Quote Originally Posted by John T View Post
I am of the opposite oppinion because I believe that the Bible alone is His revelation to us. Otherwise it would not be written over a period of 2000+ years.
The Bible is only said to be God’s revelation to us. The same is said about the Quran and other so-called holy books. Neither the belief that it‘s God‘s revelation, nor the length of time it took to write it all down (and not even its popularity) will make it so.

We will also disagree on that point.
I’m sure we do. It’s worth noting, though, that not a single thing we’ve learned about ourselves, the earth, or the universe has ever revealed a shred of evidence indicating that a deity had/has anything to do with it.

In pursuit of a second Master's I studied stats. Even if there was a chi square ****ysis (which measures the difference between what would be expected in a normal distribution, aka a bell curve) done, I doubt that you would be able to understand it. ...
Perhaps not. We’ll just have to wait and see. However, I am interested in knowing where you found “…the result that the odds for all of the prophecies about Jesus coming true, are greater than a billion to one”. Do you have a link?

Feelings are a horrid "measure of truth" because by definition, feelings are subjective, and not verifiable.
I agree that feelings are not a measure of truth and, yet, the reasons I generally get from Christians for why they believe will usually boil down to just that. I’ve even been told outright by some that if it were proved, without a doubt, that God is and always has been a figment of the imagination, they’d reject the proof in favor of the belief.

I simply meant that there will be some from this forum who will attempt to derail a civil discussion, and we both know that.
I know what you meant. I guess you’d know better than me since I don’t visit here very often.

Let me preface this with an adaptation of Socrates. Just as the unexamined life is not worth the living, so also is the unaxamined religion not worth the believing. That is because by the very nature of the term "religion", every religion sets out to determine meaning about the cause, nature and purpose of the Universe. Religion gives the answer to the questions like "Why am I here?" and "Why am I as a human, the only creature able to converse with other like humans and speak on an abstract level?" and "Is there anything bigger than me?"
I agree that religion gives answers. Answers are easy; virtually anybody can do it. Determining what the correct answer is; that‘s not so easy. There’s only one way to determine whether or not an answer you’ve received is correct and that’s by way of a demonstration of its validity.

... In other words, if there can be no other explanation for something, such as prophecy being of chance or inevitability, it must be God's handiwork.
Or it’s something else. The gist of what you’ve said is, “I don’t know what else could explain it, therefore God did it.” To simply insert God wherever there’s a gap in our knowledge is deceptive and misleading. It only serves to encourage believers to stop looking for real answers to their questions.

Therefore before anyone does any mathematics about prophecy, a strong definition must be established; remember the purpose of the definition is to rule out any possibility of being able to foresee something or of inevitably. The Wright Brothers making a prediction that men will be able to go to the moon, is an expected outcome of manned flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina thus making a case for inevitability. See what I mean?

Are you with me so far?
Yes, I see what you mean. However, until a statistical ****ysis, of the sort I mentioned earlier, is done by qualified and impartial statisticians (one of which I am not), then I don’t think you and I can have a fruitful discussion on that matter. Besides, being that I’m currently involved in a few other conversations taking place all at once, I’m feeling a bit fatigued now. Am I the only non-believer on this website these days?