Has anybody ever actually predicted anything useful ever?

originally posted by: raytheo
i did

Interesting comment, please enlighten us!

a reply to: Ignatian
1 piece of evidence should suffice. And quoting a religios book or some religious leader is not evidence. Hope that last sentence doesn't cause your world to come crashing down.

I think sticking head in the sand only applies to you.
If your book is right then all are right. If all are right than yours is wrong.

Wait just had a prediction. Ignatian will continue his life believing a book that was not meant for his culture ( I'm assuming by your niavity you are not from Israel.).

Safe to say I don't need to wait to see if it comes true.

a reply to: johnb

Not blowing me own trumpet but predicted via telephone conversation with Scotland Yard and US embassy in Grosvenor Square 7/7.............. Twenty four hours before the buses and tubes were attacked by terrorists.

a reply to: johnb

I'm going to say yes. A psychic told me my wife was going to get a job offer for a lot more money in a specific time frame. It happened. Randomly as well, since she wasn't actively looking for a job. Time frame matched exactly. That could be coincidence, of course, but intriguing none the less.

originally posted by: laminatedsoul
Pretty easy to read something and then become it...

Have you walked on water, raised someone else from the dead, or healed a blind persons eyes?

When you do, THEN get back to us...

When a person who knows the prophecy causes it to take place then it can be called a self fulfilling prophecy. But this can be the case only if all aspects of a prophecy can be engineered by the person or people desiring its fulfillment. An example from the Bible would be when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on the very day it was predicted that the Messiah would come. Jesus knew the prophecies and chose to fulfill them by his actions. But does this disqualify the accuracy of the original prophecies?

If these were the only prophecies about the Messiah then they would certainly be disqualified. Jesus chose to ride in on a donkey, he also chose the correct day. Any one could have done that. How many other would be Messiahs rode in to Jerusalem on that day? If that were all there were to being the Messiah then anyone could have fulfilled it. But there were a number of things required that Jesus could not have guaranteed. The unbroken donkey colt would have to be ridden. The crowd had to declare that he was Messiah and King. The religious leaders had to reject him. Jesus specifically chose several aspects of the prophecy that the Messiah was to fulfill, but he could not have engineered the rest.

Also there were hundreds of prophecies, many of which were out of Jesus' control. When Jesus was born the wheels preparing for the Messiah had been in motion for well over a thousand years. But because there were certain prophecies that Messiah had to do and do successfully. Jesus had to deliberately fulfill them, giving sight to the blind for example. So even if a prophecy can be deliberately fulfilled it can be considered authentic if other non-self fulfilling prophecies were contingent on it or related to it. If we eliminate the few prophecies which the prophets themselves caused to pass, there are still many hundreds left to consider.

www.evidentcreation.com...

Most of Jesus' prophetic fulfillments were outside of His control. That is, Jesus was in no position to artificially comply with those predictions, so they can't be written off as "self-fulfilling." The claim also doesn't explain the miracles Jesus performed, which were also signs of His legitimacy. If the Bible says Messiah will die and be resurrected, and a man claims to be Messiah, dies, and is resurrected, calling that resurrection "self-fulfilling" is irrelevant — it happened!

What's more important to note is that Scripture, written centuries before Christ, predicted details such as the Messiah's heritage (Genesis 49:10), era of birth (Daniel 7:25-26), place of birth (Micah 5:2), miraculous nature of birth (Isaiah 7:14), and early family history (Hosea 11:1). Jesus had absolutely no control over any of those. And He could never have controlled all of the details of His suffering (Isaiah 53), death by crucifixion (Psalm 22), or that His bones would not be broken (Psalm 34:20).

Roman crucifixion victims were typically left to rot on their crosses — Jesus said He'd be buried (Matthew 12:40). And, a fraudulent Jesus could certainly not have "chosen" to rise bodily from the dead (Luke 9:22).

And so on, and so forth. Dismissing Jesus' prophetic fulfillments as "self-fulfilling" requires a simplistic attitude towards both prophecy and the Bible. The circumstances of those fulfillments are evidence for, not against, them being legitimate predictions meant to prove Jesus' claims.

www.blogos.org...

Could these seemingly impossible prophecies have been faked, written after they were fulfilled, or intentionally fulfilled? There’s no way to fake them, since archeological evidence indicates the prophecies are very ancient. The events mentioned are well known in secular history. The book of Daniel is one of the most authenticated books of the Old Testament, translated into other languages several hundred years before the birth of Christ, including the Greek Septuagint, so there is absolutely no possibility this prediction was written after the fact.

Archaeologists discovered almost complete Ezekiel texts on stone tablets dated from 500-600 B.C., so there is no possibility his prophecy was written later or that the text was changed. Also, the events prophesied were out of the control of any individuals who might imagine fulfilling them, so they were not “self-fulfilling prophecy” as skeptics might claim. For example, how does one predict in the distant future when someone will be born or murdered, or when an entire nation could be free to return to their homeland?

www.miraclesormagic.com...

Therefore, although I was well on my way to deflating the "self-fulfilling prophecy" argument regarding the Bible, I realized I could avoid the issue altogether by returning to the "extra-biblical" historical documentation of Old Testament prophetic fulfillment. For example, is there any documentation outside the New Testament that shows that Jesus was executed as predicted in Jewish Scriptures such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53? Guess what? There is...

I soon discovered there are numerous Non-Christian sources outside the biblical texts that corroborate the events of the New Testament. In fact, there are a variety of extra-biblical sources that directly mention Jesus Christ and the rise of Christianity. I found this stunning! How could I discredit sources of historical evidence that weren't sympathetic to the person of Jesus or the cause of Christianity? In law, a witness that's either indifferent or antagonistic to the matter in question can be the most powerful testimony available.

www.allaboutthejourney.org...

originally posted by: Murgatroid
Have you walked on water, raised someone else from the dead, or healed a blind persons eyes?
When you do, THEN get back to us...

If you can get some independent verification of any of that, then you can get back to US.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
My belief is that all "proven" predictions are simply either a case of interpretation because of vagueness (like Nostradomus, or Edgar Cayce), or a case of self-fulfilled prophecies, which people believe a prediction enough that they make it come true.

Posters on ATS say this all the time but I have never seen it backed up with hard evidence...

I'm speaking of scripture specifically BTW.

See the above post for more on this as well.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
If you can get some independent verification of any of that, then you can get back to US.

I already have, which is why I am 100% convinced that it is fact.

Millions of others have as well.

God always endorses what he does through signs and wonders.

If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of one of these experiences you'll probably agree.

a reply to: Murgatroid

No you don't. We are using the English language with meanings behind words. Please stick to those meanings in future instead of your own meanings. Independent verification is not faith based. Behave yourself.

a reply to: Murgatroid

Scripture is a perfect example of self-fulfilling prophecies.

You argue that my stance isn't backed up with hard evidence--what about yours? The evidence FOR my stance is the predictions themselves.

originally posted by: Ignatian
a reply to: johnb

The appearance of Jesus Christ, the long awaited Messiah, was predicted in the Old Testament. Predicted many times, and in many different styles.

Christianity is the ONLY religeon in the history of man that can make this fantastical, yet truthful, claim. The leader was foretold, and indeed he appeared, as promised.

It's that simple, be a Christian. Cuz it's all true.

The story of Christ to fit their (Christian) version of the Old Testament prophecies. Christ did not fit all the prophecies of a coming Messiah according to the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament, thus they are still waiting for the Messiah. So you're right, your statement about Christianity being fantastical is correct. Can you provide proof that it's "all true"? According to you? Based on a fairy tale?

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: Blue Shift
If you can get some independent verification of any of that, then you can get back to US.

I already have, which is why I am 100% convinced that it is fact.

Millions of others have as well.

God always endorses what he does through signs and wonders.

If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of one of these experiences you'll probably agree.

Oh, so you were there when he walked on water, raised the dead, etc. just like the story of the Egyptian god Horus 1,500 years before the Christ story? News for ya: the Christians plagarized the pagan beliefs from ancient stories through scriptures (New Testament) which were written decades after he supposedly lived. Faith? A religious term which makes a virtue of being intellectually lazy.

a reply to: johnb

Here is a few ATS predictions, from members that have come true:
The Thats a Hit thread.

I should really keep up on that thread but don't have a lot of time anymore.
Work keeps me very busy.

a reply to: johnb

Pretty much no.

In the bible for example, many of the "prophecies" were written AFTER the events occurred.
The rest were either wrong or paradolia.

Now in theory accurate predictions should be possible.. due to Time's arrow working in both directions at the quantum level.

But I think that anyone who has "mutated enough" to do such a thing well, DOESN'T, or at least doesn't share the information.

Kev