Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[Edwardo Piet]

Sure it is. You said previously, "You're literally believing in something that there can't possibly be any evidence of." We've now seen that you base this on a priori materialism.

No. If the natural world is entirely made of consciousness and idealism is true it is still the case that all evidence of the natural world is empirical... so it clearly has absolutely nothing to do with materialism.

More materialism. Nothing more.

Again, my points still stand if idealism is true so it clearly has nothing to do with materialism.

You're talking about something outside of the natural world. Supernaturalism =/= idealism and naturalism =/= materialism.

It's a total red herring on your part to bring up materialism. Many people wouldn't even consider me a materialist.

[RoadRunner79]

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The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor” are really all we need to resolve any so-called “problem” in Daniel about this person.  — Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity. Furthermore, the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Goodness me i love it to

Lets look at the conclusion, lets break it down though I'm surprised to find you are once again resorting to  a christian post on word press.  *bold and italics mine*

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel.

Okay.. lets look...

Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future

or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor”

Perhaps is hardly a sound conclusion is it now ?

Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity.

Well yes and no, it has many other problems the lack of mention of the king(s), there were four between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus not mentioned, dates around the fall of Jerusalem etc.  You would expect some historical documents to have things that others do not.

the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Well no, good historians only add things to history that they have reasonable reason to do so, and it's absolutely true Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar (without some mental gymnastics that is)

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Now this is the problem we have Theists tend to point to the bits of the bible that have been proven true like the existence of Belshazzar to then claim that the whole bible can be trusted, even though there are clear problems, and when faced with these problems have to write whole reams of excuses lots of 'maybe's' or 'perhaps' (as in the post above) . This is fine when speculating archaeological  meanings of finds.  

This is not however what theists claim, they claim the scriptures to be divinely inspired by a god who knows all, see's all, and has protected that text. To prove that's not the case everything would have to be true and accurate.

You need the whole of scripture to be true to prove your case. I am interested in how you would define a 'reasonable explanation' when dealing with the seeming? disparity between scripture and what we discover, when is it not a reasonable explanation.. to you at least ?

I hope you don't mind, I skipped to the end of your post, because I think that you are saying something important to the discussion here.  I think that you are confusing the historicity or corroborating evidence with the doctrine of inerrancy or at least that I am talking about historicity while you are talking about inerrancy.  

 It does appear here, that you agree, that the texts do not need to be inerrant, in order to be considered historically reliable. It also appear that you issue is more about inerrancy than the historical aspect. I think that you may have a different sense of what it means for the scriptures to be inerrant though.

For myself; inerrancy doesn't mean that we treat the text with a hyper literalism that is not natural, or inflict upon it a precision that is not used in everyday language. I don't see where there is a special protection that prohibits someone from misinterpreting a text, or that would prevent them from giving that poor interpretation to others.  I don't believe that every word is picked special, or that we need to find deeper meaning and over analyze every jot and tilde.  I just simply believe that the Bible is true in what it reports, in the manner that it is reporting.

And even then, Christianity does not hinge on inerrancy; and a lack of inerrancy will not make the faith crumble (or should not anyway)
However, I think that a number of people over-complicate the subject.

[Mister Agenda]

Fire-breathing dragons: large animals confined to earth. Would eventually be discovered as man explores the earth. Since man has explored most of the earth, reasonable to conclude that their existence is improbable.

God: not confined to earth. Cannot reasonably conclude from lack of observation that God's existence is therefore improbable.

I think fire-breathing dragons are more likely to exist on another planet than on earth. Where did you get your information that they're confined to earth. Not from Anne McCaffrey, that's for sure!

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Such individuals (who exist) are known as agnostic theists.

Now that's a phrase you don't hear quite often. I wonder if they are a myth.

I was one for years, though for most of that time I didn't know that would be the term that applied to me.

[Jehanne]

And even then, Christianity does not hinge on inerrancy; and a lack of inerrancy will not make the faith crumble (or should not anyway)
However, I think that a number of people over-complicate the subject.

Scholars, in the West, used to believe in inerrancy; today, almost no one does.