That's ok, I understand you have no answers.

That's because a good question deserves a good answer.

I'm gonna have to separate you two. Lol

Tex, I can see getting separated by PB. :P

Texasescimo, it is okay for Wakko to comment on my answers, but when I leave him comments, he resorts to name calling and insults.

The question was a bit hard to know how to answer with the different angles, esp with the answering format not allowing paragraph separations and some punctuation marks. The answerbag generated links to facebook, twitter, etc don't help. I always found Waboo to be comical and thought for the most part, y'all were just kinda ribbing each other although disagreeing a bit. Wakko, you used to be Waboo or Waa boo or something like that, right?

Tex, I was NEVER Waboo!!! He was some kind of fake doctor or something as I recall.

Jennay, yep, you sure can answer any way you wish, but it still just shows you have no answers. Nope, you just puff yourself up like the pharisee you are.

Oh, okay, sorry. I do remember him saying he was some sort of Dr. I was thinking he used to be kinda light hearted when I first ran into him.

Texasescimo, the question is: "Should Wakko's questions be taken seriously?" If I see him or her ask a reasonable question, rather than a tirade of questions, I will be more than glad to share.

Wakko, quote: "but it still just shows you have no answers." For your information, most of my answers are religious. To your Pharisee remarks, I am being fair with you. How then do you want to be treated?

Then that settles it, Tex, for I was never light hearted neither. :P

Jennay, fair would be having an answer to my question, but NOOOooo.

Wakko, I think Texasescimo went back to answerMug: https://answermug.com/

Anyways, no hard feelings.

I agree with everything you said.

I agree with everything you said, too.

You know Wakko, finding that old answer reminded me of when I first found AB. I started out a little gentler and kinder than I ended up. On a lot of sites there seems to be an air of anything from irritations of something like Why Don't You Accept What I Am Saying to outright intolerance. Sometimes we have to go back and reevaluate ourselves, at least I do.

Tex, you just described Jennay (pronounced like Forest Gump) concerning intolerance and acceptance. :P As for reevaluating, I do that every day.

I take it you weren't told the stories growing up?

It's difficult to communicate without proper paragraph breaks. You asked: "Is salvation a free gift for all no matter what, or does it have stipulations?" I took that as two questions. 1. Is salvation a free gift. Answer: No. Nothing is ever free. Explanation: Matthew 6 says that not everyone who calls the name of the Lord will be admitted into heaven; nor anyone who can perform miracles in God's name. According to Matthew 19, you have to keep God's commandments to get into heaven. According to Matthew 7, those who do not forgive others will not be forgiven by God for their sins. Matthew 7 says that hardly anyone will be let into heaven, which basically sums up how Jesus in the Book of Matthew instructs people to get into heaven: they won't. Outside of Matthew, check out John 3:36. If you have faith in Jesus, he will save you, but if you do not obey Him, he will face the Wrath of God. So, in order to get into heaven, according to these verses, you have to obey without hesitation nor question. If you read the whole Bible and digest its words, you will see that Jesus is gathering the purest souls on Earth that He can in order to assimilate them to add to His strength so that He can defeat Satan. Satan, on the other hand, is already strong. Satan is strong enough to defeat Jesus in a battle, unless Jesus feeds upon the souls of the pure and naive, so Jesus defined a place called "heaven," where you can be one with Him, in order to lure people into allowing themselves to be devoured at the end of days so that Satan, who just wants people to be themselves and actually doesn't want their souls, can be destroyed. God, who is all powerful and could destroy Satan, does not do so, because Satan was God's eldest Son. The Jesus and Satan story of the new testament parallels the Cain and Abel story of the Book of Genesis in some ways, but is far more vague. 2. Are there stipulations? Answer: Yes, there are stipulations and limitations for those eligible. Explanation: If you died before Jesus was born, your soul cannot go to heaven. If you died before hearing the gospel, you are also excluded from heaven non-il-culpa. The Bible also states that the apocalypse will come before the generation of people to whom Jesus preached passes away (Matthew 24), so the whole idea of there being over 2 billion Christians on Earth seemed like an impossibility when the Bible was written. Obviously, since we exist, and it's been nearly 2000 years since the last of Jesus' contemporaries died, the prophecy of Matthew 24 did not come to pass, kind of pulling the rug of credibility out from the Book of Matthew in general, so you can interpret all of that however you like.

But yes, I did hear all of those stories growing up. I prayed for Jesus to save my soul when I was 8 years old. I had memorized hundred of passages from the Bible by the time I was 16 years old, but it wasn't until then that I really started studying the Bible wholesale, as opposed to memorizing each verse out of context. There are some really clever parables and stories in there, but if you have the ability to commit any of it to functional memory whilst reading the rest of it, it becomes obvious that the stories aren't real.

You suggest salvation by works. Paul wrote about that, too.

Salvation, as prescribed by the (protestant Christian) Bible is not consistently defined. After reading it and studying it carefully, there are a number of possible conclusions, which is why there are so many protestant denominations that disagree with each other at the fundamental level.

Hey man, how are you?

I like that. :)