jjimm, thanks for once again making my morning ! 
What colour is your hair, Homebrew? How’s your heart?
Maybe it’s that kid who sees dead people from Sixth Sense. What’s his name? Haley Joel Osment? And what color IS Bruce Willis’ hair?
Sorry. I couldn’t help it.
Besides, I kind of have subscribed (kind of, depending on what I believe at any given time, which changes because I don’t have anywhere near enough intelligence, faith, or trust to put my beliefs in any one thing for very long so there ya go!) to the scenario DDG describes - at least that was the dogma I was raised on (Lutheran - but I don’t know what I am anymore - see above) - anyway I always figured it would be a lot like how it happened in “The Stand”.
Now, can you see where I’m coming from with the intelligence thing? 
Diogenes the Cynic, you asked who the dark haired companion was - Cameron Diaz, maybe?
I’m with the whoosh crowd. That discription was a bit too specific, and even rather funny. If it’s not a joke, then I feel sorry for the poor guy…
Y’know… I kind of have a heart condition…
Yeah, but you’re a bit older than a teenager, dan.
Nice try.
Does Poly have a son?
I hear he does, and that it was a virgin birth, too! :eek:
What, is beleiving you might know who Jesus came back as is any wackier than any other religious belief? I hear some people think their deity sometimes talks through flaming shrubbery.
Is that the same flaming shrubbery you’re supposed to prune with a herring?
I always get my Biblical signs confused.
I’m in line with Mangetout and Homebrew. I’m thinking Polycarp was referring to someone he knows(probably with a common surname) who he considers to be a kind and loving person. A re-incarnation of Christ, if you will. I’m not sure he meant it in a literal “second coming” way, especially not in a biblically literal “second coming” way, but more as a “he never left, he’s still here among us.”
Enjoy,
Steven
Mtgman
Member
I don’t know. He maybe meant as much but he sure didn’t say as much. He didn’t use any smilies and didn’t clarify when asked. My bet is that one flew over the cuckoo’s. Though I wonder if he won’t bring up the joke part later to save face.
Actually it does tie in – IF Poly were being serious, or were taken seriously by others. I’m on the super-whoosh camp on that statement. If I read badchad correctly, to him revisionist theology is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty, meant only to avoid concluding it’s all BS, and our allowing someone who holds that as a “truth self-evident” in his life to go unchallenged is an abdication of our duty. His style is less than propitious for gaining allies, though.
BUT because Polycarp is SO well-liked, esteemed, respected and his opinions are so valued in this board community even by atheists, there does exist the risk that on the rare ocassion that he decides to affect a dry cynical POV, people WILL swallow it whole uncritically… including to seize it as a point against him, and then it’ll be more trouble to set things straight and get back on topic.
And here, however, you’re just being gratuitiously abusive. Nice display of the Poisoning the Well method against future clarifications of what he really meant, BTW. Since in any case any clarification would just have resulted in another dreary tedious post by you explaining all the ways he’s being wrong, intelectually dishonest, etc., and issuing yet further challenges, why bother?
Hey, if the shrubbery happens to be of a certain sexual orientation, it seems reasonable to me that it flame.
As one of our esteemed (but temporarily on leave) posters recently said, “As a gay man, and as a somewhat effeminate one at that, I consider it a deity-of-your-choice-given right to be able to flame whenever I choose.” What’s good for gay men should be good for gay shrubs.
And since many of us Christians believe God can speak through anyone - Christian or non, male or female, gay or straight - far be it from me to discriminate on the basis of species and say that God can’t speak through a shrub.
Pssst, Sauron - the herring is for cutting down the tallest tree in the forest! I suppose you could use it for pruning shrubbery, but it’s the wrong tool for the job.
Ah man, if I have to worship Justin Timberlake I am so switching religions. . .
:mad:
Until explained, how should one interpret that stuff? Fighting ignorance demands we either, one, disprove this – or, two, jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late.
“Someone he knows” isn’t cutting it for me. “His teachings will shock the evangelical community.” Larry Flynt?
It wouldn’t be the first time he has wrote in a vague, ambiguous way, and not bother to get straight to the point. Nostradamus would be proud. It’s been five days since he has wrote what he did, and hasn’t been back to elaborate. A few times in the past when I or others have wanted him to be more specific on something he wrote that seemed bizarre, he always has came back with just that though: it was a joke, or that he was writing in a symbolic, metaphoric, allegoric, or some other ic kind of way, and may I suggest idiotic, and how he thought everyone got the irony in it besides the person asking him to explain himself. He has a pattern of doing this, so I suppose this will be another one of those in which he‘ll come back to explain with pages of clarification, and by the time he is done with it, you’ll find it won’t be as intriguing as his previous statements, but by doing it like this, he gets more attention this way. I don’t see many Christians supporting him on this, and even they seem to be crossing their fingers that it is a joke. Hell, even lekatt, is yelling:
WHAT THE FUCK DID POLYCARP JUST SAY?!
JZ
Yeah, but we tend to leaf them alone. They’re berry, berry nutty.
My take (for what it’s worth)? One of four possibilities.
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Polycarp has gone off the deep end. Having no other evidence for this from his other posts, I’ll dismiss this option pending corroboration.
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Major whoosh. Compare the first two paragraphs, laying out a fairly conventional mainline Christian interpretation, to the third - which immediately sets about contradicting the first two. Compare “. . . in a way that nobody, including me, expects” to " . . . I do in fact know his identity". Not too contradictory, eh? The only question is, who is he whoosh-ing? All of us, or just those who think they have an exclusive inside track on redemption? Maybe Polycarp is sitting back, having a wonderful time watching us fall all over each other when the clues are right in front of us.
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He’s perpetrating Parable on us. It’s a koan, intended to get us speculating on, first, the person; then perhaps on the attributes; and finally the character of an unknown Christ in our midst. He’s challenging us to use our God-given minds to ponder what it means to be “Christ-like” in this age.
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Maybe he’s right. Absolutely and literally correct. Like possibility number 1, I have no supporting evidence for this one, but I’ll hedge my bets just in case: I vote for Justin Timberlake. Definitely.