proplog said:
One of the problems is correlating current events with Biblical forecasts....Parsimony is another useful concept used in science and applicable to understanding the Bible.
OK, here is a parsimonious, K.I.S.S. style explanation for you: The bible is a huge, hodge-podge collection of "oral tradition" stories which were finally written down (after man figured out how to write), in various diverse places, by many different people -- human people. Tribal oral traditions, passed down, generation to generation, then finally people start having the ability to write them down.
It didn't become the thing we now call "bible" until hundreds -- no, thousands -- of years later.
If, by way of modern day example, you collected all of the World War II movies together, and spliced them together, what you would end up with is a really long, boring movie which is not even historically accurate because it was based hollywood stories, not strict historical records. Long, boring, inaccurate, and virtually pointless (unless you like WWII movies ).
If anyone tried to suggest that such a work not only was historically accurate/significant, but that it made predictions that came true later in the movie, most people would not be impressed by that claim. For example, at one point, the actor in one of the movies in the collage, playing an American, says "We're going to win this war" and 90 minutes later, maybe in another movie that is part of the collage, lo and behold, his prediction was correct -- American wins WWII").
Seeing amazing predicitive abilities in this scenario would be ridiculous. But to then suggest that this crazy collage movie predicted stuff that is going to happen in the future -- our future, i.e. 2002, would probably land you in a mental hospital.
Same thing as the bible, except that the media is different: the bible was written, films are films. Different medium, same message -- a hodge-podge collection of stories.
I've got to hand it to you proplog, you have gone out on a limb and set a date: Dec 20, 2002. Most people finding "predictions" in the bible only find the prediction after the even has happend (which means it isn't really a prediction, but rather is a classic case of fallacioius post hoc reasoning.) When nothing of significance in history happens on that date, will you be humbled by making an ass out of yourself? No, probably not. I think it was Carl Sagan who said something about how amazing it is that after people make "bible based" predictions that don't come to pass, they don't dissappear. Rather they come up with some way to wriggle out of the embarrasement and save face.
Here are some wriggle points you can start working on now, so you will be ready with them come Dec 20, 2002, when no nukes have exploded:
(1) You were right about the prediction, but wrong about the year. It is Dec 20, 2003 (or 2010 or 2020.. etc.)
(2) As a result of all the praying from the penitent ones, God decided to spare us (which, although merciful, makes one ask whatever happened to letting your yes mean yes and your no mean no and your Dec 20 2002 mean Dec 20 2002.)
(3) Satan is working to spoil God's plans (which makes one wonder just how lame this god is, how could any other creature spoil his plans, and if god is all-seeing, shouldn't he have known and predicted that the plan would be spoiled, and predicted that too?)
(4) (This one is lifted from the Wathctower playbook) You were right about the prediction and the date, you just didn't understand that it was a virtual/invisible/holy/figurative nuke that exploded, not a literal one. Yes, yes, hidden from human eyes. Look, the proof is all so clear, you can see perfectly now how it was an invisible fulfillment, not a literal one. Yup, that's it! You were totally correct in your prediction, and the fact there is no proof prooves that it happened invisibly.
You can come up with your own in addition to these, false prophets always manage to save face, at least in their own eyes and the eyes of their followers. Hey, how knows, maybe you can be the start of a whole new religious cult!
~Quotes.
Edited to add: OK, I wasn't as parsimonious as I intended to be with that
Edited by - Quotes on 27 October 2002 4:3:59
