Brother Harry Hardwick Answers Your Questions

A: Dear Righteous Child of God,

Good job. Now, if your parents had told him before not to smoke, then, according to God's word, he should be taken to the town square where all the community's residents should stone him until he is dead (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). Bear in mind that Jesus said only the person free of sin should cast the first stone. So make sure you let someone else throw out the symbolic first pitch before joining in on the pelting.

Of course, you should also be certain neither you nor your sisters have any vices. After all, there is no verse in the Bible expressly condemning smoking. We simply surmise smoking to be a sin because the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and anything that harms the body is a disgrace unto God. We also know that sin is sin, with no one sin being any greater than the other. This, of course, means those who eat lots of red meat, fail to exercise regularly, choose to live in inner-cities where they breathe lots of pollution, insist on alfredo rather than marinara, and the like are just as wretched and deserving of death as Timothy McVeigh.

Praying we will soon recognize that true Christians choose bubbles over condos,
Brother Harry Hardwick

A: Dear Smut Spotter,

Indeed, they are. As Matthew told us, any man who ever has any sexual thoughts of any kind whatsoever about a woman to whom he is not married is an adulterer (Matthew 5:28). And adulterers will not enter Heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). That is why, when you bow your head, you should look straight down (unless, of course, you have a foot fetish).

Praying all will recognize the evils of passion,
Brother Harry Hardwick

A: Dear Worry-Wort,

You needn't worry about accidentally stepping on zygotes and just-fertilized eggs in Heaven. All aborted children will roast in Hell for eternity, along with all SIDS deaths, children who passed away before they were old enough to comprehend the Christian faith, severely retarded individuals who eventually die and those who lived in third world countries and were never exposed to the good news of the Lord. You see, the Bible makes clear that the only way one can be saved and thus enter Heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as his/her personal Lord and Savior. None of the aforementioned individuals were capable of accepting Jesus, hence they must reside in Hell for eternity, where the skin will roast from their bones and Satan will spend the years stabbing them in the hiney with a pitchfork.

Now, the pseudo-Christians on this board will tell you that one automatically goes to Heaven if he dies before something they have made up called the age of accountability. They have fabricated this concept because they're uncomfortable with the notion that the aborted fetuses and young children will wind up in Hell. (Of course, one wonders how they rationalize the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy which are full of equally disconcerting concepts.) This age of accountability theory FINDS ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT ANYWHERE IN THE BIBLE. The Bible unequivocally says those who fail to accept Jesus will go to Hell. Period. End of story.

So you won't have to worry about seeing fetuses floating among the clouds. Of course, Heaven will be loaded with murderers, rapists, burglars and people with generally bad manners who accepted Jesus just before they died. (We'd better all stay on our own clouds.)

Praying that Satan will take it easy on the toddlers,
Brother Harry Hardwick

A: Dear Bottom Rung on the Christian Ladder,

Contrary to what these pseudo-Christians will say, Christianity is highly exclusive. Only one group of people may join -- those who believe the wonderfully misanthropic and outrageously improbable stories of the Bible, which make Dr. Seuss look like Albert Einstein. If you happen to believe in a different god than the one in which we believe, you may not join our group. As you so aptly noted, this means that our faith is dominated by people with IQ's barely reaching two digits. (But that, of course, allows those of us who are bright to run the show.)

Not only are those with different faiths not allowed to be members of the religion, but the New Testament expressly tells us that, while we should witness to them (e.g., drop "Turn or Burn!" tracts into the hands of hungry homeless children on our way to lunch at the bistro), we are not to associate or socialize with them.

As John wrote: "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into you house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 1:9-11).

And as Paul wrote: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).

You see, according to the apostles, if we so much as socialize with the heathens, we are as bad as they are. Let's face it: the conversation at pot luck suppers will continue to be dominated by the fellar who saw the UFO fly by while his wife, Cousin Betty, was sloppin' the hogs.

Praying that all will respect the segregation mandated in the New Testament,
Brother Harry Hardwick

No, but it is advisable to kneel with everyone else when in a Catholic mass. After all, if you're standing and the guy next to you is kneeling, you may find yourself in a "priest-altar boy" - type situation in no time.

Yours in Christ,
Brother Harry Hardwick

As True Christians, we are, of course, always ready, willing and able to blame our problems on heathens, whether atheists, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists or Catholics. However, I'm afraid we need to keep hush-hush about this gasoline thingy. Last quarter, every U.S. oil company reported the highest profits in the history of their existence. Exxon, for instance, in the three-month period alone, earned profits in excess of $500 billion. That is unprecedented. You see, the oil companies knew that Bush and Cheney would never regulate them, letting them go hog wild in price gouging, drilling in environmentally-sensitive areas, etc. Interestingly, the price of crude oil has NOT been increasing but the price at the pump has -- and dramatically. Because the oil companies know they can make prices skyrocket without invoking any action from the current Administration. But don't despair. Remember that oil money was essential to the election of our Godly President. It was second in importance only to the Supreme Court's appointment-by-fiat. And surely we must be willing to sacrifice our standard-of-living, decimate the poor and cause the extinction of vital plant and animal species and wildlife areas if it ensures the Presidency will be held, not by the person who received more than half a million more votes than his opponent, but by the born again Christian whom God has forgiven for his alcohol abuse, cocaine addiction, AWOL military status, purging of military records, drunk driving, encouragement of his teenage lover's abortion, etc.

Praying Bush will refrain from regulating petroleum until the day he learns to pronounce the word,
Brother Harry Hardwick 

A: Dear Inquisitive Soul,

Isn't the answer obvious? He was speaking to Himself. One need only read the Bible once from cover to cover to realize that God suffers from a rather severe case of schizophrenia. After all, after violently killing everyone on the planet (including the planets and animals but excepting Noah and co.) with a Giant Flood, afterward, the Lord was sad, put a rainbow in the sky and promised never to destroy everything again. Yet, since He's omnipotent, He surely must have known at the time that He was going to inspire John to write that charming Book of Revelation which promises destruction of the world and its inhabitants in a manner far more graphic than simple drowning. And let's not forget that after instructing Moses to tell us all not to kill anyone, He then proceeded to tell us to kill all witches, homosexuals, adulterers, disobedient children, etc. Given the glaring inconsistencies in the Bible, I think it's safe to assume God has more personalities than Sybil and more faces than Eve.

Praying that we will manage to avoid riling up God's wrathful side, at least for a while longer,
Brother Harry Hardwick

A: Dear Faithless Skeptic,

If a killer invaded your home and held you at gunpoint, then began to converse with you about his life and yours, what would your first inclination be? To butter him up, compliment him and make excuses for him, explaining that every problem he has is society's fault. You would do this in the hope he wouldn't pull the trigger. In the version of this scenario which you have offered, the consequences of not playing along are even worse than gunshot (eternity roasting in Hell). We all know from the inerrant Holy Bible that God is a wrathful and jealous god who has struck people dead for the seemingly harmless act of worshiping another god. Given that violent inclination, any sane person with a commitment to self-preservation, not just in this life but in the next, would certainly be tempted to turn a blind eye to the Great Flood that killed virtually everyone (except drunk Noah and his family), including infants and unborn children (Genesis 6:5-7, 22), the fire and brimstone that killed tens of thousands of people (Genesis 19:24-25. 1 Corinthians 19:8), the wiping out of tribes other than the Israelites (Judges 1:4; 3:28-29) the ripping open of pregnant women (Hosea 13:16), the murder of children for teasing a bald man (2 Kings 2:23-24), etc., etc., etc. The problem, of course, is that the Bible attributes so much carnage to God that the excuses eventually lose credibility.

Praying all will recognize that the Bible isn't all chocolate and strawberries,
Brother Harry Hardwick

A: Dear Nosy One,

Jesus declined to be called by a last name. He was the first in a long line of those who wear long, flowing robes, love attracting crowds and insist that everyone present love them above all others, lest they experience disaster later on. Later divas with the same traits and single-name commitment, of course, include Madonna and Cher, but Jesus was the original.

Yours in His precious name,
Brother Harry Hardwick

Good point. By the same token, short verses are best. And the shortest in the whole Bible speaks to the pompous, self-righteous, holier-than-thous who plague this board on a daily basis. "Jesus wept" (John 11:13).

Finger-dipping in the Blood of the Lamb (I'm soaking in it),
Brother Harry Hardwick