The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)

[Kyuuketsuki]

EVF, Atheism is a religion. Religion is a system of beliefs strictly held. You believe there is no god. Religious people tend not to think as much as feel religion, you don't think much about god and therefore are ignorant of the fact that a god can be anything - natural or supernatural. Atheism's god is so called 'science' of evolution.

You all think like religious people. You are religious by any definition.

No it isn't, atheism is a LABEL nothing more .,.. it carries no philosophy, no ideology. Look at Jason Jarred's post here

Dawkins would probably also complain that there are too many variations in Christianity. Which is saying the same thing about them as Atheists, which is pretty short sighted.

There ARE many variations of Christianity each of which seems to think they are the chosen ones and all the others are wrong.

Kyu

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Kyu, since most everything you say is a really lame ... arsed attempt at defending your monkey man faith like some spoiled punk on the street

My monkeyman philosophy? That's rich coming from someone who believes in invisible men in the sky, the ground and whacky invisible places our invisible souls go to when we're dead to get rewarded or punished ... I mean "whacky" doesn't even come close!!!!

Tyre kept trying to make a come back though she always fell (Ezekiel 26:3) and now all that is left are her ruins and a small seaport called Sour (Sur). Nina Jidejian's book Tyre Through the Ages (1969) said of her: "The port has become a haven today for fishing boats and a place for spreading nets," (Ezekiel 26:5, 14)

Leaving the realm of alleged prophecies associated with Jesus, we could look at a couple of them dealing with history. I think that these are the more promising ones, for their fulfillments, if any, cannot be charged with having been made up by such imaginative writers as Matthew. As I said in Chapter 5 of the book, if God were to put impressive fulfilled prophecies into the Bible, then he would use fulfillments that become part of secular history, and which would already be known about by those to whom the missionaries go to preach the gospel message.

One writer who mentions historical-type prophecies is Josh McDowell. He discusses twelve cities that were prophesied to be destroyed. [6] The first of them is the city of Tyre, the destruction of which was prophesied in Eze 26:3-21. It was said that, after being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, Tyre would never be rebuilt and would never be found again (Eze 26:14,21, 27:36, 28:19). According to McDowell, all of the prophecies regarding Tyre and the other cities he talks about were fulfilled in history. He goes on to say the following:

We can then draw only one conclusion, and that is that God inspired the writing of every one of these prophecies. ... He has predicted multitudes of events to happen in the future. They have come true exactly as predicted, even though in some cases thousands of years were involved for the fulfillment. God has proven that He is our supernatural God with all wisdom. We have no alternative but to believe. [7]

I shall not try to deal here with all of the prophecies mentioned by McDowell, only the one related to the city of Tyre. But I think that similar considerations can be raised with regard to all of them. Let us look at some of the problems with the Tyre prophecy.

(1) Tyre had two parts, an island part and a mainland part. Nebuchadnezzar only managed to destroy the mainland part. According to historians, he failed to capture the island city of Tyre, despite a 13-year siege (585-572 B.C.). That was why Nebuchadnezzar was unable to pay his soldiers, as reported in Eze 29:18. [That in itself refutes the earlier prophecy. Ezekiel is in effect admitting its failure. He should have scrapped it before completing his book.] It was not until the attack by Alexander the Great more than 200 years later that the island part of Tyre was also destroyed. However, since Ezekiel did not mention Alexander, only Nebuchadnezzar, it is hard to see how that later attack fulfills any part of his prophecy.

(2) According to historians, Tyre recovered quickly following the attack by Alexander. In 64 B.C., it became part of the Roman Empire and prospered. It is mentioned in the present tense in the New Testament. [8] Christian buildings were constructed there in the Fourth Century A.D. and during the Crusades, but Muslims later destroyed them.

(3) Tyre still exists today. It is a city on the coast of Lebanon, to be found on any map of that country. It has been mentioned in recent times in connection with retaliatory raids upon Hezbollah forces in Lebanon by Israel in their ongoing warfare.

It does not seem, then, that Ezekiel's prophecies came true. He said that Tyre would "be no more" but that did not happen. Similar considerations could be raised in connection with all the other prophecies that McDowell and others have claimed to have been fulfilled in history.

To sum up ... if the City of Tyre was to be destroyed forever, why does it exist now?

Kyu