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New Evidence Found To Show Humans Came From Fish

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Clearly they don't give that specific date or you wouldn't be having to do all of these mathematical and mental gymnastics to get the date you need.

Please note you have not provided any Bible passages to me.

You are overstating the issue. Here are some helps:

It's very simple, actually, and illuminating. Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon …Cyrus allows return to Israel ...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Your argument is dead. You claimed that the prophecies take us to a specific date and cannot show how. You ask me to do it for you when I've already told you that you cannot add any number of days to a calendar year and arrive at a specific date.

And of course you're proselytizing. What else would you be doing? You aren't debating. You evade most of the rebuttals offered. You still won't answer why the prophecy uses a random calendar - the Gregorian - rather than the calendar of the people who were told the prophecy, why the first 70 (430 BCE - 360 BCE) years isn't multiplied by seven, why those 70 years between two common era calendar dates uses a 360 day year rather than a 365.2425 day year that the common era calendar uses, or how you get from a year to a date adding days.

What's the date (including month and day) 50,000 days after 1971? It's a ridiculous question. One needs to know whether to start from February 2nd of that year, or June 6th, or November 11th, or whatever.

What's you explanation for evading every one of those questions?

That's a rhetorical question that need not be answered.

First, there is no expectation that you would ever tackle an inconvenient question.

Second, it is understood that you have no satisfactory answers because your argument is fatally flawed, you can see that, but still continue to assert it. Nothing says "faith" and why so many of us eschew it for reason better than that.

You're grasping at nothingness for validity, seeing it shot down, and running from that because you have chosen faith over reason and now finding yourself forced to take indefensible positions believed by faith but contradicted by evidence and/or reason.

The date of the decree of Cyrus for the Jewish people to return home from the Babylonian diaspora (the day in the Hebrew calendar year) is available, as is the secular historical match. The difference is that some archaeologists place Cyrus's decree about three years differently than the Bible date--making the calculated return in 1945, not 1948, May 14. Can you understand how I'd find it reasonable to think the archaeologists are an aggregate three years off the mark regarding a date 6 centuries before Christ? Can you understand how I find you being unreasonable regarding your standards for prophecy proofs?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The date of the decree of Cyrus for the Jewish people to return home from the Babylonian diaspora (the day in the Hebrew calendar year) is available, as is the secular historical match. The difference is that some archaeologists place Cyrus's decree about three years differently than the Bible date--making the calculated return in 1945, not 1948, May 14. Can you understand how I'd find it reasonable to think the archaeologists are an aggregate three years off the mark regarding a date 6 centuries before Christ? Can you understand how I find you being unreasonable regarding your standards for prophecy proofs?

My standard for prophecy is that it should be at least as good as man's best efforts, which are predictions of science.

The criticism of your claim that the exact date was predicted stands unrebutted. You have no precise date for Cyrus' decree. Apparently, you don't even have a precise year. Now, you are moving the goalpost - within a few years is good enough, and you find it unreasonable to expect a god to do better than that.

Sure, if your purpose was to propose that men can come up with a series of arbitrary assumptions such as how many years get multiplied by 7 (nobody doubts that if the arithmetic worked out better using 430 x 7 years that that would be your choice instead) and eventually with enough ad hoc tinkering come up with something that's at most a few years off, you have succeeded.

But if you want to invoke divine, transcendent knowledge, you'll need better.

You'll also need to improve your game. Ignoring rebuttals and repeating the rebutted claims is not only ineffective, it's counterproductive - it screams out that you understand that you have no response to valid criticism - and is actually bad faith disputation. Your values in debate may not be those of the academic community, but in that milieu, one is expected to address the specifics of one's interlocutor's arguments one by one, agreeing that they seem correct where they do and explaining why they don't where they don't, and to modify one's position accordingly where appropriate.

Failing to do so is considered a tacit admission of defeat. It is in a formal debate as judged by an impartial audience - the last one to make a feasible argument that was not successfully rebutted is generally considered the debater that prevailed.

And it is in a court of law. The defense gives an argument fro why the defendant is not guilty. The prosecutor reveals the holes and contradictions in the story, and produces physical evidence contradicting the alibi and defense. If the defense simply repeats the story just contradicted without addressing the specific of the prosecution's argument, given an impartial verdict, somebody's going to prison.

I called that bad faith disputation. So what is good faith disputation? It's the process called dialectic. It's the cooperative search for truth between two or more parties that have the same rationalist epistemology - that is, thay agree that the application of valid reasoning to true, shared premises and to all of the relevant evidence leads to sound conclusions, If they have that in common, they can work back to their point of departure one from the other and make the case for following the path each has chosen.

Optimally, one can persuade the other and they come into accord. The winner there, incidentally, is not the one who was correct, but the one who was corrected.

And when they cannot agree, generally because of different beliefs or values such as what is likely to be true or what is important, they can understand one another, and probably each agree that if he shared the others beliefs or values, he would come to the same conclusion.

What you are doing here is nothing like that. You don't engage. You don't rebut. You don't address specific objections. You just repeat your original cut-and-paste post unchanged, unmodified by anything that has transpired. There is no evidence that you have read much less understood the objections to your argument.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Did you take off the 70 years for the captivity served in Babylon?

430-70 = 360

Cyrus's decree > 360 times 7 times 360 days > May 14, 1948!!!

And there it is again - bad faith disputation. Repeating claims already challenged and rebutted with no acknowledgement of the counterarguments.

Do you not have any sense of how damaging that is to your apparent purpose? Have you no sense yet of the values of your target audience? You are not sending the message that you intend. You are sending the opposite message. You would like to show us how amazing and prophetic your scriptures are so that we might think that they reveal the kind of transcendent knowledge about the future available only to a god.

But what you show us is the opposite. You show us that people have to resort to specious arguments to defend their claims that the Bible is prophetic in any non-trivial way.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
You are overstating the issue. Here are some helps:

It's very simple, actually, and illuminating. Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon …Cyrus allows return to Israel ...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.
There's nothing simple about this. Please continue to tell me how simple it is while you perform your mathematical and mental gymnastics to get to the date you need.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
My standard for prophecy is that it should be at least as good as man's best efforts, which are predictions of science.

The criticism of your claim that the exact date was predicted stands unrebutted. You have no precise date for Cyrus' decree. Apparently, you don't even have a precise year. Now, you are moving the goalpost - within a few years is good enough, and you find it unreasonable to expect a god to do better than that.

Sure, if your purpose was to propose that men can come up with a series of arbitrary assumptions such as how many years get multiplied by 7 (nobody doubts that if the arithmetic worked out better using 430 x 7 years that that would be your choice instead) and eventually with enough ad hoc tinkering come up with something that's at most a few years off, you have succeeded.

But if you want to invoke divine, transcendent knowledge, you'll need better.

You'll also need to improve your game. Ignoring rebuttals and repeating the rebutted claims is not only ineffective, it's counterproductive - it screams out that you understand that you have no response to valid criticism - and is actually bad faith disputation. Your values in debate may not be those of the academic community, but in that milieu, one is expected to address the specifics of one's interlocutor's arguments one by one, agreeing that they seem correct where they do and explaining why they don't where they don't, and to modify one's position accordingly where appropriate.

Failing to do so is considered a tacit admission of defeat. It is in a formal debate as judged by an impartial audience - the last one to make a feasible argument that was not successfully rebutted is generally considered the debater that prevailed.

And it is in a court of law. The defense gives an argument fro why the defendant is not guilty. The prosecutor reveals the holes and contradictions in the story, and produces physical evidence contradicting the alibi and defense. If the defense simply repeats the story just contradicted without addressing the specific of the prosecution's argument, given an impartial verdict, somebody's going to prison.

I called that bad faith disputation. So what is good faith disputation? It's the process called dialectic. It's the cooperative search for truth between two or more parties that have the same rationalist epistemology - that is, thay agree that the application of valid reasoning to true, shared premises and to all of the relevant evidence leads to sound conclusions, If they have that in common, they can work back to their point of departure one from the other and make the case for following the path each has chosen.

Optimally, one can persuade the other and they come into accord. The winner there, incidentally, is not the one who was correct, but the one who was corrected.

And when they cannot agree, generally because of different beliefs or values such as what is likely to be true or what is important, they can understand one another, and probably each agree that if he shared the others beliefs or values, he would come to the same conclusion.

What you are doing here is nothing like that. You don't engage. You don't rebut. You don't address specific objections. You just repeat your original cut-and-paste post unchanged, unmodified by anything that has transpired. There is no evidence that you have read much less understood the objections to your argument.

What I am doing--in good faith with you, who are thoughtful and thought-provoking to me, is explaining, not concealing. Please don't judge me so harshly.

I'm saying that when I presented the dates I had from non-Grant Jeffrey sources to other skeptics, they cited archaeology which moved the Cyrus decree by about three years to 1945. I pointed out the folly of trivializing the prediction. It's easy to believe the archaeologists were off by 3 years.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Why would I take off when the punishment time, not the remaining time after Babylon, is referred to?

I don't follow. I apologize.

The captivity/diaspora was to last 430 years. After 70 years, when a decree came to return to the land, many were disobedient and stayed in Babylon. 360 punished times 7.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What I am doing--in good faith with you, who are thoughtful and thought-provoking to me, is explaining, not concealing. Please don't judge me so harshly.

Thank you for the kind words.

Why do you think I am judging you too harshly? I am merely pointing out what is self-evident: You don't argue in good faith. I described what was required to meet that standard. You need to carefully read what is written in rebuttal and acknowledge the points that you agree with and explain why you don't agree with the others. If you aren't doing that, all you are doing is preaching.

If that doesn't matter to you, that's fine. But you should know that you have zero chance of persuading a rational skeptic with your bad faith disputation. I for one feel that the prophecy thing is played out. You presented your argument, it was rebutted in multiple places, you ignored each of those arguments and repeated your original post word for word with no evidence that you even read the objections much less understood them.

And I explained to you that on this side of the reason/faith line, you lost your argument when you chose to do that. There is nothing more anybody need say. Your argument was defeated, and you didn't even bother to try to save it.


I'm saying that when I presented the dates I had from non-Grant Jeffrey sources to other skeptics, they cited archaeology which moved the Cyrus decree by about three years to 1945. I pointed out the folly of trivializing the prediction. It's easy to believe the archaeologists were off by 3 years.

Irrelevant to your defense. Relevant to the argument that your numbers mean nothing.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
There's nothing simple about this. Please continue to tell me how simple it is while you perform your mathematical and mental gymnastics to get to the date you need.

There's no need to be facetious. Here are the facts:

1. It wasn't self-fulfilling.

2. Israel was formed in a day (also a prophecy) on May 14, 1948.

3. Post-this event, skeptics questioned why the diaspora didn't end 360 years after Cyrus's decree (the prophecy).

4. There four verses stating a "seven times" punishment.

360 times 7, converting biblical lunar years to our Gregorian calendar--May 14, 1948, which sounds to me like God saying (not me!) "Checkmate, skeptics!"
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't follow. I apologize.

The captivity/diaspora was to last 430 years. After 70 years, when a decree came to return to the land, many were disobedient and stayed in Babylon. 360 punished times 7.

OK, the time for the punishment was 430 years. The rule is that the amount of punishment is to be multiplied seven-fold. So 430x7=2910. THEN you subtract the 70.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
There's no need to be facetious. Here are the facts:

1. It wasn't self-fulfilling.

2. Israel was formed in a day (also a prophecy) on May 14, 1948.

3. Post-this event, skeptics questioned why the diaspora didn't end 360 years after Cyrus's decree (the prophecy).

4. There four verses stating a "seven times" punishment.

360 times 7, converting biblical lunar years to our Gregorian calendar--May 14, 1948, which sounds to me like God saying (not me!) "Checkmate, skeptics!"
Sorry, I'm not buying it. If it actually said, "Israel will become a country on May 14, 1948" I'd be slightly more impressed than I am now. But it doesn't.
Even then, I don't see how that would be evidence for the existence of the Christian god. At most, it would be evidence that some humans might be able to predict the future in some way.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
OK, the time for the punishment was 430 years. The rule is that the amount of punishment is to be multiplied seven-fold. So 430x7=2910. THEN you subtract the 70.

But the punishment IS diaspora. Look at the logical progression:

1. "Sentenced to 430 years of diaspora"
2. "70 years served, justly leaving 360 years of sentence"
3. "Refused to return to Israel, 360 then multiplied by 7"

All of which sounds interesting but gets more interesting that it calculates to 1948 AD, the restoration of Israel, which prophecy wasn't self-fulfilling because notice was taken AFTER 1948!
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Sorry, I'm not buying it. If it actually said, "Israel will become a country on May 14, 1948" I'd be slightly more impressed than I am now. But it doesn't.
Even then, I don't see how that would be evidence for the existence of the Christian god. At most, it would be evidence that some humans might be able to predict the future in some way.

1. It does say that, in a lovely way--so that there is just enough evidence for Christians to trust and skeptics to reject.

2. Once I got to where you were there--uh-oh, the Bible was written by super-intelligent beings who know the future/timespace, I was on my way . . .
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
1. It does say that, in a lovely way--so that there is just enough evidence for Christians to trust and skeptics to reject.

2. Once I got to where you were there--uh-oh, the Bible was written by super-intelligent beings who know the future/timespace, I was on my way . . .
1. It doesn't say it in a straightforward obvious way that would actually confirm that a detailed and accurate prophecy was actually made. The fact that you have still failed to cite the Bible verse reinforces that to me.
2. I see no evidence or reason to believe that the Bible was written by super-intelligent beings that know the future/timespace. What I see are a collection of books that are obviously written by human beings with knowledge that was limited to the time period in which they lived.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
1. It doesn't say it in a straightforward obvious way that would actually confirm that a detailed and accurate prophecy was actually made. The fact that you have still failed to cite the Bible verse reinforces that to me.
2. I see no evidence or reason to believe that the Bible was written by super-intelligent beings that know the future/timespace. What I see are a collection of books that are obviously written by human beings with knowledge that was limited to the time period in which they lived.

Here are some specific verses. Thanks!

Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

606 BCE …Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon

536 BCE …Cyrus allows return to Israel

...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Here are some specific verses. Thanks!

Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

606 BCE …Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon

536 BCE …Cyrus allows return to Israel

...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.
You've already cited this to me. We started this conversation with you telling me that the Bible states the exact date ... as in "Israel will form it's own sovereign nation on May 14, 1948." This turned out not to be the case and instead you've given me this stuff, several times. This does not clearly state any date at all. I'm sorry but for at least the third time, I do not find any of these exercises in math/mental gymnastics to be impressive or indicative of the fulfilling of any great prophecy at all. As I said before, I would be much more impressed if the Bible stated the actual date, but that I still would not consider that proof that the god you worship exists - it would simply indicate that some human(s) at some point in time are able to predict some things about the future. You've still got a lot of work to do if you want to get to the existence of god(s).
 
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