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I was referring to my brother really loving Tom Skilling specifically.

None of them are viewed to be gods. Only one even addresses a god. No proof of Jesus does not negate his divinity. 

The entire point is that their historical existence AND THEIR CLAIMS have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

It is not even claimed that a single letter of the holy scripture was written by the Jesus himself.

Other people wrote down what they thought would make a good story.

For example, if Democritus said, "There will be a terrible storm in two weeks time" and, verily, it came to pass exactly as he predicted, and then Democritus said, "Your wife will become pregnant and will bear a son" does this mean that Democritus is divinely inspired?

No. The predictions above are nothing out of the ordinary.

Plus, these are only two predictions that are commonplace.

The Bible has hundreds and hundreds of prophecies and many of them are not normal, plus they are very specific.

Would you, personally, drop everything and worship the great and powerful Demo?

No. But the OT prophecies are not so general. Take Psalms 22, Zechariah 12:10, or Isaiah 53 for instance. Two of these speak of the act of crucifixion long before the act was known or common. All three contain specifics about what happened on the cross, as reported by the eyewitnesses. 

The qualifier, "when properly interpreted" is an awesome loophole.

If you don't think there is a proper way of interpreting it provides a loophole. But do you really believe that? Are you understanding what I am saying? If you are you are correcting interpreting what I have said. 

And don't forget that even stock traders can go on a hot streak, but, by law, they still need to inform the public that, "past performance is not a guarantee of future results".

Therefore they correctly interpret the signs that they work with. So what. 

You not only have prophecies, but you also have every OT and NT writing speaking and revealing Jesus Christ, in the OT in a typology and shadow. Have you ever studied that aspect of the Bible? 

The Bible is a unity. It covers specific topics, not the whole of human history, just what is relevant in God's dealings with humanity. It concerns sin and separation of humans from God and God's solution. It deals with two very specific covenants and the way God relates to His covenant people. 

Not according to the definition of what constitutes evidence

Wow, I was wondering when you might ask me this...  Let me introduce you to, Tom Skilling - https://www.facebook.com/pg/TomSkilling/posts/

What is it you want me to glean from this link since I receive a popup that wants me to give my name and email address which I refuse to do. I am not a member of Facebook.

Please list some of the specifics.

Your very oldest and most accurate transcripts are from "The Dead Sea Scrolls" and the overwhelming majority of that goldmine does not support the modern christian viewpoint.

There is both Masoretic text and Septuagint text found in the caves. With the book of Isaiah, there are only a few minor transmission errors until the earliest full Masoretic text is found. This shows the great degree of care taken in copying the text from generation to generation. The Christian copyists were not quite as careful, but we have more manuscript evidence from an earlier timeframe than any other ancient manuscript evidence. 

If you were to conceive that the nature of God is actually more like light and water than any physical form or substance then maybe you can perceive how everything within that Reality is immersed within the very same substance therefore there is no true distinction between what is created and the Creator. That would be like saying clay is no longer clay because it was formed into an object. Or that water is no longer water because you poured it into another glass....

It would be haughty to presume that just because you can see only 2 possibilities means that those are the only 2 possibilities.

And since I am aware that atheists aren't aware of this and take much pride in their error, I try to be nice about it because haven't we all been very wrong at times? I know I have.

You may enjoy this BBC radio podcast on linguistic philosophy. Not quite as dry as it seems!

c.20MB.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19

Unless you believe every god exists you are an atheist on some level. If you believe any god exists you are a theist on some level. 

I already included biblical verses on how the records were passed down from generation to generation until they were codified by Moses and possibly those he used to help him. I.e., Genesis 5:1.

In a similar way the Jewish Torah ITSELF claims to be like, super super old, even older than the universe, but the oldest actual copy (original manuscript) we have is...

Yes, it does, like the genealogies that were passed down and trace humanity to Adam and Eve. (see link above).

University of Bologna Professor Mauro Perani announced the results of carbon-14 tests authenticating the scroll's age as roughly 800 years old.

The scroll dates to between 1155 and 1225, making it the oldest complete Torah scroll on record.[LINK]

Interesting! Not that old. 

True, in what sense? Obviously, it is a legitimate record from the time since it is carved in stone. It is also based on a historical king, confirmed by archeologists. The rest of the story seems to be clocked in legend and myth. 

Ok, so when Enki (a.k.a. EA, the god of water, knowledge, and creation) tells Utnapishtim (Noah) to demolish his house and build a boat to save his family from the super top secret scheduled flood...  THAT'S JUST A RIDICULOUS MYTH?

Many ancient records contain creation and flood accounts which makes you wonder if they borrowed from a common source that was corrupted over the years as they departed from the true account. Many ancient beliefs around the world contain such accounts that, because of oral tradition before the written accounts, have been corrupted. 

It sorta seems like you're saying, "how accurately something was copied has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the inherent truth value of the original teaching".

I'm saying the OT or Hebrew Bible, having many authors, is one cohesive and unified account that deals with common themes and deals mostly with a specific people, Israel and how it relates to God.

Let's just say for the sake of argument, that Daniel 2, 9, 12 is 1000000000000000000% accu-rat.

Does this fact alone lend any credibility to any of their beliefs about GODS?  Not really.  Making predictions does not, itself, mean anything at all.

If it is 100% accurate then, since it claims to be a revelation of God speaking to Daniel, it would confirm it is God's revelation.  

Linguistic arbitrariness is always favored by the atheist, who makes arguments that are contingent on twisting language in order to justify an irrational and obviously moronic position.

If they don't  believe truth, why make exception in language!

Ok, but does that mean, that hypothetically speaking, if you were convinced that some other religion (Judaism) had older and more reliable texts than yours (Christianity), that you would then convert?  That is the crux.

Not if the very texts you read speak of a Messiah that would come to the people and the people do not exist in covenant after AD 70. Not if your Scriptures describe a Messiah coming before Jerusalem is once again destroyed. Not if these NT authors appealed to your very OT scriptures and showed you how they all apply to Jesus, and were willing to go to their deaths proclaiming the Messiah had come, was put to death and had risen from the dead and to repent before the coming judgment that God continually warned these OT people would come if they did not repent and turn to them, then they crucify the Sent One, the Deliverer, as Moses forecasted.

Regarding Jesus’ birth—Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Concerning Jesus' ministry and death—Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 

Psalm 22:16-18: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”

None of them are viewed to be gods. Only one even addresses a god. No proof of Jesus does not negate his divinity. 

What does this have to do with the biblical God?

It means that Nanna the Moon god is an older religion than Judaism.  It also begs the question of why the "YHWH" would have been hiding-out up to this point.

Have you ever considered that these religions were castoffs of the true faith that was proclaimed from Genesis 3 onward, that borrowed or corrupted these ancient accounts? 

Yet Abraham turned to the biblical God from idols. So what?

It also lends some credibility to the idea that Abraham's concept of god and heavenly hosts was very likely shaped by this pre-existing religion.

Or their religion by his and those before him, but they corrupted the belief.

The word "Gods" is a nonsensical word, because there cannot be 2 ultimate realities.

I'm sure you would come to accept that too if you believed what I was saying.

Dictionaries do not actually define words.  What they do is do their best to describe how words tend to be used, or have been used in the past.

There is no proof Jesus ever lived. 

It is not a reasonable statement. There is lots of proof. Nineteen extra-biblical sources from antiquity mention Jesus and some of these sources confirm some of the events of Jesus' life, such as the crucifixion and that His follower's believed He was resurrected. 

Post 376

Go to my second reply

Your pursuit of specific names and dates and copies is a misguided red-herring.

No, what I'm getting at is how accurate the transmission of the teachings from the founding/founder of the religion or earliest evidence of it. With lots of manuscripts from different time periods, you can follow corruptions in the text. The closer to the original text usually means the better chance it was copied accurately. 

Your very oldest and most accurate transcripts are from "The Dead Sea Scrolls" and the overwhelming majority of that goldmine does not support the modern christian viewpoint.

There is both Masoretic text and Septuagint text found in the caves. With the book of Isaiah, there are only a few minor transmission errors until the earliest full Masoretic text is found. This shows the great degree of care taken in copying the text from generation to generation. The Christian copyists were not quite as careful, but we have more manuscript evidence from an earlier timeframe than any other ancient manuscript evidence.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient writing that we have multiple, independent original manuscripts of, that very closely corroborate each other.

Original usually implies one. Someone writes the original and others copy from it.

Based on these fact alone (age and multiple copies), do you believe the Epic of Gilgamesh is true?

I'm going to hazard a guess of "no".

True, in what sense? Obviously, it is a legitimate record from the time since it is carved in stone. It is also based on a historical king, confirmed by archeologists. The rest of the story seems to be clocked in legend and myth. 

Not really.  Making predictions does not, itself, mean anything at all.  What you need is a RELIABLE SYSTEM OF MAKING PREDICTIONS THAT IS INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIABLE.  Making some number of accurate predictions without revealing your methods "oh, I had a dream or vision or heard a voice" - is less than meaningless.

1. I challenge you to show me biblical predictions/prophecy that are wrong from what I gave you (Daniel 2, 9, 12). 

2. Nostradamus' prophecies are too ambiguous. You can make them into anything. 

3. History is a verifier of biblical prophecy. 

I think you are playing stupid, because you are breaking up my posts and responding to things like "as for everything else, there is a big problem" when I literally follow that statement with the problem.

You are mocking me.

So, father, son, holy-spirit is itself pure blasphemy?

One in essence, undivided.

But as for everything else, no, there is a big problem.

We do not make parts and pieces of God.

We are not the bricks that make God. We are not the toenails of God. 

The uncreated is not composed of created things.

Created things are not pieces of the uncreated.

They are all older than Abraham (late 6th century BCE).  Does it matter how old they are?  Would you abandon your religion if the dates were ancient enough?  Is that your primary criteria?

Yes, it matters. The transmission, the additions, the corruptions all play into it. The more manuscripts we have the better the comparison between texts.

Abraham did not grow up christian.

Abraham was born and raised in Ur of the Chaldees, which is in modern Iraq, near Nasiriyah in the southeastern part of the country. Joshua 24:2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

What does this have to do with the biblical God?

Yet by saying it is a piece of God, does that not imply that this piece is missing from God?

Or even that the pieces make up God?

God is not diminished.

God is not divided into parts.

Neither is it a strange thing for God to call matter into existence.

So my question is how reliable is the transmission of these religious texts as opposed to the biblical texts? Obviously the greater number of texts (for comparison) and the earlier the text the more close to the original data, and the less chance of transmission errors. 

Is God in everything? Yes.

Is God everywhere? Yes.

Did God create everything in existence from a previously existing substance? No.

It all came from God.

But created things are not God.

It would be incorrect to bow down to a statue and say, "This is God". 

You are not God.

End of debate. You lose.

Nothing doesn't exist. That is its defining characteristic.

I am not talking about god, I am talking about God.

Created things are not part of what is uncreated, that makes no sense.

The point isn't about whether or not the contradictions can be rationalized.

The point is that all ancient texts have similar contradictions AND similar rationalizations.

No, the point is that for a large amount of the claimed contradictions I see on these threads, the person making the claim isolates a Scriptural verse or takes it out of context. 

False analogy.  I am not a god.  I am not the first and only "thing" to exist.

Both you and He create things. The difference is He is omnipotent and omniscient and you are limited in your ability to create.  

Imagine for a second that you are god, and you pop into existence.

God does not pop into existence. He always is. Someone eternal does not have a beginning or end. 

Because there is no store.

You are going to have to make things out of yourself.

Another false analogy. God is able to speak things into existence.

Not quite. When you use a personal pronoun like "you" and "your" it becomes an ad hom directed at the person. 

The evidence is roughly equivalent for each, they all have ancient writings and prophecies (that are confirmed by the writings).

Again, you never answered my original question. I'll add another question. How many ancient copies are found from each of these three and when do they date back to?

I have no idea what your personal standard of evidence are.  Although I have a strong feeling that you would not accept prima facie, a writing that said something like "and then the prophet said, in 200 years there will be a war" and then in the same document, "and it came to pass, exactly 200 years later, that there was a war".  If you want some examples of ancient contradictions and specific rationalizations, 

Take for instance Daniel 2 and the four kingdoms or empires that are easily discernable by their descriptions and later mention of two of them. Then Daniel 9 speaks of six conditions that would take place within a specific period of time in which a Messiah would be killed and THEN the city and sanctuary would be destroyed with details of wars and desolation. The reference is AD 70 when all this happened. Copies of Daniel were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls dating back 200 years before AD 70. Or take Daniel 12 in which all prophecy concerning Daniel's people would be fulfilled.

How is the information equivalent? Do you know anything of Hindu prophecies and how they relate to human history to date? I don't see anything specific there.  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_eschatology

I have checked other beliefs when I was younger (i.e., Zen Buddhism, New Age teachings, Confucianism), plus others since (Islam, Atheism, J.W.'s, Mormonism, Wicca/Paganism, Bahaism), to engage with others, and the factual nature of prophecy and the unity of the Bible rings true, among other considerations. Prophecy is very reasonable. If Christianity is true then all else is false because of the biblical claims. I don't have to check out every other religion because they say contrary things. 

The earliest Hindu texts are from approximately 1000 BCE. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hindu_texts

The earliest Zoroastrian texts are from approximately 2000 BCE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

The earliest Chinese mythological texts are from approximately 3000 BCE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology#Shells_and_bones

Are you saying there are manuscripts from these time frames???

I'm asking for the earliest actual manuscripts retrieved from each. 

The evidence is roughly equivalent for each, they all have ancient writings and prophecies (that are confirmed by the writings).

What is the earliest manuscript of these three religions?

I presume you like Ojeda then?

Everything is made through God's word and spirit.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

God does not pop into existence, there was never a time when God did not exist.

Time was created by God.

God can certainly create from nothing.

But yes, God is in everything. That doesn't mean that a rock is part of God.

For example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk 

I'll answer these alleged contradictions when I get some spare time.

(IFF) the "YHWH" was the first and only "thing" to exist,

 

(THEN) everything that is created or shaped by the "YHWH" MUST BE MADE FROM PIECES OF THE "YHWH".

False analogy. Is what you create, say a painting, you (a piece of you), or is it an expression from you? 

I still want to know what 'prime' means!

It might be that the moon snuck down one night and scooped up all the evidence so therefore you are right. Do you understand anything outside of your playground rhetoric?

That is an ad hom. It implies that my answers are childlike and rhetorical. It avoids answering the question I asked you. So, it attacks the man rather than the question. 

Ok, so Saul of Tarsus wasn't stubborn enough to fully exercise his own free-will?  Saul of Tarsus was just casually capturing and torturing Christians?

And God showed him the error of his ways. Then, when Saul realize he was persecuting the God he served he repented and turned to Him. 

I get it now, Saul of Tarsus lacked "volition".  I guess he was just lucky that the "YHWH" made him into a puppet.

He repented when shown the error of his ways. He used his volition. 

Saul of Tarsus was not "seeking the YHWH".  That's why it took a holy hit man and a talking donkey to change his mind.

He was seeking God, and God revealed Himself. Until that point Saul did not grasp the full extent of who God was, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Just because competing hypotheses are logically mutually exclusive, THIS DOES NOT MEAN that any one of them is necessarily "TRUE".

That is true, but it certainly means that they all can't be true and possibly none of them are true. That is my contention.

(IFF) they are unfalsifiable claims (THEN) their truth value cannot be either confirmed or denied.  This is our epistemological limit.

The coherence and correspondence of what is said can be checked out to their reasonableness. If they make prophetic utterances the quality and quantity of those statements can be checked out as to the falsifiability of the claim. 

When is the earliest recoverable document/manuscript from each religion found? Do you know the answer?

Then you say, "I don't believe in any of these fake gods because anyone can write an ancient book and their prophecies are too vague".

Then I say, "I don't believe in the YHWH because anyone can write an ancient book and their prophecies are too vague".

I say give me the evidence that you believe makes these three gods believable as opposed to Yahweh so I can dispute your claims. 

Then you say, "TLDR, I'm not reading thousands of pages of ancient texts about any of these fake gods because it would be a waste of my time and it doesn't matter if the text says it is true or not because of course it will say it is true, that's what anyone would expect it to say, even if it was totally fake".

Then I say, "TLDR, I'm not reading thousands of pages of ancient texts about the YHWH because it would be a waste of my time and it doesn't matter if the text says it is true or not because of course it will say it is true, that's what anyone would expect it to say, even if it was totally fake".

I asked for the reasonableness of these gods and you avoided the proof or evidence. I am quite willing to discuss the reasonableness of the biblical God and I have offered to demonstrate that He is reasonable to believe as opposed to your three gods. 

1. Are Vishnu, Marduk, or Pangu the same god, and if so what is said about them should not be contradictory?

All three are 100% mutually exclusive.  All three of them are unfalsifiable.

Are they reasonable and what evidence do they give to their reasonableness since you brought up the subject and now want me to do all the bull work?

2. Do you believe the descriptions of these gods contain contradictions?

It is difficult to write thousands of pages of ancient text without at least a few logical contradictions.  But I'm certain, that just like the Jews and the Muslims and the Christians, they have many detailed and scholarly excuses for any apparent conflicts.

List a few that we can discuss them since you are certain. 

As I said before, I do not defend the reasonableness of any other god but the Judeo-Christian God. 

I mean, if EVERYTHING was INTENTIONALLY directed by an omnipotent being, then that would be pretty "f'd-up", right?

I mean, if the "YHWH" could convert the evil oppressor, Saul of Tarsus into an instant saint by scaring the bujesus out of him with a holy messenger angel, doesn't it seem that the "YHWH" would have or could have done the same thing to at least hundreds if not thousands of others, like, you know Stalin or Pol Pot or Torquemada or Richard Dawkins?

I don't believe in gods, I believe in one God. 

God has given what is necessary for salvation yet human beings are stubborn and want to follow their own desires as Romans 1:18-20 points out. 

Richard Dawkins, Stalin, etc., have volition and they chose to ignore and suppress the knowledge of God. Here is what Romans 1 has in common:

When you ignore God, suppress the knowledge of Him, disrespect Him, do not seek Him, He lets you go your own way. 

There don't appear to be any insults or personal attacks in the text you quoted from disgusted.

Please explain what you mean.

In reference to which post? You left out what I was responding to, so how many posts ago was this?