Author Topic: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?  (Read 7306 times)

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Offline GuineaPig

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #35 on: March 08, 2012, 07:35:16 AM »
Considering Jesus himself was an apocalyptic preacher who thought the end was nigh, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the End of Days.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #36 on: March 08, 2012, 07:56:33 AM »
I actually looked up some stats earlier. About 15% of the Christian population think the end of days will happen in their lifetime.

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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #37 on: March 08, 2012, 07:57:47 AM »
Considering Jesus himself was an apocalyptic preacher who thought the end was nigh, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the End of Days.

Interesting. I thought I was the only one who subscribed to that view.

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Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #38 on: March 08, 2012, 08:04:46 AM »
I actually looked up some stats earlier. About 15% of the Christian population think the end of days will happen in their lifetime.

rumborak

I legitimately wonder how much that figure is going to drop after Dec 21 2012. :lol I doubt there's any religious reasoning to believe anything will occur in our lifetime as opposed to far off in the distant future.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #39 on: March 08, 2012, 10:02:18 AM »
Considering Jesus himself was an apocalyptic preacher who thought the end was nigh, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the End of Days.

Well since he accurately prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem...I'd say he was pretty spot on.   He even said how his followers could escape...and those who listened did.


“Furthermore, when YOU see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolating of her has drawn near. Then let those in Ju‧de′a begin fleeing to the mountains, and let those in the midst of her withdraw, and let those in the country places not enter into her..." (Luke 21:20, 21)

The Romans surrounded Jerusalem in 66 C.E., but then inexplicably withdrew.   The Christians withdrew while the Jews celebrated.  The Romans came back in 70 C.E., and we know what the result of that was.

Jesus prophecy was accurate. 
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Online Adami

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #40 on: March 08, 2012, 10:06:42 AM »
Not exactly a difficult prophecy to make though.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #41 on: March 08, 2012, 10:13:27 AM »
True that it was not hard to prophecy that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem...

But to prophecy that they would be surrounded (read:trapped) and *THEN* still have some opportunity to escape to the mountains?   That's something else.
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Online Adami

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #42 on: March 08, 2012, 10:14:10 AM »
True that it was not hard to prophecy that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem...

But to prophecy that they would be surrounded (read:trapped) and *THEN* still have some opportunity to escape to the mountains?   That's something else.


Not really.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #43 on: March 08, 2012, 10:16:44 AM »
True that it was not hard to prophecy that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem...

But to prophecy that they would be surrounded (read:trapped) and *THEN* still have some opportunity to escape to the mountains?   That's something else.


Not really.

...and this is the beauty of agreeing to disagree.   ;D
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #44 on: March 08, 2012, 10:19:40 AM »
Two things: According to most scholars, Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. Note how for example neither Mark nor Matthew don't talk at all about armies besieging Jerusalem. I think it's not exactly far-fetched to assume the author of Luke added his own interpretation of the siege into this passage.
Secondly, 70AD is not exactly "spot on" when you're prophesying in the year 30AD. As Adami mentioned, that the shit would hit the fan in Jerusalem wasn't exactly clairvoyance.

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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #45 on: March 08, 2012, 10:33:00 AM »
Two things: According to most scholars, Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. Note how for example neither Mark nor Matthew don't talk at all about armies besieging Jerusalem. I think it's not exactly far-fetched to assume the author of Luke added his own interpretation of the siege into this passage.
Secondly, 70AD is not exactly "spot on" when you're prophesying in the year 30AD. As Adami mentioned, that the shit would hit the fan in Jerusalem wasn't exactly clairvoyance.

rumborak

Well...I believe the evidence that it was written circa 56-58 C.E....around the time Luke accompanied Paul to Jerusalem...where Paul was arrested, and then imprisoned in Caesarea for two years. 

But again...we will have to agree to disagree. 
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #46 on: March 08, 2012, 10:43:14 AM »
Also...I don't think you guys are looking at this prophecy through the eyes of a Jew living in Jerusalem.   You have the benefit of history and the complete Roman account.   So anyone who looks at the way things had been going could say "Well *OF COURSE* the Romans were going to sweep in and destroy Jerusalem!"....but the Romans actually suffered quite an embarrassment when they withdrew in 66.   The Jews came out to chase them away...and weren't really shy about out.   The Jews thought God was finally saving their nation from the dreaded Roman rule! 

Run away???  NOW???  We just defeated the Romans!!  Are you CRAZY??  Why would you run away to the mountains NOW???
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Online Adami

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #47 on: March 08, 2012, 10:45:40 AM »
I am predicting right now that Iran will have a civil war within the next 100 years.


So when that happens, please remember that I have divine prophetic abilities.
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Offline jammindude

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #48 on: March 08, 2012, 10:47:47 AM »
I am predicting right now that Iran will have a civil war within the next 100 years.


So when that happens, please remember that I have divine prophetic abilities.

Can you say which side will be destroyed?  Can you say exactly when the refugees will have an opportunity to escape?


EDIT:  WAIT...can you further predict that at some point, they will be surrounded (with all hope lost) and then that the winning side will suddenly withdrawl with no explanation?   And then tell the losing side (when it seems they have just won a victory) that THAT'S when they should run away?

When you can do all that...then maybe....
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #49 on: March 08, 2012, 10:53:24 AM »
Two things: According to most scholars, Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. Note how for example neither Mark nor Matthew don't talk at all about armies besieging Jerusalem. I think it's not exactly far-fetched to assume the author of Luke added his own interpretation of the siege into this passage.
Secondly, 70AD is not exactly "spot on" when you're prophesying in the year 30AD. As Adami mentioned, that the shit would hit the fan in Jerusalem wasn't exactly clairvoyance.

rumborak

Well...I believe the evidence that it was written circa 56-58 C.E....around the time Luke accompanied Paul to Jerusalem...where Paul was arrested, and then imprisoned in Caesarea for two years. 

But again...we will have to agree to disagree.

The dating of Luke is of course a crucial "fault line" for believers. If you date it like most scholars do, there's a few grim conclusions to be made, for example that most likely stuff was plain added by the writer of Luke to add yet another awesomely fulfilled prophecy.
If you subscribe to pre-70AD you gain the fulfilled prophecy, but there's many other things that no longer jibe. So,you kinda trade faith for evidence.

EDIT: I got asked what doesn't jibe if one goes pre-70AD, I'll just quote Wikipedia:

Quote
Support for a later date comes from a number of reasons. Differences of chronology, "style", and theology suggest that the author of Luke-Acts was not familiar with Paul's distinctive theology but instead was writing a decade or more after his death, by which point significant harmonization between different traditions within Early Christianity had occurred.[77] Furthermore, Luke-Acts has views on Jesus' divine nature, the end times, and salvation that are similar to the those found in Pastoral epistles, which are often seen as pseudonymous and of a later date than the undisputed Pauline Epistles.[78]

Add to that, again, that neither Matthew nor Mark mention the details about the siege. Kinda weird they would leave that out. Instead, their accounts are much more apocalyptic.

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« Last Edit: March 08, 2012, 10:59:47 AM by rumborak »
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Online Adami

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #50 on: March 08, 2012, 10:57:22 AM »
I am predicting right now that Iran will have a civil war within the next 100 years.


So when that happens, please remember that I have divine prophetic abilities.

Can you say which side will be destroyed?  Can you say exactly when the refugees will have an opportunity to escape?


EDIT:  WAIT...can you further predict that at some point, they will be surrounded (with all hope lost) and then that the winning side will suddenly withdrawl with no explanation?   And then tell the losing side (when it seems they have just won a victory) that THAT'S when they should run away?

When you can do all that...then maybe....

Yes, the rebels will win. The refugees will have an opportunity to escape within a 2-5 year window from the beginning of the war. No one will be surrounded, and no one will tell the other side that they just won. It's a different war.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #51 on: March 08, 2012, 10:59:00 AM »
Two things: According to most scholars, Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. Note how for example neither Mark nor Matthew don't talk at all about armies besieging Jerusalem. I think it's not exactly far-fetched to assume the author of Luke added his own interpretation of the siege into this passage.
Secondly, 70AD is not exactly "spot on" when you're prophesying in the year 30AD. As Adami mentioned, that the shit would hit the fan in Jerusalem wasn't exactly clairvoyance.

rumborak

Well...I believe the evidence that it was written circa 56-58 C.E....around the time Luke accompanied Paul to Jerusalem...where Paul was arrested, and then imprisoned in Caesarea for two years. 

But again...we will have to agree to disagree.

The dating of Luke is of course a crucial "fault line" for believers. If you date it like most scholars do, there's a few grim conclusions to be made, for example that most likely stuff was plain added by the writer of Luke to add yet another awesomely fulfilled prophecy.
If you subscribe to pre-70AD you gain the fulfilled prophecy, but there's many other things that no longer jibe. So,you kinda trade faith for evidence.

rumborak



It doesn't really matter when it was written, actually.  If it was written late, that merely opens the possibility that Luke added a fake prophecy because it was easy to show the fulfillment of it.  But, of course, whether it was written early or late, the possibility also exists that Luke included that in his text because Jesus did in fact say the things Luke recorded. 

And let's also not forget the fact that for a good many of the scholars who argue a late date, one of the main reasons they do so is because they are coming from a perspective of, "well, we know prophecy isn't a real thing, so if there are supposed prophecies about stuff that were actually fulfilled in 70AD, then surely the book must have actually been written after that time."
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #52 on: March 08, 2012, 11:00:55 AM »
And keep in mind that most people who argue for pre-70 do so because they "know" Jesus was divine and thus prophesied everything correctly.

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Offline bosk1

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #53 on: March 08, 2012, 11:04:16 AM »
Sure.  I get you.  I just don't think there is a whole lot to be gained by arguing about when it was written because, ultimately, such arguments are based more on conjecture than anything else.  Each side has a biased stake in wanting it to be either before or after 70AD.  But ultimately, it doesn't matter much.  Yeah, as a believer, it would be cool and strengthen my position to be able to say definitively that it was written before (and I think it likely was).  But, really, that's not the crux of the issue.  The issue is whether or not there is sufficient reason to believe Luke got it right and that Jesus made the prediction he did that ultimately came true.  Yes, the argument is stronger if Luke has an earlier date.  But since we don't know when it was written, we shouldn't stake our entire argument on the fact that it MUST have been written early, because it very well may not have been.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #54 on: March 08, 2012, 11:19:58 AM »
Well, there's other issues, as the "this generation will not have passed". Doesn't sound like "yeah, in 40 years from now" to me. Under any meaningful definition a generation is 20 years or less, which would mean the prophecy should have happened in 40AD or so, not 70AD.
And the fact that when you read Matthew and Mark, it's pretty clear Jesus isn't talking of a siege on Jerusalem.

rumborak
« Last Edit: March 08, 2012, 11:25:30 AM by rumborak »
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Offline wolfandwolfandwolf

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #55 on: March 08, 2012, 11:25:54 AM »
I feel like we aren't taking the language into account on some of these points.

Offline bosk1

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #56 on: March 08, 2012, 11:27:45 AM »
Eh, I liked some of your earlier arguments on this subject better.  That one doesn't really hold much water, IMO.  The statement is, "this generation will not pass away until..." meaning, some of you people listening to me in this present generation (however long a "generation" is) will still be alive when this happens.  The word isn't used to represent any fixed period, other than to say that some of the people he is talking to will live to see it.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #57 on: March 08, 2012, 11:41:01 AM »
Well, the argument here is, which explanation is the most likely? Taken by themselves there is always an "interesting" counter-interpretation like the one you just stated (which completely goes against the, to me obvious, intent of the sentence). But, when you accumulate all of those evidences together, IMHO the tilt heavily shifts towards the interpretation that Jesus' prophecy was not about the siege of Jerusalem.

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Offline Scheavo

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #58 on: March 08, 2012, 02:25:35 PM »
True that it was not hard to prophecy that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem...

But to prophecy that they would be surrounded (read:trapped) and *THEN* still have some opportunity to escape to the mountains?   That's something else.

Considering surrounding, and laying siege, to a city was a very common practice by, well, every army, I"m gonna go ahead and say that this is a pretty damn hard "prophecy" not to fulfill - if it was even written before the events in question, which is a debate.

Offline bosk1

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #59 on: March 08, 2012, 02:33:00 PM »
Considering surrounding, and laying siege, to a city was a very common practice by, well, every army, I"m gonna go ahead and say that this is a pretty damn hard "prophecy" not to fulfill - if it was even written before the events in question, which is a debate.

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree with that as well for two reason.  First, I don't think there was actually a strong belief that Rome would attack Jerusalem during this time.  Second, specifically with regard to laying siege to the city, I think that would likely have been a strange thought to the Jews in Jerusalem in Jesus' day given that the Romans had constructed a fortress within the city walls, which was occupied at that time. 
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Offline Scheavo

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #60 on: March 08, 2012, 02:43:06 PM »
Considering surrounding, and laying siege, to a city was a very common practice by, well, every army, I"m gonna go ahead and say that this is a pretty damn hard "prophecy" not to fulfill - if it was even written before the events in question, which is a debate.

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree with that as well for two reason.  First, I don't think there was actually a strong belief that Rome would attack Jerusalem during this time.  Second, specifically with regard to laying siege to the city, I think that would likely have been a strange thought to the Jews in Jerusalem in Jesus' day given that the Romans had constructed a fortress within the city walls, which was occupied at that time.

Unless you view Rome as an occupier, and some sort of revolution as eventual.

My point is that it's not very convincing. You're pointing to something that has happened quite often in history, and a common tactic used. Pile on top the possibility that the book is historical, and not prophetical, and I don't see why I should believe that this actually occurred (especially since I'm guessing this is another prophecy, the fulfillment of which also reinforces your belief in the Bible?).

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #61 on: March 08, 2012, 08:54:27 PM »
And let's also not forget the fact that for a good many of the scholars who argue a late date, one of the main reasons they do so is because they are coming from a perspective of, "well, we know prophecy isn't a real thing, so if there are supposed prophecies about stuff that were actually fulfilled in 70AD, then surely the book must have actually been written after that time."
Some of them aren't Christian, and some of them aren't religious at all, but I've never seen that given as a reason for a late date for Luke.  It is done for reasons within the text itself, as well as other texts.  It is a textual conclusion, not a religious/nonreligious conclusion.
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Offline Scheavo

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Re: What god leaves Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps unpunished?
« Reply #63 on: March 09, 2012, 02:36:12 PM »
I remember hearing about that a while ago. Was surprised to hear it, wish it had more of an effect though.