| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Elroy Willis" |
| Date: |
09 Feb 2004 07:39:27 AM |
| Object: |
Prophecies |
In a recent email debate with a fundy, I posed the following question
to him:
"Do you think the future is set in stone, and that people can't shape
the future through their actions?"
He answered "no."
I then asked him if he believed in the biblical prophecies.
He said "yes."
I then asked how he could believe both of those things at the
same time.
<crickets chirping>
Haven't heard back from him since that question, and I think maybe
I've stumbled on short-but-sweet question that makes the fundies
think twice about the validity of biblical prophecies.
I was expecting him to come back with some "omniscient god
who lives outside of time" idea, but maybe he realized even that
doesn't work.
--
Elroy Willis
EAP Chief Editor and Newshound
http://web2.airmail.net/~elo/news
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Prophecies |
09 Feb 2004 10:22:15 PM |
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On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:39:27 GMT, Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net>
posted in alt.atheism:
In a recent email debate with a fundy, I posed the following question
to him:
"Do you think the future is set in stone, and that people can't shape
the future through their actions?"
He answered "no."
I then asked him if he believed in the biblical prophecies.
He said "yes."
I then asked how he could believe both of those things at the
same time.
<crickets chirping>
You just lost me. If the future is fixed, prophesy is a joke. It's
if it's not fixed that predicting how people will change things is
miraculous.
BTW, Fair Park on Friday evening, March 5. Kickoff party for the
Irish Festival.
--
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains
premature today."
- Isaac Asimov
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at optonline dot net
.
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| User: "Elroy Willis" |
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| Title: Re: Prophecies |
10 Feb 2004 05:44:07 AM |
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Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
In a recent email debate with a fundy, I posed the following question
to him:
"Do you think the future is set in stone, and that people can't shape
the future through their actions?"
He answered "no."
I then asked him if he believed in the biblical prophecies.
He said "yes."
I then asked how he could believe both of those things at the
same time.
<crickets chirping>
You just lost me. If the future is fixed, prophesy is a joke. It's
if it's not fixed that predicting how people will change things is
miraculous.
The future has to be fixed for prophecy to be valid. If you predict
that horse #4 will win in race #2 tomorrow at Belmont, then I could go
to the track and kill the horse right before the race to invalidate
the prophecy. If the prophecy is 100% true, then something must stop
me from killing the horse.
BTW, Fair Park on Friday evening, March 5. Kickoff party for the
Irish Festival.
Maybe I'll make it this year.
--
Elroy Willis
EAP Chief Editor and Newshound
http://web2.airmail.net/~elo/news
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Prophecies |
10 Feb 2004 10:43:06 PM |
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On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:44:07 GMT, Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net>
posted in alt.atheism:
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
In a recent email debate with a fundy, I posed the following question
to him:
"Do you think the future is set in stone, and that people can't shape
the future through their actions?"
He answered "no."
I then asked him if he believed in the biblical prophecies.
He said "yes."
I then asked how he could believe both of those things at the
same time.
<crickets chirping>
You just lost me. If the future is fixed, prophesy is a joke. It's
if it's not fixed that predicting how people will change things is
miraculous.
The future has to be fixed for prophecy to be valid.
No, for it to be possible without a miracle. If the future isn't
fixed, yet I can foretell the future, I'd be better than the Christian
god.
If you predict that horse #4 will win in race #2 tomorrow at Belmont, then I could go
to the track and kill the horse right before the race to invalidate
the prophecy.
Could you? Or would you slip on a banana peel, break your leg, and
crawl to the track just 10 seconds too late to do anything?
If the prophecy is 100% true, then something must stop
me from killing the horse.
Well?
BTW, Fair Park on Friday evening, March 5. Kickoff party for the
Irish Festival.
Maybe I'll make it this year.
We'll be manager(s) at one or more (I don't know if we'll be together
on Friday evening) information booths. I'll probably be at the main
entrance - the one opposite the street entrance. Unless it's a (last
couple of years) Dallas March, in which case I'll be the one sitting
in the middle of the bonfire.
--
"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom. Atheism is human
concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that the religious mind cannot
begin to understand. And yet it is more than this. Atheism is not an old
religion, it is not a new and coming religion, in fact it is not, and never has
been, a religion at all. The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its
simplicity: Atheism is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."
[Atheism: An Affirmative View, by Emmett F. Fields]
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at optonline dot net
.
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| User: "Elroy Willis" |
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| Title: Re: Prophecies |
11 Feb 2004 10:44:47 AM |
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Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
In a recent email debate with a fundy, I posed the following question
to him:
"Do you think the future is set in stone, and that people can't shape
the future through their actions?"
He answered "no."
I then asked him if he believed in the biblical prophecies.
He said "yes."
I then asked how he could believe both of those things at the
same time.
<crickets chirping>
You just lost me. If the future is fixed, prophesy is a joke.
I agree that prophecy is a joke, so don't get the wrong idea.
It's if it's not fixed that predicting how people will change things
is miraculous.
The future has to be fixed for prophecy to be valid.
No, for it to be possible without a miracle.
Or a time-traveling god, who beams down thoughts to people
at different points in time, which I assume you find just as
ridiculous as I do, hence a considered "miracle."
If the future isn't fixed, yet I can foretell the future, I'd be better
than the Christian god.
You'd be oddity and an impossibility, imo.
If you predict that horse #4 will win in race #2 tomorrow at Belmont,
then I could go to the track and kill the horse right before the race to
invalidate the prophecy.
Could you? Or would you slip on a banana peel, break your leg, and
crawl to the track just 10 seconds too late to do anything?
Now now, I'd have a backup plan, with a cell phone in my pocket.
Without getting violent, even, such as killing the horse, I could
always accuse the horse owner of giving the horse some
illegal drugs, and the horse would be scratched from the race,
just as if it had been killed. Same result. :-)
If the prophecy is 100% true, then something must stop
me from killing the horse.
Well?
Oh boy, I can think of all kinds of other things to stop a particular
horse from winning a race, including some mud slinging, bribing the
jockey, and a host of other things, but as we know, some horses are
good mudders, so they might still be able to win, despite the odds.
BTW, Fair Park on Friday evening, March 5. Kickoff party for the
Irish Festival.
Maybe I'll make it this year.
We'll be manager(s) at one or more (I don't know if we'll be together
on Friday evening) information booths. I'll probably be at the main
entrance - the one opposite the street entrance. Unless it's a (last
couple of years) Dallas March, in which case I'll be the one sitting
in the middle of the bonfire.
Send me a picture so I'll be able to recognize you.
--
Elroy Willis
EAP Chief Editor and Newshound
http://web2.airmail.net/~elo/news
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Prophecies |
11 Feb 2004 11:10:05 PM |
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On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:44:47 GMT, Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net>
posted in alt.atheism:
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
The future has to be fixed for prophecy to be valid.
No, for it to be possible without a miracle.
Or a time-traveling god
Which is two miracles.
If you predict that horse #4 will win in race #2 tomorrow at Belmont,
then I could go to the track and kill the horse right before the race to
invalidate the prophecy.
Could you? Or would you slip on a banana peel, break your leg, and
crawl to the track just 10 seconds too late to do anything?
Now now, I'd have a backup plan, with a cell phone in my pocket.
Which would just happen to be in a dead spot. Or it's a TDMA cell
phone and there are no available slots on the only tower you can
access. Or you have T-Mobile and there's a sudden power failure.
(Haven't you ever read any science fiction?)
Send me a picture so I'll be able to recognize you.
On the way.
--
"So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: "Ye
shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is." Not merely tolerant of it,
but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many religions; but no religion is great
enough or divine enough to add that new law to its code."
- Mark Twain, a Biography
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
.
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| User: "Elroy Willis" |
|
| Title: Re: Prophecies |
12 Feb 2004 04:55:47 AM |
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Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in alt.atheism
Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> posted in alt.atheism:
The future has to be fixed for prophecy to be valid.
No, for it to be possible without a miracle.
Or a time-traveling god
Which is two miracles.
If you predict that horse #4 will win in race #2 tomorrow at Belmont,
then I could go to the track and kill the horse right before the race to
invalidate the prophecy.
Could you? Or would you slip on a banana peel, break your leg, and
crawl to the track just 10 seconds too late to do anything?
Now now, I'd have a backup plan, with a cell phone in my pocket.
Which would just happen to be in a dead spot. Or it's a TDMA cell
phone and there are no available slots on the only tower you can
access. Or you have T-Mobile and there's a sudden power failure.
(Haven't you ever read any science fiction?)
Of course. I'm a big sci-fi fan. Kinda weird, I just found out that
Vulcans don't believe in time travel, at least according to the latest
version of Vulcan thought. They think it's illogical. I'd have to
agree with 'em I think. The grandfather paradox is a logical killer
in my mind.
--
Elroy Willis
EAP Chief Editor and Newshound
http://web2.airmail.net/~elo/news
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
|
| Title: Re: Prophecies |
12 Feb 2004 07:58:13 PM |
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On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:55:47 GMT, Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net>
posted in alt.atheism:
Of course. I'm a big sci-fi fan. Kinda weird, I just found out that
Vulcans don't believe in time travel, at least according to the latest
version of Vulcan thought. They think it's illogical. I'd have to
agree with 'em I think. The grandfather paradox is a logical killer
in my mind.
Nah, you just can't travel to a situation in which you could kill your
grandfather. :)
--
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious
conviction."
- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
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