I graciously accept that I misunderstand timidity. Thank you for your correction. I still hold that you are elitist, because you believe that you have a special revelation that allows you to interpret The Bible better than BA does. This is not the same as a Christian saying that they have a revelation that a Muslim (for example) doesn’t have; a Muslim has access to the same Bible as you have (as well as potentially having access to The Spirit if God allows it). You are implying that you are closer to God than BA.
All you have to do to end your elitism is take the first clause of the first sentence and truly mean it. You should admit that you are fallible when interpreting you Holy Spirit and that your interpretation is not better than BAs and that your accusation that he is speaking somehow in in aid of The Devil is way off base.
How does that make me elitist? That makes me have a differing belief than BA, but at no time does it mean it is elitist? . As I said, you jumped to the defense before knowing the facts, many people in this forum know the Scriptures better than BA, but I never claimed I knew them better than BA. On the other hand, BA has demonstrated he does not know the Scriptures, even refusing the meaning of the Greek words it was written in which contradict his position, so I would not error in saying that I know the Scriptures better than he, especially since I have studied them since the age of four after a vision/visitation.
And I am sure if you had lived in the time of Christ, you had the same words for Jesus when He called the Pharisee’s children of the Devil, and though searching the Scriptures for Eternal Life, they could not find it never recognizing what it was before them, but keep going rainzbow, like those before you who have taken this path of destruction, you only hurt yourself. Remember, I am not dependent upon the acceptance of men for my strength, as I am already accepted by God. Your Ad Hominem reasoning is now going into circular arguments and it is rather a sad cycle you will find yourself in.
So have you or have you not had a special revelation that allows you to be so sure that you are right and BA is wrong? If not, have some humility and be gracious toward his reading of the scriptures. His reading may not agree with yours but calling it demonic is out of line. If you believe you have had special revelation, then I can’t really agree with you, but I can’t argue with you either.
I would actually believe Jesus, not because of any scripture at all, but because of his righteous miracles. I am not a biblicist, or an inerrantist, which would be the modern day equivelant of the Pharisee viewpoint. I am not for BA because I love his interpretation of the bible, I am for BA because he has been called demonic for taking the (current) standard view toward eschatology which many people including most members of my family also hold.
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One worth copying … thanks Ran
Thanks, John. And thanks for rescuing us from the ridiculous turn this thread has taken.
Both of you, stop it! Take it to emails. It’s friggin’ embarrassing.
I am in no way embarrassed for sticking up for someone who is being called demonic for not agreeing with someones interpretation of scripture which in no way is final and has in no way been given by the divine over the interpretations of countless other Christians.
Yeah, well, get a life and stop hi-jacking this thread! We agree with you. OK? Happy ego, now? Your pride intact?
Ran, I know you weren’t talking to me, but I have to ask:
Why is your style frequently so nasty and disrespectful?
- Pat
I never called anyone demonic! Hahahaha. 
No problem brother, and yes your comment should not be lost in this! It was a very good point!
*I happen to enjoy RanRan’s style and I have been direct recipient a few times. 
I read this a moment ago I thought it fitting and appropriate. *
"So occasionally sparks fly, but it’s all good, sparks light the fire and the fire purifies and reveals many things we need to see.
The status quo is death, and we all come from many different lands of dispersion on the highways to Zion. At first we look strange to one another, but as we ascend the mount and enter the joy of our Lord, we find ourselves standing as one soul."
Eaglesway
I head butt with RanRan when I first got here, but I have no ill feelings or grudges against him. RanRan is being RanRan, and we just had a personality conflict, nothing more. As my friend’s the industry say, “He’s good people!”
We are also seeing only 2% of anyone’s real communication online anyways.
And this is where the discussion dove entirely off a cliff.
Up to this point, even Ran and BA were being more-or-less civil. After this point… sigh.
I know you didn’t mean to be hostile, Rainz. I’m just pointing out, that once things become personally confrontational like this, the civility of the thread starts depending even more than usual on the least stable persons involved in it.
That being said, the discussion might have taken a turn for the worse back here instead, too:
This is wildly oversimplifying matters, Craig; which is probably what led Rainz to the charge above. There are in fact universalists here on this forum who are preaching that all will certainly eventually ‘go to heaven’–most of us do in fact, although (as I’ve also pointed out on occasion) it isn’t strictly necessary that all eventually go to heaven for universalism to be true (only that God shall persist in acting to save all sinners from sin)–and there seem to be at least a few universalists currently on the forum who preach that no one at all suffers penalties (whether self-inflicted or inflicted by God) after death but are directly resurrected to a state of zoe eonian.
That having been said:
This is probably what Craig was responding to with the oversimplified reply, Rainz. Most universalist scholars and students do not in fact ignore the other half, including Craig. We differ among ourselves about how to most accurately interpret and apply the sayings about punishment. Most of us do not “ignore the other half”. Now, it’s true that there are a few universalists on the board (representing possibly a disproportionately larger fraction of universalists than are otherwise represented on the board) who try to interpret those warnings as having already come true sometime in our distant past and so therefore of no concern in the future. But most of us believe and teach that, one way or another, those warnings about punishment to come are still warnings to anyone at any time about punishment still to come for anyone who insists on holding to their sins.
You might not have known, perhaps, that Craig was one of the majority who do accept and teach that those warnings still apply to persistent sinners. But I think you did know that universalism, broadly speaking, is certainly more diverse than to outright ignore the scriptural warnings; and I don’t find anything previous to this in what Craig was saying to indicate that he was ignoring or discounting those teachings. (Maybe you saw him doing so in other threads??)
Anyway, after these things, the thread goes basically to hell. Insert irony as appropriate.
Which is too bad, because I saw a sober discussion of various issues being developed in the early parts of it, and even potentially in some later portions of it. (Among several other interesting things, Rainz’ “teach but not confirm” stance seems similar to what the Roman Catholic upper ranks look prepared to accept.)
Now I’m considering locking the thread altogether. In fact, just consider that done.
(I mean, I could comment on some hugely ironic statements from BA, first; though really, what’s the point? 
But it wasn’t BA who derailed this thread. Or RanRan either.)