Religon

Your position was originally that, "I believe that there is no logical argument that you can make to justify truly believing in any specific religion." But now, you have said, "Maybe I should rephrase, perhaps there is a "logical" argument, but again they can be substituted with other religious figures. By definition, yes they are "logical" because the premises support the conclusion, but the premises are simply false." So, from this I conclude that either you misworded your position initially, or you are revising your position. Is that fair? Either way, it seems clear to me that you actually wish to discuss whether said logical arguments are evidentially and rationally sound, is that correct? I'm pretty sure that's what you're trying to do, and have to say, that topic is even more fun! "Isaiah 17:1 "An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins." Actually, this did happen. Pretty shortly after the prophecy, too! The King in control of Damascus, King Rezin led a rebellion against the Assyrians in about 732 B.C. In response to this rebellion, the Assyrians sacked Damascus, executed the nobles, carried off many of the people into captivity, and allegedly burnt Damascus. It was really, really brutal, at least if our records are correct. As such, it certainly became a heap of ruins! This isn't really a well known piece of history though, so it's of course understandable if you weren't aware of it. I feel like I should mention that some people would argue that this verse is predicting that Damascus will not be a city...FOREVER. But that is really just an assumption. What this passage is saying is that the city will become a heap of ruins and no longer be a city, not necessarily that it will not be a city for always and forever. You didn't argue that, of course, but I feel the need to say it. Sometimes people really go berserk with semantics to try and make prophecy seem wrong. "Matthew 16:28 "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." The very nit-picky side of me wants to say, "we don't actually know who all was there, so we can't say if they all died or not". (By the way, we could probably figure this out. I think it would be worth the time!) However, based on different things you've said, I don't think you'll like that. That's just my perfectionist bias, but here's the actual argument. It's pretty well known that when Jesus referred to His "kingdom", He was referring to the Church. So the disciples certainly did live to see the "Son of Man coming in his kingdom", if He is referring to the same kingdom that He does elsewhere. I can see the confusion, since He's talking about the second coming immediently beforehand, but I'm not sure this verse is actually talking about the second coming. Matthew 23:36: "23:36 "I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation."" What is the contention with this? This verse is saying that the blood of all the innocent people will come upon "this generation", I beleive. What is the problem with that? Matthew 24:34 ""I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.": " The contention with this is usually based on the assumption that "this generation" refers to "your generation". The best analysis I've read, however, is that "this generation" refers to the generation that first began to experience "these things". This is verse is to say that all "these things" will happen in one generation, not necessarily that they will all happen in "your" generation. This explanation makes a lot of sense, since much of the passage seems to be things Jesus was telling His followers to "look for" as signs that the end was about to take place. So really, part of the point of this whole passage would be, "if these signs start to happen in your generation, all this is going to go down in your generation." So this analysis makes sense in light of the rest of the passage. Do you take contention with any of these analysis? Would you like me to elaborate on any of them? "You seem to be taking a very simple argument and turning it very complicated, is there any evidence to believe in one religion over another, and you still have not given me a sufficient answer." Okay, so we're now completely converting from talking about whether there are logical arguments to believe in one religion over another, to whether there is evidence to believe in one religion over the other. Correct? Let's do one verse that tends to convey the argument pretty well. Let's look at Ezekial 26: 12 "And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water." I'm going to be running out of characters, so please just give me your opinion on that. Is not the most logical conclusion that these came from God (who the quote is attributed to), or do you have a more logical explanation? Ezekiel could not have known that Alexander the Great would take the rubble from mainland Tyre and throw it into the sea, of his own imagination. I watched the Bill Nye clip, and am glad I did. Thanks for recommending it! It put the arguments of anti-Arkness into a succinct, digestible format. However, I still completely disagree with his argument. I'll go to the ship example he cited. The reason he concluded that Noah's ark would twist apart is not because of physics or studying the layout of the ark, it is because we ONE wooden ship that was roughly the size of the ark twisted apart in recent history. Maybe he has more evidence than that, but the evidence that he cited is that we have record of an isolated instance (no repeat trails were mentioned) where a modern wooden boat twisted and was destroyed. I do not think this is plausible grounds to say the Ark was IMPOSSIBLE in the least bit, since this was a one trail "experiment", and didn't isolate any variables for us to know why it split. For instance, my suspicion would be that it split because the MOTOR provided too much thrust which caused the ship to bend, and obviously a motor would not be present on Noah's Ark. (Caps added for emphasis, not anger.) But I'm really more interested in what evidence Nye brought up that YOU found convincing. I actually like Bill Nye, in the sense that I think he's a LOT more dedicated to open and free scientific discussion than the VAST majority of scientists, but I do not agree with his arguments and have serious questions about the scientific integrity of the evidence he mentioned. (One trail experiments?) So...do you have any additional evidence you would like to provide, or can you explain why one of his points is actually viable? I very well might have just missed what he was arguing, and need it to be pointed out to me. " Just the fact that you think that all the animals on the earth could fit onto one 520ft ship is honestly amazing, and a little depressing at the same time (not to be insulting, but that is my honest view on this topic.)" Okay, so why do you think this? Does it seem impossible to you, and if so why? "And yes I am saying that there is enough evidence that either, almost or just as good, supports the Quran as does christianity" Which prophecies in the Quran were fulfilled? How many statements about historical events have been verified? (There might be answers to these.) To my knowledge, most of the Quran is "Allah" saying "do this" or "don't do this", there's not a lot of verifiable claims. Just because the bible predicted..." "No, but it does mean that the words recorded there in that book are from God. And actually, most of the Bible is actually cross-referent. So, one book will build on the authority of another. Ran out of characters... I can go through non-prophetic books next round if you want