In re my post at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2018/jovial85.htm and David's response at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2018/dave819.htm , I want to add a few comments.  David made several responses that were not in any way contradictory with what I said, but someone he seemed to think the point he was making was.

Some believers seem to view science as being opposed to faith.  In fact there even seems to be people who are arguing that Science is "bad", but then using  science to predict a future red moon that future prophecy will be fulfilled on.  You can't cherry pick like that.  If it is bad, you can't use it to predict the future.

Science is not evil and will always uphold the Bible.  No one can argue that science correctly predicted the lunar eclipse and red moon on 7/27.  Science makes future predictions based on the natural course of events continuing as they have.  If something unexpected occurs, that means the natural course of events is changing.  The issue of being "predictable" does not rest on man knowing enough to predict it, but whether past behavior CAN be used to predict the future.  A miracle occurs when God interferes with the natural course of events.  That, by definition, is unpredictable, because it changes what has been happening and cannot be foreseen.  the issue is not whether man is smart enough to predict it, but whether past activity lends itself to the prediction.

David said, "I'm sure you are aware that celestial bodies and formations have historically been associated with human events worldwide. For example, sightings of Mars have been considered to be a harbinger of war."  Well I was told when I was a kid that thunder was the angels bowling.  That was wrong.  Mars comes and goes in its cycles, and has no bearing on whether war will occur.  Many myths have evolved about the celestial bodies, but we cannot use ancient superstitions as a basis for drawing a conclusion.  In fact, studying where Mars was every night is what led Yohan Kepler in 1609 to become the first person to identify the eliptical nature of the planetary orbits around the sun.   Until then, people thought it was circular, but Kepler's data made the orbit of Mars so predictable, those old myths have no basis of believability in a rational modern world.

David said, "your reasoning is built on a faulty premise: man's current level of understanding is complete and all-encompassing. "  I never said that.  The point I am trying to make is  that when God  talks about the sun growing dark and the moon turning to blood, he is talking about something we don't see happen regularly.  We don't see the moon get dark.  NEVER OBSERVED THAT IN HISTORY.  And if a red moon is mentioned in the same breath as that, we are probably talking about a shade of red we have never seen as well.  The whole point of the Biblical passage in Joel is to describe the celestial bodies doing something that man has never observed before....something we have never seen.  And it is a sign that something that has never happened before is about to happen involving God interfering with the natural course of events.

If we can predict the future based on past activity, what that is a sign of is that everything is continuing as it always has.  The second coming is going to be an interruption to things as they have always happened.  It is a change from the past.  And God will signify that in the heavens by changing the heavens to something we have never seen before, and thus, have no basis for predicting it.

Shalom,

Joe