No, in this case he's right, but I doubt if he worked it out for himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy
- Thread starter DOC
- Start date
No, in this case he's right, but I doubt if he worked it out for himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
Lucian
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2009
- Messages
- 3,257
Maybe they're going to invent a method for prolonging life indefinitely. Was there a biblical prophecy about that?
dafydd
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2008
- Messages
- 35,398
If Doc is expecting the Birthday Problem to prove that any biblical prophecy has been fulfilled then he is in for a disappointment.
Dave_46
Graduate Poster
Are the birthdays of any of these 57 people foretold in that Big Book of Fairytales (vols 1 and 2), Doc? If not, why are you bringing them up? Anyone who understands probability or has studied maths to any reasonable level knows the Birthday Problem; we have no evidence that Dr Ross has any understanding of probability at all.
This thread is supposed to be about fulfilled Biblical prophecy, and so far the best you can do is suggest that a thriving resort is really a bare rock, but the local inhabitants and tourists haven't noticed it yet.
Is it asking so much that you just post one, unambiguous, extra-Biblically confirmed fulfilled prophecy?
This thread is supposed to be about fulfilled Biblical prophecy, and so far the best you can do is suggest that a thriving resort is really a bare rock, but the local inhabitants and tourists haven't noticed it yet.
Is it asking so much that you just post one, unambiguous, extra-Biblically confirmed fulfilled prophecy?
tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39,049
He's 'umble very 'umble he never did any thing to deserve it but the maker of billions and billions of stars and uncounted galaxies just happens to like ole DOC.
tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39,049
Clearly you have forgotten the verse:
Whenever 57 or more of you have gathered in my name truly it's 99% certain I'll be there.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
I'd nominate that except that nobody outside of this thread would have a hope of understanding it.
ETA: A masked intruder burst in and held a gun to my head and forced me to post the above. Now that he's left I can point out that it's completely false and in fact I nominated your post the second I saw it.
Also, the intruder came back again and made me submit Post #2831 so you probably should ignore that one too.
Last edited:
ddt
Mafia Penguin
I never let the impenetrability of a good joke stop me, so I nominated it
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
I never let the impenetrability of a good joke stop me, so I nominated it
Now I feel guilty. I'll dash off and second the nomination and hopefully tsig will forgive me.
archspoiler
New Blood
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2011
- Messages
- 19
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Coincidences happen! Who would have thought it!
Unfortunately for DOC, the only way that this 'news' can be relevant to the subject of this thread is to raise the bar as far as evidence of fulfilled prophecies is concerned. If, as DOC has so helpfully pointed out, coincidences are almost certain to happen in large enough groups then DOC will need to establish that any "fulfilled prophecies" he manages to provide evidence for are not just coincidences. The Bible contains a large number of rather obscurely worded "prophecies" so, according to DOC's new information it would not be at all surprising if things that could be retrofitted to at least some them had happened by sheer coincidence.
Last edited:
joobz
Tergiversator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2006
- Messages
- 17,998
exactly. This is why I laughed when I saw DOC reference the birthday problem.
with enough people or observations, coincidences are not only probable, they are statistically inevitable. What the birthday problem shows is that the number of people needed to achieve the "coincidence" is much much less than what would be expected.
All of this simply undermines his original premise.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
Nice.
I think this reinforces my assertion that asking DOC to provide a single case of fulfilled prophecy is setting the bar way too low.
Statistics has to come into play, and not the silly made up kind stated, quoted and linked to here by DOC.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
After reading these 71 pages (no kudos required ) all I can conclude DOC, is that you have nothing!
You have not been able to provide a CLEAR example of a fulfilled prophecy and when shown examples of prophecies that apparently failed, you could not explain it without resorting to weasel words, suppositions, reinterpretations and other literary devices that are intended to suggest that what was written was meant to be interpreted differently.
These tricks might work wonders if you were discussing (say) "the prophecies of Nostradamus" but they won't work on the bible because the bible has a prophecy that clearly failed. ("This generation shall not pass ...") It is clear from reading the bible that the final world superpower was to be the Roman empire. Going on Nebuchadnezzar's dream, it seems that the Roman empire would degenerate into a corrupted regime that would set the stage for global wars and a second coming.
Many doomsdayers today insist that Rome will become a superpower again (or that it always WAS a superpower) because any doomsday scenario that doesn't have Rome as the centre of power would make a lie out of the bible. Even if that were true, it would not explain the 2000 year gap in the biblical prophecies which is not mentioned at all in the bible. Some doomsdayers ignore the 2000 year gap altogether when spinning out their biblical interpretations.
Athiests who attack the bible are not likely to unproselytize anybody but Christians who are not up to the task of answering these attacks can do a lot of harm to the Christian cause.
) all I can conclude DOC, is that you have nothing!You have not been able to provide a CLEAR example of a fulfilled prophecy and when shown examples of prophecies that apparently failed, you could not explain it without resorting to weasel words, suppositions, reinterpretations and other literary devices that are intended to suggest that what was written was meant to be interpreted differently.
These tricks might work wonders if you were discussing (say) "the prophecies of Nostradamus" but they won't work on the bible because the bible has a prophecy that clearly failed. ("This generation shall not pass ...") It is clear from reading the bible that the final world superpower was to be the Roman empire. Going on Nebuchadnezzar's dream, it seems that the Roman empire would degenerate into a corrupted regime that would set the stage for global wars and a second coming.
Many doomsdayers today insist that Rome will become a superpower again (or that it always WAS a superpower) because any doomsday scenario that doesn't have Rome as the centre of power would make a lie out of the bible. Even if that were true, it would not explain the 2000 year gap in the biblical prophecies which is not mentioned at all in the bible. Some doomsdayers ignore the 2000 year gap altogether when spinning out their biblical interpretations.
Athiests who attack the bible are not likely to unproselytize anybody but Christians who are not up to the task of answering these attacks can do a lot of harm to the Christian cause.
After reading these 71 pages (no kudos required
You have not been able to provide a CLEAR example of a fulfilled prophecy and when shown examples of prophecies that apparently failed, you could not explain it without resorting to weasel words, suppositions, reinterpretations and other literary devices that are intended to suggest that what was written was meant to be interpreted differently.
These tricks might work wonders if you were discussing (say) "the prophecies of Nostradamus" but they won't work on the bible because the bible has a prophecy that clearly failed. ("This generation shall not pass ...")...
And the "generation did not pass" until they saw the kingdom. When Christ died and said "It is finished", I interpret that as his mission of paying the price for sin was done. When He rose from the dead, the Kingdom began. Many in that generation did see the risen Christ and the beginning of this Kingdom.
I believe God could have given us crystal clear prophecies if he wanted to, but then it would be too much like he was performing tricks to make us love Him. He is being more subtle and giving us just enough evidence without hitting us over the head with cold technical fulfilled facts.
Last edited:
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
Mojo
Mostly harmless
DOC, this is exactly the sort of thing the post you were replying to pointed out:
Didn't you even bother to read the passages you quoted from it?
Last edited: