Elroy.Net is one of those websites that tries to make atheism sound like the answer to a sinner's problems. Elroy has written several anti-God, anti-Bible, anti-Christians articles. Peppered with Bible Scriptures he mistakenly thinks help bolster his zany ideas, these articles are designed to cast doubts about the validity of the Bible. The Refiner's Fire has taken on the task of challenging some of Elroy's misguided assertions. For the sake of time and space, we obviously cannot post his articles in their entirety; and we therefore urge you to click on the links and read for yourself the things Elroy alleges:

One of Elroy's articles charges Focus on the Family of being "of the Devil". In it, he goes on a long and windy tirade, basically, about how a "young believer" (obviously Elroy himself) found himself very disappointed by various aspects of, and by certain people at, Focus on the Family. The bottom line is, supposedly because of Focus on the Family, this "young believer" now believes that all Christians are self-deluded hypocrites, liars, and sinners who don't really know what the Bible says.

While it might be true that SOME Christians are in fact, hypocrites and/or liars who haven't got a clue about the Bible, one cannot paint ALL Christians with the same brush! Elroy has no proof to back up his allegations - which immediately renders them null and void. His entire website is inundated with unsubstantiated personal opinions and half truths whose sole aim is to throw off the track all new believers (or those who aren't rock solid in their belief for whatever reason). Just because Elroy might have encountered a few "bad eggs" in his early Christian walk, that doesn't automatically mean ALL Christians are are sinners in disguise or Bible-thumping weirdos...

That said, below is the e-mail that The Refiner's Fire sent to Elroy concerning his nonsensical letter to Focus on the Family. Please click on the link and take the time to read what he said about this well-respected organization:

Dear Elroy,

I just read with great boredom, your verbose and tedious article "Why Focus On The Family is of the Devil".

After sludging through the long, whining, never-ending, redundant paragraphs, my resultant thoughts were: He was too weak to stop doing the things he wasn't supposed to do, and so he's trying to lay the blame on Focus on the Family. Perhaps if you HAD controlled yourself a little more, and SERIOUSLY sought God about whatever it is you couldn't stop doing, things would be different right now. Instead, you are playing the blame game, because:

• it obviously makes you feel more empowered;
  
  
• it gives you the license to continue doing whatever you're feeling so guilty about;
  
  
• it removes some of the guilt you have for deciding to give God the boot.

So, WHO are you really hurting in the end, Elroy? Not God! Just because YOU don't believe in God doesn't mean He doesn't exist....

What angers me is the fact that you have the hutzpah to try to push your skewed views about God and the Bible onto an unsuspecting world. The least you could do is to learn the Bible properly before telling the world "Jesus is Gay", homosexuality is okay, abortion is "biblical", and that your proclivity to masturbate while gawking at Playboy magazines is something the world should be interested in (see Letter to Myself)....

Shame on you!

The Refiner's Fire

The next issue to be challenged on "Elroy.Net" is his article called Why Abortion is Biblical:

Elroy's Assertion:

....With all these groups chanting the same mantra, there must be some pretty overwhelming biblical evidence of abortion's evil, right?

Wrong. In reality there is merely overwhelming evidence that most people don't take time to read their own Bibles....By definition, most Christians, rather than reading for themselves, follow the beliefs of a Culture of Christianity -- and many of the Culture's beliefs are based on one or two verses of the Bible, often taken out of context.

This is most definitely the case when it comes to abortion. Ask most anti-abortion Christians to support their view, and they'll give you a couple of verses. One, quite obviously, is the Commandment against murder. But that begs the question of whether or not abortion is murder, which begs the question of whether or not a fetus is the same as a full-term human person. To support their beliefs, these Christians point to one of three bible verses that refer to God working in the womb. The first is found in Psalms:

"For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for Thou art fearfully wonderful (later texts were changed to read "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"); wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." (Psalm 139:13-16)

Although this passage does make the point that God was involved in the creation of this particular human being, it does not state that during the creation the fetus is indeed a person. According to Genesis, God was involved in the creation of every living thing, and yet that doesn't make every living thing a full human person. In other words, just because God was involved in its creation, it does not mean terminating it is the same as murder. It's only murder if a full human person is destroyed.

But even if we agreed to interpret these verses the same way that anti-abortion Christians do, we still have a hard time arguing that the Bible supports an anti-abortion point of view. If anything, as we will soon see, abortion is biblical.

Anytime we take one or two verses out of their context and quote them as doctrine, we place ourselves in jeopardy of being contradicted by other verses.

Our Response:

Yes, Elroy, let's talk about putting things "in context", shall we? You have made "taking things out of context" an art form.

Pro-Lifers definitely will use those Scriptures you proudly claim have been taken out of context. Just to set the record straight (since you are trying to cast doubt on what Psalm 139:13-16 actually said): "Later texts" were probably changed to read "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" because that is what the ORIGINAL HEBREW states! Nobody played around with the verbiage, so you don't need to try to make the writers/translators of the Bible look like they didn't know what they were doing.

The Sixth Commandment is that we are not to kill/murder. Your disagreement seems not to be with the Commandment, but you immediately and skillfully turn the world's attention to the fact that abortion can't possibly be murder because that little blob of tissue isn't human yet, "which begs the question of whether or not a fetus is the same as a full-term human person"....

You said: "According to Genesis, God was involved in the creation of every living thing, and yet that doesn't make every living thing a full human person."

For your information, God wasn't just "involved with every living thing"; He MADE them! So who are YOU to downplay that and decide who gets to live and who doesn't?

Who died and made you God, Elroy? What difference does it make whether or not a fetus is the same as a full-term person???? The fact remains, it's a LIVING ORGANISM from the moment of conception. That's why it grows! Dead things don't grow! The fact that the cells DO divide and grow and end up being fully-formed human babies, is proof positive that they ARE living beings from the MOMENT OF CONCEPTION that deserve the chance to be born and to live. And neither YOU nor anyone else has the right to snuff out that life - no matter WHAT you try to tell yourself!

In your mind-numbing tirade about how the Bible supposedly supports abortion, you go on to say:

Another problem in this passage is the phrase, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee." In Psalm 139:13-16 the anti-abortionists claim that because God was active in the creation of King David in his mother's womb that we must conclude the fetus is recognized by God as being a person. But here we see God stating that he knew Jeremiah "before" he was formed in the womb. By anti-abortionist logic, we would have to conclude that we are a human person even before conception. Since this is a ridiculous notion, we must, therefore, conclude that the anti-abortionist is interpreting these verses incorrectly.

No, Elroy - we must conclude that YOU are deliberately ignoring and sluffing over what GOD SAID! God SAID He knew us before conception, so why are you trying to tell the world He didn't really mean it that way? (It's ironic that an atheist will sit there and try to use the BIBLE to prove his own lopsided viewpoint!) Why SHOULDN'T believers conclude that God recognizes a fetus as a person, since there are several Scriptures that mention unborn babies? Just because this notion is "ridiculous" in YOUR eyes isn't proof that God lied. Like everything else on your self-aggrandizing website, it's nothing but Elroy's OPINION!!!!!

The title of Elroy's article When Christ Was Gay actually has NOTHING to do with Christ supposedly being gay. Apparently, he must have thought this was simply a catchy title....

Elroy's Assertion:

...And they can do this because they don't believe they have any lifestyle sins of their own. If you ask them about it, they'll say things like, "I used to sleep around but I was forgiven of that sin and now I don't do it anymore." However, ask them if a homosexual can be saved by God's grace, and they will say, "The gay man who does not turn from his homosexuality is choosing to live a lifestyle counter to God's laws and is not, therefore, saved by grace." What they conveniently forget is that 50% of them - those who count themselves among the Religious Right - are divorced, and more than 85% of those are remarried. What that means is, according to the Bible, that nearly 43% of the same people who condemn the gay man for his homosexuality choose to live in a lifestyle of adultery, a sin that ranks equal to homosexuality in God's eyes.

Our Response:

And your point in comparing apples to oranges is? Homosexuals will be forgiven just as much as anybody if they CEASE what they're doing and repent! Heterosexuals who continue to perpetrate deliberate sins aren't "forgiven" either. Yeshua died once and for all so that our PAST sins could be forgiven; He did not die to give us carte blanche to sin! By the way, where does the Bible tell us that one sin is greater than another? Show us where "homosexuality ranks equal to adultery in God's eyes". Give us Chapter and Verse, Mr. Know-It-All...

God hates sin. Even unbelievers have heard that. Yes, there are plenty of Christians with "issues", and God addresses each and every one of our "issues" in the Bible. He also tells us that if we turn from our sins, repent, believe in and confess Yeshua as our personal Savior, we are forgiven.

This was just another example of how you like to play with words in order to deceive others into thinking you have all the answers!

We've saved the best for last: Saving Our Children From the Bible. How low can one person - who supposedly "was saved" at one time - get? This time, for the sake of continuity, we've directly inserted our comments into Elroy's. (Ours are in red.) Again, for the sake of space, we've used certain excerpts from his article that we feel are actually worthy of comment:

Elroy's Assertion:

There's far too much sex and violence available to our children today. Appropriate steps must be taken to shield our young ones from these dangerous influences. Fortunately Congress and the President have signed into legislation a bill allowing parents to block sex and violence from their television sets. It's called the V-Chip, and it lets parents put an electronic lock on the tube. (Tell us, Elroy - the fact that there's so much decadence, crime, and sexual deviancy on television and in the movies - is this the fault of Christians? Are Christians telling the Hollywood types to tell our children homosexuality, abortion, murder, and all kinds of sick behavior is okay?)

Unfortunately the V-Chip doesn't go far enough. For sex and violence permeate much more than our TV sets. It's in our schools, our libraries, our homes, and even in our churches. And not only is it available in all these places, it comes to our kids through the very books we want our children to read. And even more unfortunate is the fact that one of the worst offenders is our beloved Bible. (This is gonna be good!)

It's hard to believe that the same book from which our parents read us bedtime stories could hold such damaging contents. The very book used in churches and Sunday school classes around the world includes some of the worst cases of sex and violence in written form. (Did your parents actually read as bedtime stories the parts that talked about rape, incest, murder, etc.? Were you taught these things in AWANA or Vacation Bible School?)

But it's true. It's also rather amazing that this source of negative influence on our children has been overlooked for so long. A considerable amount of effort has gone into banning such books as "The Diary of Anne Frank" for its author's sexual comments, and the "To Kill a Mockingbird" for its discussion of violent rape. Many other books have rightfully been banned or exposed for their violence, murder, and cruelty -- all things we must keep from youthful eyes. And yet the Bible, full of the very same demented activity, has yet to be exposed. (The question is, have "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" influenced the world in any way? Have they been used as a teaching tool about morals and values - what to do, what not to do? Did God Himself write those words? Do you remember seeing, "Thus saith Anne Frank...."? Talk about "in context" - you forgot to mention in your article that the Bible is a historical document that proves, over and over again, the sinful nature of Man, and Mankind's desperate need for a Savior....)

Consider the following examples:

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, as a long hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times." Proverbs 5:18-19

"Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I said, 'I will climb the palm tree. I will take hold of its fruit stalks.' Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples." Song of Solomon 7:7-8

Here we have blatant sexuality. The author, in both cases Solomon, talks about the delight of grabbing a woman's breasts, and not just grabbing, but being continually satisfied by them. But this is mild compared to these following verses.

"Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, 'Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?' And David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, and said, 'I am pregnant.'" 2 Samuel 11:1-5

This is outrageous. In it we find nudity, covetousness, forced sex and illegitimate pregnancy. No one in their right mind would expose their children to these disgusting activities.....(How about YOU exposing our children to your penchant for masturbating to the pictures in Playboy Magazine? How do we prevent them from finding THAT kind of smut on the internet? Your website is out there for all to see!)

...What kind of lesson is being taught here? What kind of good can be derived from this filth?.....(Ditto the above.)

We must not let our children be exposed to such blatant sexual material as listed above. But as we've just seen, this is only half the problem. (But we CAN allow them to read the sexual garbage that permeates YOUR website? Can anyone say "HYPOCRITE"???)

I would never let my child watch such disgusting material on TV....(But you'd be willing to let OUR children learn to masturbate to Playboy because they saw it on YOUR site?)

We must eradicate this sex and violence from our bookshelves. We must be diligent in keeping the influence of such unwholesomeness from getting into the hands of our children. We must ask ourselves what possible good this debase material might have. In light of all the research indicating that exposure to such imagery can damage our children and tear apart the fabric of our families and our nation, we should be doing everything possible to save our children from its despicable influence. (Okay, enough of Elroy's rantings. The public gets the picture. Perhaps HYPOCRITE is too mild of a word....)

A final word to our beloved readers:

Without the Bible and God's Holy Commandments, Mankind wouldn't even KNOW right from wrong. The Bible is the first and ONLY document that provides us with examples of morals and values! Everything in this life can be, in one way or another, be verified in the Bible. God used it to show Mankind what He does and does not want us to do (not - as Elroy wants us to believe - to be a novel about sex and violence, and everything decadent!). Every single Bible story is there as a TEACHING TOOL for us to use. They show us that, whenever man sinned, there were consequences. The Bible is a historical tool which, in the end, shows us that God loved His Creation in spite of themselves - so much so, that He sent His only begotten Son to become the FINAL SIN SACRIFICE so that we might have eternal life.

People such as Elroy are all over the internet, trying to debunk God and the Bible. Matthew 7:13 tells us that most people of this earth will NOT be taking that "narrow gate that leads to life" - but, instead, will charge through the wide gate that leads to death and destruction. People such as Elroy are playing right into Satan's hands. We pray that he and others like him will open their eyes before it's too late, for "the end" is nearer than he thinks.