If Christianity is not true, then how do you explain all the Biblical prophecies that were predicted HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of years before they happened?
If it is not true, then how do you explain the Book of Revelations and the dangerous (through nuclear weapons in North Korea and possibly Iran) situation we are in?
If it is not true, how do you explain out of body experiences?
If it is not true, how do you explain the feeling of the Holy Spirit?
If it is not true, how do you explain ghost sightings?
Please answer EVERY SINGLE QUESTION IN DETAIL. Do not dodge this. I care about you. I want you to examine your beliefs. I do not do this out of hate, but out of concern. I hope you find Jesus and he touches your heart.
We all deserve Hell. We are all sinners, but God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that if we accept His sacrifice we might be washed clean and saved from Hell. Jesus is the only way.
God bless.
2007-10-26 20:25:35 · 37 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
If the stuff that you mentioned never happened, I'm sure you would just find some way to apply the "prophecies" to some other event in history. The Book of Revelations is kind of flexible that way.
Liesel.
2007-10-28 18:27:24 · answer #1 · answered by Liesel 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Oh, for Pete's sake!
How do we explain the biblical prophecies? The same way skeptics explain away the alleged accuracy of an astrological reading or a tarot fortune teller's predictions for love and career. If you want it to fit your beliefs, you'll make them fit even if you have to use a crow bar.
Out off body experiences? Hell, I can have an OOBE from taking cough medicine! Any number of reasons can cause it without blaming it on god! A vivid imagination is a good excuse for floating around in your sleep!
"Feeling" the Holy Spirit? I "feel" my favourite hockey team's spirit every playoffs but it doesn't make them divine! If I took the five year old next door out for a walk in the lakeshore park and asked her if she stood real still, could she "feel" Mother Nature making the Autumn come, she'd say yes in a snap. It's all the power of suggestion and desire.
And ghost sightings? What does that have to do with Christianity? I've never seen a ghost except on Friday night TV. Nobody else has really solid proof of ghosts either although I do believe int them because I like the creepy aspect of the idea.
I DO NOT deserve hell! I am NOT a SINNER and I'm getting fed up with Christians telling me I am! Sin is a crock! I don't do ANYTHING sinful! I'm a really great woman with a big heart and hardly ever a harsh thought for most people.
I don't need saving, and if you continue to think that way about me, (a person you don't even know) you're going to bring bad luck down on me.
STOP THINKING ABOUT SAVING ME! BECAUSE IT'S NOT WORKING!
Thank you.
.
2007-10-26 21:16:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Prophecies: They're things written in a book, things that I will never experience because they supposedly happened centuries before I was born. Believing the Bible isn't believing in God, it's trusting the choices of the council of Nicaea, the council which decided what scripture would go into the Bible and what would not. Imagine these 12 men (flawed, fallible humans) deciding what was "divine truth" and what was not. If you think you can trust people who were called to council to resolve conflicts for the Roman Empire, then good on you. I don't.
Out of Body Experiences: I don't remember these being mentioned in the Bible, in fact you are the first Christian I've heard of who doesn't denounce them as absolute heresy.
I explain the feeling of the Holy Spirit as a feeling, nothing more. If you feel it, it's easy to believe. If you don't, then you will never, ever know. It's subjective, and thus is incapable of proving or disproving anything.
Ghosts: Again, you're the first Christian I've ever seen who doesn't think ghosts are the devil's work. I can't explain ghosts, and having never seen one myself I can safely say I'm still waiting for the proof on that one.
Hopefully that sufficiently answered your questions.
2007-10-26 20:35:05 · answer #3 · answered by Joshua C 2 · 4⤊ 0⤋
I do not have to explain ANYTHING. YOU do. Show me some proof that God exists which will stand up in a court of law. Do NOT quote the bible as that is what is called hearsay in the courts. No one can prove authenticity of the accounts in the bible. There are inconsistencies in the bible which blatantly contradict each other. The bible was written from oral history handed down from one generation to the next, and could have very well been embellished along the way, or even more likely, misremembered. You have no concrete proof. I have no concrete proof otherwise. Until you can SHOW ME, you have no claim on anything. And besides, even if there is a GOD, then this deity MADE me as I am, doubts and all, and therefore, I will be saved in spite of myself because God made me this way! How could God doom me if he made me this way? It's NOT my fault! Can God make a rock so big he could not move it? How can such a kind and benevolent deity do such cruel and evil things as apparently your God has done? How about wiping out everything except for Noah and the Ark? Were there NO other good people on the Earth? How could God even MAKE such a mistake? What about the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina? If these events were in God's plan, I want no part of a God who could inflict such suffering on innocents, or are you saying the victims of these catastrophic events were not innocents? What about the events of 9/11? Was the bringing down of the twin towers in God's plan? When you come up to a stoplight and it turns green when you get there, you thank God for a miracle , but what did you do on 9/11 when the towers fell? You bible thumpers make me tired... All you have to do is one simple thing, show me proof which will hold up in a court and I will become a true believer... Faith is simply NOT good enough. Faith is unreasoned belief... Your God causes untold pain and suffering and all you have to fall back on is "It's God's Plan" and for me, that is just not good enough. If God is so good, why do SO many bad things keep on happening? Still, I WANT to believe. I just find it SO hard...
2007-10-26 20:54:31 · answer #4 · answered by rowlfe 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Actually prophecies are just a selective perception of ours. U select some facts that u want to believe. For example: If u go to see a fortune teller and they tell u a vague message like "u'll have a visitor with very bright aura this month". after a month several things happened :
1. u really have a visit from an old friend.
2. u hit a lottery jackpot.
3. u dreamt of an angel
4. u met a new girlfriend / boyfriend
5. u escaped from a terrible accident
6. MTV people came to u and offered to pimp your ride.
u can use any of the above example to match the prophecy of the fortune teller. The problem with prophecy is vagueness. If u can show me one prophecy that tell the exact time, exact event with disambiguation, then that prophecy will be valid, if it is open to interpretation then it is no prophecy.....
2007-10-26 21:05:21 · answer #5 · answered by oketak 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
A: Prophecies are so generalized you could fit many different events to the prophecies. It proves nothing, and I could debate you on whether ANY of them have been fulfilled.
B:What? I have read Revelations many times and there is NOTHING in there about N.Korea or Iran furthermore as to the "Dangerous" situation we are in it is again so generalized that you could fit it to nearly ANY dangerous situation.
C:OBE's are NOT a christian phenomenon and cannot be proved at all whatsoever. They should be VERY EASY to prove however to date it has not been possible.
D:I get similar feelings from music, movies,reading a book, or even a good poop. A feeling is proof of NOTHING.
E:Ghost sightings go against biblical interpretations of the here after and also as of yet have no proof behind them. More than likely they are caused by natural phenomenon as similar results have been obtained by proximity to power lines strong electromagnetic fields etc.
Anyhow... youre an idiot.
2007-10-26 20:34:49 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
1) I just recently asked a Christian on here to point me to some of these alleged "fulfilled prophecies", and she kindly provided me with a website where I found a nice long list, which I've looked through. Sorry, but they're no more convincing than Nostradamus or Edgar Casey.
2) What does Revelations have to do with North Korea or Iran? I've read Revelations a few times, and I honestly don't remember any mention of nucs, or, for that matter, either of those countries, explicitly or, as far as I could tell, implicitly.
3) Out of body experiences? You've got to be kidding me. They're, um, not real. I've yet to see a scientific study of any kind demonstrate that there's anything to them other than delusions on the part of the subject.
4) The feeling of the Holy Spirit? You said not to "dodge" any question, but this seems just utterly ridiculous. To my knowledge, the presence of the "Holy Spirit" hasn't been scientifically supported.
5) Ghost sitings? As with the last two questions, there is virtually no credible scientific evidence to support the existence of ghosts. The "ghost" phenomenon seems to consist entirely of amusing anecdotes, mistaken identification, wishful thinking, delusions, and deliberate hoaxes.
Feel free to email me if you see that I'm mistaken in any of my details. Perhaps I've missed a new ground-breaking study that strongly supports the existence of the Holy Spirit.
2007-10-26 20:35:51 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 3⤋
Okay first of all, i can tell that u are deeply convinced of this. I am not trying to start an arguement here, im only answering your question; which is to examine all the details and point out opposing view. 1)biblical prophesies are vague and can be interpreted in many ways, it does not specifically state dates or events; because of this it is hard to pinpoint if prophesies have actually come true or not. 2) like in #1, the book of prophesies does not specifically state The North Korea and Iran deal. It could be interpretted differently. 3) Obe or Out of body experiances were scientifically proven a few months back to be a misfire of electical impulses in your brain. It happens when the mind tries to locate its whereabouts using abstract senses, in otherwords when we're in a state of isolation from senses. Nothing supernatural about it. Actually makes sense. 3) The feeling of the Holy spirit is something that u have individually, no one else can feel it like u, therefore it may not actually be the holy spirit. Just a strong sense of faith. 4) ghostly sightings are condemmened in the bible, it states that souls cannot return from the etherworld and that sightings are all demons. No one can be sure of this, because we are still unsure if ghosts exist or not. i hope this helps, remember im not trying to argue against u, just try to see it from the skeptics point of view ok?
2007-10-26 20:30:28 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
"Biblical prophecies that were predicted HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of years before they happened?"
Such as? I'd like a few examples.
"how do you explain the Book of Revelations and the dangerous (through nuclear weapons in North Korea and possibly Iran) situation we are in?"
I don't believe Revelations has any content with North Korea or any knowledge of nuclear weaponry.
"If it is not true, how do you explain out of body experiences?"
Easy. Science. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-body_experience)
"If it is not true, how do you explain the feeling of the Holy Spirit?"
What 'feeling' of the Holy Spirit? I've never had anything like that, nor know anyone who did.
"If it is not true, how do you explain ghost sightings?"
Perceptions can be easily mistaken, or maybe ghosts do exist.. :P
2007-10-26 20:32:22 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 2⤋
Dreamstuff, you get a gold star in my book. Excellent response!
I'll add some amunition: the question is packaged in fallacy. To state, "If X is not true, then Y must of course be true" does not lend any credibility to position Y (in the absense of sufficient evidence). And there is no evidence given to support the claims above. For example, the Book of Revelation is about as useful as the prophecies of Nostradamous: useless.
The good thing about studying skepticism is that it becomes easier to recognize fallacies and the nonsense they often attempt to dress up as rational argument. Dude, you ain't got no clothes on!
It's times like this when I'm proud to be an atheist and not have to cart around a bunch of nonsense junk in my head. I just have to carry a good knife to cut away the fallacies I come across.
2007-10-26 20:38:43 · answer #10 · answered by kwxilvr 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋