[Vision2020] Your Baptism "i Faderens og Sønnens og den Helligaands Navn"

[Ralph Nielsen]

Doug,

I have no idea what God thinks about my baptism, Doug. That's his  
problem. I do know that infant baptism to a trinitarian formula has  
absolutely no scriptural basis whatsoever. And you can't find any  
either.

But many of us would appreciate your trying to find scriptural bases  
for the following:

- What about the alleged genealogies of Joseph in Matthew and Luke?  
Is either one of them true?
- How many people died and went to heaven in the Old Testament?
- Why is there no eternal life for Adam and Eve and their descendants?
- According to God, what happens to us when we die?
- How many books are supposed to be in the Bible? And who says so?  
God or mortals?

Have a nice night. Or "God nat, sov godt" as we say in Danish.

Ralph


On Dec 7, 2006, at 5:57 PM, heirdoug at netscape.net wrote:

> Ralph and Nick,
>
> You are so good to try and point everything back to scripture, can  
> you show me from scripture where Baptism "i Faderens og Sønnens og  
> den Helligaands Navn" can ware [sic] off or has no effect? It  
> doesn't matter what you think your Baptism means, what does God  
> think about your Baptism?
>
> Doug
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nielsen at uidaho.edu
> Cc: heirdoug at netscape.net
> Sent: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 5:31 PM
> Subject: Heirdoug's hero
>
> heirdoug at netscape.net
> Thu Dec 7 12:06:01 PST 2006
>
> DOUG
> Yes, I do claim that the genealogy in Matthew is the Word of God  
> and is
> true. I also claim that the genealogy in Luke is also the Word of God
> and is true. To believe that any part of God's Word to be false is to
> blaspheme the living God, something that you and your so called  
> "honest
> scholars" have come to a consensus on.
>
> RALPH
> I have a feeling that Doug is hiding something here. Both  
> genealogies, in Matthew and Luke, are of Jesus via Joseph. But they  
> can't both be true, so fundies play the dishonest game of  
> pretending that the one in Luke is of Mary, not Joseph. But some  
> other fundies make believe that the one in Matthew is of Mary and  
> the one in Luke is of Joseph. Is someone blaspheming the living God?
>
> DOUG
> I don't agree with you that neither David nor his baby went to heaven.
> To quote David, "Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he
> will not return to me." David went to his resurrection and as an Old
> Testament saint, is in the presence of the Lord. David said "I will go
> to him" that would mean that the baby went to his resurrection and is
> in the presence of the Lord as well. Ralph, you are starting to sound
> like a Sadducee.
>
> RALPH
> Doug can't show us a single person in the entire Hebrew Bible (OT)  
> who died and went to heaven. The conservative Sadducees were  
> correct in this matter.
>
> DOUG
> Vicarious punishment is perfectly moral in these Bible days as  
> well. We
> have never left the Bible days. The judgments and blessings of God do
> not change for God is unchangeable.
>
> RALPH
> We'll see how far you can carry the argument that the God of the  
> Bible is unchangeable. In the beginning of biblical human history  
> Yahweh God told Adam and Eve, "By the sweat of your face you shall  
> eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were  
> taken; you are dust, and to dust you will return" (Genesis 3:19).  
> And to make sure that Adam and Eve would not be able to return to  
> the garden of Eden, eat of the tree of life, and live forever like  
> God, he drove them out of the garden and placed cherubim to guard  
> the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).
>
> DOUG
> The sins that you commit could be
> the judgment God is placing upon your Grand parents. Not having a name
> or posterity to carry it on is also God’s judgment.
>
> RALPH
> Now Doug is twisting the word of God. It could be that I am paying  
> God's penalty for something my great-grandparents did, but nowhere  
> in the Bible have I read that sins that I might commit are the  
> penalty for what they did. For a summary of how God runs his world  
> read Deuteronomy 28. Nowhere does God promise any kind of life  
> after death, either for reward in a heaven or punishment in a hell.  
> As the Preacher wrote in the word of God, "The living know that  
> they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward,  
> and even the memory of them is lost" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).
>
> DOUG
> Ralph you amaze me. You choose to speak the truth in the midst of your
> lies. When God arranged, at the beginning of time, to have his only
> begotten son crucified, in the fullness of time, He was only thinking
> of you. It was for your sins that Jesus was born. It was for your sins
> that He lived a sinless life. It was for your sins that He died and  
> was
> buried. And it was for your justification that He was raised from the
> dead on the third day.
>
> RALPH
> It would be nice if Doug would tell us what lies I have told. I am  
> curious to know. As for vicarious punishment, we read, "But he  
> [David] did not put to death the children of the murderers;  
> according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where  
> the LORD commanded, 'The parents shall not be put to death for the  
> children, or the children be put to death for the parents; but all  
> shall be put to death for their own sins'" (2 Kings 14:6). (That  
> was a long verse, Doug.)
>
> DOUG
> I am curious about one thing. Were you baptized in the name of the
> Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as a child like Nick Gier was?
>
> RALPH
> Yes, I was baptized into the Church of Denmark, like Nick's  
> daughter, "i Faderens og Sønnens og den Helligaands Navn." But it  
> wore off.
>
>
> From: nielsen at uidaho.edu
> To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
>
> Sent: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 10:46 AM
> Subject: Heirdoug's hero
>
> If Doug's claim that the genealogy in Matthew is historically true,
> then the one in Luke is false. Of course, it is possible that both are
> false, as honest Christian scholars agree.
>
> I am at a loss to understand what Doug means when he claims that I
> "typically" quote Bible verses incompletely. Since the division of the
> Bible into chapters and verses is quite arbitrary--they do not appear
> in the MSS--it is not always necessary to quote verses in full.  
> Since I
> was discussing David, not Jesus, my omission was perfectly legitimate.
>
> I take it that Doug agrees with me that neither David nor his baby boy
> went to heaven when they died.
>
> Vicarious punishment was considered perfectly moral in Bible days.  
> That
> is why the LORD killed David's baby boy for his father's sins. And  
> that
> is why, according to the Christian religion, God arranged to have his
> own son tortured and killed for the sins of others.
>
> As for which or how many books belong in the Bible and thus constitute
> the "Word of God," here again the decision is quite arbitrary. To this
> day Christians and Jews cannot agree on this matter. So far be it from
> me to argue about it.
>
> Ralph
> =
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