[Vision2020] Wayne has a question or 15!

Sat Aug 27 13:48:18 PDT 2005

heirloom at moscow.com heirloom at moscow.com
Fri Aug 26 16:13:24 PDT 2005

Wayne Fox wants to know:

For example:
<Where and when Jesus was born?>
    In a manger in Bethlehem, in the fullness of time!

Ralph: A cop-out reply. The gospels disagree on the year.

<Which words in the bible were actually spoken by Jesus and which were
made up by persons with their own agendas/interpretations?>
    The ones in red are His and all the other ones are the Holy  
Spirits.  -
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy  
men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Ralph: All the words in the Bible were made up by the various writers.

<If Jesus was the result of an "immaculate conception" (curious term,
indicating disdain and disgust with the joy of the normal reproductive
process) or was he the result of Joseph's (or someone else's)
interdiction.  If the former, then Jesus could not be descended from  
David
via Joseph's and other interveners' begetting as claimed.>
Ralph: The "Immaculate Conception" refers to the non-biblical claim  
that Mary was born without sin. According to Matthew and Luke Jesus  
was born of a virgin, like many other famous men of his time.

   Mary was also a member of the line of David and as Jesus’ earthly
overseer, by marriage, Joseph was the other side going back to David. So
that would make Jesus the Son of David through both blood lines. - Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the  
will of
man, but of God.  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,  
(and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.

Ralph: This is a common big lie of fundamentalists. The genealogies  
in Matthew and Luke are both of Joseph. There is no genealogy of Mary  
in the Bible.

At this point I will try to answer the question in a more logical order
than the way they were presented.

<Does god have a gender?>
    See above verse begotten of the Father (that would be masculine in
gender) Your question is asking is God the Father have male or female
genitals. The answer to that would be: - God is not a man, that he  
should
lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and
then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

Ralph: Theological quibbling about an imaginary entity.

<Is heaven a temporal/spatial realm?>
    I’m not sure, I have never been there. I have entered into the
heavenlies every Lord’s Day.

Ralph: In the Bible heaven is a real place. It is above a flat earth.  
Both Elijah and Jesus went up to heaven bodily.

<Do you have to be a Christian or even believe in god to be eligible for
eternal reward?>
    If you can satisfy all the Creator/Judge’s legal requirements and  
are
perfectly Holy according to His standard, then No you do not have to  
be a
Christian. But if you fail in any one area then the answer is Yes. –  
What
then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the
faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found
true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written,
          “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS,
          AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED."

Ralph: In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) there is no life after  
death. We all go to the same place (Ecclesiastes 3:18-20).

<Are all non-Christians damned to eternal punishment?>
    All who do not live by Faith are damned to eternal punishment.

Ralph: Read John 5:28-29; Revelation 20: 11-13.

The next few questions would be what I call side stepping the main issue
questions:

<Are blacks inferior/subservient to whites?>
    It depends if your [you're] Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger or  
not!

Ralph: It also depends on whether you're a southern white Christian  
or not.

<Is slavery permissible?(I assume you mean in the scriptures?)>
    Yes!

Ralph: Yes! You may even sell your children as slaves. Boys must be  
set free after six years, but girls are slaves forever (Exodus 21: 2-7).

<Is capital punishment permissible?>
    Yes!

Ralph: One of the biggest killers in the Bible is God.

<Is abortion permissible?>
    No!

Ralph: False! Abortion is not forbidden in the Bible. Some Bible  
dictionaries do not even have an entry for "abortion."

<Are monogamous homosexual relations permissible?>
    No!

Ralph: Correct. The ancient priests who wrote their edicts in the  
name of God, as was the custom throughout the Middle East at the  
time, wanted their subjects to have as many children as possible.

<Is it permissible to lie in order to forward some alleged works on  
behalf
of god?>
    Can you disguise yourself as a bush when you are a tank during war
time, Yes!

Ralph: Not only did God make people lie (2 Chronicles 18:22; 2  
Thessalonians 2:11), but he lied himself (Genesis 2:17; 5:5).

The last set of questions we can classify as religious practice ones:

<Can women be religious/spiritual professionals/counselors?>
    They can be anything they want. Can they be elders, then no!

Ralph: Why be a mere elder when a woman can be a prophet (Luke 2:36-37)?

<Is prayer to be private or public?>
    Both.

<Do Christians have a duty to protect and conserve natural resources and
wildlife?>
    What part of ‘be fruitful and subdue the earth’ do you not  
understand!
That’s what it means!

Ralph: Go right ahead and destroy the planet on which we were evolved  
because God and Jesus will soon create a new new one (Revelation 21:1).

<Is the Pope infallible?>
    If you are a Roman Catholic the answer would be yes, if one is a
Trinitarian the answer would be no.

Ralph: What a snotty reply! The whole Trinitarian business was the  
invention of the Roman Catholic church.

<Does the bread and wine of communion become the actual blood and  
flesh of
Christ at the moment of ingestion?>
    See above!

<If your alleged god is powerful, smart, and good, couldn't she/it/he  
have
written much clearer, ultimately more persuasive instructions  to live
correctly and to attain eternal bliss so as to not only avoid any
confusion, even among the feeble witted, but to avoid all the  
corruption,
torture, war, oppression, human and animal suffering, and divisiveness
which has occurred and continues to occur in the name of this alleged  
god
and its/hers/his "word"?>

Wayne, My God IS all-powerful, all-smart and all-good. He has made  
things
pretty clear. One only needs to live by Faith.

Ralph: More people have suffered and died in the name of God than for  
any other reason. The Bible and history books are full of blood,  
suffering and slaughter.

I hope this clear things up for you!

Lemeno, Doug