Red Herring Arguments: Difference between revisions

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 *[[The Vision of the Meetings in South Africa]]
 *The [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] Prophecy
-*[[The Brown Bear Vision]]
+*The Brown Bear Vision
 <br>
-=Explanations for the Failed Prophecies=
+==We need an explanation for failed prophecies==
-[[Cognitive Dissonance]] forces message believers to deal with these failed prophecies in a variety of ways.  But in order to end the cognitive dissonance, they have to make these issues unimportant and capable of being ignored because that is exactly what they do with these problems, ignore them.
+Message believers have to reconcile what they believe (that William Branham was a prophet) with historic facts (that William Branham's prophecies did not all come to pass).  The easiest way to do this is to trivialize the importance of facts until the person feels comfortable ignoring them. Technically, this is called [[Cognitive Dissonance]].
-The following are some of the explanations provided.
+Here are some prophecies that Voice of God Recordings
+==Voice of God Recordings explains the failed prophecies==
+'''Voice of God Recordings''' ("VoGR"), an entity led by William Branham's sons and dedicated to sharing his sermons.  In a publication called '''Catch the Vision'''(2012, Volume 2), they explain away the failures in William Branham's prophecies without discussing the facts.  Their argument flows as follows:
+#William Branham's Message has mistakes in it.
+#The Bible has mistakes in it.
+#We still believe the Bible despite its mistakes.
+#Therefore, we can believe William Branham's Message confidently.
+Three examples of Biblical "errors" that VOGR gives are:
+#Paul's story of his conversion experience differs between Acts 9 and Acts 22.  How can you believe the Bible if it can't get its facts straight on whether Paul companions heard the voice or not?
+#Genesis 15:13 says that the Egyptians would afflict the Israelits for four hundred year but Exodus 12:40 states that “the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.  How can the Bible be trusted if there is a difference of 30 years?
+#Every Gospel tells the resurrection story differently.  How can the Bible be true if a story this important is different in all four accounts (i.e. the number of women and angels present at the tomb)?
+The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that the "problems" in the Bible are the same as the problems in the message. But the problems aren't the same.
+For starters, the Bible accounts are written by different people thousands of years ago, while the Message is from one source (William Branham) and his spoken words can be searched in an electronic database online.  Second, William Branham spoke English, while the Bible is translated from an ancient form of Greek and Hebrew.  The King James Bible in itself is a translation of Hebrew and Greek into Latin, and then into English.
+Let's address the specific examples provided by VoGR:
 ==Jonah prophesied against Nineveh but it was not destroyed==
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 :::THE SIGNS OF HIS COMING CLEVELAND TN  SATURDAY 62-0407
-==The Bible has errors and people believe it.  So if the message has errors, you should still believe it==
-An example of this is the reasoning given by '''Voice of God Recordings''' ("VoGR") in '''Catch the Vision''', 2012, Volume 2.
-The first thing that VoGR tells you is that you shouldn't reason with the Word of God.  The next thing they do is to apply flawed reasoning to the issue.  But I thought we weren't supposed to reason?
-Message believers are so desperate for an explanation that this flawed reasoning was immediately copied by a few well known message ministers such as Ed Byskal and Vin Dayal.
-Here is the argument:
-#The message has mistakes in it.
-#The Bible has mistakes in it but we believe it.
-#We should believe the message even though it has mistakes.
-The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that the "problems" in the Bible are the same as the problems in the message.
-But are they the same?
-Three examples of Biblical "errors" that VOGR gives are:
-#Paul's story of his conversion experience differs between Acts 9 and Acts 22.  How can you believe the Bible if it can't get its facts straight on whether Paul companions heard the voice or not?
-#Genesis 15:13 says that the Egyptians would afflict the Israelits for four hundred year but Exodus 12:40 states that “the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.  How can the Bible be trusted if there is a difference of 30 years?
-#Every Gospel tells the resurrection story differently.  How can the Bible be true if a story this important is different in all four accounts (i.e. the number of women and angels present at the tomb)?
 ===Differences in Paul's Conversion Experiences===