Comments on Ambassador Watch: The Plain Truth about Daniel's prophecies

Obviously you can read, or you couldn't write. Yo...

2007-11-03T12:52:00.000+13:00

Obviously you can read, or you couldn't write. You're intelligent, or you couldn't write as well as you do. So you can understand, but you will not.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

I have taken the hint. I am not going to get an an...

2007-11-01T13:47:00.000+13:00

I have taken the hint. I am not going to get an answer. Why not just say so in the first place?

Paul

1. "What will happen to me if I do not accept the ...

2007-11-01T09:37:00.000+13:00

1. "What will happen to me if I do not accept the existence of your god, and 2. what do you base your answer on?"........Paul

1. "All your dreams can still come true, and my guess is that they most probably will. Life tends to work that way.

Beyond that I can't predict your future. Ball's in your court."

2. "I used common sense as my source, but common sense as expressed by Shakespeare, who said 'Be true to yourself.'"

And you still have not answered my question. I tak...

2007-11-01T07:11:00.000+13:00

And you still have not answered my question. I take it you won't. Why so slippery? Why do you avoid an honest, direct reply?

Paul

"What will happen to me if I do not accept the exi...

2007-10-31T21:57:00.000+13:00

"What will happen to me if I do not accept the existence of your god, and what do you base your answer on?"........Paul

Paul, you say I didn't answer your question. I did, but perhaps a little too obliquely.

I used common sense as my source, but common sense as expressed by Shakespeare, who said "Be true to yourself." If you cannot believe, then don't pretend. There is honor in honest disbelief -- just as there is good sense in keeping an open, if wary, mind.

Don't worry about Bible thumpers. They have their select Scriptures to prove their pushy points, and the truth is they don't know front from rear.

Stay true to yourself. Americans have the right to believe or disbelieve as they see fit. People have paid dearly, often with their lives, to ensure that right. All your dreams can still come true, and my guess is that they most probably will. Life tends to work that way.

Beyond that I can't predict your future. Ball's in your court.

2007-10-31T20:17:00.000+13:00

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You did not answer my question. Paul

2007-10-31T11:35:00.000+13:00

You did not answer my question.

Paul

"What will happen to me if I do not accept the exi...

2007-10-30T22:14:00.000+13:00

"What will happen to me if I do not accept the existence of your god, and what do you base your answer on?"........Paul

Paul, to answer a question like yours I remember the good advice Polonius gives his son in Shakespeare's Hamlet. "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

If one cannot honestly accept the existence of God, then so be it. We don't all share the same experiences and perceptions. Honesty is much more important than willy-nilly acceptance of group-think.

If God exists, and suddenly deems it critical that you should believe in Him, then He should have no problem convincing you, even happily, of His existence.

If, on the other hand, you decide some day that you would prefer to believe in God, then talk to God about it. If He's there, no doubt He'll find a way to make Himself known to you, in a unique way that you can accept, and the experience should be heartwarming.

Your integrity is far more important than caving in to anyone else's opinion. As I see it, any God worth His salt will honor your honesty. So long as you are true to yourself, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

"If you're hearing or reading something else, dump...

2007-10-30T15:51:00.000+13:00

"If you're hearing or reading something else, dump it; it's drivel, unworthy of time or attention, fit only for fearmongers and related lowlife."

What will happen to me if I do not accept the existence of your god, and what do you base your answer on?

Paul

Paul, if you're reading that the Creator will burn...

2007-10-30T12:19:00.000+13:00

Paul, if you're reading that the Creator will burn unbelievers to a crisp for their innocent unbelief, know that the line is either bogus or misunderstood. Too many texts that lie between book covers labeled, "Holy Bible," have no place there -- as I'm sure you know, and others ought to. Even among texts that belong, many hands have sullied their original conditions with interpolations, alterations and all sorts of changes deliberately intended to serve surreptitious agendas. There is more than enough hard evidence in the best libraries to support these statements.

The Compassionate One did not place mankind here to fail. There's more to the story, and at present our lives are writing it. Ultimately it's very encouraging.

Believe me, there's a happy ending to this grand play for which the whole world is a stage. Not that the Creator is incapable of severity, but whatever is not founded first upon compassion and lovingkindness is false. If you're hearing or reading something else, dump it; it's drivel, unworthy of time or attention, fit only for fearmongers and related lowlife. In the real story everyone gets a fair shot at the best of everything. In due time you'll see. We all will.

"The Bible doesn't waste a nanosecond trying to co...

2007-10-30T11:09:00.000+13:00

"The Bible doesn't waste a nanosecond trying to convince anyone of God's existence, but begins simply, "In beginning God created the heavens...". A nice story for some, and life itself for others -- with the reader having complete freedom to accept or reject."

With the penalty of being burnt to a crisp if they don't accept his existence, and with no evidence or proof to help them make a rational decision. Nice.

Paul

There's no empirical evidence that God exists, or ...

2007-10-30T10:08:00.000+13:00

There's no empirical evidence that God exists, or that He doesn't. One may know of His existence, but that knowing is intuitive, and real only, and personally, to the one who knows. Personal knowing cannot be shared against another's will, so there is frustration when one is determined to make or help another believe.

The Bible doesn't waste a nanosecond trying to convince anyone of God's existence, but begins simply, "In beginning God created the heavens...". A nice story for some, and life itself for others -- with the reader having complete freedom to accept or reject.

"Everyone to his fancy, said the old woman as she kissed the cow."

"But why scientist would not admit even to the pre...

2007-10-30T05:51:00.000+13:00

"But why scientist would not admit even to the preponderance of evidence discovered and admitted today by other imminent scientists..."

What evidence?

Paul

Oh, Paul, Paul, if you are near I will pick your e...

2007-10-29T19:45:00.000+13:00

Oh, Paul, Paul, if you are near I will pick your ears. You are a stubborn son of God. The double helix discovery of human DNA genome(consisting of carefully assembled instructions 3 billion genetics long ) by the racist James D.Watson, Francis Crick and their friends Wilkins and Franklin shows their is a superior mind behind this labyrin- thine structure.

Former atheist Patrick Glynn, Ph.D. Harvard, in his book,The God, The Evidence, 1997,pp,55-56,admits:" a reasonable person weighing the purely scientific evidence on the issue would likely have come down on the side of skepticism. That is no longer the case. Today, the concrete data point strongly in the direction of God hypothesis."

But why scientist would not admit even to the preponderance of evidence discovered and admitted today by other imminent scientists like bio chemist Denton,Glynn, Stephen Jay Gould, Moore and Desmond to name a few? Why?

Atheist Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin said:"we take the side of science inspite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs," he candidly admitted,"inspite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so-stories,because we have just prior commitment...to materialism... We can not allow a Devine foot in the door"("Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Review of Books,Jan.9,2007,page 31).

Paul, are you like Lewontin, having a prior commitment to your beliefs that you will not believe despite the enormity of evidence now at hand favoring Devine over the crazy evolution?

To sum it up, Biographers Desmond and Moore, concluded, as Darwin is solemnly laid in Westminster Abbey:"It marked the accession to powers of the traders in nature's market place, the scientists and their minions in politics and religion. Such men, on the up and up, were paying their dues, for Darwin had naturalized Creation and delevered human nature and human destiny into their hands. Society would never be the same. The Devil's chaplain had done his work."

Where do you belong hard-headed kid...Paul?

"THEY ARE MESIRABLE."Sir, I assure you that I am i...

2007-10-29T06:23:00.000+13:00

"THEY ARE MESIRABLE."

Sir, I assure you that I am in no way mesirable. I wouldn't even call myself handsome, though I can be witty when the need arises.

Paul

At your service, Jack. The Eastern Orthodox canon...

2007-10-28T02:40:00.000+13:00

At your service, Jack. The Eastern Orthodox canon is somewhat longer than the Catholic canon, and includes all of the books that the Catholics classify as "deuterocanonical" (what Protestants call "Apocrypha") as well as Greek Ezra, the Prayer of Manasses, Psalm 151, and III Maccabees. In addition, IV Maccabees (an extended philosophical and moral meditation on II Maccabees 7) appears in an appendix to the Greek Bible.

In comparison, the Catholic Bible classifies those books as "apocrypha" (but the Old Latin Vulgate did include Greek Ezra, the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151 in an appendix). The Ethiopian canon is the longest, including all of the Catholic deuterocanonical scripture, all of the Greek deuterocanon and apocrypha, and adds books such as Jubilees, I Enoch, and the Kebra Nagast.

To Jared Olar: Thanks for your thoughtful comments...

2007-10-27T09:55:00.000+13:00

To Jared Olar: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I was not aware of the Eastern Orthodox Bible's uniqueness and will now look into it. At any rate, all the best to you.

THEY ARE AFRAID. THEY JUST WANT TO LIVE FREELY.Sou...

2007-10-27T04:54:00.000+13:00

THEY ARE AFRAID. THEY JUST WANT TO LIVE FREELY.

Sounds to me like you are the one who is afraid of freedom. Sad.

Did your Caps Lock get jammed, Anonymous?

2007-10-27T04:16:00.000+13:00

Did your Caps Lock get jammed, Anonymous?

HI, SKEPTICS. IF GOD IS TRUE AND ALL THE THINGS SA...

2007-10-26T12:53:00.000+13:00

HI, SKEPTICS.

IF GOD IS TRUE AND ALL THE THINGS SAID IN THE BIBLE ARE TRUE WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU ARE LISTED TO BE BURNED IN HELL FIRE?

WOULD YOU SAY, SORRY, I DID NOT MEANT IT. I HAVE READ MANY WRITERS WITH CONCLUDING PROOFS THAT YOU ARE A MYTH, THE BIBLE'S A MYTH, JESUS' A MYTH, PAUL'S A MYTH, MATTHEW'S A MYTH...SO FORTH AND SO ON.

THIS WAS WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE GREAT DELUGE. SKEPTICS WOULD NOT BELIEVE NOAH. WHEN THEY FOUND OUT HE WAS TRUE, IT WAS TOO LATE.

OH, SO SORRY FOR THE SKEPTICS. THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY HOPE. THEY ARE MEANT FOR THE FLOOD, FOR THE LAKE OF FIRE.

CHRISTIANS HAVE HOPE. AT LEAST WE ARE HOPING. THE SKEPTICS ARE JUST SIMPLY DOOMED. NO CHANCE WHAT SOEVER.

BE A SKEPTICS AND BE A FOOL. GOD SAID IT. THE FOOLS SAID THERE IS NO GOD.

THERE WOULD BE MANY WHO WOULD BE FOOL-WHO WOULD BE SKEPTICS. THEY DO NOT WANT TO BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT THEY ARE DOING. THEY ARE AFRAID. THEY JUST WANT TO LIVE FREELY. THEY WANT FREEDOM AND DO NOT WANT TO ANSWER TO ANYBODY.

THIS IS ALL WHAT SKEPTICS WANT. DEEP INSIDE THEIR HEADS THEY WANT THESE THINGS.

THEY ARE MESIRABLE. NO HOPE. AND THEY ARE MANY.

You certainly wouldn't think so.Why wouldn't one t...

2007-10-24T06:55:00.000+13:00

You certainly wouldn't think so.

Why wouldn't one think so? As I said, He invented it and encouraged us to do it. Pretty strange thing for Him to do if He didn't like it and didn't want us to do it.

Or, leaving aside the question of God's existence and the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, it shouldn't be surprising that the same Scriptures that say "Be fruitful and multiply" would also include a series of erotic poems. The Scriptures condemn various forms of sexual misconduct and deviance, but there is no condemnation of sex -- quite the contrary.

Corky said: All the honest and sincere seekers of ...

2007-10-24T06:47:00.000+13:00

Corky said: All the honest and sincere seekers of truth and humanitarian folks are tossed into the lake of fire while the most gullible believers in myths and utterly naive folks are saved.

Hey, it's not just the sincere truth seekers and humanitarians who need salvation -- the gullible and the naive need salvation too. In any case, you need to read more carefully -- the Scriptures classify various classes of offenders as in danger of hell fire, but they never list sincere truth seekers and humanitarians among the damned. It's the opposite, in fact: those who seek the truth with a sincere heart, and who love neighbor as self, are praised.

Hopefully you don't mean to say or imply that sincere truth seekers and humanitarians are only to be found among the atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, or that all such persons are sincerely seeking truth and striving to love their neighbor. I've met my share of gullible and naive atheists as well as Christians.

"Perhaps because God thinks sex is a rather nice t...

2007-10-24T06:41:00.000+13:00

"Perhaps because God thinks sex is a rather nice thing (see as He invented it)."

You certainly wouldn't think so.

Paul

Jack Sprat said The Samaritan Bible is the shortes...

2007-10-24T06:39:00.000+13:00

Jack Sprat said The Samaritan Bible is the shortest, with only the Pentateuch in its canon. Next comes the Jewish Bible, followed by the Protestant Bible, the Catholic Bible and finally the Ethiopian extended Bible.

Don't forget the Eastern Orthodox Bible . . .

Latter Day Saints include a whole extra book, much too large to fit between the covers of most Bibles.

Throwing the Book of Mormon into the mix is silly. In all of the competing Jewish and Christian canons, the books antedate 100 A.D. (except for the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast, a medieval production), but the Book of Mormon didn't exist until the 1800s. Placing the Book of Mormon alongside the ancient biblical books is like suggesting that one of Piers Anthony's cheesy paperbacks might belong to the canon of medieval Icelandic saga.

What about errors in the Book of Daniel? Was the book ever thought to be precise history?

Yes. For most of the book's existence, it was thought of as historical reliable.

Were the Rabbis who included the book in the Jewish canon unaware of its problems?

Probably -- but they perhaps thought the book's problems were not insuperable.

Why did Christian organizers later include the book, knowing the problems it presented?

Because the book foretells the history of the Seleucidae and Ptolemidae, the coming of the Messiah, and the fall of Jerusalem, which the Christians believed had been fulfilled as prophesied.

Why is an erotic poem, so steamy that translators still don't dare to translate it up to its full-steam potential, doing in the "Word of God"?

Perhaps because God thinks sex is a rather nice thing (see as He invented it).

Who is aware of the Rabbinical disputes that preceded Solomon’s inclusion in the Hebrew canon?

Quite a lot of people.

Did God, working through priests, prophets, Rabbis, apostles, physicians, a Persian emperor, conspirators, Crusaders, book-burners, inquisitors – and many, many others, if one dares to look carefully – create a perfect Bible and then neatly wrap it up between leather covers for Christians and Jews of all stripes to read in translation, knowing that each of the various Bibles reflects only the pure, pristine, unadulterated and perfect expression of God's mind?

A "perfect" Bible? No. But otherwise, yes, Christians believe that is how God brought us the Bible.

There is only one certain benchmark, and that is the Torah of Moses.

Why is the Torah the one certain benchmark? Are you sure you're not forcing the Torah to conform to naive criteria, the way many Christians and Jews and Mormons force the Bible to conform to naive criteria? (I see that you at least concede that the Torah as we have it may not, in fact, be the real, "perfect" Torah, but only a close approximation.)

David said it is perfect, converting the soul.

He referred to the Torah, yes. Whether or not he was talking about the Torah in the form that we're familiar with, that's not at all clear. David's reference to the "torah" need not even be to a written text (though I think at the least it takes in a written text).

Daniel’s many flaws are well known to Jewry and discussed at some length in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901 - 1906).

Of course it must be kept in mind that that source expresses the views of those who compiled it -- there is no Jewish Pope who issues infallible encyclopedia articles.

The point is that certain writings were considered indispensable to the well being of Israel, and were therefore included in the sacred canon. Perfection was not the criterion.

On the other hand, it was (and still is) believed that Jewish canonical books enjoyed a special divine oversight or protection, "inspiration." As soon as you bring in God as the ultimate author of a writing, you unavoidably confront the question of inerrancy.

There is no easy road to understanding Holy Writ.

There's an understatement for you.

Nothing will be accomplished by forcing “The Bible” to conform to naive criteria. The books of the Bible did not just fall out of heaven to be neatly stitched between fine leather covers.

Very true. The Bible is not the Koran or the Book of Elchasaeus or the Book of Mormon.

Noble men, fully aware of the problems in Biblical texts, often died vicious, humiliating deaths, at the hands of the church, no less, in their efforts to make the Bible available to the multitudes.

Well, at any rate they were put to death for trying to make "a" Bible or "their" Bible (not necessarily the Church's Bible) available to the multitudes.

Too bad about that fire at the library at Alexandr...

2007-10-24T05:03:00.000+13:00

Too bad about that fire at the library at Alexandria or we may have easily solved all these many mysteries of the bible.

What we are left with are the many forgeries of old books and left to either believe fantastic stories or not.

Most fairy tales have a good ending but this one, Stephen King style, has a very bad ending. All the honest and sincere seekers of truth and humanitarian folks are tossed into the lake of fire while the most gullible believers in myths and utterly naive folks are saved.