Subject: Re: Honest Questions for an Honest Atheist >Are you being truely honest with your

Subject: Re: Honest Questions for an Honest Atheist

>Are you being truely honest with yourself with reguards to your claim
>that there is no God?

Yes.

>1. Do you understand probability?  There are over 350 distinct prophecies
>fulfilled by Jesus Christ at his first coming what would you rank the
>probability of their fulfillment to be?

To put it simply:

1) I do not believe that most of your "prophecies" were actually predictions
made beforehand.  Obviously if the prophecy is not a prophecy, it is not
going to matter HOW large the "probability" of it not happening is, whether
1:1000, 1:100000, 1:10^900, or anything else.

2) You claim that you are choosing "conservative" figures when you refer
to prophecies that he could fulfil deliberately.  For instance:

>C. He would enter the city on a colt, the foal of an ass (Zec. 9:9)
>	While estimates as high as 1:1000 have been made, on the assumption
>	that this prophecy might be self fulfilled by any desiring to be
>	identified as Messiah I will choose a more conservative figure
>	of 1:10

This is incorrect.  If he could fulfil it deliberately, you don't choose a
probability of "1:10", but a probability of 1.

>D. He will be wounded in the hands (Zec. 13:6)
>	Since this prophecy was given hundreds of years before Rome began
>	to spread their policy of crucifiction, I consider 1:1000 to be
>	a very, if not exceptionally, conservative estimate.

It's also wrong--despite numerous popularizations to the contrary, Jesus was
wounded in the _wrists_.  As were all the crucified people.

If this is indeed a true prophecy, then you have just proven as a fact that
Jesus was not God, since he did not fulfil it.

The 1:1000 figure is bogus anyway--how many different locations in the human
body can you think of to be wounded in, that would be described using different
words?  Certainly not 1000.

>2. Do you really believe that there has not been supernatural intervention
>in the affairs of history?

Yes.

>And now, in fulfillment of specific prophecies (Eze. 37 for instance) God
>has brought these people again into the land that he promised to them.
>What other nation can make such a claim?  Where are the ancient peoples of
>babylon??  Of Egypt? No other national group in existance before the coming
>of the Roman empire exists today!

Just by chance, _some_ people would survive.  If the Babylonians had survived
instead, you would even now be saying "Look, it's divine intervention that
the Babylonians survived, after all other people such as the Jews didn't
survive".  If the ancient Egyptians survived, you'd say "Look, it's divine
intervention that the ancient Egyptians survived, after all the Babylonians
and Jews didn't survive", etc.....
--
"The workers ceased to be afraid of the bosses.  It's as if they suddenly
 threw off their chains." -- a Soviet journalist, about the Donruss coal strike

Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu)