Originally Posted by
God-free
<SNIP>
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.
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.
What I am doing is to establish a prior philosophical and logical basis for the discussion of prophecy. One of the strenghts of the apologetics os Walter Martin was his insistence on defining the terms of the argument. That way the cultist, (most notably the Mormons) could not change the definition of a unicorn into that of a Pegasus; the difference being that the former has the body of a horse, and a spiral horn protruding from its forehead, and the latter also has the body of a horse, but lacks the horn, and can fly with the wings attached to irs spinal column.
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?
It is rather a simple process to determine probability, and I will get to that later. I want to go about this methodically so you can see that this is logical, mathematically accurate, and that I am not making any ewrrors of logic. (spelling is another matter! )
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." Einstein
"I think there are clearly religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe. There must be religious overtones." Steven Hawking
In both of these statements in red above, there is an inherent statement that there MUST be an objective, and observable and therefore unbiased component in religion. The only alternative is to have feelings and other subjective things that are unmeasurable. Therefore if we are speaking about the existence of prophecy, we first have to define it, and then having done that, we must be able to have a way to measure it.
Since this discussion centers on prophecy in general, and BIBLICAL prophecy in particular, I will therefore propose that prophecy in general is the foretelling of an event in advance of its completion, and that BIBLICAL prophecy is similar, but it is also characterized by having known Prophet foretell an event, and that event is a warning, exhortation or instruction, all of which are divinely inspired by the definition of the word, "Prophet" and having the penalty of execution for an utterance of a prophecy that does not come about, or is falsely claimed to be from God:
.Deuteronomy 18: 20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to p***, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
.
How are we to then measure prophecy? That is also relatively simple, it must be written down. Just as an oral contract is not worth the paper upon which it is written, so also is all prophecy that is not written down not worth anything. It is just like the childhood game we all played called "whisper down the lane". Because oral tradition changes at each retelling, and is not backed up by anything objective whereby anyone can authenticate it, then all religions that rely on oral traditions are unreliable as instruments of prophecy.
As a result, metaphysical and no "holy hook" religions of the East, and these religions: Buddhism (Dhamapada), Taoism (Taoist Tao-Te Ching), Hinduism (Bhagavad-Gita ), Sikhism (Guru Granth Sahib Ji) can be dismissed from the discussion because their "holy books" have nothing of a prophetic nature in them.
There are then only four religions which have prophecies in written form: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Nostradamians. Each of these have records that are "frozen in time" and then it is possible to examine these further.
However, I gotta go, so I will pick this up again at a later time