(November 6, 2009 at 7:52 pm)solarwave Wrote: Ok, I'll give you that looking at only that one prophecy with no knowledge of Christianity you would think it meant the messiah was going to be called Immanuel. I would like to point out we are looking at this from the modern west perspective. Good job one verse isn't why I think Christ was the messiah hey.
I have not found faith in Christianity aiding in understanding scripture. It creates a bias that hinders our ability to let the scriptures tell us what they are saying. If we approach scripture with this prejudice, we tend to insist on telling the scriptures what they are saying, instead of letting them tell us.
For example: If you knew nothing of Christian dogma... and studied the Bible objectively from cover to cover, what beliefs would you have by the time you finished? Well, probably your knee jerk reaction would be to say that you would have the exact same faith that you have now. But, I submit to you that is not the case.
One of the greatest obstacles we have to overcome in searching for the truth is that we have allowed others to manipulate the way we read and understand scripture. This is done in order to nurture a bias in us so we will never interpret scripture any other way. (Thus, Baptists will not get out of scripture what a Pentecostal would. And the theist does not get out of scripture what a atheist would.)
Truth seekers must be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking... "My truth is inerrant. Therefore, even if there looks like there might be a problem, there cannot be a problem with my truth. And since there is no problem with my truth, my truth is inerrant." or
"This prophecy cannot have a problem even if it looks problematic, because other prophecies do not have a problem. Therefore, no prophecy can have a problem."
Quote:I just assumed we were considering other things at the same time too.
Actually not. My agenda in raising this one question was hopefully to find a Christian willing to have a reasonable dialogue. Once found, it was my intent to simply encourage them to take a well thought out approach in the way they handle problems, interpretations and beliefs.
You and I both agree that this one scripture is not a reason to abandon your faith in Jesus. But, after this dialogue is finished, I hope to point out other issues with respect to Jesus that are far more problematic and compelling. And I hope you will approach them objectively.
Quote:Right now I cant be bothered to go find every prophecy because its late here. You can google it or I'll find them tomorrow if you want.
Not necessary. I only offered to critique a prophecy if you thought you had one that doesn't have problems. We can talk about prophecies anytime.
According to the Christian community, there are over 300 alleged prophecies that supposedly foretell Jesus. And according to the skeptical community, there are zero prophecies that foretell Jesus. Wait! How can this be? Both cannot be true. Which is correct?
I hope that you will agree that if Jesus is not the Messiah, then zero Messianic prophecies foretell him.
And since you are not familiar with the reasons of these skeptics, you cannot be expected to make a wise judgment, assuming they are correct.
Quote:The question then becomes, is the evidence against my belief well-substantiated and not 'flim-flam' itself. I call your reason on Immanuel 'flim-flam' in light of what I know of Jesus other than that one verse. I give good reason to believe in Jesus/God sometimes and atheists try to dismiss it with 'flim-flam' reasoning. Its not as if you can try to apply it to only me with each side of the line sees the other side that way. I know truth takes a lot of work yourself, my beliefs now are getting further from the church I am brought up in.
You are correct in asking yourself this important question. I could very well be attempting to deceive you with flim-flam. And sadly, as a Christian, I had a long history of deceiving people with flim-flam. Nobody likes to lose arguments... so we all have a tendency to try to prop up our bad arguments, especially when it might prove embarrassing. So, it is prudent of you to not automatically assume that my intentions are honest. And likewise, I hope you do not assume the many Christian peddlers of truth are any better.
So, that leaves us with a bit of a problem. No one can be trusted to help us ferret out the truth. About the only person we can trust is ourselves and that won't be true either, especially if we don't have critical thinking skills, don't have objectivity, but do have a bias.
Quote:That is fair enough since partly the reason I am here is to open my mind up (which it is fairly already). You may disagree since I have a different belief to you which you think is wrong. The thing is I don’t see problems though, you do. Not all things that look like problems really are so have to reasoned through. If we didn't do that we would lose all our beliefs in anything the first time a 'problem' came up.
That depends on the problem. I didn't lose all my beliefs the first time a problem came up either. It took a long time and a lot of soul-searching (so to speak). But it wasn't one problem. The moment I made up my mind to get objective in my handling of problems, I stopped being dismissive of them and started taking them seriously. And the more I admitted there were real problems, the more real problems I discovered.
If our conversation continues, you may discover that I have no agenda to convince you to believe as I do. Instead, you will find that my emphasis will be on the credibility of the analysis rather than on the conclusion.
