Do GLPers want an impersonal cosmic Santa Claus God who will never hold them accountable for anything?

When someone tells you they don't believe in God I would suggest doing this:

-Take them to Isaiah 53 and ask them who it is talking about.

A lot of people will say: "Well of course it is talking about Jesus."

Then tell them that it was written about 700 years in advance of Jesus.

How is that possible?

Because it is true!

-Then take them to Psalm 22 and ask them who it is talking about.

A lot of people will say: "Well, yeah, it it talking about the crucifixion of Christ."

Then tell them that it was written about 1000 years in advance of Jesus.

How is that possible?

Because it is true!

-Then take them to Daniel 9:24-27 and take them here and have them listen to "Jesus' Death As A Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy":
[link to www.xenos.org]

Then tell them that it was written about 500 years in advance of Jesus.

How could the Bible have predicted the exact time of the coming of the Messiah 500 years in advance?

Because it is true!

You can trust the Bible.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE INFORMATION IN THIS POST.

I'm looking forward to reading the links.

Actually 90848, it is not necessary at all for the prophecies to have been right one year, 100 years, 1000 years or whatever amount of time in advance. All it means is that free will is at odds and nothing more.

The Nazareen himself said that he came so that the prophecies could be fulfilled.

Taken from this light, you can then see that the prophecies may have been totally fabricated somehow but were used to make people stick to or believe in a tradition that was necessary for a certain evolution of humanity.

Secondly, it is not because a prophecy is fulfilled that it must necessarily come from 'god'. Why this propention to project our ignorance at a cosmic scale and not consider that universally speaking there is a lot more that is known than our empirical way of thinking allows?

And lastly, if someone tells me he believes in something or does not believe in something, all I could tell him is that that's just what that is: a belief.

On that scale, both the atheist and the religious are on the same level. One believes there is nothing the other believes there is something. So, what do they know?

You seem to think that we can't really know anything.

Is there any evidence that the prophecies were fabricated? (No.)

Is there a reason you choose to reject the Bible?

What evidence would it take for you to totally surrender your life 100 percent to God?

I do not think that we can't know anything but I am implying that we can't know by deduction. You cannot know by thinking, only realization can make you know and that through the interaction of the spirit within. All else is soul work.

I am not rejecting the Bible, I read it with a different eye than yours. Read again my comment about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A polarized mind is mortal mind that is limited to mortal thoughts which in turn are totally manipulated via the emotions of the thinker.

Surrending to what entity? This is a very dangerous game. You surely are not suggesting that you have appointed yourself 'god's mouthpiece', right? So, why then tell me what 'god' wants or not?

God cannot be thought, it cannot be rationalized.

Are you suggesting that all there is to the universe and reality is what is written in the bible?

All I can say is that one must know, never believe. And to state that you surrender yourself to a force that you do not know but believe into is in itself the manifestation of Luciferian consciousness, that brought about by tasting of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, the act that split the spirit from the creature, that refused the creature the right to know in exchange for the creature's task to construct an intellect and become intelligent so that one day he could receive his spirit again and be his equal, effectively becoming a son of man in spirit.

Don't select your biblical passages this way because it was also said that in those days there will be men who will neither work for god nor the devil but for themselves. Why? because their mind will have been freed of the polarity of good and evil by the penetration of their own spirit.

When asking of us to surrender to 'god' unwittingly you are asking of us to surrender to Lucifer.

The god you are seeking is not of this world.

FROM WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR MIXED-UP THOUGHT PATTERN. I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND YOU GOT ALL THESE FANCY WORDS FROM YOUR "HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS." WHAT I DO BELIEVE IS THAT YOU ARE INTO BOOKS WRITTEN BY "ATHEISTS;" THEN YOU AFFIRM THOSE BELIEFS AS YOUR OWN. YOUR HEAD IS ALREADY MIXED UP BEFORE YOU EVEN OPEN THE BIBLE; IF YOU EVER EVEN DO THAT (OPEN THE BIBLE). WORDS FROM SOME OF THESE WELL KNOWN "ATHEIST CLOWNS" ARE RINGING A BELL IN YOUR PATTERN OF SPEECH. I HAVE HEARD WORDS EXACTLY LIKE THIS BEFORE. YOU NEED TO STUDY GOD'S WORD, AS IT IS GIVEN TO YOU BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND LET THE LORD AFFIRM THESE TRUTHS IN YOUR MIND.

THIS IS WHAT I THINK IS GOING ON HERE: THE DEVIL IS THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION. BY BLINDING THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE, LUCIFER SUCCEEDS IN KEEPING MEN IN THE DARK OR IN A DUNGEON OF THE MIND WHERE THEY ARE LOOKING FOR "BLACK CATS" CALLED "WRONG DOCTRINE." THEY MAY EVEN CALL THE CAT AN "EXCUSE" AND THOUGH THEY ARE CERTAIN THEY HAVE FOUND A REAL CAT "WRONG DOCTRINE," IN THE DUNGEON OF THEIR UNBELIEVER'S MIND, IN REALITY IT TURNS OUT TO BE AN "ILLUSION." THE CAT OR "WRONG DOCTRINE" WAS NEVER REALLY THERE AS IT WAS LUCIFER IN DISGUISE. REMEMBER HALLOWEEN? THERE IS THE COSTUME (CAT OR EXCUSE) TO DECEIVE, WHILE THE REAL PERSON (LUCIFER) IS INSIDE GIVING YOU A CON JOB.

WE LOVE YOU, PRECIOUS SPIRIT. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH LOVES YOU AND YOU NEED TO COME HOME.

I am really confused now.

I believe that Jesus is Lord.

I am pointing people to the Bible and I believe that it is the Word of God.

So that means I am asking people to surrender to Lucifer?

LOL

Nothing could be further from the truth.

And I am not claiming to be "god's mouthpiece".....

What I am doing is advocating the authority of the Word of God which is the Bible.

What I am doing is trying to persuade people that Jesus is the Christ.

What I am doing is trying to wake people up that they CAN have eternal life.

Why don't you read the Bible and decide for yourself. My hope for you and everyone on this site is that they would turn to Jesus Christ and receive eternal life.

So THAT'S your agenda! It's all so clear now!

}:D

@EILEEN
Why all the shouting?

Is not love respect? Reading the bible is not enough if you do not abide by the greatest law that requires you to love thy neighbor.

What you believe is in my mind is irrelevant, really, and I am not an atheist.

@90848

Let me put this in perspective. A belief is a belief. You have yours and it is just fine. I will not try and convince you otherwise. What I can do is explain why I say this or that but I have no incentive in trying to convince you.

I am quite aware that you would not willfully ask people to surrender to Lucifer. Remember, we already belong to him until the spirit has made his home of our minds.

By the way, this is for Eileen, the holy spirit is not in the bible, it comes to you personally and enlightens the mind to dissolve illusions. Since you are not the ‘lord’ I have no need to abide by your affirmations.

As for your second paragraph, Lucifer uses beliefs a lot more than he does unbelief.

And as for your last paragraph, let it be known that the word religion, from Latin religare, which means linking, linking man and god, will disappear when man sees clearly. There will be no religion because there will be no possibility for the mind to be highjacked by not knowing. Religion is the crutch of the one who believes but knows nothing.

Sorry 90848, where were we.

Ah, yes, we belong to him so long as the spirit has not already made of our minds its home. That also is clearly written.

I want to apologize if you thought I was implying you were claiming to be god’s mouthpiece, I was putting my writings in the context that you were not. But, on the other hand, who are you to advocate god’s authority? Under which authority of yours do you take upon yourself to advocate the whole of a book as being god’s word? And, do you realize that persuading people amounts to no less than superimposing your will upon theirs?

That is where my mention of Lucifer comes in. Luciferian consciousness is a consciousness of domination. It is a consciousness of imposition upon the other. Christic consciousness is one that renders free, free of spirit. There is no imposition and it is not from the same realm.

So, as soon as one demands of another to yield, to allow himself to be dominated, it is indeed of Luciferian consciousness that we are proceeding from. The Nazareen does not require us to become slaves but to become good. Quite a difference.

Before achieving eternal life, human consciousness will first have to be immortalized. To do this, its consciousness will have to be transmutated from its current paradigm, its soul will have to be changed into spirit. By this, it automatically is extirpated from the world of the dead and therefore man does not lose consciousness when leaving his body behind. The loss of consciousness at death stems from the severance of the link between the spirit and the soul. At death, the spirit returns to its realm, the soul return to death, the body to the earth and so on.

We like to believe that the immortality implies the immortality of the body. That is already a nonsense and almost a sin to think that way if we are to live by the Nazareen’s own life.

This need to believe in the immortality of the body stems from the ego’s will to not change. To reinforce the status quo. To believe that he can be redeemed with all its bad or that by some miracle, outside of his will or beyond his own need to evolve, the bad can be taken away from him.

That cannot be so. Why do you believe that there is going to be so much suffering? Because there is an extreme debt to be paid and now is payback time.

Every time we ask someone else to change, it is subtly because if they do, they will conform to our views and therefore we may not have to change ourselves. It is for us that we want others to change, not for them.

Belief will not bring eternal life but faith will. Faith is not blind belief, it is the result of the intimate contact between man and his source, where the source instruct man of the illusions of his mentation and force him to see by shedding light upon all the dark aspects of his condition and forcing him to look, and look, and look, until he breaks down in his insistence to remain as he is even though 95% of his consciousness consist of Luciferian artifacts.

Thank you for your hopes my friend but be careful that this hope does not turn into hopelessness.

Many will believe they are saved but won’t.

Why?

Good luck on your way.

I think we have one already.

I found this article and I wanted to share it with you all:

THE UNIQUENESS OF THE BIBLE
By Dennis Crawford



The Bible is unique in many ways that make it worth investigating to see if it is in fact THE WORD OF GOD, as it says it is.

Webster defines "unique" as: (1) "One and only; single, sole"; (2) "Different from all others; having no other equal."

Professor M. Monntiero Williams (cited by Sidney Collett, "All About the Bible," Fleming H. Revell), former Boden professor of Sanskrit, spent some 42 years studying Eastern books and said in comparing them to the Bible: "pile them, if you will, on the left side of your study table; but place your own Holy Bible on the right side all by itself, all alone and with a wide gap between them. For, there is a gulf between it and the so-called sacred books of the East which severs the one from the others utterly, hopelessly, and forever...a veritable gulf which cannot be bridged over by any science or religious thought" (ref. 6, pp.314, 315).

Any sincere individual seeking truth would at least consider a book with these qualifications.

I. THE BIBLE IS UNIQUE IN ITS CONTINUITY.

This harmony exists in spite of the fact that it was written over a 1600-year span, during 60 generations, and by more than 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, and others. The Bible was written in a variety of places and customs, during times of war and peace, on three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe), in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Yet, when the Bible is analyzed as a whole, it speaks with amazing unity and harmony about hundreds of controversial subjects about which there are hundreds of opposing opinions! Our science books, which represent "truth" about science and nature as we know it, are obsolete in as soon as five to ten years, and must be constantly revised because of "theories" or concepts that are in error!

F. F. Bruce ("The Books and the Parchments," Fleming H. Revell) observes that: "Any part of the human body can only be properly explained in reference to the whole body. And any part of the Bible can only be properly explained in reference to the whole Bible" (ref.5, p.89).

"The Bible, at first sight, appears to be a collection of literature--mainly Jewish. If we inquire into the circumstances under which the various biblical documents were written, we find that they were written at intervals over a space of nearly 1400 years. The writer wrote in various lands, from Italy in the west, to Mesopotamia and possibly Persia in the east.

"The writers themselves were a diverse group of people, not only separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles, but belonging to the most different walks of life. In their ranks we have kings, herdsmen, soldiers, legislators, fishermen, statesmen, courtiers, priests, prophets, a tentmaker, a...gentile physician, not to speak of others of whom we know nothing, apart from the writings they have left us.

"The writings themselves belong to a great variety of literary types. They include history, law (civil, criminal, ethical, ritual, sanitary), religious poetry, didactic treatises, lyric poetry, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, in addition to the distinctively biblical types of prophecy and apocalyptic.

"For all that, the Bible is not simply a collection of writings, or anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. An anthology is compiled by an anthologist, but no anthologist compiled the Bible" (ref.5, p.88).

If you took ten authors, all from one walk of life, one generation, one place, one time, one mood, one continent, and one language, and just one controversial subject (the Bible speaks on hundreds of subjects in harmony and agreement), would the authors agree? No! You would have a conglomeration!

II. THE BIBLE IS UNIQUE IN ITS CIRCULATION.

The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book.

There have been more copies produced of its entirety and more portions and selections than any other book in history. Some will argue that in a designated month or year more of a certain book was sold. However, over all, there is absolutely no book that reaches, or even begins to compare to, the circulation of the scriptures. The first major book printed was the Latin Vulgate (Bible). It was printed on Gutenberg's press (ref.18, pp.478-480).

Geisler and Nix cite S. L. Greenslade (ed.), "The Cambridge History of the Bible," p. 479: "No other book has known anything approaching this constant circulation" (ref.8, p.122).

III. THE BIBLE IS UNIQUE IN ITS TRANSLATION.

The Bible was the first book translated (Septuagint: Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, c. 250 B.C.) (ref.19, p.1147).

The Bible has been translated and retranslated and paraphrased more than any other book in existence.

(Continued)......

(Continued from previous post).......

IV. THE BIBLE IS UNIQUE IN ITS SURVIVAL.

Being written on materials that perish easily, having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press, did not diminish its style, correctness, nor existence.

"The Bible, compared with other ancient writings, has more manuscript evidence than any ten pieces of classical literature combined" (ref.1, p.21).

A. T. Robertson, the author of the most comprehensive grammar of New Testament Greek, wrote, "There are some 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate and at least 1,000 for the other early versions. Add over 4,000 Greek manuscripts and we have 13,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. Besides all this, much of the New Testament can be reproduced from the quotations of the early Christian writers" (ref.15, p.70).

John Warwick Montgomery ("History and Christianity," Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL) says that "to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament" (ref.13, p.29).

Jews preserved it as no other manuscript ever has been preserved. They kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word, and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity--scribes, lawyers, massoreetes. Whoever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plato or Aristotle, Cicero or Seneca?

"In regard to the New Testament, there are about thirteen thousand manuscripts, complete and incomplete, in Greek and other languages, that have survived from antiquity. No other work from classical antiquity has such attestation" (ref.14, pp.230-1).

That textual errors do not endanger doctrine is stated by Sir Frederic Kenyon (one of the great authorities in the field of New Testament textual criticism) who writes, "It can’t be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain: Especially in the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of the early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or another of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world" (ref.9, p.23).

In an article in the North American Review, a writer made some interesting comparisons between the writings of Shakespeare and the scriptures, showing how much greater care must have been bestowed upon the biblical manuscripts than upon any other writings, even when there was so much more opportunity of preserving the correct text by means of the printed copy than when all the copies had to be made by hand. He said:

"It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and eight [years], should be far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old.

"During nearly fifteen of which it existed only as a manuscript...with perhaps a dozen or so exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its readings must relate rather to the interpretation of the words than any doubts as to the words themselves.

"But in every one of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays there are probably a hundred readings still in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur" (ref.11, p.15).

SURVIVAL THROUGH PERSECUTION:

The Bible has withstood vicious attacks by its enemies as no other book. Many have tried to burn it, ban it and outlaw it "from the days of Roman emperors to the present-day Communist-dominated countries" (ref.14, p.232).

Sidney Collett in "All About the Bible" says, "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But what has happened? Voltaire has passed into history; while the circulation of the Bible continues to increase in almost all parts of the world, carrying blessing wherever it goes."

Concerning Voltaire, Geisler and Nix point out that "only fifty years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles" (ref.8, p.123). What an irony of history!

The world abounds with such instances...as one has truly said, "We might as well put our shoulder to the burning wheel of the sun, and try to stop it on its flaming course, as attempt to stop the circulation of the Bible" (ref.6, p.63).

In A.D. 303, the emperor Diocletian issued an edict to destroy Christians and their sacred book: "...an imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the Scriptures, and proclaiming that those who held high positions would lose all civil rights, while those in households, if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty" (ref.18, p.476; ref.7, p.259).

The historic irony of the above edict to destroy the Bible is that Constantine, the emperor following Diocletian, 25 years later commissioned Eusebius to prepare 50 copies of the scriptures at the expense of the government.

SURVIVAL THROUGH CRITICISM:

H.L. Hastings has forcibly illustrated the unique way the Bible has withstood the attacks of infidelity and skepticism:

"Infidels for eighteen hundred years have been refuting and overthrowing this book, and yet [it] stands today as solid as a rock. Its circulation increases and it is more loved and cherished and read today than ever before. Infidels, with all their assaults, make about as much impression on this book as a man with a tack hammer would on the Pyramids of Egypt.

"When the French monarch proposed the persecution of the Christians in the dominion, an old statesman and warrior said to him, 'Sire, the Church of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.' So the hammers of infidels have been pecking away at this book for ages, but the hammers are worn out, and that anvil still endures. If this book had not been the book of God, men would have destroyed it long ago. Emperors and popes, kings and priests, princes and rulers have all tried their hand at it; they die and the book still lives" (ref.11, pp.17-18).

Bernard Ramim adds that: "A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put. No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles letters of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet? The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions" (ref.14, pp.232-233).

No claim that has been made to discredit the Bible has ever been proved to be true!

YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM SEEMS TO BE ALL OVER THE PLACE. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN THE "HOLY SPIRIT" OR THAT THE "HOLY SPIRIT" EXISTS, THEN YOU MUST BE INVOLVED IN ...SPIRITUALISM...

AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE THE JEHOVAH WITNESSES, BECAUSE THEY ALSO DENY THE BEING AND PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT...BUT IT DOES SOUND MORE LIKE SPIRITUALISM................UNLESS YOU ARE A SATANIST AS YOU SEEM FIXED ON MENTIONING LUCIFER ALL THE TIME INSTEAD OF JESUS. SATANISTS ALSO HAVE A BELIEF SYSTEM THAT IS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

BY THE WAY, THE "HOLY SPIRIT" IS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE NUMEROUS TIMES. OUR FATHER GOD IS THE HOLY SPIRIT; JESUS CHRIST IS ALSO THE HOLY SPIRIT; JESUS CHRIST IS ALSO GOD.

SO, NOW I KNOW YOU DON'T READ THE BIBLE, BUT ACCEPT MAN-MADE TEACHING. I AM TALKING ABOUT TEACHING OUTSIDE OF THE HOLY BIBLE BY EARTHLY MEN WHO THOUGHT THEY KNEW BETTER AND WANTED TO GRAB POWER FOR THEMSELVES.

THE WORD OF GOD (BIBLE) WAS INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. THE HOLY SPIRIT COMMUNICATED THE WRITTEN WORD TO OUR BIBLE HEROES, THE PROPHETS AND APOSTLES; THESE PRECIOUS MEN WROTE IT DOWN AND GAVE THE WORD OF GOD TO US.

LUCIFER IS THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION. ALL ONE HAS TO DO IS READ WHAT YOU WROTE AND IT OBVIOUS THAT A PRECIOUS MIND HAS BLINDERS ON AND IS BEING KEPT IN THE DARK.

PRECIOUS SPIRIT YOU WERE FORMED IN YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB BY ALMIGHTY GOD. HE WATCHED YOU GROW INSIDE YOUR MOTHER AND HAD A PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE. THAT PLAN WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU ARE READY TO ACKNOWLEDGE ALMIGHTY GOD AND THAT HE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH LOVES YOU AND YOU NEED TO COME HOME.

Is there any book that can compare to the Bible?

Are there any other "scriptures" that even compare?

Is it a coincidence that the Bible is the best selling book of all time?

Here is an excerpt from an article that I thought I would share:

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

HOW DO WE KNOW FOR CERTAIN THAT "ALL PATHS LEAD TO GOD" IS NOT TRUE?

Do all paths lead to God? Can we be saved regardless of our beliefs, so long as we are sincere enough? The Bible is very clear that there is only one path to God, not many: "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). Similarly, the apostle Peter said: "And there is salvation in no one else [Jesus]: for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Saying "all paths lead to God" sounds nice and tolerant, but is it in fact true? What sounds nice may actually be false! (Consider how many think the dogmas of Marxism sound nice, yet they unleashed rivers of blood in practice!) This statement needs investigating before we accept it, just like any other important belief we have, not mere blind, unthinking acceptance. Today, in our pluralistic, multicultural society, it's condemned as intolerant and politically incorrect to say there is only one true religion. But if an Almighty God inspired these two statements, and they are true, it doesn't matter what any human thinks otherwise. Our job then is to line up our lives with Him, and proclaim that truth to others, regardless of what others may think. The Bible clearly states that there is only one God and one true religion. To say otherwise, and believe (say) Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism are also true religions, is to deny the Bible. For true Christianity, it's incorrect to say that believers in an absolute truth will cause them to persecute others. Although so many professing His name have violated this, Jesus made it clear Christians are to love their enemies, which means persecuting non-believers is always immoral (Matthew 5:44): "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." Likewise the apostle Paul wrote (Romans 12:17-18): "Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. . . . If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." Sincerity simply isn't enough, since one can be sincerely wrong: Consider all the enthusiastic believers in communism in this century, truly a god that failed. We need to be rational in our religious beliefs, and not just determine them by emotion and tradition alone. But now, how can we know whether the Bible is right when it proclaims it has the only true way to reach God?

HOW THE BIBLE CAN RATIONALLY BE PROVEN TO BE THE WORD OF GOD

The Bible has the answers, but how do you know whether these are the right ones? Suppose you were raised knowing nothing about the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament, like some tribe in the jungles of New Guinea or along the Amazon in Brazil. One day, a missionary comes along, and drops on you a copy of the Bible. Suppose it was in your own language and you are literate enough to read it. How could you judge whether its contents are true? Suppose a competing religion's missionary left a Quran (Koran) behind. How could you judge whether that book was reliable? To be rational in our religious beliefs, instead of just blindly following what our parents believe, we need to apply reason and not just emotion to figuring out what our religious beliefs should be. Later on in this booklet, evidence for the historical reliability of the Bible is presented. But first, fulfilled prophecy is presented as the ultimate proof for the Bible's inspiration. Historical accuracy merely is a necessary condition for inspiration, not a sufficient one. A book could be perfectly accurate historically, such as one on the life of Abraham Lincoln, yet not be inspired by God or hold any authority over our lives. Historical accuracy merely keeps the Bible from being ruled out as the Word of God, but by itself doesn't present much of a positive case for its inspiration. But it's another story to explain how the Bible could predict the future in advance accurately centuries after its prophets died. Rationally, this requires belief that its authors received supernatural guidance. Below prophecies that were fulfilled after some part of the Bible was written but before the twentieth century are examined. Predictions of events yet to happen, such as judgment day, the second coming, the resurrection of the dead, etc. aren't examined here, because they have yet to happen. Hence, although the Quran may predict repeatedly a day of judgment, that does little to prove God inspired it since that event hasn't happened yet! So let's explore the evidence that the Bible successfully predicted the future, which leads us to infer that its authors received supernatural help.

PART I: THE OLD TESTAMENT SUCCESSFULLY PREDICTS THE FUTURE: BABYLON'S FATE

The great Hebrew prophet Isaiah prophesied in the general period c. 740-700 b.c. Long before the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Jerusalem, Judah's capital, in 586 b.c., Isaiah predicted the destruction of the city of Babylon itself. Note Isaiah 13:19-20: "And Babylon, the beauty of the kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation . . ." This vast city had (if the ancient Greek historian Herodotus is trusted) a 56-mile circumference and 14-mile long sides, with walls 311 feet high and 87 feet wide. These figures appear exaggerated: Archeological digs indicate the inner city had double inner walls of twelve and twenty feet wide and double outer walls twenty-four and twenty-six feet wide. Nevertheless, since sometimes dirt was put into the area between the double walls such that four horses' spans would fit, Herodotus's figures on the width of the walls weren't that far off. Occupying some 196 square miles (including protected farmland within the outer walls), it was one of the ancient world's greatest cities. In modern terms, Isaiah's prophesy would be the equivalent of predicting the complete devastation and permanent desolation of New York, London, or Tokyo. Situated on the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq, Babylon had been a great center of Middle Eastern culture for some 2000 years. Additionally, predicting the site wouldn't be rebuilt upon again was very bold, since this commonly happened after a city's destruction in the ancient Middle East. After the Greek geographer and historian Strabo visited the site of Babylon during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus (27 b.c.-17 A.D.), he commented jokingly: "The great city is a great desert." It hasn't been rebuilt since either!

THE DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH PREDICTED, ONCE THE CAPITAL OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, was a great city on the Tigris River in what is now Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia). Willingly burning cities, the ancient Assyrian Empire began under Tilgath-Pileser I a policy of terror and unusual cruelty even in ancient warfare's annals that inspired hatred and frequent revolts from those they conquered. Saving the worst punishments for cities and people who rose in rebellion, as Assurnasirpal's inscribed boasts about skinning people alive imply, in order to discourage future revolts, it also burned children, impaled enemies on stakes, and chopped off hands and heads. Writing around 627 b.c., the prophet Zephaniah predicted Nineveh's destruction along with the Assyrian Empire's: "And He [God] will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and He will make Nineveh a desolation" (Zeph. 2:13). Writing between 661 and 612 b.c., the prophet Nahum predicted Nineveh's destruction (Nahum 2:10; 3:19), with the help of a flood (Nahum 2:6) and fire (Nahum 3:13), during which many of its people would be drunk (Nahum 1:10). Like Babylon, Nineveh was one of the ancient world's greatest cities. Its inner wall was 100 feet tall and 50 feet thick, complete with a 150-foot- wide moat. It boasted a 7-mile circumference. But all this couldn't save it! As predicted (Nahum 3:12), the city fell easily, after a mere three-month siege, to the combined forces of the Medes, Scythians, and Babylonians under Nabopolassar in 612 b.c. Showing this wasn't all mere coincidence, guess work, or hopeful wishing, all of Nahum's specific predictions about how Nineveh would fall were fulfilled.

SWITCHING THE NAMES OF THE CITIES IN THE PROPHECIES WOULD MAKE THEM FALSE

Now let's examine more closely the fate of Babylon and Nineveh, which were by no means fully identical. Since both cities were capitals of nations that were major enemies of Israel, Israel's prophets easily could have switched the names of these cities. Then they would have predicted wrongly, if they had not been inspired by God. Although both cities suffered destruction, Babylon was clearly predicted to never be inhabited again, but this was never prophesied for Nineveh. Today, the site of Babylon is totally uninhabited. The Euphrates River, which still flows through the site, has eroded the ruins on its west side, turning them into a swamp. On its east side, the ruins are mere low hills of debris. Isaiah predicted wild animals would inhabit the ruins. No shepherd would remain there, or stay to rest their flocks (Isa. 13:20-22). As Floyd Hamilton relates, this has literally happened: "Travelers [to Babylon] report that the city is absolutely uninhabited, even [by] Bedouins [Arab nomads]. There are various superstitions current among the Arabs that prevent them from pitching their tents there, while the character of the soil prevents the growth of vegetation suitable for the pasturage of flocks." By contrast, even when the nineteenth-century archeologist Austen Henry Layard investigated the site, a small village sat upon the ruins of Nineveh, nowadays near the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. Unlike Babylon, the plains around Nineveh's mound are farmed, and animals can graze on it during seasonal rains. Significantly, the site's largest mound has an Arabic name meaning "many sheep." Clearly, if Isaiah had condemned Nineveh instead of Babylon, which would have made sense when he wrote since Assyria was much the greater threat to Israel and Judah in the eighth century BC, his specific predictions about site of its ruins would have been wrong. The skeptic can't argue that it's easy to predict the destruction of ancient cities, thinking in time all cities eventually will be destroyed. The Bible also predicts specifically how these cities would cease to exist, so these predictions can't be called mere lucky guesses. Furthermore, many ancient cities of the Middle East are still inhabited today, such as Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Aleppo, etc. Why was Babylon's fate different, its site now having been desolate for centuries after being a center of Mesopotamian civilization for centuries, a city dwelled in for perhaps over two thousand years? Because the God of the Bible yet lives, He intervenes in the affairs of men!

Still waiting for the debunkers.......

Any atheists out there?

Any skeptics?

Is there ANYONE who can debunk this evidence?

Hard to fight the Truth, isn't it?

Come on skeptics take your best shot......

Yes Please!!

Does the baker hold the cake responsible if it falls while in the oven?

Most GLPers know of a Spirit that is pure love.

It is not the controlling demon of that very recent book in human history called the Bible.

20,000 years ago, advanced civilisations knew about the TRUE FATHER. That knowledge survives, even in the heavily edited NT. Jesus told the world about the TRUE FATHER and he was murdered for it.

Time to leave the MATRIX OF FEAR controlled by angry, JEALOUS and vindictive demons.

Unconditional love is what I expect from him...

At least you are being very honest about it.

It's not about the evidence.

You just do not WANT to believe.....which is where a ton of people out there are......they just don't want to admit it.

I have prayed for you. My hope is that your heart will be softened and that you will see the truth.

A very valuable 2 cents, IMO.

I have come to the Deist belief (Pan-Deist, really) that the Supreme Being is the totality of everything, and we are tiny sparks of Its Soul, prancing and cavorting upon the great Stage for Its endless entertainment and diversion.

W. Shakespeare was quite correct when he opined that "All the World's a stage ..."

Do you really thing that it is with you because you see him the way you see him,

Every body in this planet are looking for god. India, chiness, Muslim, christian, new age, etc... etc... do you really see a difference between god. That is where you are wrong. God is in every one of us. Don't need to be baptise for have him with you.

Do you really thing that he will accept you and wont accept and other. You are wrong. Stop to look at your belly and open your eyes. "God" no wonder how you see him. What wonder and how you live with him.

Christian title will not save you. That women who go to the church every sunday and come home to be nasty with all the peoples around here wont be save because she is christian and man that rape young children wont be save because he is christian.

Stupid peoples. He offer you the liberty but you close your mind and go like salve.

God bless you even if he is and ET.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Jesus says in the New Testament "Has it not been written ye are gods?" Jesus is actually referring to an O.T. passage here. So you must think Jesus doesn't have a brain.

We ALL have a spark of divinity (God) within us. That's what he was trying to say regardless of your denying it.

Taz

As a child of mine, you have equal importance with the life of Jesus that Christian religions exalt as perfect in my eyes, and you have equal importance with the soul who is causing misery and death. There are equal amounts of my powers and love within every soul who is born into a body you recognize or a body you do not recognize or a body you cannot even conceive of in appearance. Yet, you wish me to see something that doesn't exist beyond the view of me on Earth, that I am only a loving and merciful God.

With equal aspects of what you think of as good and what you decry as evil, how can I be except what I am? In one stage of my Totality, I was purely light and love. Then parts of my creations descended into the darkness, but they were nonetheless inseparable parts of my whole. And thus they remain.

That is why I cannot give you the answer that you wish in your heart, dear child, that I am saddened and appalled by the injustice and brutality. Nor can I say that I am gladdened only by what I see of the light being spread on Earth. I can reply only as the amalgamation of the two sides of each soul. Each soul has its potential for goodness and darkness, or godliness as it was in the Beginning and the evil, as you see it, in motion. My child, can you relate to what I am in all truth telling you?

There is resistance to who I am in "entirety" anywhere religions prevail. First, I AM that I AM. And what I AM is what you and countless – so I shall say that I am the countless beings who have lived in any form in any place within this universe in any speck of time since its Beginning.

I am not a separate oversoul – or parent, if you will – who can see my likeness in a child of myself but am disappointed when the child doesn’t grow into my measurements of good or bad. I have no such measurements for my children! There is that energy balancing of the polar opposites light and darkness, and that’s as good as any differentiation for the two opposing forces.

Those opposing forces keep the universe spinning, so they are not soon to be changed from their oppositeness or everything would go haywire. As for souls, like everything else in the universe, they are energy, my original light energy as I was co-created by Creator and the highest angelic realm.

I am each person who is judged in such poor light by others who cannot know the heart and soul of that single one. None of you on Earth is connected in awareness at soul level, so your judgments can be quite off kilter insofar as a particular soul's purpose in this lifetime. Each agreed to play his or her part in the balancing act.

Do I WISH that all of my parts were within the light in which I was created? Yes! Who would not wish that perfection of Creator to be returned!
But I do not hold forth condemnation or punishment to any faltering part of me. I am here to respond to what you call prayers of the "godly" just as I am bound by the laws of Creator that are set up within the parameters of my operating powers if the choice made is not within the light. Do you see?

DO YOU SEE?

Are you claiming to be speaking the very words of God?

If so, you should be aware of the penalties involved for those who say they are speaking for God when they are not.