best, because He spoke as if Abraham and Lazarus are alive and could talk to other people. Why would Jesus tell such a misleading story if it were not true? The Watchtower would rather put the deception in the mouth of Jesus than admit their own deceit in this and many other points of theology.
Physical death does not entail death of the soul or spirit. That is why Jesus could say that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. I see you conveniently 'forgot' to address that passage.
And what do you say to the transfiguration in Matthew 17 where Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus? Another deception by Jesus?
"the assiduous cultivation of religious constituencies by the Bush apparat, and the undisguised intrusion of evangelical leaders and some conservative Catholic hierarchs into the presidential campaign, demonstrated that the old rule of maintaining a decent respect for the nonpartisanship of religion can now be broken with impunity."
Mark Silk, Religion in the News.
"There are millions of Christians who believe the Bible is literally true, word for word. Some of them?we'll come back to the question of how many? subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the nineteenth century by two immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them with their own hallucinations into a narrative foretelling the return of Jesus and the end of the world. Google the "Rapture Index" and you will see just how the notion has seized the imagination of many a good and sincere believer (you will also see just where we stand right now in the ticking of the clock toward the culmination of history in the apocalypse). It is the inspiration for the best-selling books in America today?the twelve novels in the Left Behind series by Christian fundamentalist and religious- right warrior Tim LaHaye, a co- founder with Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority.
"The plot of the Rapture?the word never appears in the Bible although some fantasists insist it is the hidden code to the Book of Revelation?is rather simple, if bizarre. (The British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for refreshing my own insights.) Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the Antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned the Messiah will return for the Rapture. True believers will be transported to heaven where, seated at the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents writhe in the misery of plagues?boils, sores, locusts, and frogs?during the several years of tribulation that follow."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852
It would be nice if all this Rapture stuff wasn't some sort of Johnny-Come-Lately gloss added to millennia of reasonably honest belief. But the fact is it dates all the way back to the 19th Century and thus has no legitimacy whatsoever, sort of like Papal infallibility. It is amazing though what some people choose to make up and others choose to believe. Makes one believe in a malevolent being at work.
Hope to see y'all there, I'll bring the marshmallows.
Rob Boyter
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