or it might refer to the answer Gabriel has just brought to Daniel in the previous verses of this chapter.
 
Robin said:
I think that in Nehemiah, Artaxerxes gives an order to rebuild the city walls and strengthen some buildings around the Temple.
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Got it. Didn't read Nehemiah, just Ezra. Thanks for the reference.

So it might refer to this, or to Cyrus's edict or it might refer to the answer Gabriel has just brought to Daniel in the previous verses of this chapter.
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What? The prophecy in Daniel might refer to something that happened in Daniel? What's the point of that?
 
Meadmaker said:
What? The prophecy in Daniel might refer to something that happened in Daniel?
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Only the "from date" of the prophecy.

If you read the whole thing it is quite natural to interpret it as saying that the 70 years starts from the commandment that God has just given in the previous verses.
 
Seems 154 has moved on. Pity. I was looking forward to learning more about Biblical prophecy, and perhaps sharing a bit of knowledge as well.
 
Meadmaker said:
Seems 154 has moved on. Pity. I was looking forward to learning more about Biblical prophecy, and perhaps sharing a bit of knowledge as well.
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Yes, I feel a bit cheated. I went and researched it because 154 said that nobody showed any interest or curiousity about these "incredible" prophecies.

So after I go to the trouble of showing interest in them he disappears.

Oh well, the other prophecy seems to have similar problems, except the author is not even trying to suggest that the start dates have been independently established.
 
Robin said:
Yes, I feel a bit cheated. I went and researched it because 154 said that nobody showed any interest or curiousity about these "incredible" prophecies.

So after I go to the trouble of showing interest in them he disappears.

Oh well, the other prophecy seems to have similar problems, except the author is not even trying to suggest that the start dates have been independently established.
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And yet it happens so often. People insist that there is some sort of incredible proof for something, and when other people want to examine the "proof" and see whether or not it's really incredible, the claimant decides that the examination part isn't all that important.

Personally, I think that, as proof of God's existence goes, the prophecies of Daniel have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Indeed, while the details may appear impressive when presented carefully, when one looks at the fundamental premises that make those prophecies appear miraculous, the foundation seems weak. You might say that those gods have feet of clay. It was once much easier to propogate favored interepretations of Biblical prophecies to make them appear truly extraordinary, but the rise of the internet has changed much, by making research into alternative interpretations much more accessible to laymen. As that happens, more and more people realize that the prophecies are not as remarkable as the authors of prophecy books would have us believe. Indeed, I think the handwriting is on the wall for the peddlers of end times prophecy as proof of God's existence.
 
Cavemonster said:
I would believe in a god if provided with a model of the universe including a god that had better explanatory and predictive power than the models we now use.

I would ascribe to that god only the qualities essential to or discoverable through that model.

The same thing we do with subatomic particles, distant planets, and new insect species.

It's not impossible, but current observations hold no hints of such a model being useful, and our whole history of observation makes it vanishingly unlikely that such a god would be much like the one described by any major religion.
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Would in any way(s) that model itself be a "god" -- until toppled over by a more subsuming model?

I.e., sounds to me more than a bit like Moses' snake subsuming all of those other snakes, if that story of staffs and snakes has anything to do with models based on indisputable knowledge rather than being just a fairy-tale.

BTW, having been a staffer myself, and now having a staff, has anyone else here also noticed how often authority figures at the top of hier-archies take their staffs with them to meetings with other authority figures? And how often when one staff out-classes all of the the other guy's and gals' staffs, the winning authority figure all too often gets all of the credit? I think that the height of self-importance and always seek to give credit where it is due. Believe you me.
 
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Well, 154 has flown the coop and does not appear interested in resuming the dialog, but I wanted to share some information anyway.

Before I do so, let me relate this to the OP. Once again, we have a case where the skeptical community is actually very open minded. We are accused of just the opposite, but it's an unfair accusation. Most of us, given evidence of a phenomena, would accept the evidence and follow it to its logical conclusion. We sometimes seem close minded only because we have investigated the possibility of miracles and psychic phenomena so often, and always discovered the same thing, that we assume we will encounter it again. However, if the evidence were strong, we would certainly be willing to consider it.

To that end, I brought up the example that if confronted with evidence of the second coming of Jesus, I would reconsider my attitude toward Christianity. At that point, 154 tried to tell me that the signs of the imminent fulfillment of prophecy suggested that I would indeed see that evidence soon. OK. So, show me the data. He provided a link to a brief article that noted some uncanny predictions that had been made in the past by prophets.

At that point, though, the scenario followed an old, familiar script. Robin and I were willing to engage the subject, but noted that there seemed to be some inaccuracies in the uncanny predictions from the Bible. We were willing to discuss it, but the believer hit the road rather than submit the claims to scrutiny. Once more we, the unbelievers, were left without a demonstration of the power of God that would kick start our faith.

Now, just in case you encounter discussion of end times prophecies found in the Book of Daniel in the future, here's some interesting information that you might find useful.

The Book of Daniel contains several prophecies that relate to four kingdoms that will arise before the end times. When discussing biblical prophecies, evangelical Christians who are rapture ready usually identify those kingdoms as Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The prophecies were partially fulfilled by Christ, but a lot of the stuff that was prophecied didn't actually happen at the time of Christ, so the Christians assumed that it would be put off until the second coming.

However, making Rome fit as the fourth kingdom is pretty rough. One of the prophecies clearly refers to Alexander, and his successors were the end of the line. Daniel himself makes this identification. Also, Daniel says that the kingdom of Babylon was overthrown by "Darius the Median". The Median Empire is clearly the second beast. Then came the Persians, and then the Greeks. The Greek empire, Alexander's empire, was divided into multiple parts, one of which was the beast with ten horns. "Horns" in the book are consistently used to refer to kings, and there were 10 Seleucid kings ruling over Palestine after the breakup of Alexander's kingdom, ending with Antiochus IV, who ended sacrifices in the temple and persecuted the Jews. it was this king against whom the Jews rebelled in the wars described in the Book of Maccabees, which resulted in a Jewish restoration of the Temple, and ended up giving Jews the holiday of Chanukah.

In other words, the last beast in the Book of Daniel is generally not taken to be Rome, or a revived Roman Empire, such as the EU or the Catholic Church so often described by modern end times authors. The last beast in Daniel is actually the Seleucid Dynasty, with its last horn being Antiochus.

The author of the Book of Daniel is making a prophecy that Antiochus would be overthrown by the Saints of Judaism, at which point the Messiah would come and the end times would be upon us. Well, he was write about Antiochus, but the end times didn't happen.

Now, believing Jews had a problem. There they had this prophecy, but the prophecy wasn't fulfilled. It didn't happen. So, what did they do? They did what all believers of failed prophecy do. They reinterpreted it to mean that the rest of the prophecy hadn't happened, but it would soon. Jesus referred to the prophecy, and said it would be fulfilled soon. John, author of the Revelation, referred to it, and said it would be fulfilled soon. Modern authors continue to do so to this day. However, in reality, the Book of Daniel contains predictions about what was happening in the author's time.

One more thing. 154's article said that the Book of Daniel was finished long before New Testament times. That's true, but not quite as true as the article claims. The article puts the authorship of the Book of Daniel at a time before the Septuagint was compiled. What he doesn't apparently know is that there were lots of books that were added to it as the project went along, and one of those was the Book of Daniel. There is a great deal of evidence it was written at approximately the time of the reign of Antiochus IV. Like most prophecies, it was spot on concerning the things that had already happened, but not quite so good in its forward looking predictions.
 
Meadmaker said:
We sometimes seem close minded only because we have investigated the possibility of miracles and psychic phenomena so often, and always discovered the same thing, that we assume we will encounter it again.
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I slightly disagree. I admit I'm not the oldest member of this forum, but to me it seems as if these accusations are usually a form of projection.

In most of the cases I've seen, the people who claims that we are close minded are actually the close minded people.

The people who claim "appeal to authority" are the ones doing the apealing.

The people who claim ignorant are ignorants themselves etc etc etc.
 
GrandMasterFox said:
I slightly disagree. I admit I'm not the oldest member of this forum, but to me it seems as if these accusations are usually a form of projection.

In most of the cases I've seen, the people who claims that we are close minded are actually the close minded people.

The people who claim "appeal to authority" are the ones doing the apealing.

The people who claim ignorant are ignorants themselves etc etc etc.
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That's true, too. Most woos I meet are extremely close minded. I was just noting that skeptics often are not.
 
Meadmaker said:
That's true, too. Most woos I meet are extremely close minded. I was just noting that skeptics often are not.
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I agree with you completely on that.
As we all know there are tons of logical fallcies in a debate - strawmen, circular logic, confirmation bias etc

From my experience, the one particular thing the woo would blame us for, is exactly what they are doing. It's almost like they are using some form of projection just to admit they aren't wrong.
 
If such a powerful deity existed, then it should be able to demonstrate supernatural powers, of some sort, under controlled conditions.

In other words: If someone claiming to be a god was able to persistently beat million-dollar-paranormal challenges, that defy the very fundamentals of science, I could conceivably become a theist.

It could start off simple: Demonstrate that prayer to the deity could have an effect, such as lowering crime or healing the sick, in a statistically significant way; without fudging or cherry-picking the results, etc. That, alone, might not be quite enough, but it is a good start.

After that, you can move on to more challenging things: Fly up into the air, like Superman, to rescue an airplane that is about to crash, or something. And, do this sort of thing in front of enough witnesses (including me), enough times, so that it could not be dismissed as fake.

After that, we can fly into space together, where I can watch you Create a whole planet, and breathe life into the creatures you design, etc. Then, I might not bother arguing anymore.

But, again, we can start with the simple stuff: If you can't even make prayer effective, then what good is the claim of 'being a god'?
 
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