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The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
#21
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
Daystar, the supernatural means that which is not natural. That which does not have to obey natural laws. The fact the word "Super" is used is just because the concept of the non-natural is often considered "Super" because its often used to mean God, a deity who created the universe therefore created natural laws! If that is true, If God can do that, then God is super! I mean he has superpowers. Whether he's good evil or neutral is another matter entirely.
EDIT: Also, on the subject of how its important for you to be able to argue from scripture, how do you know what the correct interpretation is? Through God's guidance? In other words your personal relationship with God?
It seems to me that your argument from scripture solely rests on your argument from personal experience. Sounds to me that without your 'personal experience of God' your argument from scripture would just fall apart.
Unless of course you "have faith".
Am I wrong? If so how DO you interpret scripture correctly?
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#22
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
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 and when I open up your posts all I can hear is the ocean I am going to go ahead and post a sensible reaction to what you did manage to say about Tyre.

Its long and boring so just snip it out and say something totally stupid to express your opinionated and uninformed bullshit in response to it to reaffirm your newest religion, Atheism.

I had to cut this down considerably since a great deal of it was a repeat of what the average Atheist, eager to oversimplify the History of Tyre and Bible prophecy already rejects. A brief(er) history of Tyre.

Sidon was, according to the stamp of her own coins, the "Mother of Kambe, Hippo, Kition, Tyre." A colony from Sidon founded Tyre and those living in Tyre called themselves Sidonians. The Bible calls its merchants "the merchants of Sidon" and Tyre itself the "virgin daughter of Sidon." (Isaiah 23:2, 12 AS) Tyre's own coins were stamped "the Metropolis of the Sidonians."

Also on her coins was stamped: "Sacred and iviolate." Rich and busy worshipping Mammon, Tyre hired soldiers from Persia, Lud, and Put (Ezekiel 27:10). For five years Assyrian king Shalmaneser laid siege to Tyre but couldn't take the city.

The Bible presents Tyre of ancient times as a Phoenician ship with precious merchandise - proud and soon to be wrecked. They were Canaanites, but the Greeks called them Phoenicians (meaning reddish purple) because of the purple dye and cloth they exported.

In Tyre they worshipped Mammon. They worshipped Ashtoreth (Easter) and her male counterpart, Baal in the form of Melkarth.

It was the commercial center of the ancient world. Silver from Tarshish. Horses from Armenia. Ebony and ivory from Dedan. Emeralds, embroidered fine linen and coral from Edom. Wheat, honey and balm from Judah and Israel. Helbon wine from Damascus. Lambs, goats, spices, precious stone and gold from Arabia

God said that he would bring up nation after nation up against Tyre. The skeptic will cling dogedly to the fact that the prophecy says that 'Tyre would never be rebuilt' even though it would be pointless to say that nation after nation would have to keep destroying what hadn't been rebuilt and the Bible itself points out that Tyre was still there hundreds of years after Nebchadnezzar when Alexander did the same thing though Tyre had moved to an island nearby.

What about after Alexander? Not much different really, except that which the myopic skeptic of the Bible can't tell.

After Alexander scrapped the ruins of what had been Tyre and threw it into the sea Roman emperor Augustus took away the last trace of independent existence of the island Tyre.

In 638 A.D. Tyre was captured by the Moslems.

In 1124 Tyre was taken by the crusaders.

In 1291 the crusaders lost Tyre and was once again reduced to a pile of stones.

In 1516 Tyre was captured by the Turks and was soon desolated.

In 1619 Sandys visited Tyre and said: "This once famous Tyre is now no other than a heap of ruins."

In 1697 Maundrell said about Tyre: "Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz., That it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on."

In 1751 Swedish naturalist Hasselquist said of Tyre: "Here are about ten inhabitants, Turks and Christians, who live by fishing."

In 1838 Dr. Robinson visited and later wrote: "I continued my walk along the whole western and northern shore of the peninsula, musing upon the pomp and glory, the pride and fall, of ancient Tyre. Here was the little isle once covered by her palaces and surrounded by her fleet . . . . But alas! . . . Tyre has indeed become 'like the top of a rock, a place to spread nets upon!' The sole remaining tokens of her more ancient splendour - columns of red and gray granite, sometimes forty or fifty heaped together, or marble pillars - lie broken and strewed beneath the waves in the midst of the sea; and the hovels that now nestle upon a portion of her site present no contradiction of the dread decree, 'Thou shalt be built no more.'"

Es Sur, the Arabic old name of Tyre is now a villiage of about 9,000 people. It rests on the north end of the former Island. Alexander’s causeway is still there, and the ancient island itself, now a peninsula, is connected to the mainland by a portion of land almost half a mile broad. Once the center of world commerce it now has an insignificant trade in cotton and tobacco.

According to secular history Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Tyre shortly after destroying Jerusalem. From Phoenician annals and other previously written histories, Josephus said that Nebuchadnezzar's siege lasted 13 years. Ezekiel 26:8-11 indicates that he did considerable damage.

Tyre recovered somewhat, though Alexander the Great attacked Tyre which had moved to an island about a half mile from mainland. Alexander's men scraped up the ruins of the mainland city and threw it into the sea building a causeway to the island. After 7 months Alexander prevailed and the city was burned. (Zechariah 9:4)

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)
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#23
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
Atheism is not a religion. Religion believes in the supernatural/God, thats why its religious. Atheism does NOT believe in the supernatural/God, thats why its NOT a religion.
'Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.' - Don Hirschberg.
And as to whether you consider them a creed or not, consider this:
'Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.' - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.
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#24
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 7, 2008 at 11:40 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Atheism is not a religion. Religion believes in the supernatural/God, thats why its religious. Atheism does NOT believe in the supernatural/God, thats why its NOT a religion.
'Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.' - Don Hirschberg.
And as to whether you consider them a creed or not, consider this:
'Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.' - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

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.

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.
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#25
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 8, 2008 at 11:43 am)Daystar Wrote:
(November 7, 2008 at 11:40 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Atheism is not a religion. Religion believes in the supernatural/God, thats why its religious. Atheism does NOT believe in the supernatural/God, thats why its NOT a religion.
'Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.' - Don Hirschberg.
And as to whether you consider them a creed or not, consider this:
'Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.' - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

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.

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.
If the definition of religion is a belief system. Then everyone is religious including you.
Also if God can also be natural and not supernatural, he has to obey natural laws, so natural laws are above him. So why call him God?
The point is that the variations of Christianity all have faith. The variations of Atheism do not have faith. Thats why they're not religious.
Perhaps 100% 'gnostic' strong atheists have at least some faith because they can't KNOW there is not a God. God is undisprovable. But thats another matter. And there's a whole other thread that I created for that subject.
De Facto atheists/other at least slightly agnostic atheists do not have faith.
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#26
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 3, 2008 at 12:18 am)Meatball Wrote: I can get behind the concept of a "spirit" being a primitive explanation melting together the concepts of "life-force" and "conciousness". I think we already have better words for those however, rendering the word "spirit" obsolete. Sorta like phlogiston.

Hi meatball
I'm sorry that I did not follow this interesting thread from the beginning.
You are totally right.
Daystar exposes an "erudite" theory of Spirit mixing up hebrew and greek notions.
Very impresive but at last what concerns the hebrew language utterly shallow.
Ruakh in Hebrew means just wind and not to breath which translated reads ''Linshom".The root of 'Linshom" is common to "Neshama" which means soul.
The method of all religious people is to refer to the Bible ,generally mixing up the Old Testament with the Gospel,as a Holly document whose reality and truth every man should not even dare to contest.
They conceal the fact that the Old testament in it's canonized form known to us ,was written by men in about the 6-th century B.C. as ordered by king Joshiyahu of Judah, mainly as a political document
meant to certify his pretensions as successor of King Davids dynasty,
who lived some 400 years before.
Actually the bible was not written by one man at one date but was written and rewritten many times in a mix of at least 4 styles named by scholars who are studying the roots of the Bible for about 200 years as
J-for Jehovah,E-for Elohim,P-for priests and D-for Deuteronomy.
Anyway the Bible was for sure not handed down by any God to any man
for the most simple cause that he does not exist.
With the Gospel the problem is even more simpler because it's original authors are well known :Mattheus ,Lucas ,Johanes.
Their writings are not devoid of political aspects reflecting the aspiration of the Christian politician Paulus to create an ideological platform to the new religion of whom he was the most proeminent representative.
The epic of throwing on the Jews the sin of the martyrdom of Jesus is not random but reflects the profound contradiction which the new religion aroused among the Diaspora jewish communities after the destruction of the jewish state by Titus, son of the roman emperor Vespasianus in the year 70 A.C.
A great deal of christian religious writings as quoted by Daystar have also a strong political base reflecting inner contradiction of the christened roman Empire and it's religious ruling authorities so that their "saintyness" is more than questionable.
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#27
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If the definition of religion is a belief system. Then everyone is religious including you.

Yes. Being aware of that helps prevent one from closing ones mind to any possibility. It prevents one from getting bogged down by what they believe or think they know. Open mindedness.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Also if God can also be natural and not supernatural, he has to obey natural laws, so natural laws are above him. So why call him God?

A god can be natural or supernatural, not just God. A god is anything that is considered as mighty or is venerated. As for God, the creator, Jehovah of the Bible, he created what you call natural laws. The only reason to call him God is that you believe he is your God or in reference to someone elses position.

God isn't your god, just as Dagon isn't my god, but they are gods in the sense of being gods to other people.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: The point is that the variations of Christianity all have faith. The variations of Atheism do not have faith. Thats why they're not religious.

Christians have faith in their God, Atheists have faith in science.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Perhaps 100% 'gnostic' strong atheists have at least some faith because they can't KNOW there is not a God.

Actually, I have noticed this distinction only here, is it new? I didn't realize that you all had finally gotten around to doing the math. Good job! Big Grin
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#28
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
Quote:Christians have faith in their God, Atheists have faith in science.
Oh please...

Faith: belief that is not based on proof.

God is not based on proof, science is. You cannot have faith in "science" unless you are talking about hypotheses, but rarely are these made up without any intellectual basis whatsoever. Even the more elaborate hypotheses such as String "theory" have some basis in proof.
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#29
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm)Daystar Wrote:
(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If the definition of religion is a belief system. Then everyone is religious including you.

Yes. Being aware of that helps prevent one from closing ones mind to any possibility. It prevents one from getting bogged down by what they believe or think they know. Open mindedness.
Well fine, I have no problem of that. If you mean religion in that sense then we are both religious. Its just you have said that you are not religious, you just believe in the God of the bible, so if you're going to use religious in that sense I'm certainly not religious either. And if bible-based belief in God like yourself is not religious and not a religion in the sense a creed, then atheism isn't either.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Also if God can also be natural and not supernatural, he has to obey natural laws, so natural laws are above him. So why call him God?

Quote:A god can be natural or supernatural, not just God. A god is anything that is considered as mighty or is venerated. As for God, the creator, Jehovah of the Bible, he created what you call natural laws. The only reason to call him God is that you believe he is your God or in reference to someone elses position.

God isn't your god, just as Dagon isn't my god, but they are gods in the sense of being gods to other people.
Yes but if a god or God is not supernatural then he is not beyond natural laws. Which means he cannot perform miracles, he is not outside the universe, he cannot create the universe and he cannot create natural laws. He lives within the universe and has to obey it, he had to come about though it so he had to develop/evolve some way. So he's a superbeing not a god/God.
Oh and of course by "your God" I don't mean literally a God that belongs to you I just mean the God that you believe in. Or your [/i]interpretation[/i] of the God that you believe in.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: The point is that the variations of Christianity all have faith. The variations of Atheism do not have faith. Thats why they're not religious.

Quote:Christians have faith in their God, Atheists have faith in science.
Not if by faith you mean blind faith rather than understanding. There is evidence for the truths of science. There is not evidence for the truths of the christian God so you have to have faith rather than understanding in order to believe in the christian God, or any other supernatural 'God'. If you don't mean BLIND faith when you say faith, then thats understanding/knowledge/trust or even belief, in my eyes at least. I wouldn't call it faith because when people say they "have faith" or others "have faith" they are so often talking about religious, irrational and blind faith.

(November 8, 2008 at 11:49 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Perhaps 100% 'gnostic' strong atheists have at least some faith because they can't KNOW there is not a God.

Quote:Actually, I have noticed this distinction only here, is it new? I didn't realize that you all had finally gotten around to doing the math. Good job! Big Grin
Not precise math just my own understanding and estimated probability.
My, well, I guess you could call philosophy on this, is that if you think you 100% know anything when you have any less than 100% reason to believe that you know something 100%, you must have at least SOME faith, however small that is. But if you are probably on the correct side of probability, so long as you understand that you could always be wrong, then you don't have faith at all. Probably.
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#30
RE: The Spirit (Hebrew Ruach / Greek Pneuma)
(November 8, 2008 at 11:43 am)Daystar Wrote: 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

(November 8, 2008 at 11:43 am)Daystar Wrote: 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
(November 7, 2008 at 11:34 pm)Daystar Wrote: 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!!!!

(November 7, 2008 at 11:34 pm)Daystar Wrote: 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)

Internet Infidels Wrote: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
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