Have you heard the one about the Baptist and the Apologetic?

Yesterday was the Linthicum Fair. It rained. So Holly, Erin, Mike, and I took our crappy scarecrow back to Holly's house. He looked anorexic. And it was a very sad fifteen minutes. As soon as we reached Holly's house, though, it got worse. Here's the setting: I am holding my own umbrella and a plate of funnel cake. Holly is holding an umbrella for her and Erin as well as her plate of funnel cake. Erin was holding a can of Sprite and Mike's plate of funnel cake, and Mike was carrying Charlie Brown the scarecrow. Holly had to open the door so she handed the umbrella to Erin. Erin takes the umbrella and, to make it easier, goes to put Mike's plate of funnel cake on top of the Sprite can. The very second that the plate topples off and lands face-down on the sidewalk, Charlie the scarecrow falls into two pieces. So Mike had the pants slung over his shoulder, but the torso and head fell and got smudged with powdered sugar.

So, yeah. We renamed the scarecrow Ernesto. It was my idea.

Then it stopped raining so we went back to the fair and we got ambushed by these Baptists. They gave me a balloon Giraffe and I named it Esteban. THEN! Then story. They had a little thing at their table that said, "Are you a good person? Take Our Test!" And if you took the test, no matter what, you had to have disobeyed at least one of the ten commandments and therefore were going to Hell. So then I got into a discussion with the Baptist running the thing. This is roughly how it went.

Me: "Well, what if you repent for your sins?
Dude: You have to repent and then carry out the will of God.
What if you repent and then die the next second?
How does God know you are truly sorry?
Cause you just told Him so. And He's omniscient so he knows either way.
But he says that you need to carry out his will or you will not be saved.
So I am going to Hell. Got it. Eternal damnation for telling a lie and then apologizing.
Well, if you aren't following the laws of God, then you must face our just creator's punishment. Look at it this way. Say there is a murderer and he is in court. The judge is a good person, but he has to be fair. The murdered says that he is truly sorry and will never do it again, so should the judge let him go? No. He must punish him.
So you are putting a lie on the same level as murder? Are you telling me that if I lie and am not truly sorry, then I could go kill someone and pay no more of a price?
Basically.
Well that's dumb. What about you then?
Well, if I died right now, I'd go to Heaven.
You're perfect then? Cause nothing imperfect enters Heaven.
Yes. I am perfect.
How so? You sin. I'm sure of it. You're man, so you're fallible.
Yes, I sin, but when I do, I tell God that I am sorry.
So it'll save you, but not me because I am not a Baptist?
No. Being sorry isn't enough--
For anybody except for yourself. So I guess you don't believe in Purgatory either.
No. It's not in scripture.
Yes it is. 1 Peter Chapter 3, John Chapter 20, throughout the whole book of Luke. ((Handy knowledge, right there)) Do you pray for the dead?
Yes.
Why? If there is no Purgatory, they must be in heaven or hell.
Correct. Why can't I pray for them?
Why bother? In Hell they are eternally damned so you can't help them. In Heaven, they are perfect, so they don't need your prayers.
Well, there are souls in Hades.
Which is, what? A Roman God? Do sinners get eaten by Hades?
Of course not. Sinners go to either Heaven, Hell, or Hades. Hades is a division before Hell. It is a place of torment from which sinners go to Hell.
So you can just say it's Hell.
No. Hell is permanent.
But if you are in Hades, you will go to Hell anyway. **no response from Baptist** So where did Jesus go for the three days between his death and resurrection? He went to save the souls in Purgatory that were waiting to be cleansed so as to enter Heaven.
Yes, and that was in hades.
But you said that in Hades they went to Hell in the end.
I did.
.....and so?
Let me put it this way. *man describes court situation again*
That has nothing to do with purgatory.
*delayed response totally unrelated to what I said* Everything there is to believe is in Scripture.
See, but I am Catholic so I believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Tradition too. There's this recording of Scott Hahn--
I don't like him.
How Christian. So there's this recording where he proves that Tradition is divinely inspired and Scripture is not the only source of revelation from God.
You say that because you are Catholic. You believe that men are infallible.
Thanks for the info, but no I don't. I believe that, when they teach about faith and morals, the Magisterium is infallible.
That's wrong.
If man is fallible, how do you know that Scripture is all Truth? God used men as his instrument to write it. If you believe it as the whole Truth, it must be divinely inspired. if it's divinely inspired, it must be infallible and inerrant. But a man wrote it.
Well. i have to tend to my stand, so I'll have to leave you now.
Gee, I'm crushed.



And at that point, Esteban and I took our business elsewhere.


---Scottie: "Focus on the crucifix. For Jesus without the cross is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus is a burden without a reliever." -Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.