Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

I misjudged. G K-S obviously has poor comprehension skills...
 

This is my current struggle, as I write about, with brutal honesty, at my own place. On the one hand, I believe that is true. On the other hand, the ministry of Jesus belies that - even as it takes Jesus' partiality to extend an impartial, universal grace to all.

On the one hand, how can what I wrote square with my own sense of God's grace being universal? Yet, how can I deny that I do not believe that every expression clothed in words taken from the Bible is Christian? I have no answer to this dilemma, and refuse to accept easy answers. Perhaps there are none. I will struggle, in private and in public, and seek the solace in the lone fact of my own contingency and sinful nature.

For the record, ER, I never said ELAshley was a bigot. Yet, one can read the bigotry within his words - and by bigotry and ignorance, I mean the rush to judge those different from him as less worthy.

I know I stand under the judgment of my own words, yet I do not feel right retracting them. I do believe that prayer is in order . . .
 

For the sake of 'Comity,' I chose to be conciliatory... civil... deleting even my more incendiary comments, as was proper.

The idea of 'Comity,' however, seems lost on Geoffrey; he seems capable only of twisting the knife. Way to go Geoffrey!
 

Perhaps I should have waited before posting my latest....
 

From the reading assignment you gave us:

"So, other religions do offer some truth and we may learn from them. But, Jesus is not a good teacher like the Buddha or a prophet like Muhammad. Jesus is God made flesh. If we really believe this claim to be true, then we see that while other religions may hold some truth, Christianity offers The Truth about who God is and how God acts. While we should not be smug or self-righteous in our beliefs, neither should Christians be embarrassed to claim that Jesus reveals the Truth of God."

Finally, someone agrees that Christ is THE Way, the Truth, and the Life...
 

Except, ELAshely, the knife I twist is firmly embedded in my own heart. Unless you think that my soul-searching somehow involved you.

Once again, quoting the Bible (in this case, the Fourth Gospel putting the words "I am the way, etc. . ." in Jesus' mouth) is not the end of an argument, but only the beginning.

For the sake of comity? Should you think that my delicate feelings might get hurt by what you might say, you may rest assured that nothing you say can be as harsh as the way I am lashing myself right now. Both barrels, if you feel up to it.
 

Yes, EL, Jesus is Lord. That's not at issue. What's at issue is whether others who seek God, and who are ready to cling to the Gospel, but have never heard it -- or even those whose own cultural and religious trappings keep them from hearing it even whil hearing it -- are doomed.

And I say hell no, so to speak. And "what Peter said."

GKS: Peace on you!
 

ER, This comment goes back to the other post from which you referred us to this one. Your comment:
I think that, at any given moment, the only way to gauge whether any one of us is accepting or refusing the gift of Grace is by noting whether or not WE are extend God's gift of Grace to others, no questions asked!
I agree with you that in gratitude for the Grace that God has granted us should motivate us to extend Grace to all others. I would only add that the Grace whereby we are saved is offered only by God Himself by way of the Holy Spirit because of the scripture that tells us that it is by Grace that we are saved and that not of ourselves, lest we should boast. The Holy Spirit draws us to God for salvation and that is a work that He alone performs. We are to be instruments that he may use, but it is His work alone, drawing us by the Holy Spirit to accept what Jesus has done on the cross for us and to receive it by His invitation.
 

Mom2 - never have so many words been used to say nothing at all. Like a serpent eating its own tail, only having finished and vanished up its own alimentary canal.

Alas, St. Matthew's Gospel (the clearest on the issue of what constitutes judgment) does not say that Jesus will ask us if we got the doctrine of atonement correct; it does not say that Jesus will ask us if we "brought others to Christ". It asks us if we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoner. In other words - did we live with love towards those the world has rejected.

This is why I cannot abide this nonsense. You preach and prattle and miss the most important point. It's not about a bunch of gobbledygook in your head that you spout off as if memorized for each and every occasion. It's about loving others. AND I HAVE NEVER ONCE SEEN OR HEARD ANY EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING BUT HATRED AND DIVISION FROM YOU AND THOSE LIKE YOU. Christian doctrine is meaningless if not accompanied by a life of love - and not warm puppy love in the shape of Precious Moments figurines, but the kind of love that is bent and broken by the cross that is true love for others.
 

I don't have any majortrouble with any of that. I mean, that's pretty standard stuff. But I think that Graces actually empowers us and enlivens us as individual members of the Body of Christ; it gfoes beyond "we do" because "we're grateful." We either are compelled to act, or it's all just a bunch of stuff we say we believe. I believe we are in partnership with God, in a very real way, to advance trhe Kingdom; we are not mere passive receivers of the gift of Grace.

Anyway, I don't see how your comment connects to what I said. I didn't mean to remark on how we can gauge our own acceptance of Grace, but what clues we are to look for in others as evidence of where they happen to be with God at a given time.

Judgemental, holier-than-thou, self-righteous people are fuller of themselves that they are Grace, and so they exude themselves, not Grace. And I say this with my own fingers pointed at my own self.
 

Geoffrey! Calm down! For Christ's sake. You are doing more harm than good. Look at the contradictions:

"You preach and prattle and miss the most important point. It's not about a bunch of gobbledygook in your head that you spout off as if memorized for each and every occasion. It's about loving others. AND I HAVE NEVER ONCE SEEN OR HEARD ANY EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING BUT HATRED AND DIVISION FROM YOU AND THOSE LIKE YOU. Christian doctrine is meaningless if not accompanied by a life of love - and not warm puppy love in the shape of Precious Moments figurines, but the kind of love that is bent and broken by the cross that is true love for others."

Love's ass.

Put the brakes on, man!
 

I hope it's clear that my 9:03 p.m. comment was in response to Mom2's 8:32 p.m. comment, and most defintely not in response to Geoffrey's anguish of 9:02.
 

This is just rude: "never have so many words been used to say nothing at all."

That's untrue on its face. Those words and phrases and thoughts have deep meaning, culturally and religiously, to Mom2, and to me, whether or not I adhere to them to the extent she does.

Whatever valid points you had, GKS, are lost in all the fire and smoke.
 

CLOSED.
 

ER, I was not meaning to take away anything from what you said, I was just adding to it the part that I believe God plays. I believe it is God's desire that all would be saved and He is no respecter of persons, but we are not robots....we gave us free wills.
Since I have no idea what fired Geoffrey up, I have no reply to him. I pray that he will find peace.
ER, I do believe that we have more in common than I once did. I hope our communication can be such that we understand each other better.
 

Amen, Mom2.

NOW CLOSED. Unless another sneaky booger comment slips in.
 

Sigh. OPEN. I cannot limit speech no matter how it galls me -- especially that speech which galls me must be free!

Yellow flag: James 3!
 

Well, then, let me say...

boogety boogety boogety boo.

go, grace! go, justice! go, love.

rah, rah, rah...etc.
 

[chuckle]
 

"Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub. Yay God."

My favorite movie prayer EVER.
 

I'll slip one in, I seemed to have missed a full day of this post!

I hate to quote or paraphrase CS Lewis all the time, but a lot of what he's written makes or has made things clear to me.

I struggled with this question years ago, and was often faced with believers who liked the black and white, the clear-cut view, but it just wasn't enough.

Somewhere in his many writings Lewis says that we're not really told what is going to happen to the people who have never heard the gospel but who seek to find the truth.

Each one of us who has heard, however, has his/her own responsibility with what he/she has heard and must follow up personally.

I like to think that someone who doesn't know, who's never heard, is covered by the grace that covers (all) children, and because the kingdom belongs to such as these, who am I to argue?
 

That is a fair statement.
 

Grace-salvation-redemption God has apparently extended these thoughout time in both AD and BC.

In the book of Job, not even an originally Hebrew story, Job declares...“I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth. And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25 -26).

And of course he extended it outside of Israel as Jesus declared... "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."
John 10:14-16 Other sheep...could that mean outside "Christianity" as well as "Israel".

Paul said that all of Israel will be saved: "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins."

Wait...wait.. is Paul say it is written that God will save all of Israel? Some say no..but it is hard to know. Why? Well Tell me where was it written... from what did Paul take that quote?
Does anyone know?
 

Well, at Paul's remark, at Romans 11: 26-27, my trusty HarperCollins Study Bible references Isaiah 59: 20-21.

What a great page to fall upon after this long and at times miserable day in blogland.

Romans 11:33 -- Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord,or who has been his counselor? 35Or(E) who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" 36Forfrom him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 12:3 -- For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.


Paul could be contradictory -- and others put words in his mouth in some of the books with his name on them. His anguish was on his sleeve sometimes and his humanity was front-and-center in all the letters.

But he also so reached the heights of poetry, philosophy and honesty sometimes. Yay Paul.
 

Hoot.

I find it majorly amusing that it was neither the lefty former seminarian, nor the proud fundamentalist, nor the occasionally cranky but sincere traditionalist who actually drove me to the Bible tonight -- it was the self-confessed heretic!

Good job, Drlobojo!

I'm whupped. 'Night, y'all.

End hoot.
 

Yep I finally ended up at Isaiah 59: 20-21, but it seems to have a clause that Romans didn't have...those who repent from their sins. And of course it is a subjectively close quote, but not exactly. So still I wonder.

By the way in a previous post I was so sure that it was the Book of Enoch was the source of "all are eventyally saved" statements that I read the whole thing last night plus the Secrets of Enoch as well. It wasn't there. Now I'm going to have to hit my books to find which abandoned book it was.

Heretic? Etomology of Heresy:The word "heresy" comes from the Greek αἵρεσις, hairesis (from αἱρέομαι, haireomai, "choose"), which means either a 'choice of beliefs or a faction of believers. It was given wide currency by Irenaeus (I just love ole Irenaeus who was labled a heritic himself by latter dudes) in his tract Contra Haereses (Against Heresies) to describe and discredit his opponents in the early Christian Church. He described his own position as orthodox (from ortho- "right" + doxa "belief") and his position eventually evolved into the position of the early Christian Church.

Used in this way, the term "heresy" has no purely objective meaning: the category exists only from the point of view of speakers within a group that has previously agreed about what counts as "orthodox". Any nonconformist view within any field may be perceived as "heretical" by others within that field who are convinced that their view is "orthodox"; in the sciences this extension is made tongue-in-cheek."

OK, I am a heretic, and damn proud of it. You might say I love to kick those pricks, err..., or is that I kick against those pricks?
Anyway think of me as a Prick-Kicker.
 

Well, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, obviously I missed something...

But as for the actual post, I think God does show partiality ... sorta.

The Bible tells one story, and it tells that same story over and over and over. God takes a nobody and has him build an ark, saving mankind. God takes a nomad and turns him into the father of a nation. God takes a shepherd, the lowest of the low, the untouchable, and makes him a king of that nation. Over and over God picks peasants and outcasts to be His prophets and apostles. And finally, God picks a baby, the son of a peasant woodworker to be the Salvation of humankind.

It's the same story over and over and over, and the moral of the story is this: God loves us all equally, but he roots for the underdog.
 

The outcast. The underdog. The marginalized. The heretic. The nonreligious. The doubter. The leper. The sinner. The poor. The widow. The orphan. The prisoner. The junkie. And, at various times: The Indian. The Slave. The Woman. The G, the L, the B and the T.

The enemy!

Even, may I add, the OU Sooner. ;-)

Absolutely. Good point, Alan.
 

I must have missed the one about the OU Sooner.
 

Good stuff
 

Good to see ya, Pech!
 

Drlobojo, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of John 10:14-16. Consider to whom Jesus was speaking... Jews. He was speaking of a flock not among the Jews. As there was only one other division of peoples at that time the other flock was among the Gentiles. Christ was there for the Jews, and was calling the Jews to the Kingdom of Heaven, but He was rejected. Knowing this, he was telling these people (the Jews) that a time was coming when He would add to the flock He had with another flock (Gentiles), thereby creating a NEW body of believers... the Church. There was no Church when Jesus spoke in John 10. There was no Christianity.

Now, that other faiths are part and parcel with the Gentile nations, the character of the early Church was to call people out of idolatry and into the body of Christ. Even if Jesus was referring to people "outside" of Christianity as well as Israel, it is still true that these people are being called OUT of their faith and into a new one.

For the record, the word "Zion" is not found in the New Testament (in the King James version), so Paul must have said something similar, and I'm still looking...

Okay, here it is... Romans 11:26

"And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob"

Okay, so it's a spelling issue!

There are two references I can find for this. One is Isaiah 59:20-21

"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever."

...And Psalm 14:7

"Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad."

But I have to say I believe that Jesus, in John 10, is speaking of folding [a baking term] into one body, both Jew and Gentile.

Galatians 3:28 says...

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

And I believe Jesus Himself confirms my assessment with this statement in John 12:32

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." [emphasis mine]
 

All in all, ER, this has been a constructive discussion.
 

I must apologize for my final comment last evening. I read Mom2's comment, and posted in haste, repenting in the leisure of an evening spent working very hard. On the other hand, ER, I have to say that while you may find what she said meaningful, I did not, and while my tone was intemperate, my sense of it just not jibing with me remains. Having said that, I would like to apologize, sincerely and with a heavy heart, to Mom2, and to you, ER, for, once again, overstepping the boundaries of your hospitality.

Contradiction, ER? I was not spouting hatred, or showing a lack of love. I was, and continue to be, angry, which is something different. I have progressed far enough in my own struggles of the past couple days to focus on this - my anger is about something real, and is honestly felt. Squaring the circle of actually listening to others, however, while refusing to relinquish my own position, is difficult at the best of times, and occasionally impossible, as I demonstrated last night.

I must reiterate something. I grew up in a fairly standard, mainstream Christian environment, and I consider myself a theological liberal, a pedigree that is both long and storied with some of the greatest thinkers, and persons of deep and abiding faith, wrestling with issues in a way that attempts to move beyond either outright atheism and simple-minded "Amen" shouting. My personal encounters with fundamentalism and fundamentalists was all, quite literally, academic until very, very recently (even the most conservative students at Wesley Seminary were not fundamentalists in the strictest sense), and my encounters have been frustrating to say the least. When I say that I do not understand something they write, or that it has no meaning for me, I am just being honest. It might have meaning for some, or even many - but allow for the possibility that it just makes no sense to someone who comes from a very different faith tradition.

Having said all that, I do think I shall steer clear of these kinds of things over the coming days. I am not in danger of bursting a blood vessel, but I am close to wearing out a welcome.
 

Naaaah, on the wearing-out-your-welcome thing. As EL said, this thread has, all in all, been constructive.

Re, "my tone was intemperate."

My thinking is this: The difference here is one of sprititual dialect, shorthand and jargon: Because your own background is so different from fundamentalists' you're just not very adept at detecting meaning. (Hey, feel free to keep knocking heads with plain stuff like promoting war over peace, a closed Communion table over an open one, as well as the controversies of the era, such as homosexuality, etc., etc.)

But as for words and phrases and language and metaphor: If you were trying to engage Christians from Mexico who spoke great street Spanish, and you didn't, I bet you'd be a little more patient and gracious. The differences here are just as stark, I think.

In the meantime, brother:

"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains."

John Shelby Spong would gag. And I'm not nearly as sure of the doctrine behind that as I used to think I was, but I love the old hymn, and I have absolutely NO problem with summing up the Atonement thusly. I don't let anybody in the fundamentalist camp insist that that is the *only* wayt to see the Wonder of the Cross -- any more than I'll let Spong dismiss it totally because it's "barbaric."

Peace to all! :-)
 

ELA, I started the paragraph with:"And of course he extended it outside of Israel as Jesus declared..." Read "Israel" as "Jews" and we both agree upon what he was saying. Except I asked if he was saying more as well.
And I agree with you point that Jesus said... "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

All men for all time even if they don't have the exact magic words but understand the wordless need.

Allen, there ain't that many stories to tell in the world. The same stories are told over and over and over in voice and in print from Heroglyphics to html.

GKS pull that knife out of your heart and use it to cut a covenant and break some bread. Whoa, careful with that point.

ER, such a vision:
"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains."

The source of the metaphor:
Prudentius: The Taurobolion of Magna Mater

"The high priestess who is to be consecrated is brought down under ground in a pit dug deep, marvellously adorned with a fillet, binding her festive temples with chaplets, her hair combed back under a golden crown, and wearing a silken toga caught up with Gabine girding. Over this they make a wooden floor with wide spaces, woven of planks with an open mesh; they then divide or bore the area and repeatedly pierce the wood with a pointed tool that it may appear full of small holes. Here a huge bull, fierce and shaggy in appearance, is led, bound with flowery garlands about its flanks, and with its horns sheathed---its forehead sparkles with gold, and the flash of metal plates colors its hair. Here, as is ordained, they pierce its breast with a sacred spear; the gaping wound emits a wave of hot blood, and the smoking river flows into the woven structure beneath it and surges wide. Then by the many paths of the thousand openings in the lattice the falling shower rains down a foul dew, which the priestess buried within catches, putting her head under all the drops. She throws back her face, she puts her cheeks in the way of the blood, she puts under it her ears and lips, she interposes her nostrils, she washes her very eyes with the fluid, nor does she even spare her throat but moistens her tongue, until she actually drinks the dark gore. Afterwards, the corpse, stiffening now that the blood has gone forth, is hauled off the lattice, and the priestess, horrible in appearance, comes forth, and shows her wet head, her hair heavy with blood, and her garments sodden with it. This woman, all hail and worship at a distance, because the ox's blood has washed her, and she is born again for eternity."

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/626288
 

Re, "but understand the wordless need" -- YES!


Re, Magna Mater/blood:

Uno, looks to me like any bunch of people starting out to appease the God of Life, as they understand such a God, might see a need to feed such a God a sacrifice.

Two-o. Unless I'm understanding the dating of the Magna Mater thing, couldn't they've picked up the notion of blood sacrifice from the tribes of Israel?? I'm just sayin'. ... On the other hand, the OT is written as if there were "other gods" -- at least in non-Jewish (and Jewish!) minds; why else would one of the Jewish Commandments be "you shall have no other gods before Me"? There is no reason not to take that commandment as if it were literally for that time and that place. An apolgist for the blood sacrifice approach to understanding Atonement might very well argue that the fact that it exists in other religions is testimony to its "truth" in the same way that other religions' accounts of a Great Flood cooraborate accounts of the Great Flood in the Hebrew bible? Whether it actually occurred or not being a separate discussion, the important point being that they all had experienced some such understanding of such a cataclism in their history.
 

A special Limited Edition Redneck Point(tm) to anyone who can tell me who popularized the enumer -- innumer -- numbering system "Uno. ... Two-o. ... Tres. ... Four-o. ..." and such (mighta got that a little mixed up)!
 

Clue: it was a newspaperman. He regularly wrote reviews of ... something.
 

It wasn't Les Nessman, who couldn't pronounce Chi Chi Rodriquez' name, was it?

No, that would be radio.
 

GIANT LIZZARD APPROACHING EAST COAST!

"BOOGER."

I am forever HOT for Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers)!!!!
 

Not Les, no, but he DID wind up on TV, cable anyway. ... He mighta been regional as a newspaper guy. But he was definitely national as a reviewer on cable TV ...

"No dead bodies. One hundred seventeen breasts. ... Lesbo Fu. Pool cue-fu. ..."
 

The Hebrews, as far as religion is concerned, are Johnnys come lately, in the fertile cresent.

The Mother Goddess dates back into about 20,000 to 35,000 B.C.. The Bull, whose skull looks like the female reproductive organs, has long been one of her symbols. The covenant with Israel is more like 1500 B.C..
As Ashera she gave Moses and the boys a lot of grief.
Besides, the Hebrews didn't wash in the blood did they?
 

Oh yes, Ted Baxter.
 

Les did use the line..."a giant lizzard raveges the East coast."
 

Shit, you mean Joe Bob Briggs? The copy cat hillbilly, he stole half his spoonerism from Les and Ted.
 

I had forgotten about the "giant lizard" thing! All I could remember was "Chai-Chai Rodrigweez". And Johnny Fever saying, "I know a guy who did that once. He's spinning disco now, Venus. DISCO." And Loni Anderson, after displaying prowess with numbers, being told, "You know, Pres. Reagan should ask you to be Secretary of the Treasury," and she laughs and says, "I said no."

Is that series out on DVD? Now I'm all het up to see it.

This is kind of off the subject, ain't it. . .
 

My favorite episode was the one where Johnny and Venus were on air with a Highway Patrolman getting drunk. Each time they tested their reflexes, Venus got progressively slower while Johnny got faster and faster. The Patrolman was confused to say the least.
 

"As God is my witness, I did not know Turkeys could not fly"

My fav episode. Giving free turkeys away, live, from a helicopter.
 

Jo Bob Briggs it is! And Drlobojo wins the coveted Extra Special Limited Edition Redneck Point -- as enviable as Les Nessman's precious Silver Sow Award!
 

Couple other favorite scenes... Les, who can't find the sheet to use for tornado reports, uses one of the other pre-written forms and substitutes "tornado" in instead of "communists":

LES: The city of Cincinnati has just been attacked by the godless... tornadoes! Citizens are advised to arm themselves immediately! If you see a tornado in your area, please call 555-WKRP to keep us appraised of any enemy tornado movements.

Or the time that Johnny broke a phone and was paranoid that the Phone Cops would come to get him:

Johnny, hearing all the sirens: It's the phone company. They know what I did here today.
Venus: What are you talking about?
Johnny: They're coming to get me, man!
Venus: That's paranoia, man!
Johnny: Wake up, sucker, this is the phone company we're talking about! They see everything, they know everything, they got their own covert police force! I'm probably wired for sound right now! I gotta get out of here!
Venus: Johnny!
Johnny: Don't use my name!!
 

Isn't it odd that we can be so divided over the God we all worship, yet united in our fondness for a sitcom? If only the Bible came with a laughtrack. . .
 

it does, but it takes a while to learn to hear God laughing...
 

Besides, the solidarity will end and division begin just as soon as the first fool who says that the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Massacre is not the funniest single episode in all of TV history.

There is no other way to interpret the hilarity of that particular episode and any who'd suggest that I Love Lucy eating chocolate is funnier is an obvious heretic doomed to watching I Love Lucy in perpetuity.
 

As it says in the second chapter of Vitameatavegemin ...
 

Not to contradict Dan, but there were moments in Carol Burnett's variety show when Tim Conway and Harvey Korman reached some kind of transcendent comedy nirvanna. I can remember having to run to the bathroom, still doubled up with laughter, wishing I could stop, but physically incapable of doing so.

Of course, those were mere moments, rather than an entire episode.

ER, I laughed out loud - so many memories trip through my sieve-like skull with just those little words(?), "vitameatavegimin"
 

The Bible plainly states that All people are born with a "knowledge of God"

God knows no impartiality, and I don't see how anyone could dispute that basic fact.

But remember, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life hrough Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 6:23

Whether one is Hindu, Catholic, atheist, Jew, Buddhist, Taoist, Baptist, gay, or even Hitler, salvation is available to him. He only has to accept the gift of life that is given him.

If he refuses to accept that gift, he is guilty of committing the unpardonable sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That is what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is; the refusal to accept the gift offered to him by the Holy Spirit. God is not willing that any should perish. That passage was unfortunately left without the caveat, "without Christ".

At least, that's how I understand it.

Now. One observance about WKRP in Cincinatti":

"We'll be back with more music and Les Nessman!" (My favorite line)

Another of my favorite lines from old TV shows:

On "Barney Miller", when Fish doesn't get his paycheck, and calls to ask why, he looks up at Barny and says, "They say I'm dead." To which Barney blandly replies, "Probably just a mistake."