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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that all point to Jesus being the Messiah, and many of them talk about Him suffering.  From the very beginning in GENESIS 3:15 where it talks about "the seed of the woman" crushing (destroying) "the seed of the serpent" but being struck in the heel himself (injured) to the later prophetic books like ISAIAH (ch. 53, around 700 b.c.) that describes God's "Suffering Servant."  But the prophetic PSALM 22 of David (about 1000 b.c.) DOES describe the Messiah being arrested, tortured, and killed.  (I'll bold the parts that seem to specifically describe what the Messiah would suffer on the Cross.)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(The first thing that Jesus said on the Cross, obviously pointing anyone who knew their scripture to this very psalm.)
    
Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10 From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,
    for trouble is near
    and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me;
    strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
13 Roaring lions that tear their prey
    open their mouths wide against me.
14 I am poured out like water,
(when the soldier pierced his side)
    and all my bones are out of joint.
(happens hanging on a cross for hours)
My heart has turned to wax;

    it has melted within me.
15 My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
(He asked for water, they gave Him vinegar)
    you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs surround me,
(gentiles would have been called "dogs" at this time)
    
a pack of villains encircles me,
(the Sanhedrin court that condemned Him met in a circular room)
    they pierce my hands and my feet.
(even the Romans didn't practice crucifixion until hundreds of years after this psalm was written)

17 All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

19 But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20 Deliver me from the sword,
    my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
    save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
    Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or scorned
    the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
    but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
    before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.
26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek the Lord will praise him—
    may your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
28 for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it!
(And the last thing Jesus said on the Cross was "It is finished!")

This psalm of David, God's poet, describes what Jesus was feeling on the Cross, a thousand years later.



Edited by Eric Jansen on 27 April 2019 at 5:48pm
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Even if we were to take it as a given that this is a "prophecy come true", it's a neat trick, but it doesn't explain why the Bible proper - the "New Testament" - still contains numerous archaic, bizarre, and outright disturbing teachings.

For example, here's a lovely Bible story you can tell your kids, from Mathew 21:

Jesus Curses a Fig Tree

"18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

21 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

I'm sure that's a lesson we could all apply the next time we go through the drive-thru at McDonald's and they're out of Sundaes.
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Steven Myers
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

But the prophetic PSALM 22 of David (about 1000 b.c.) DOES describe the Messiah being arrested, tortured, and killed.  (I'll bold the parts that seem to specifically describe what the Messiah would suffer on the Cross.)

-----------------

Serious question: what are the not bolded parts describing?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Sorry, Eric Jansen, but you need to learn the difference between prophecy (which does not exist) and passages written and rewritten to conform with what has been written before.
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Just playing devil's advocate, since I am an atheist as well, but:

"I can't prove that Leprechauns exist. But I don't need to. Up until the point where they are proven to exist, and have some tangible impact on my life, they are totally irrelevant."

Dark matter. Black Holes. Positrons. Things that either are proposed, but not proven, or were proposed by theoreticians first without empirical evidence at the time. Were they utterly irrelevant before being proven?

If someone makes an unproven claim, you have every right to remain deeply sceptical until such a time as they can demonstrate either evidence or details of their hypothesis.

I'm willing to accept the existence of all sorts of esoteric concepts and technologies based on someone being able to credibly explain each step of how the technology works. I don't dismiss it as irrelevant if there's no tangible impact on my life.

For example, Moderna and Merck are trying to find a vaccine for cancer using mRNA technology. The technology is unproven, still yet to go through any kind of successful testing stage. It has no tangible impact on your life at this point. Totally irrelevant? Please.

If you can credibly explain your leprechaun hypothesis, then I am willing to listen, rather than dismiss it out of hand based on the arbitrary crucible of its tangible impact on your life. If it becomes clear that it is impossible to ever verify its existence one way or the other? Yes, then it becomes irrelevant.


Edited by Peter Martin on 27 April 2019 at 10:42pm
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 27 April 2019 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

 Peter Martin wrote:
Dark matter. Black Holes. Positrons. Things that either are proposed, but not proven, or were proposed by theoreticians first without empirical evidence at the time. Were they utterly irrelevant before being proven?


In terms of our daily lives, I'd say they were irrelevant. There is a significant difference between saying:

"Something might exist, but until we prove it to be true, and determine its impact, it is simply a theory."

and

"God exists, even if you don't see any evidence of Him and don't believe in His works, and if you don't worship him and follow his [alleged] teachings, then you will burn in Hell for eternity."

Scientists do not actively encourage people to action based on unproven theories. Religion on the other hand does precisely that, frequently with catastrophic results.

So to me, logically, God(s), or powerful being(s) that are the equivalent thereof, may exist in an infinite Universe. But given there's no credible evidence* that it/they exist, or that it/they have communicated their desires to us, as mathematician Pierre Simon Leplace concluded, God is essentially an irrelevancy.

 Peter Martin wrote:
For example, Moderna and Merck are trying to find a vaccine for cancer using mRNA technology. The technology is unproven, still yet to go through any kind of successful testing stage. It has no tangible impact on your life at this point. Totally irrelevant? Please.


So presumably, you have evidence that (a) a company known to previously release working medical cures is working on this technology, (b) that it has some valid, scientific basis in potentially yielding some positive results, and (c) some estimable timeline in being released.

If the answer to (a), (b), and (c) are false, then yes, it is irrelevant. But given the answer to (a) is certainly true, and a little research shows that (b) is true also based on lab results, then may well be relevant to cancer suffers based on the evidence, and is not the same as simply claiming that something exists, but for which zero evidence is provided.



* The Bible, Koran etc. do not count as credible evidence, as the "Jesus has a hissy fit against a fig tree" story I posted earlier demonstrates.

Edited by Koroush Ghazi on 28 April 2019 at 12:00am
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 28 April 2019 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 7 post reply


 QUOTE:
 a pack of villains encircles me,
(the Sanhedrin court that condemned Him met in a circular room)


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John Byrne
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Posted: 28 April 2019 at 8:20am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Ah, Medieval art! So subtle.
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 28 April 2019 at 8:39am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Yes, when I saw that picture I was reminded of some "Golden Age" comics.
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Paul Kimball
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Posted: 28 April 2019 at 10:51am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I attended a Baptist church on a irregular basis as child, I can tell you that
homosexuality was not accepted. If things have changed, I wonder if they tell
their congregation "hey we get things wrong sometimes, think for yourself."
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Ed Aycock
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Posted: 29 April 2019 at 8:20am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I tried. 

I failed.

I fell away.

Today, I am a content gaytheist.
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