Never had a good response to this

[Storyteller]

[bippy123]

[Starhunter]

Hi - I was a believer for over 30 years, but since 3 years ago, I would no longer label myself as such. I think there are a lot of gray areas with respect to the debate about God and the Bible, but a few years back, I came across an article that I've yet to hear any of my Christian friends or family even pose a rebuttal to (let alone a well-thought-out response). It's an essay written by Thomas Paine titled "An Examination of the Prophecies", and it was written in the late 1700's I believe. Below is a link.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/paine/proph.htm

I'd love to have someone actually take an hour or so and actually READ the article and provide a response. And by all means, please cross reference EVERYTHING he says in whatever version of the Bible you're fond of. I've had 3 different pastors as well as several family members look at this, and most read it and then never bring it up again. Those that have brought it up end up googling some apologetic response about 'dual prophecies' or something along those lines - mind you, I've never heard this mentioned in a Sunday sermon.

Thanks for reading this post! Please don't reply if you haven't taken the time to read the article - I promise it will be an interesting read, and will challenge your knowledge of well-accepted prophecies that you may have thought were 'bullet-proofe'...most notably the virgin birth prophecy.

Happy Monday.

I can't say that I relate to your experience, because I did not accept God through doctrines or literature, but because I needed to be protected and loved, and by faith given to me by Christ, even as every child is given, I looked up into the sky and recognized that I am acknowledged and loved by the Lord of creation.

As for the writings of Thomas Paine - 1800's, he may have had the truth at one point, before he made war on the Gospel.
However from what I understand, he never let go of his errors and taught the doctrines of devils until the day he died, and he wrote these ideas in the article while in such a state of doubt and caviling at the truth.

Like I said, I have not questioned the Bible or its teachings/prophecies, in order to prove my faith.
In a sense, you have to be converted before the Holy Spirit to speaks to you from the Bible, converted because you are prepared to take the risk of being reproved for your sins, and of course to be comforted.
To read the Bible, looking for a way to dismiss it, is like inviting the Lord to dinner, and putting poison in the food. He won't come to your place.
But if the truth be recognized, Christ already came to His own - you and I, and was crucified by our sins, so that He could lay the evil in the grave and raise up a new creature, of loving faith.

[abelcainsbrother]

Jesus and Moses
https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=6Upwpszpc30

[abelcainsbrother]

I think we need to always have an answer to every man that asketh you of the hope that is in you 1st Peter 3:15 but proving God is real is not something that we should do.It seems atheists or nonbelievers try to get us to prove God is real but we should not play their game and try to prove God is real.This does not mean we do not have evidence for our faith but Jesus never told us to prove he or God is real.So do not play their game,you can present evidence if you know of some at the appropriate time but a lot of times they are going to ignore it and explain it away,so be smart about when you present evidence.

I just got banned from an atheist forum I was on and no matter how much evidence I presented it was all just explained away and rejected and all I got back was anger,cursing,mocking,intellectual dishonesty,etc and ultimately banned because I irritated them and they complained about me to the mods.But I know they couldn't handle the truth and evidence I presented but I'm glad it happened because I learned more and was actually sharpened because of them so that I'll be more effective in the future.

Now a few say it is quite now there that I'm gone but I feel good because they just hurt their self more than me because anybody who reads through their threads will see I backed myself up with evidence for everything I brought up,they will see who was right and who were wrong if they are intellectually honest.

We are to be witnesses and tell people about Jesus and if they believe they can be saved,but if they reject him? There is not much we can do except pray for them.

[Starhunter]

That's right Abel,

The modern generations are fast losing their sensibilities, their instincts, feelings and ability to understand knowledge.
They do not know anything unless a great rock falls on them.

They have to destroy, break down, pull apart and cut things open, because they cannot deal with anything that involves intelligent insight or wisdom.
For example, the Hadron collider, is as good as monkeys smashing rocks together. It takes them years just to figure out that there are other particles out there. Wow.

And so when they are asking for proof of God, what do they really want? How could they possibly know the difference between a delusion and what is real? Everything can be explained away as an hallucination.

We see God in Christ, because nobody is like Him. True love is real, but for the unbelieving it does not exist, because it has never been tested in the lab.