The aged Presiding Evangelist awoke with a new question buzzing between his gray temples. It was clearly a visionary experience, for when was the last time he had stumbled upon a new question? 1953?
Moving with remarkable rapidity for one so advanced in years, he grabbed a sharp yellow pencil with shaking hands and wrote the question down on the back of the draft co-worker letter he had been working on the night before:
"Why Atheists?"
Not "why atheism?", which might seem the more logical title, but "why atheists?" Clearly this was a case of divine inspiration. The Eternal Himself had appeared to His servant in a dream of Danielic proportions and planted this very question. If only he could remember the dream itself! Perhaps the great God needed to keep his faithful servant humble. Humility, the Presiding Evangelist mused, is no easy thing, but I do my best.
Over the next several days the number three person in the Government of God (under, of course, God the Father and Jesus Christ) pondered deeply on the new question. Long decades of sinless living provided him with keen insight and soon he was penning the profound truth - soon to be published for all the world to see in the March-April issue of Tomorrow's World.
Why atheists? How plain the truth actually is! Atheists have been deceived by the theory of evolution into ignoring the undeniable proof of Bible prophecy!
And if anyone knew about Bible prophecy it was the presiding evangelist.
Perhaps without realizing it, today's atheists basically "hide their heads in the sand" and simply ignore the awesome prophecies of the great God, as recorded in His inspired word! Yet they are not being fully honest intellectually, unless they admit into their minds the knowledge of the great God of creation, and how He has intervened in the past and even now is intervening in human affairs!
(Emphasis in original)
Naturally, it would be problematic to list any or all of those awesome prophecies: it was unlikely, but there's always a smart-ass who insists on checking them out in Eerdmans Commentary or some such "intellectual" reference work, and that would cause problems. If they were tithing as they ought to there shouldn't be a problem - they simply couldn't afford a copy, but nothing could be guaranteed in these Laodicean End Times. Best to keep it general - a quote from Isaiah 46 in the NKJV about "declaring the end from the beginning" should do the trick - and then he could move on to swat a few more dead flies: the six-day creationist types who willfully ignore the gap theory share in the blame for atheists. The question of suffering is checkmated by the concept of free will. False Christianity has muddied the waters...
The presiding evangelist sat back in his leather swivel chair and paused. The new question was answered. It was another inspired article - almost (a little thrill ran down his spine) God-breathed... but one must be humble, and he whispered the word to himself again: almost!
152 comments:
Gavin,
Have read Rod's musings.He is regurgitating the same ole bully-beef of yesteryear....dry,hard old tack.
Could Rod himself be atheist(ic)?
Oops, should that read " a theist"
which puts a different complexion on the word.?
Jorgheinz
"Over the next several days the number three person in the Government of God (under, of course, God the Father and Jesus Christ) pondered deeply on the new question".
MY COMMENT - Gavin, you have made a slight mistake on the pecking order as this matter was resolved many years ago in the 1960s WCG: There is God the father and Jesus Christ, and then there is the Apostle of God HWA, then the son GTA, and then comes Roderick C. Meredith number 5 in the Government of God. The dead apostle and the fallen dead son shouldn't change the pecking order in the Government of God.
Richard
RCM Notes:
"Increasingly, educated people are turning away from religion and, seemingly, from God.
Why? "
Because this then leaves more space for the uneducated people to explore religion. Anyone knows that! And the more closed minded, uneducated and uncritical one is, the closer to the truth you get. After all, as Dave Pack notes, Albert Einstein had "wild hair."
Actually it is sad to me that RCM and many like him have learned not ONE NEW CONCEPT about the origins of the Bible, it's history, errancy issues, disharmony of the Gospels or the non prophecies of prophecy since they picked up the book. It would never occur to RCM that the Bible contains failed prophecies as well.
It's the same explanation over and over. Just like watching Gerald Waterhouse flip the switch in his head and go into his talk not even knowing what town he was in half the time.
Truly when asked, where was God during the holocaust, and finding the answer to be that any Bible student knows that God was in heaven with hands off, is lame. I guess it does prove that the reason God can't lift a finger to help us out when we need Him is because Jesus really is sitting on his right hand.
RCM is quoted as writing,"Perhaps without realizing it, today's atheists basically "hide their heads in the sand" and simply ignore the awesome prophecies of the great God, as recorded in His inspired word!"
MY COMMENT - Simply ignore the awesome prophecies of the great God? Would RCM be referring to the sermons on prophecy that I recorded in my Sabbath Service and Bible Study notes which I discuss in my unpublished essay, "My Worldwide Church of God Reflections - 1972 in Prophecy! God's Practical Joke?"
Would RCM be referring to this Prophecy statement he made which I wrote in my notes word for word:
· “Another age will start within the next 3 to 5 years” (April 7, 1969 Roderick C. Meredith sermon, Special Bible Study).
Frankly, I don't see how Roderick C. Meredith has any credibility at all when it comes to discussing the topic of Bible Prophecy. And, I am being very kind.
Richard
"Yet they are not being fully honest intellectually,"
*snicker* I don't think there is enough irony in the earth's crust to attach to that statement. They don't make pots that black. In fact, the amount of irony which that statement draws forth from the universe will soon cause a black hole which will rip apart the space-time thingy!
The Apostle Paul
Perhaps I shouldn't write this. My mother is steeped in 1960s Armstrongism and attends Meredith's LCG cult (I call Meredith's Church "The Dying Church of God").
The other day on the phone, my mother informed me she was reading a 1960 Plain Truth article by HWA. Later, she made a comment to me on the phone that I "should come out of the world's system" - what ever that means.
For those idiots that occasionally post here that say we should "just get over it", it is sometimes hard when you have close family members still immersed in the fraudulent Worldwide Church and its splinters.
Richard
"My mother is steeped in 1960s Armstrongism and attends Meredith's LCG cult"
My in-laws are in the same boat- you described it well; not only in LCG, but mentally living in the WWCG of the sixties, and suspicious of world in general. It's a sad state.
Not all, but some who tell others to "get over it" and "let it lie" are people who still subscribe to the theology and don't want to be reminded of the nasty past and present of Armstrongism, be it Lite or Extra-Strength Armstrongism. Ron Dart on his forum once remarked that I should quit beating a dead horse. What he doesn't want to acknowledge is that horse is far from dead; even though it is rotting and vile, it's still alive and kicking. Once we put that horse down for good, then we can "move on." Until then, thousands still live in mental, spiritual, financial, and sometimes physical bondage due to Armstrongism.
The Apostle Paul
So do these writings prove Dr. Meredith is alive in March? To prove Ron Weinland's prediction of his death wrong?
Or were they written months ago, and LCG is covering up his fate?
P.S. Were the Greeks Paul met in Acts 17 steeped in evolution? (A full 1800 years before Darwin?)
Richard wrote:
"Perhaps I shouldn't write this. My mother is steeped in 1960s Armstrongism and attends Meredith's LCG cult (I call Meredith's Church "The Dying Church of God"). "
Richard, I fully understand. My mom and sister still linger under Meredith's 21st century version of HWA's spiritual prison. One proof of the wretched sickness of Armstrongist ideas is my 89-year-old mom's continual worry that she won't "make it" into the Kingdom. Never mind that she is one of the (perhaps too much) selfless individuals I have ever known, and one of the most "moral" at least in the Puritan sense. The sickness of Armstrongism affects the mind of someone who should be relaxing back in her last years.
There is no good in that hellhole of a theology. To be most frank, from someone who lives in the HQ city of Rod-land, and whose brother-in-law works for that sad organization: Rod Meredith and his minions are worthless human beings; the sad thing is that Pack, Flurry, and anyone like them make Rod look like a harmless puppy.
Richard wrote:
"For those idiots that occasionally post here that say we should 'just get over it', it is sometimes hard when you have close family members still immersed in the fraudulent Worldwide Church and its splinters."
I understand the sentiment.
Brave Anonymous Poster wrote in the previous thread that "HWA is dead, he can't hurt anyone..." (I am paraphrasing.)
However, there's been a ripple effect, and even though he is dead there are still people adversely affected by indoctrination into his cult teachings. My own parents come to mind.
And, I think of a dear friend of mine, whose father violently threw her into a wall as he accused her of rejecting the "Truth" that HWA taught. He's an elder in the LCG.
And, I'm also reminded of the cultmeisters who learned what they did from herb and now rape their own flocks since they've gotten their particular market-share of disaffected ex-WCGers.
I know that some would come back with the apologist arguments about personal choice and responsibility, and that's true to an extent, but I believe it's important to keep in mind that destructive cults use techniques which tend to usurp a person's ability to reason in a sane and healthy manner.
---------------------------------
But back to Meredith's article...
He wrote,
"We in this Work of Christ have always proclaimed that the world may have been created billions of years ago."
I don't remember this.
Is this what Herb taught?
And, "always"? Did first century Christians teach this?
Ministurd MerryDeath and the like are the very reason intellectuals are turning away from religion. MerryDeath, Flurry, Hulme, etc, are all still living in pre-1986 modes of thinking. None have the intellectual capacity to think past 1986. That is the reason none of the 470 some splinter cults of Armstrongism are growing. They are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. And as Martha says, "That, is a good thing!"
With all due respect, Dr. Meredith would have done well to check in with a former atheist who is now a very powerful minister of Jesus Christ.
Gary Amirault, whom I first saw on the old "Faith Under Fire" TV program, has theorized that the reason many have become atheist is that they have been presented with a completely unacceptable image of God the Father, and Jesus Christ. This, at the hand of Christian ministers, no less! Gary was an atheist for years, and should know.
I know for a fact that the horrible picture which was presented by the ACOGs, HWA, and his disciples, has totally alienated some very good, and well intentioned people from their God. H3ll, I was agnostic myself for over thirty years!
If people do become reconciled to God, it is not going to be through articles or logic from such "teachers" as Dr. Meredith. Those are going to push people further away, guaranteed! In fact the only thing such articles accomplish is making Meredith's insiders think, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as such sinners!" You might call his process "paradoxical programming"
BB
To all of you who still have loved ones in armstrongism:
I know exactly what you mean. I probably would not even be reading or posting here if it weren't for that. My mother and father are still under the thumb of armstrongism. They travel over an hour every saturday to an old, rickety VFW hall in passaic county, NJ to stare at an empty podium with 2 dozen other mostly geriatric congregants. Why an empty podium? They have the 'honor' of listening to a teleconferenced sermon by their 'local' pastor who is in much better surroundings in Long Island, NY (Who can blame him?)
Anyway, this is a good weekend, on other saturdays they are doubly blessed by driving to Allentown, PA (2 hrs away) when there aren't any services in NJ.
You would think David Hulme's sect could at least provide local pastors, if not better meeting halls, but he has to keep that young wife of his in garments and travels befitting a woman of her position and he also has those DVD's to produce...Keep that 1st and 3rd tithe rolling in bretheren!
I am convinced armstrongism is a progessive mental disease. The longer you are in it, the more bizarre the things you believe. I love my parents as much or more than anyone else loves their own, but some of the things I hear from them make the old WCG seem tamer in some way. That is tough for a son to bear. With that said, I wonder if the cure would be worse? After 44+ years in an armstrong nightmare, could admitting it was all B.S. cause a breakdown? I would be interested in the group's thoughts on this. (Even Tom's if he has something constructive to contribute)
Another greatly written and highly amusing intro Gavin. You could write for any of the world's great journals. The only thing you couldn't do, after this, is be accepted for membership in RM's exclusive little sect.
Hi Charlie,
Sounds like they're older like my parents.
Hey, I doubt they'd freak out if they realized they were wrong about who or what they've been following.
My dad in a way realized Armstrong was a charlatan, a bunch of years ago, yet to this day has clung to the basic teachings, and my parents do it alone, like a church of two.
I think armstrongism sucks. And often, when one abandons belief in one branch or splinter, there are other splinter's vacuum hoses also sucking and competing for the market share. Something closely related and familiar tends to be comfortable.
I'm not familiar with Hulme's group, but it sounds like your folks frequent my old stomping grounds.
In my younger days it was Newark and Patterson. Later it was Union and Fairlawn.
Had a girlfriend in Long Island.
Had friends in Allentown, too...there was a WCG member, a dentist there named Abraham Abraham (I kid you not) and I visited and enjoyed playing with his kids Mike and Wakeen.
Charlie said...
>>>I would be interested in the group's thoughts on this. (Even Tom's if he has something constructive to contribute)<<<
I hesitate to intrude in this collective public lamentation over the decisions of one's parents or relatives. Suffice to say, your respective parents or relatives must be even more grief stricken by your decision to stop attending church with them, as they now believe that you have no hope of salvation. So if it is possible, instead railing against what they believe, why don't you offer them an alternative service in much more pleasant surroundings?
If you successfully persuade your parents or relatives to stop attending with LCG, Hulme or whoever, without offering them an alternative, you will just create a vacuum in their lives, which will be filled by doubt, despair and lost of hope, not to mention the lost of friendships. Is that what you want for your love ones?
My comment to Rachel may also be apt here, you all have now joined a dangerous cult entitled, "I Am Wiser Than My Relatives." So be careful, your perspective of the world may not be from as high up the mountain as think!
My wife will now cut my hair, and my 11 and 13 year old daughters will compete to take and select a suitable photo of me to be posted on the Blog. But the timing is everything, so don't get too excited.-:)
Tom said:
"My wife will now cut my hair, and my 11 and 13 year old daughters will compete to take and select a suitable photo of me to be posted on the Blog. But the timing is everything, so don't get too excited."
Tom, you got to crack off on a picture of me as a kid that I had no choice over who took it, what I got to wear or picking the one I liked.
If it helps your perspective, (which it won't) I had 35 family members in WCG, assorted deacons, elders and full time pastors. All have found a life outside it all and are doing just fine. Not one felt any obligation to join a splinter group or go along with the reckless change inflicted by the Tkaches. It did, however give them pause to examine the whole concept and move on.
I am one of those that still has family in various cults. I am the same age as Richard's mother. Not a young person anymore, but I have grandchildren now that stayed with Tkach and Co. I remember how I was when I was there. My father at that time said "that old man is just after money". How right dad was! I wouldn't listen to my dad, and my kids and grandchildren won't listen to me.
Now I can watch Obama and understand where he has come from. He refused to place his hand over his heart when pledging allegiance to the flag, and he refuses to wear his flag pen in his lapel. His wife made the statement she did about our country. They have been influenced by their Rev. (smirk), they sat there and listened to him for 30 years. Do we think that didn't influence them? You bet it did!!!
Byker Bob said, "I know for a fact that the horrible picture which was presented by the ACOGs, HWA, and his disciples, has totally alienated some very good, and well intentioned people from their God".
MY COMMENT - Great post. The God of Herbert Armstrong and Tom Mahon is a god who gets delight out of sending the Germans to punish America for being human. The God of Herbert Armstrong and Tom Mahon is a very harsh God whom we can never do enough to ever please, or send enough money into HQ to keep his Apostle in lavish living and corporate jets enough to ever please.
Richard
A note of thanks to all those who posted here about relatives and friends still immersed in the 1960s Armstrongism time warp. It is comforting to know that I am not alone in receiving occasional doses of Armstrongism periodically from family members even to this day.
To delight Tom Mahon, excerpted below is another relevant passage from my unpublished essay, " My Worldwide Church of God reflections: 1972 in Prophecy! God's Practical Joke?":
Excerpt:
As an example of the indoctrination about giving the Worldwide Church money and the
mindset of its church members, I will share a personal financial experience. I became a real estate investor in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, I experienced financial reversals that were caused by speculating on a property right before the recession of 1990 -1991 and the resulting Washington D.C. real estate crash. This event was approximately 15 years after I had left the Armstrong church. A family member that still remained in the church pronounced a judgment that, “Maybe if you started tithing, God would start blessing you”, as if giving Armstrong’s church more money to squander would please God and cause the real estate market to rebound. Again I asked myself, “Why me?” While it demonstrates the extent of the Church’s brainwashing, it cynically made me wonder how many successful business people ever prospered without contributing any money to the Worldwide Church.
End of Excerpt
Richard
Tom Mahon said, "Suffice to say, your respective parents or relatives must be even more grief stricken by your decision to stop attending church with them, as they now believe that you have no hope of salvation".
MY COMMENT: Tom, for the first time that I can recall, your post sounded almost intelligent and thoughtful, so I will not call you by my moniker,"Tom Moron".
However, it might surprise you to know that your statement above is not true (at least in my case) according to your God HWA's theology. For a moment in this post, I will play the WCG theology game.
As my mother has pointed out to me many times in the intervening years since I stopped attending the WCG in 1976, I will be in the second resurrection (notice how Armstrongites always love to pronounce God's judgment on others). The second resurrection is for people like me who were never baptized and did not receive the understanding truth that HWA was God's Elijah and Apostle. People like you, Tom Mohan, who are in the first resurrection will train people like me in "Armstrong's (God's) way" and about how right you were all along in this present life. People like me will worship at your feet according to the WCG theology game.
Now, in this WCG theology game, wouldn't it be funny if God had a sense of humor and gave you the responsibility of training me when I come up in the second resurrection? Think of the fun we will have. :-)
Tom, first you have given up tithing, and now you appear to have forgotten the second resurrection. What is next? A bagel during the Days of Unleavened Bread? :-)
Richard
This post reminds me of an email exchange I had about politics that quickly degenerated to the point that my correspondent stated:
You think that "YOU" are enlightened, have NO use for any religion, therefore, you cannot see the real threat presented by the radical Muslims.
In reality, I don't think my lack of religion makes me enlightened. It simply means that I have one less source of delusion. And I have two fewer sources of delusion than my correspondent, who somehow manages to believe both in Armstrongism and every word that comes from Rush Limbaugh's mouth.
All:
I will get flamed for this post. I know it in advance, and thought twice about even writing it. I think it needs to be said.
If you are an atheist and the following DOES NOT apply to you, then DONT TAKE IT PERSONALLY.
My experience with many people who give up on God, or who are evangelists for atheism, is that they are often people who are nursing and cuddling a moral weakness, sin, habit or degeneracy.
By rejecting moral standards, and proclaiming themselves as God unto themselves, they are free to embrace the worldliness of their choice, of which there is legion to choose from, sex/drugs/booze/smoke/porn/sloth/ et al, ad nauseum, and to not feel guilt for finding solace in their temporal vice. The need to struggle with ones self ceases, and grants one a false sense of relief.
Ive said it before and I will say it again. COG cultmeisters are evil. Hierarchy is the great devil, placing itself between the Maker and man. Doctrine does not necessarily make you a cult. Being a Sabbath observer does not make you into a brute or a freak. One must be wise enough to not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Seperate doctrine from abuse.
Seperate truth from doctrine.
Seperate church from God.
But do not use doctrinal error, men fallen from truth, and churches seperated from God as your excuse to indulge yourself in the dysfunction of your choice, found everywhere in this society.
Society, is absolutely insane, selfish, and bizaare. Without God, society is a cult too, whether you recognize it or not. Society, this world and its ways, is an abuser, and user, and is selfish in its own interests and has NO LOVE for you.
As it states in the Psalms "Be still and know God".
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
"...has theorized that the reason many have become atheist is that they have been presented with a completely unacceptable image of God the Father, and Jesus Christ."
I've noticed that the phrase "lack of evidence" seems to have a very hard time penetrating the mind of a Christian. Christians, for the most part, will ignore this simple phrase and hunt for another reason, one that makes them more comfortable. "Lack of evidence" is not comfortable to the Christian- if they are, as RCM wrote, "intellecutally honest."
I explained to my wife, and others, my reasons for no longer believing in God. The primary reason was lack of evidence, any evidence. There were secondary issues yes, but they served to support the primary issue, lack of evidence; they weren't primary issues themselves. One of those secondary issues were unanswered prayer. Or the healing of amputees. Ect.
I noticed that the majority of those I talked to ignored the primary issue, the giant elephant, the 800-lb gorilla, and instead latched onto the secondary issues. "Aha! God didn't answer your prayer so you reject him you should know better than that the scripture says His ways are higher, ect"
Was I speaking English? Did they not hear me? What was going on? I soon realized that they were ignoring the primary reason because it was too horrifying to contemplate. My wife even admitted that it was "scary." On the other hand, they could easily (in their mind) compartmentalize my reasoning and brush aside my atheism as a childish, sulking rebellion arising from bad communication and selfish desires.
It's no surprise that this fellow believes that atheism is the result of a Bad Gospel. It can't be lack of evidence, because to him, there is evidence (though not reality based evidence) and therefore this evidence must exist to me, so there must be another reason.
I remember watching a PBS special on rebellious teens. One started attending a rock and roll church but soon dropped out because he prayed to God for something and God didn't answer, so he rejected God. I found that silly then as a Christian and I find it silly now as an atheist. That teen was not an atheist- he was a believer who was dissatisfied with that particular diety who didn't answer him. Granted, there may be many people out there who do not believe in God because of offense of one type or another, such as the Bible, or a pastor, or churchfolk. But I would bet that they still believe that there is some being out there, or angels, or ghosts, or magic or what have you- all unsupported by evidence. They did not come to their view through a review of reality, a critical analysis of the subject- just emotion. Just like a believer.
The Apostle Paul
In my experience, I don't see a strong correlation between morality and belief in God. Sure, you can point out immoral atheists. But there are also immoral theists. Examples have initials HWA and GTA.
Bill, I expect the examples you point out were immoral people to begin with, who did not practice their immorality while believing in a god & religion, and after that restraint was lost their immorality came to view.
Bill, you talk about separating several things from other things. I say:
Separate morality from religion.
If you need religion to be moral, then you really aren't moral.
Bill,
You prove my case.
I want to add that, according to my wife, my only change in behavior is my potty mouth.
But, like "lack of evidence", I won't be believed. Why? Well, there ~must~ be some Other reason why Paul stopped believing....
The Apostle Paul
"If you need religion to be moral, then you really aren't moral."
That's for sure. I feel uncomfortable around people who refrain from adultery and murder and lying only because their God told them not to do those things. That's scary. Without their God to tell them how to behave...murder, rape, incest, theft, torture, ect. Amoral people only held in line by an imaginary being.
The Apostle Paul
Paul and all:
We are actually close in agreement.
If your morality comes from outside pressure and conformity only, then you are not really moral, only a conformist or a politician.
This is why, when at a drop of a hat, Tkach could say, pork is ok, and then an hour later people are eating a pepperoni pizza, and preaching such. Most people in the COG were conformists or politicians.
The same holds true for many who still are in the COG orgs as well... Conformists or politicians. Bullies and wimps.
What is lacking is "self actualization" and being (as Dennis D. has mentioned) ones "true self".
The world is full of bullies and wimps. Answers are found by being neither of these. Reacting to bullies and wimps will not produce peace, self actualization or happiness. It is not the road to know God.
I have a curious question though. It is one that must be asked of ones self who has allowed himself to either become a bully or a wimp. What was it that was wrong about ones own self that allowed them to be abused by either a psychotic world apart from God as an atheist, or to be abused by psychotic religion or to actually be the abuser itself.
Ultimately there is something wrong or out of kilter about ourselves that allowed it to happen in the first place. Im not willing to play "victim" and place all blame away from myself. There were reasons that I played the codependent role in the bully/wimp game in the WCG and also in life.
Again, the world and its bully marketeers has NO ANSWERS. Only seducers who are looking to hook you in on their product, habit, political party, sports team, music, drug to find solace from you asking the question on why you are so dependent on pleasing men and seeking their love.
There exists only one entity in the universe that truly loves you unconditionally. Knock on the door, persue, seek. It is a journey and its struggle produces answers and peace. Damned be the bullies and wimps of truth.
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
"Why Atheists?"
Why ask, when all Roderick Meredith has to do is walk over to a mirror and take a good look at himself.
In the venue of the Radio / Worldwide Church of God, certainly Herbert Armstrong should take the lion's share of credit for churning out atheists, but Roderick Meredith was an important part of the mechanisms for producing the current crop of refugees from the insanity of a false prophet gone bad, past his expiration date.
Herbert Armstrong barely escaped the eighth grade. Roderick Meredith managed to celebrate himself as a champion, having won a Golden Gloves regional championship. So what you have is an undereducated narcissistic failed ad copy writer becoming a patron to a man whose brain had already been shriveled by excessive testosterone and perhaps brain damaged by blows to the head. This is not something which could have ended well even under the best of conditions, even if, the whole thing hadn't gone public -- which it did -- spreading the abusive malaise abroad to infect unwary innocents looking for answers.
And answers they did receive. Unfortunately, the answers were wrong, based on wrong assumptions by misguided and oft rather brazenly abusive men who cared more for theories of male dominated superiority than for kindness. Being radically right about their opinions was far more important than love.
One only need look at The Manpower Papers to see the truth in Proverbs that "the tender mercies of the wicked is cruel". An even better view to this testosterone brain-shrunken Troglodyte Myrmidon wrong-headedness can be found in his Shocking Truth
about Queer Men wherein he exposes his astonishingly poor judgment as he holds up that cross-dressing homosexual J. Edgar Hoover as a paragon of enlightened virtue. Obviously, the elevator doesn't get anywhere near the top floor.
In all of this, Roderick Meredith has established himself an AUTHORITY whose false prophecies must be respected. A woman with a disaffected son who had grown up in the church explained to me at a United service that "Roderick Meredith has better prophecy". Of course he does: He tells old CoGers what they want to hear. Her son, who had just been to Juvenile Hall told me that he preferred Living because "it has better discipline". No surprise that -- a haven for juvenile delinquents. Hopefully, LCG can gather them all into one place amongst the Churches of God so the ones in the other ones won't have to worry about their purses and wallets being lifted before, during and after services. Murders are not only possible, but likely. It should also make a safe haven for psychopaths who thrive in such environments of deceits and instability.
As for deceits, Roderick Meredith is no stranger to them. He lied to the congregation and said he would abide by the decision of his Board. He did not. But then, if he's been such a spectacular false prophet proven terribly terribly wrong without ever taking one shred of responsibility, why should we be surprised?
Over the years, it has become apparent that there are at least three factors that turn the faithful believer to atheism, particularly if they are young:
1) Peer influence;
2) Realizing that you've been lied to;
3) Personal bad experience, including, but not restricted to, abuse by the very ministers who were supposed to protect you from it.
For younger people, particularly those who are smarter than average, peer influence in their developing years within the WCG certainly would recognize the silliness of the pronouncements of the ministerial misfit mavens of lies and deceits. They would have seen the prophecies fail right before their eyes and wonder why their parents couldn't understand that they were worshiping their false gods, the Go'uld and the Ori. They would see that the explanation of the creation of the heavens and the earth differed significantly from those who were in a better position to understand science and particularly physics. They would discuss this with their friends and peers in school and reach the conclusion...
God doesn't exist.
What a shock. What a surprise. Nimnuls teaching the brilliant lies and expecting them to accept it as the gospel truth. Who woulda thunk? The oh, so clever ministry attempting to teach something wrong to those who were a lot smarter than they were? Not a hot prospect for success there.
Then there are the outright lies, particularly of false prophecies from the false prophets. The United States did not lose World War II. Hitler did not survive and live in South America. 1975 came and went. The trees in the Pacific Northwest are still standing [except they shouldn't given the minister told us as "a minister of Jesus Christ"]. Britain did join the EEU. There never were only 10 nations. Germany did not rise up and dominate this union. British Israel is just wrong.... And on and on and on. When you tell people something with inerrant confidence and are proven wrong as God's true minister, it's bound to have a negative, ya think?
And then there's just flat out unfair abuse. With Scriptures overflowing about the Justice, Judgment and especially Mercy of God, the cognitive dissonance of facing punishment from a narcissistic ministry for no particularly good reason doesn't inspire much confidence in a Good and Great God. If this is the treatment you get, wouldn't it be better if there were no God?
To Bill's point of atheists rejecting God because they want to pursue their own lusts, we are certain that he knows that Herbert Armstrong specified that there are only two acceptable positions during intercourse for married couples. What ever happened to the prospect that the marriage bed is honorable and undefiled and even the ministry should keep their cotton pickin' hands off of something in which they should not interfere? They won't even leave you alone in the privacy of your own marriage! Did God do this? No! But the appeal to reject this whole stupid insane environment to get as far from it as possible is a very strong inducement to at least consider agnosticism and atheism.
Then there's the other matter of having a completely dysfunctional environment which just doesn't really work. People had to give up their lives and sacrifice so Herbert Armstrong and the likes of Roderick Meredith could live "high on the hog". They paid three tithes -- unlike some people here. They took their children out of school to attend the delightful vacation of the Feast of Tabernacles. Except it wasn't for the children. They couldn't escape doing homework during the Feast. So while the adults had their fun and especially fun of soaking up sermons irrelevant to normal mortal beings, their kids had to hunker down and pursue WORK to get their stuff for school done. Help? No, the parents mostly did not help. During my college years attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Squaw Valley, I spent lunch hours tutoring a girl and helping her with her eighth grade math from school. I think it helped. She's been a success and maybe some isolated small act of kindness helped her. How many others got now help? And failed? Outcasts and failures to boot.
Hypocrisy could have played a very minor factor for some, particularly those who were Conscientious Objectors and were treated like spit. The came in good conscience and were treated to abuse as criminals who were not patriotic, defying, as it were, the ministerial Republican Dog owners and their privileged spoiled children who knew how to torture, not unlike a cat playing with a mouse. They were treated dishonorably, threatened at every turn and given the worst jobs possible, by those, oh, so righteous, Pharisaical boobs who never went through the experience themselves and didn't even know what it was all about. To be treated with such disrespect as less than humans -- to the level of a Jew in a World War II Concentration Camp -- may have had no small impact upon the more innocent who did not remain so. And that's just one example of the hypocrisy. We need not get into the topic of Doctors and Healings and Marriage and Divorce counseling. Sufficient is the knowledge that some people suffered and even died needlessly.
The WCG was a crazy environment and people poured themselves into it, sacrificing resources which should have gone to their families. It is no wonder that 7 of 9 children left the WCG environments when they became adults. It was just too much a sacrifice for them.
Why did people submit themselves to such a psychotic environment filled with distorted perceptions? Learn something about psychopaths and the answer should present itself. Of course, looking for answers is oft a cause in itself. [And yes I know the link is down this weekend, try later.]
So now we come to it: The self-righteous narcissistic near blind testosterone brain shrunken false prophet ponders the imponderable: Why atheists?
The easy answer is why not?
And Roderick Meredith is right smack dab in the middle of it.
Tired Skeptic: You have a couple of good points, your post reminds me that the adage is proven time and time again: Birds of a feather, flock together.
To Tom Mahon, you said, "If you successfully persuade your parents or relatives to stop attending with LCG, Hulme or whoever, without offering them an alternative, you will just create a vacuum in their lives, which will be filled by doubt, despair and lost of hope, not to mention the lost of friendships. Is that what you want for your love ones?"
In a way you have a point; they once asked me, "Well then were should be go to find the truth?" I told them to start looking. Quite frankly there aren't that many people left in their church and they really don't keep in touch with anyone from their old WCG days either. The nicest people stayed in the old WCG or left armstrongism altogether. My experience is those in the xcg's are there because they hold on to a faint sliver of hope that they will be able to watch with glee as bombs fall on NYC, Detroit, DC, and the survivors led off to slavery in Europe. Just a quick glance at Weinland, Flurry, Pack, and Meredith prove that point.
What do I really want for my folks Tom? I want them to get their minds unhinged from death, destruction, and a WIDE range of conspiracy theories, enjoy their seven grandchildren and do a little traveling that doesn't involve daily services.
Sounds better than sitting in metal chairs once a week for two hours listening to the *same* thing they have been hearing since 1964.
Lussenheide said...
>>>I will get flamed for this post.<<<
You will not be flamed by me, you might be shocked to learn.
The message of your is so true, that people would have to be blind not to agree with it.
My only comment to you is, speak the truth and don't be afraid of the consequences.
Tired Skeptic said...
"Why Atheists?"
there are at least three factors that turn the faithful believer to atheism, particularly if they are young:
1) Peer influence;
2) Realizing that you've been lied to;
3) Personal bad experience
More importantly:
4) Lack of evidence!
5) Failed Biblical prophecy. Especially of the "soon" return of Jesus Christ and prophecies about Assyria when Assyria no longer even exists.
6) Unanswered prayer. A Christain's prayer is answered about as often as a non-believer's wish.
7) Lack of evidence!
8) Evidence that things happened in an entirely different way than creation.
9) Evidence that Judaism evolved from Zoroasterism.
10) Evidence that Christianity evolved from the god/man mystery religions.
11) No worldwide flood, which was proved over 200 years ago.
12) Did I mention lack of evidence in the existence of a god?
"Now I can watch Obama and understand where he has come from. He refused to place his hand over his heart when pledging allegiance to the flag, and he refuses to wear his flag pen in his lapel. His wife made the statement she did about our country. They have been influenced by their Rev. (smirk), they sat there and listened to him for 30 years. Do we think that didn't influence them? You bet it did!!!"
Are you white or black?
Were your relatives enslaved by the rich in America?
Did you fight for desegregation?
Were you kids and family members kept from good schools and good jobs?
I am not talking about race here, I am talking about loving the country, the country that he wants to preside over. What color is Obama, I didn't particularly notice. If he cannot pledge allegiance to America, how can he be our president? Do you trust him to make right decisions for your safety? I sure don't.
Bill noted:
"they are free to embrace the worldliness of their choice, of which there is legion to choose from, sex/drugs/booze/smoke/porn/sloth/ et al, ad nauseum, and to not feel guilt for finding solace in their temporal vice. The need to struggle with ones self ceases, and grants one a false sense of relief."
Sounds like an average congregation to me and all that I ever sat through with people over 26 years of handholding and talk.
While I understand what you mean, sometimes people just move on realizing that they haven't had an accurate overview of all things Biblical. Going from seeing the Bible is hardly written inerrantly by God has nothing to do with a desire to get away from a God. You can't unring a bell and once one sees there is more to the story of the Bible than first taught to see, things just change.
Bill noted:
"they are free to embrace the worldliness of their choice, of which there is legion to choose from, sex/drugs/booze/smoke/porn/sloth/ et al, ad nauseum, and to not feel guilt for finding solace in their temporal vice. The need to struggle with ones self ceases, and grants one a false sense of relief."
Sounds like an average congregation to me and all that I ever sat through with people over 26 years of handholding and talk.
While I understand what you mean, sometimes people just move on realizing that they haven't had an accurate overview of all things Biblical. Going from seeing the Bible is hardly written inerrantly by God has nothing to do with a desire to get away from a God. You can't unring a bell and once one sees there is more to the story of the Bible than first taught to see, things just change.
PS It's a bit like the idea that scientists ONLY try to disprove God because they don't want to obey him. Of course, this is just not so and equally lame as an explanation as to why good science does not always hold up some of the mythology or misconceptions of the Bible.
I am sure there is always an element of getting away from a God concept to be free to do what one wants, but that too usually follows a disappointment of some kind where perhaps years of prayer, giving, serving, "overcoming" or struggling has produced nothing but emotional problems that one has never felt able to to find a kind ear to explain.
We have to be honest as well with our experience of doing "exactly" what God, the Bible or the Church says in such things as tithing or giving (see if I don't open the windows of heaven for you), healing (and the sick shall be made well), deaths of children (I will protect you), Simple requests for help (whatever you ask in my name, I will give it...), just don't work.
It's not a lack of faith to look back and see that faith is basically unrewarded in things the Bible says you will be recieve for it. But then the Bible even has it's own disclaimers that get it off the hook if one notices this lack of God or Jesus or Christ doing what he said he would do if asked.
I have never laid hands on a cancer victim and have it go away.
I have blessed little children only to see them crushed to death a few years later.
I have seen people give more than they should and just end up broke.
I have seen kindness rewarded with marginalization
I have seen good intentions taken advantage of and used to one's harm.
All this also builds up over years and when something comes along to turn the lights on, the person is ready to see what they had filtered out in hopes of it not being so.
Dennis said...
"All this also builds up over years and when something comes along to turn the lights on, the person is ready to see what they had filtered out in hopes of it not being so."
Damned if that is not true. Every believer has that thought in their mind but denies it. Sometimes life is too painful to go through when you realize that there is no big guy in the sky to help you. Only curses. But such as life is, everything in life is deceptive also. While in the "cult" we all looked for a purpose under this oppressive sun, but found that life/God never delivered what we expected. Some lose faith out of weakness, others through the rational thought process, have abandoned the notion that God, Jesus, Allah ETC were ever real to start with. It is all a cruel hoax invented by soothsayers such as Herbert W. Armstrong and expounded by trashy ministers who never have or will repent of there deception!
Now, is Tom brain dead? No. If he truly believes in the late apostate apostle of the last century, then that is his ignorance speaking. Tom is a thinking man who it seems may not be able to step over the line and admit to family and friends that his system of believes was based on lies and deception. For myself, I admitted I was wrong that the wcg and all the crap they taught was sheer bullshit! I was humbled to say the least! I have learned my lesson as most here have. Why do we continue on with this wcg memory/experience? So that no one else may be deceived by these bags of crap that expound armstrongism!
The creature must die. May we all be credited for destroying such a evil religious movement!
A Badge of Honor for those who have fought the good fight to resist those evil narcissistic scumbags!
With all due respect to my friend Dennis who HAS repented,
Kscribe.
"I am not talking about race here, I am talking about loving the country, the country that he wants to preside over. What color is Obama, I didn't particularly notice. If he cannot pledge allegiance to America, how can he be our president? Do you trust him to make right decisions for your safety? I sure don't."
To say he "cannot pledge allegiance to America" is a lie !!!
It is one of the many that Right Wing fundamentalist are spreading about him.
A good COG friend came over to the house and his disdain for Obama and embrace of Right Wing lies was appalling to me.
I did my best to change the subject; I did not want to alienate another old COG friend.
"Some lose faith out of weakness, others through the rational thought process, have abandoned the notion that God, Jesus, Allah ETC were ever real to start with. It is all a cruel hoax invented by soothsayers..."
Sad, we live in a time when cruelty continues to pervade our culture and we blame it on God.
But it is still a reality...
Thanks to the good Republicans.
Anonymous,
The guy is a fake! When I saw the rally here in Portland I was reminded of the "brown shirts!" You know, Adolf groupies! New ideas....
"There is NOTHING new under the sun." Just some good old fashion bullshit stories by another soothsayer!
"We have to be honest as well with our experience of doing "exactly" what God, the Bible or the Church says..."
But most believers won't be honest in this area...and they will remain faithful believers.
It's hard to describe the freedom that I now have- not freedom to indulge in evil, unless evil be pepperoni and pork tacos- but mental freedom. It's heady wine, to know that your life, your future, your potential, is in your hands as far as time and chance permits. It's wonderful. I'll slit my throat before worshipping gods again- unless they present themselves with incontravertible evidence. Even then, I still have the free will to decide whether they are worthy of human worship.
The Apostle Paul, truly "free at last"
Lussenheide said...
>Ultimately there is something wrong or out of kilter about ourselves that allowed it to happen in the first place. Im not willing to play "victim" and place all blame away from myself. There were reasons that I played the codependent role in the bully/wimp game in the WCG and also in life.<
Because you and I were "enablers"
Never again! Not in love, not in politics, not in family! I will walk away from all those who try to feed off me. I will walk away from all who try to manipulate me. I will be diligent to exercise my choices in a logical and intelligent way. It is I who pays the price for being gullible. No one else!
"Thanks to the good Republicans."
Oh for Christ's sake, come on. You are no different than a "Right Wing" neocon whose ear is glued to Rush Limbaugh and eye to FOX News who thinks that all evil in the world is due to the liberals. The "liberals" aren't the "good guys" and the conservatives the "bad guys", always looking to starve another old lady or put another young black man to work at the secret GOP Plantations.
I am a member of the Republican Party at the moment for Ron Paul, until the election is over. Then, I will switch back to non-affiliated. My politics are very conservative (though no longer socially) but I feel that after years of being a brainwashed neo-con, I can see things a bit more clearly. Do I still disagree with much of liberal politics? Yes, I do. But I no longer hold to that rabid, "we are RIGHT" and "they are EVIL NAZIS" outlook that you hold to.
Being a party hack is no different than being an Armstrongite. No different.
By the way, I was appalled at the crop of local GOP politicians at the GOP county convention. They all got up there an lied and pandered and slung so much cornpone rhetoric that I had to send my clothes to the cleaner. I have no doubt that the Democratic convention was any different.
The Apostle Paul
More importantly:
Which all boils down to:
Realizing that you've been lied to;
To be fair, there is no real proof of God except Faith. Faith is the evidence, according to Scripture. It is also the Gift of God.
This is a conundrum: You can't believe in God without faith because there isn't any evidence that there is one without it, but then, God has to give it to you in the first place to believe.
So to Roderick Meredith: Why Atheists?
Because God hasn't given them the evidence of Faith. But then again, you haven't done your part have you? Having wrecked people's faith with your lies, false prophecies and deceptions. You can hardly blame the atheists, can you?
Anonymous said.........
>It's hard to describe the freedom that I now have- not freedom to indulge in evil, unless evil be pepperoni and pork tacos- but mental freedom<
Celebrate Herbs death day, January 16th as mental freedom day. I say it should be a holiday all of us celebrate!
Tired Skeptic wrote...
>>Because God hasn't given them the evidence of Faith. But then again, you haven't done your part have you? Having wrecked people's faith with your lies, false prophecies and deceptions. You can hardly blame the atheists, can you?<<
Herb, Merrydeath, Billingsley, Flurry, Pack... are making atheists out of people.
It's like a factory that manufactures widgets. The product turns out to be defective, but because it (religion) is protected under the American constitution, it is legal. Some prospective member might think it is legit, but it is not.
It is interesting that the various cog's are as a corporate model, selling the public pseudo ideology. At what point can someone sue them to rectify the gregarious error?
Kscribe scribed:
Because you and I were "enablers"
MY COMMMENT;
You are correct. I am truly sorry and I repent. I was wrong. It wont happen again.
I grew up with crazy and alcoholic parents, and I was what is known as "The Responsible Child", who took on the parent role for the family. Covering for their immaturity and faults, and carrying the load of their dysfunction. I came to church alone as a 17 year old. I simply continued my pattern of enabling with me to the COG scene.
Great question was asked in one of the Star Trek movies..."Why would God need a spaceship??". We may ask, "why does God need a corrupt church that encourages enabling and codependent followers"?
Older and wiser,
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
""Thanks to the good Republicans."
Oh for Christ's sake, come on. You are no different than a "Right Wing" neocon whose ear is glued to Rush Limbaugh and eye to FOX News who thinks that all evil in the world is due to the liberals."
The "big Business" Republicans, the Corporate folks, have shipped our jobs oversees, weakened unions, taken away benefits and have dramatically weakened the middle class and thus have weakened America.
That is their agenda; to create a society of have's and have not's.
They want unregulated market place that allows them to charge whatever they want from a captive subservient populace locked into poor jobs and low wages.
In our generation it all started again with Ronald Regan.
A very cruel group of people.
"Kscribe scribed:
Because you and I were "enablers"
I was as well as a minister even though I didn't always know what to do about it. There were times I spoke up and only got silence. I'd ask sincere questions and get yelled at. So I quit asking wanting to protect the local congregation which I felt very close to from "them." That only went so far.
It was a very awkward position to be in. No real man should ever have to be a minister. He can't be himself and no matter the denomination, has to kiss up to those who totally misunderstand who they are up the line. "Let him who is the greatest among you be his servant.." never seemed to catch on in WCG or any church frankly. Greatest among equals is a hard thing to pull off successfully.
I was aware, somewhat aware and totally unaware of many things depending. For what I could have done better in, I apologize for not doing so. It often lead no where but diminish my personal ability to help the local people who I genuinely loved and felt close to. It was a crap shoot and balancing act at times.
Anyway, just a though...
Dennis,
The good times are now. We have let it go! The past is gone and all of us have to let it go in OUR good time!
Kscribe.
Because you and I were "enablers"
Oh, for heaven's sake, cut it out.
We were all conned fair and square.
Lussenheide said...
>>I grew up with crazy and alcoholic parents, and I was what is known as "The Responsible Child"<<
No doubt you are a better man through your troubles! Yes? Yes, but no kid should have to go through that kind of crap just because you have/had a conscious toward a god!
Kscribe.
Tired Skeptic said...
>>Because you and I were "enablers"
Oh, for heaven's sake, cut it out.
We were all conned fair and square.<
Yes, we were conned...and that by a soap salesman! Hell, maybe the Herbster was a Fuller Brush man but never revealed it!
I sure don't miss the drama that's for sure. Sometimes I don't feel I have a pot to pee in, but believe me, it's nice having to care only for myself and not feel the burden of getting nowhere fast. Everything we talk about here is in our heads. It's not real anymore. It's one side of our heads chatting with the other! It gets noisey in there sometimes!
No, Ken!
HWA was not the Fuller Brush Man. He was a falsie salesman, as the old joke goes: The Fuller Bust Man!
BB
The Fuller Bust Man!
I stand corrected Bob! Thank you!
In the 17 years I have been conversing on blogs and email I never met a stupid atheist.
Atheists are derided as ignoring the "facts" (plug in your favorite doctrine or prophecy). We are told they cannot tolerate sound doctrine because evolution has corrupted their minds. I see no conflict between the process of evolution and a God referred to by the Bible as being the Ancient of Days. Why do these ministers who declare free moral agency insist on blind belief?
These preachers never really answer the atheists questions, which are often very good questions. And quite often if a member asked those questions they'd get tossed out of the organization.
If I had to buy into a God, as God is painted by most of religion, I too would have to declare myself an atheist. For that god is in essence an angry and a contrary monster who cares not a whit for human life.
Most atheists are not atheists because they take the concept of a God lightly.
They are atheists because they take the concept of a God so much more seriously than the average preacher does, including asking the "unaskable" questions most people and preachers shy away from.
Can your God take a joke? What about a hard question? Does your God hate non-believers? What about a cartoon of one his prophets? Or how about one of us snarky ones poking a little fun at a well known faux Apostle from Pasadena?
Why does it bother them if people don't believe?
I am not an atheist because of what I experienced. But my experience is my own, and cannot be transfered easily to another with absolute proof. I don't feel uncomfortable around atheists. If convincing needs to be done, its surely in God's hands to do so. He surely can do it better than Meredith.
Anonymous said...
"They want unregulated market place that allows them to charge whatever they want from a captive subservient populace locked into poor jobs and low wages."
That is a recipe for revolution. Why would they want to divide the American population into two different groups? History shows us this never works.
This idea you have is a invention of the liberals that create class envy. That buys votes from the ignorant and those who now feel disenchanted with the American dream....the "have not's"
Both political parties in the USA care only for their own asses. Keeping a cushy government job and do nothing for the people except create chaos between races and classes of people. This keeps us so busy hating that we lose site of what or who is the real problem!
Politics, a evil reviled with such contempt just as such with religious charlatans that are Without a Conscious!
Kscribe.
"That buys votes from the ignorant and those who now feel disenchanted with the American dream....the "have not's""
I met a Hispanic at the gas station who was handing out business cards- he had just started his own tree-felling/trimming company. Blew my mind. These people come here with nothing and work their asses off for low wages, and many eventually work their way up, some, like this guy, even own their own business. These people, according to liberalism, do not exist. They cannot exist, for liberalism teaches us that America is filled with the Rich (who gather their riches through inheritance or enslaving and stealing from others) and the Poor (who are fixed in their positions, much like midieval peasants)and the Poor can never, ever, through the horrible, evil system of Republicanism (Vile Capitalism!), manage to do more than just breath air unless the benevolent Democrats intervene with their Magical Government Money and try to keep the Poor from literally starving to death in their millions.
This guy made me feel so ashamed. There are millions in this country who clamor and wail and gnash their teeth at the "haves" and the "evil Republicans" while people who aren't even born here come and do what millions upon millions have done- take part in this system that we have ALWAYS had by working their asses off.
Now I don't by any means think that there aren't people in this country who can't make it, or people who aren't in dire straights and that capitalism has no flaws- but this is America. To Anon- you have the wonderful freedom to achieve almost anything you want (even the descendant of a slave can become President)but with that comes the freedom to starve, through chance, accident, or through your own fault. If you don't like it, leave. I don't say that with any Vietnam era rancor. It's a viable option. There are plenty of European countries that employ socialism, and all the reports from over there seem to be glowing. Just not my cup of tea.
Understand that this whole "have and have not" and "unregulated" business has been around since this country was founded. It's not Republicanism. It's America as created by the Founding Fathers.
By the way, I was raised by middle class parents. My mother put my in college. I dropped out, got a job and an apartment and drank beer and wasted four years of my life doing nothing. Then I joined the Army for five years, then got out, and working nights and using the GI Bill, went to college and got my BS. I am now working on my PhD. It hasn't been easy, but all it took was 1) work and 2) the awareness that if I was to make something of my self, "I" had to make it happen. I think many politicians have for so many years told a segement of our population that they "can't", and now we have generations of people who actually believe it.
If the government takes my earnings and gives it to a "have not", don't I become a "have not," too....at the point of a gun??
The Apostle Paul
I believe atheists fall into two principal categories:
1) People to whom God has revealed himself and who have rejected God.
2 People to whom God has not yet revealed himself in a way that is necessary to build faith for salvation.
The former category is comprised of people who are, as theologians say, reprobated. They are essentially wihout hope and God doesn't spend any time on them any longer because dealing with them will be forever non-productive. These people are committed atheists and when God appears to them in person, they will deny that they are really seeing God. They will simply claim that it is some sort of hallucination.
The second category is comprised of people who are "pending". God has yet to deal with them and will do so in his good time.
For the present, no observer can really tell the difference between these two categories of atheists, although they are sharply different. Externally, they have similar behavior. But I suspect that most atheists know, at their core, what category they fall into.
-- Neo
Mel,
"In my younger days it was Newark and Patterson. Later it was Union and Fairlawn.
Had a girlfriend in Long Island.
Had friends in Allentown, too...there was a WCG member, a dentist there named Abraham Abraham (I kid you not) and I visited and enjoyed playing with his kids Mike and Wakeen."
Mel - I remember those days too. If you get a chance, send me an email at yosemiteroad@yahoo.com
Wakeen
Neotherm said:
I believe atheists fall into two principal categories:
1) People to whom God has revealed himself and who have rejected God.
2 People to whom God has not yet revealed himself in a way that is necessary to build faith for salvation.
Both of your categories of atheists as you've defined them recognize to some degree the existence of your god, since according to you your god has in some way revealed himself to all. Your characterizations are self contradictory. An atheist believes that there is no god, so an atheist can't reject something he believes doesn't exist at all.
And according to the bible, god hasn't revealed himself to anyone, since if he did so it would have killed them.
Tired Skeptic said...
1) Peer influence;
2) Realizing that you've been lied to;
3) Personal bad experience.<<<
None of these are true; though I am surprised that you didn't also add, "incompetence and dysfunction."
Anyway, the bible succinctly sums atheism thus: "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." And why? The answer is very damning, "Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity." It is therefore the corruption of sin, that turns people into atheists.
To give into the blandishments of sin, one must inevitably deny the existence of God, who forbids and condemns sin. And since the wicked hate those who correct them, they either seek to destroy them or pretend they don't exist. So as the wicked can't destroy God, they pretend he doesn't exist. Hence atheism!!
Anonymous said...
>>>"That buys votes from the ignorant and those who now feel disenchanted with the American dream....the "have not's""<<<
All who vote are ignorant, period! unless, of course, you believe that "Demonocracy," as Mr. Waterhouse used to call it, is a divinely ordained form of government from God, rather the idea of Solon and others.
The concept of the "American dream:" Wow! That indefinable pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which is so ruthlessly and relentlessly pursued by those who think that money and power can buy happiness. Well, you may sleep long enough to wake up and discover it was just a nightmare.
'...If your morality comes from outside pressure and conformity only, then you are not really moral, only a conformist or a politician...'
Repentance, indwelling holy Spirit. All of us are inclined to sin. The indwelling Spirit in the Christian is a brake on sin, a prompt towards what is right (it's fruits). Without the Spirit - or if it has been discarded - there isn't a brake. Sin is easier.
Tom said: "All who vote are ignorant, period! unless, of course, you believe that "Demonocracy," as Mr. Waterhouse used to call it, is a divinely ordained form of government from God, rather the idea of Solon and others."
Tom, there are a million different things I could say about this post but I will say only this: You are like a ship without sails or rudder...Things will happen to you and you are powerless to do anything about it.
Tom also said: "The concept of the "American dream:" Wow! That indefinable pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which is so ruthlessly and relentlessly pursued by those who think that money and power can buy happiness. Well, you may sleep long enough to wake up and discover it was just a nightmare."
Millions have worked hard and reaped the rewards here in America Tom. I don't know what your life was like in the caribbean or in jolly olde England but I like it here in the U.S. of A.
One more thought: Money and power may not be everything but it is way ahead of whatever is in second place.
OBAMA 2008!
Paul - Ron Paul has great ideas I hope he tries again in 2012.
Romans 1:18-27 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
There you have it. The Bible clearly says that all atheists become homosexuals.
One needs to beware of the snake oil salesman: If you examine the history of snake oil, you will find that some snake oil actually had some snake in it, but for the most part most of it didn't. And anyway, there was never any proof one way or another that the snake oil actually did any good at all, let alone live up to its hype.
Tom Mahon did not have to courage to quote the rest of Psalm 53:
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Therefore, every man on the face of the earth is an atheist. One would have to conclude from Tom's Bible Commentary and Concordance that all men, therefore, are also homosexuals, including Tom. By the criteria of Psalm 14 & 53, Tom is an atheist.
This should come as no surprise. Tom has no skin in the game and does NOT put his money where his mouth is -- he even said so himself.
Anyone can quote and wrest Scripture to their own advantage. Note Revelation 22:15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Tom Mahon makes lies, therefore he is not only a homosexual atheist, he will not enter into the Kingdom of God.
So there.
There is such a thing as rightly dividing Scripture according to Scripture. There are also realities which are not necessarily accurately portrayed in Scripture, if portrayed at all. But then, there are a lot of things which humanity can learn on its own and then, not every cancer patient which has come for an anointing in faith has been healed... unless you count that ersatz faith thing from Herbert Armstrong that "of course you're healed the instant you are anointed thing". Dying afterward is just a temporary inconvenience. Not that Tom would ever go for an anointing: He's never sick and even if he were, he couldn't find anyone but hirelings to anoint him and would never put up with submitting himself in humility to someone else long enough for the oil to touch him. How's that for the Tom Method of Analysis?
Tom Mahon has been proved to be a huckster selling snake oil, and for the most part it's not even the real stuff, not that it matters much.
Follow up
Just checking up on the premise of the Romans thing, you understand:
Hey, Dennis, you gay?
Tom Moron is a goof. A screwball. Ignore the idiot.
Well, as a former WCG member, who is now an atheist, I'm thankful that Meredith didn't title his article, "Why Atheists? Soon Obsolete?"
"These people are committed atheists and when God appears to them in person, they will deny that they are really seeing God. They will simply claim that it is some sort of hallucination."
Neotherm, speaking for myself, that isn't true. I do not believe in God due to lack of evidence. If I find evidence, then I will accept his existence. Why is this so hard to understand?
If God presented himself would I first question his appearance? Of course! One, having hallucinated before I would need to ensure that I wasn't having a "flashback" or was unknowingly exposed to some chemical, or a head injury. To you, this skepticism is proof that I want to deny God all along- but to me it is nothing more than the normal, reasonable, healthy critical analysis that we humans use in our everyday lives. If a man came to the door and wanted to sell you sack of "magic beans," would you immediately fork over your cash? Of course not. Since there is no evidence that magic beans exist, you would be very skeptical. Yet no one would think that your skepticism was a cover for "denying" the power of the magic beans due to some other motive. No, people would find your reaction reasonable- and wise.
The Apostle Paul
Lussenheid: "My experience with many people who give up on God, or who are evangelists for atheism, is that they are often people who are nursing and cuddling a moral weakness, sin, habit or degeneracy."
Hey, Luss: you don't get out much, do you?
Blogger Neotherm said...
I believe atheists fall into two principal categories:
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Nope, you got it all wrong! LOGIC and reasoning, not to mention science.
Then there are people who destroy the "little one's faith." False prophets like Merrydeath and Herbie who run "The Mill Stone" factory. The packaged religion of armstrongism produces a great product. Atheists.
Kscribe
Tom Mahon has been proved to be a huckster selling snake oil, and for the most part it's not even the real stuff, not that it matters much.
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Looks like Tom just had a bag of dog shit lit on fire on his front porch!
What can you say Tom? What can you say.....You have just been pegged as an homosexual an as a atheist.
Tom Moron is a goof. A screwball. Ignore the idiot.
The discomfort with ignoring him for some of us is that there are the naive and innocent who might be damaged if we did not answer this fool.
It has taken a long time to help him load his gun and assist him in shooting himself in the foot. The initial reaction of most here was admirable if somewhat misdirected in letting him have his say. Some thought that he had been treated unfairly.
By this time, though, it is clear with his inability to even quote Scripture accurately, his obvious hypocrisy not even bothering to tithe and using "hirelings" as an excuse to defy Herbert Armstrong and his nutty insistence that what Herbert Armstrong said about prophecy will come to pass some day and "we'll all be sorry" even though he even impeaches Armstrong at nearly every turn, Tom has managed to destroy his own credibility and turn away the good will of nearly everyone here... even, I suspect, the lurkers.
At which point we can finally totally ignore him isn't clear, but it appears by all criteria that if we aren't there already, we are rapidly approaching his "vanishing point". After that, if anyone wants to believe what he says to become a Herbert Armstrong slave, they cannot come back on us and say we never warned them.
Atheist and agnostic watchmen. Has a ring to it, don't you think?
In any event, the feeling here is probably not that dissimilar with Elijah in his encounter with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the groves: Not much left but disdain and contempt for the idolater.
What can you say Tom? What can you say.....You have just been pegged as an homosexual an as a atheist.
A word of caution: Understandable enthusiasm, but it was merely a rhetorical device used for poetic purposes. Any similarity to reality is coincidental... but no less fun!
A new Scripture I leave for you all:
"Only a fool has said in his heart, 'I am God... as God is God'".
I see no need to be mean and nasty and ridicule this old man... he can do that quite well all by himself... he does not need your mighty pen...Ron
You know . . . it's amazing. A person is supposed to accept the "fact" that a God exists without any proof or evidence whatsoever or they are a "fool".
Not only that but it has to be biblegod - no other god will work. On top of that a person must believe in certain "true" doctrines or they are still screwed.
However, when science presents real evidence, a person must ignore that in favor of biblegod. I think perhaps that someone has it bassackwards about who the "fool" is.
The "Apostle Paul" wrote: "I do not believe in God due to lack of evidence. If I find evidence, then I will accept his existence. Why is this so hard to understand?"
There is nothing here that is hard to understand except that, if you are an atheist of the first category that I identified, nothing will ever costitute evidence to you -- not even when you meet God in the moments after your death. The desire to believe in the Self as the greatest authoriy in reality, is so great among this variety of atheist, that no experience will ever alter this view. And, of course, God deals with the problem by just containing such people in a separate location.
-- Neo
I noticed no evidence was offered for those "true" assertions there Neo.
Could it be that you have no evidence or proof to present concerning the existence of your most important God?
Neotherm said...
The "Apostle Paul" wrote: "I do not believe in God due to lack of evidence. If I find evidence, then I will accept his existence. Why is this so hard to understand?"
What translation is this? LOL!
There is nothing here that is hard to understand except that, if you are an atheist of the first category that I identified, nothing will ever costitute evidence to you -- not even when you meet God in the moments after your death.
Oh I think anyone would be quite convinced then, so why is it a big deal to humans if there are atheists?
The desire to believe in the Self as the greatest authoriy in reality, is so great among this variety of atheist, that no experience will ever alter this view.
Are you one of those "heart is deceitful above all things kind of thinkers? Don't trust your own intellect but freely turn it over to a convincing cult leader kind of guy?
And, of course, God deals with the problem by just containing such people in a separate location.
-- Neo
There is no hell there never has been. Where can anyone go and be seperated from God? God is either omnipresent or He's not.
Charlie said...
>>>Millions have worked hard and reaped the rewards here in America.<<<
Many others have done the same in other countries. So what is so special about the "American dream," which is only a dream?
>>>I don't know what your life was like in the caribbean or in jolly olde England but I like it here in the U.S. of A.<<<
My life, both in the Caribbean and the UK, has and is determined by God's grace, and I wouldn't exchange it for all the pleasures of the world. In and by His grace, I have the hope of eternal life, with blessings and joys unspeakable!
These blessings and joys will not be shared with those who pursue the illusion of the "American dream."
>>>Money and power may not be everything but it is way ahead of whatever is in second place.<<<
"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we carry nothing out." Does money prevent its devotees from getting sick, dying of cancer or some other dreadful disease?
Kscribe said...
>>>What can you say Tom? What can you say.....You have just been pegged as an homosexual and as a atheist.<<<
As a Christian, I will not be drawn into a slanging match with anyone. I am only interested in rational discussion. If people's response is abusive, it shows that they have lost the argument.
"There is nothing here that is hard to understand except that, if you are an atheist of the first category that I identified, nothing will ever costitute evidence to you -- not even when you meet God in the moments after your death. The desire to believe in the Self as the greatest authoriy in reality."
Like I said, my belief/non-belief in God is evidenced based, just as my acceptance of gravity is. My own personal wishes, wants, and baises do not figure into the equation.
As far as evidence goes, it's a matter of what evidence is- My definition of evidence is the same as yours when it comes to everyday life, finances, medicine, weather, physics, ect; you demand concrete evidence in all aspects of life save one- god. For god, you have "special" evidence. Evidence of a far lower standard, the kind of evidence a child would use to prove the existence of an imaginary play thing. A natural occurance, a coincidence, the existence of the earth- these things to you are evidence of God. I cannot be so intellectually dishonest (RCM again)as to have two standards of evidence, one of which I only apply to a hypothesis that would fall flat if subjected to the other standard of evidence.
Your last sentence once again exposes your lack of understanding (willingly, I believe)- you still refuse to accept that an atheist can have a reasonable, rational, logical reason for disbelieving in the existence of God other than selfish, irrational, rebellious motives.
It's an intellectual cop-out. It's no different than saying a Baptist won't accept the doctrines of Armstrongism because the Devil has blinded their minds (rather than the real reason- Armstrongism is un-biblical). In this case, the atheist won't accept God because there is no evidence, nor most likely will ever be any evidence- not because they don't want to.
I don't agree with the God of the Bible as a whole, but damnit, if he's real, then I have to accept that as a fact. I may choose to deny him my worship, but I'll accept his existence! You can bank on it. This is what makes me more intellectually honest than you- I'll accept the reality of the situation whether I like it or not. You, and every other Christian refuse to on a daily basis. You are the one whose wants and desires outrank reality. You sacrifice truth in favor of your need to believe in a being for which you have no real evidence. For shame.
The Apostle Paul
You atheists and fundy types have the same ailment. Your concept of God is what you were taught in Sunday school.No wonder you fundy types turn logical people off. And you atheists with your logic should be able to see ID in the universe without the baggage of fundythink.
WCG with all it's stinking faults should have you thinking outside of the box you're in.
Tom said...I am only interested in rational discussion.
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One must be able to have the gift of rational thought before they may participate in rational discussions!
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Tom said...
If people's response is abusive, it shows that they have lost the argument.
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No abuse Tom, just your logic applied to yourself. So you are reaping what you sowed.
"And you atheists with your logic should be able to see ID in the universe..."
Evidence? Complexity does not imply an intelligent designer, and just because you find the alternative to be outlandish, doesn't mean that it isn't so.
And let's dispense with the "ID." Be honest and use the word "God," which is what you really mean.
The Apostle Paul
Corky:
I have no evidence that you would accept. You will not find God by sorting through material evidences, because you will always interpret these evidences as you will.
The God that I worship could reveal himself at any time to you, as he has done to many others, and he has chosen not to. It is up to you to ask yourself why.
What I am saying is that there are two principal reasons for disbelief. Either God has given you over to a reprobate mind or he will still reveal himself to you at some future time. My guess is that you know right now which of these two conditions apply to you.
As an outside observer, I do not know which condition applies to you.
-- Neo
"The God that I worship could reveal himself at any time to you, as he has done to many others, and he has chosen not to."
And I have a dragon under my bed, but the reason you can't see him is because he is invisible to people who don't have an open mind.
If you had an open mind, you could see him. But you never will because deep down you really don't want to believe that I have a dragon, and so you will never see him.
There is no difference between your statement and mine. None. You are smarter than this, Neotherm, but I understand your position; you are trying to defend the undefendable. But doing so makes you look like an idiot.
The Apostle Paul
All:
Why does the Lussenheide believe? I know science and physics well. I am well read, intelligent and fairly open minded. The existence of God will never be proved through reason. How could the spiritual ever be proven thru the physical? It cant.
Here is what I can give you that satisfies me. All it takes for the Lussenheide to believe is to touch a leaf or hear a newborn baby cry. Inspired a song that charted way back in 1953 from Frankie Laine....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9d3KYaI0U14
(Copy link, paste into browser and press enter)
LYRICS
I believe for every drop of rain that falls,
A flower grows,
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night,
A candle glows.
I believe for everyone who goes astray,
Someone will come to show the way.
I believe,
I believe.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer,
Will still be heard.
I believe that someone in the great somewhere,
Hears every word.
Every time I hear a new born baby cry,
Or touch a leaf or see the sky.
Then I know why,
I believe.
Every time I hear a new born baby cry,
Or touch a leaf or see the sky.
Then I know why,
I believe.
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
The "Apostle Paul" wrote: "Your last sentence once again exposes your lack of understanding (willingly, I believe)- you still refuse to accept that an atheist can have a reasonable, rational, logical reason for disbelieving in the existence of God other than selfish, irrational, rebellious motives."
Not true in the way you have stated it. I believe that atheism is rational to those who espouse it.
Because of this, the mistake that Christian apologists make, such as Strobel and D'Souza, is to believe that if they make rational arguments that demonstrate the existence of God that the atheist community will be backed into a corner and will have to confess the existence of God, and, the apologists hope, receive salvation. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is because it requires the work of the Holy Spirit in your mind to even enable understanding of the material evidences in a way that is adequate for salvation (Special Revelation).
We depart from this point very quickly into the idea that atheism is really a religion. It is essentially the worship of the Self. An atheist really has no reason to believe that there is objective reality. He only has a subjective reality. He can only prove that his own personal subjective reality exists and, hence, the Self is the highest form of sentient life in the Universe.
A good example of how atheists reject evidence is the Antrhopic Principle. It incontrovertibly demonstrated, at one time, that the Universe is parameterized or finely tuned for human existence. The atheistic response to this is to state that there must be, then, countless universes not just one and this Universe happens to be the one where the parameters were set just right by happenstance. As Jared Olar said, if one can believe in many universes with no physical evidence then you can believe in God and Angels. At this point, atheism steps into the domain of faith and becomes just another secular religion.
-- Neo
"Here is what I can give you that satisfies me. All it takes for the Lussenheide to believe is to touch a leaf or hear a newborn baby cry."
That's swell, Bill. Do you apply that same criteria to your financial matters? You just see a smile and hear an earnest voice and just "believe?" No, you don't. Like Neotherm, you have Real Evidence and Special Evidence. It's a double standard.
And why do we have rules for proving the existence of 99.99% of the universe yet another set of rules for proving 0.01%(God)? Smells fishy when you have special rules because using your normal rules would destroy your theory.
By the way, the dragon under my bed can't be proved using material methods, either. He's made of dragon essence.
The Apostle Paul
The Apostle Paul
"At this point, atheism steps into the domain of faith and becomes just another secular religion."
I'll ask again:
Do you consider those people who do not believe in leprechauns (based on lack of evidence) a religion? A worship of Self?
The Apostle Paul
This has a certain ring of truth to me.
John Shelby Spong, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA has written:
"Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety. That is why religion tends toward becoming excessive, neurotic, controlling and even evil. That is why a religious government is always a cruel government. People need to understand that questioning and doubting are healthy, human activities to be encouraged not to be feared. Certainly is a vice not a virtue. Insecurity is something to be grasped and treasured. A true and healthy religious system will encourage each of these activities. A sick and fearful religious system will seek to remove them."
"What we take as worship is often times care for a delicate or anxiety ridden ego"
On Romans 1:
You might notice that the PUNISHMENT for not believing in God through creation or image worship etc was homosexuality. They weren't punished for being gay. The penalty was being given over to gayness by God. I"m sure that's how that culture interpreted gayness. It was the penalty for disbelief in what seemed obvious, and therefore willful disbelief. Of course it wasn't. Some people just aren't convinced by the same things that convince others.
Tom Mahon said:
I am only interested in rational discussion. If people's response is abusive, it shows that they have lost the argument.
But earlier in the thread Tom Mahon said:
Anyway, the bible succinctly sums atheism thus: "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." And why? The answer is very damning, "Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity." It is therefore the corruption of sin, that turns people into atheists.
Tom, by your definition you'd already lost the argument. And demonstrated that you're not only interested in rational discussion. All in the space of the same paragraph. Let me spell it out: You've abusively called atheists corrupt fools by quoting from an irrational source.
If the author of Proverbs has written a wee bit earlier in the history of Israel and her polytheistic culture, he could have said, "The fool has said in his heart, there are no gods."
The "Apostle Paul" wrote: "Do you consider those people who do not believe in leprechauns (based on lack of evidence) a religion? A worship of Self?"
1) If a group of people believe in something for which there is no evidence (in this case, the multi-universe theory), then they have stepped back from rationalism and defined for themselves a belief system. They may lack the external trappings of religious organizations. On the other hand, they could just as easily have services, sacraments or dancing around the May pole if they wish. But in any case, collectively they have a belief system. People who do not believe in leprechauns include many religious groups. We could lump them together using this single criterion into an ideological category if we wanted to, but that ignores other more defining attributes.
2) Do you believe that there is evidence for one or more sentient beings at a plane of existence higher than your own? My guess is that you do not. So you are the ultimate sentient being in your view. Everything you do in service to your own will is a form of worship, in this case, it just happens to be self-worship. I doubt that you do obeisance to yourself daily in a ceremonial sense, but you do so certainly in a psychological sense. If someone does not believe in leprechauns, does this automatically sort him in the the "self worshipper" category? No it does not for most of us. However, if the accepted belief that is being challenged asserts that leprechauns are god, the effect would be equivalent.
-- Neo
I commented earlier on how an atheist's logic should see ID in the creation.
The Apostle Paul responded that I should fess up, I used ID as a euphemism for God.
Yes and No. Yes God, No, not the Babtist version.
My New Age neighbor,a young mother
has an alltogether different version of a She God, and the neighbor believes that Leprechauns exist as well. She knows nothing of the WCG past or now.
I can accept God as gender neutral as well as a she God.
Not sure about the Leprechauns.
I should spend zero time trying to convert atheists, they want test tube proof and repeatable events such as raise the dead,walk on water more than once, come God now and show yourself type of events.
When an atheist asks me why I tell them my experiences, but it's never enough for them.
Well one day we'll all know. I predict that we're all wrong. And we'll be happy to find out what it' really all about.
Neotherm said...
“I believe atheists fall into two principal categories:
1) People to whom God has revealed himself and who have rejected God.
….These people are committed atheists and when God appears to them in person, they will deny that they are really seeing God. They will simply claim that it is some sort of hallucination.”
This concept doesn’t stand up to reason. An atheist by definition is someone who does not believe in the existence of a God or gods, for whatever reason.
It follows that in virtually all, if not all, atheists views that at death there is going to be nothing more.
If then, at death, or resurrection, they find their life has continued, and there is God who reveals Himself to them – of course they are going to be prepared to believe in this God. It may not be instantaneous – after all it’s only reasonable to check out the reality of what is happening to them – but I fully believe Paul’s comment when he said:-
“I don't agree with the God of the Bible as a whole, but damnit, if he's real, then I have to accept that as a fact. I may choose to deny him my worship, but I'll accept his existence!”
That’s why I don’t worry about the atheist on this board, Paul and others – I may not agree with their view, but I am confident that when God does reveal Himself to them, even if it is after death, they are going to accept the reality of God.
Not only that, but once they realise what God is actually like, rather than their current completely distorted concept of Him, then it’s unlikely that the worship angle will be a problem either.
I suspect that the methods or process by which one becomes atheist outside of the Armstrong movement is different from the processes by which one becomes atheist as a by-product of failed Armstrongism.
If an individual were raised in a home where there was no religious influence whatsoever, and if that individual happened to be very studious, and totally into science, he/she would be geared towards following a physical evidentiary trail. Dispassionate logic and rational thought would lead him/her to limit explanations for observations totally to the physical. Since the universe is governed by natural laws, this becomes a relatively easy process.
I can't speak for all people who spent time as agnostics or atheists as a result of their WCG experience, but I can state for myself that the ways in which HWA and his team used science, methodical proofs, and socratic logic to reinforce Armstrongism left me with a dilemma. The spiritual teachings turned out to be false, and to produce horrible bad fruits. God was inaccessable through the diligent practice of Armstrongism, and worse, all of the prophecies failed. Plus, the enforcers didn't even give their own teaching sufficient credibility that they would practice the doctrines in their own lives.
So, what became salvageable from the mess? The science! As far as the religious aspects or 18 restored truths go, there was no baby with the bathwater. It was all garbage. This placed me in a position where I could only rely on the physical, tangible, what I could see, feel, taste, smell, or hear. Burned once by bad religion, first atheism, then moderating into agnosticism becamed my total solution for over 30 years, and my sanity.
The leaders of the ACOG splinters often work damage control through their articles. Rod Meredith has to know that a huge number of the WCG victims have embraced atheism, or agnosticism. So, he has written an article, overtly for the public, but subliminally for the faithful, attempting to warn them of their plight should they ever succumb to this school of thought. It's a bit of in-depth remedial programming.
As far as the question regarding atheism being a religion, of course it is! There are websites dedicated to it, books and articles which teach it, and proponents who appear on TV to hype it. There are common buzz words used by all of these folks, too, insider jargon similar to what stereotypical Christians use. Atheism is often presented as having a much less violent history than Christianity, as no wars have been initiated by atheists. Atheism simply diverts focus to objective thinking, physical evidence, logic, and self.
BTW, If the disbelievers in leprechauns ever decide to organize into support groups, and to write books teaching their philosophy, then they too will become a religion.
BB
"If a group of people believe in something for which there is no evidence (in this case, the multi-universe theory),..."
Or God.
"...then they have stepped back from rationalism and defined for themselves a belief system."
And are therefore irrational in "believing" in something for which there is no proof. Like you.
"People who do not believe in leprechauns include many religious groups. We could lump them together using this single criterion into an ideological category if we wanted to, but that ignores other more defining attributes."
Yet you lump together a group of people using the single criteria of not believing in your own particular god. My point was why do you not apply the same attributes- it is a religion and a worship of self- to other groups of people who do not believe in the existence of various things because there is no evidence to support it? Why don't you call people who do not believe in flying unicorns are religion? Why aren't people who do not believe in the godess Kali worshipping Self? Why?
"Do you believe that there is evidence for one or more sentient beings at a plane of existence higher than your own?"
If there is evidence, I have not run across it, so no.
"So you are the ultimate sentient being in your view. Everything you do in service to your own will is a form of worship in this case..."
If it pleases you. And?
"If someone does not believe in leprechauns, does this automatically sort him in the the "self worshipper" category? No it does not for most of us."
Why? Why atheists but not aleprechaunists? And we aren't really talking about just atheists, we are talking about aJehovists. How do you justify this incredible double standard?
The Apostle Paul
Well, according to Neotherm and Byker Bob, there are millions and millions of religions with billions of adherents! Let me name a few:
Leprechaun Religion
Bigfoot Religion
Lochness Monster Religion
Vaccine Religion
UFO Religion
Darth Vader Religion
Vampire Religion
That's right folks, if you don't belive in the existence of something, then you are involved in a religion and are worshipping your own Self!
The Apostle Paul
"...but I am confident that when God does reveal Himself to them, even if it is after death, they are going to accept the reality of God."
Absolutely. Hell, it won't even take death. It can happen today. He can just do some minor things like the Bible claims he did thousands of years ago. An easy one would be to heal and amputee. That would settle the issue. No joke. I mean it.
Paul
"Dispassionate logic and rational thought would lead him/her to limit explanations for observations totally to the physical."
It's not a limiting of explanations, Bob. It's using explanations for which there is supporting evidence. And appealing to the supernatural, for which we have no supporting evidence, is not a valid explanation until we can see some concrete activity.
You wouldn't know it, but I have a rather large and wistful imagination. I love books, movies, fantasy, sci-fi, the supernatural- and have always spent a good part of my time daydreaming about other places and other beings. I want there to be supernatural beings! I wish there was another world out there, more than you can ever know! But at the same time I can't believe in something without proof of it's existence. Easy concept. To me, believing in Jehovah or Allah without proof is no different than believing that there are vampires roaming the Carpathian mountains.
The Apostle Paul
Good Evening All, until the next subject matter is brought up by the managers of AW this will be my last post.
The creation is proof to me of a God.
Tom said:
"If people's response is abusive, it shows that they have lost the argument."
Pot-Kettle-Black
Byker Bob Proposed: Atheism is often presented as having a much less violent history than Christianity, as no wars have been initiated by atheists.
MY COMMENT: I believe that it is fair to state that Atheistic Communist States, ie, Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, et al, have murdered en toto, more people than all religious wars in history combined. Just in the last 100 years...
Russia - 20 Million
China - 45 Million
Cambodia- 2.5 Million
Cuba/North Korea/Vietnam - 3 Million
Probably close to 100 million people have been exterminated by Godless Communism which proclaims by its own doctrine from Marx, that "Religion is the opiate of the people".
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
"Probably close to 100 million people have been exterminated by Godless Communism"
Care to provide evidence that these people were exterminated in the name of atheism? For atheism? Because of atheism? Did Stalin kill people as a direct result of being an atheist?? Man, the intellecutal dishonesty in here would choke RCM, much less a horse!
Now, how many people were killed in the Inquisition in the name of religion? How many Islamic terrorists kill as a direct result of their religion?
Don't forget the Cannanites. Why did they die? Must of been a bunch of bloodthirsty atheists.
The Apostle Paul
Neotherm:
"2) Do you believe that there is evidence for one or more sentient beings at a plane of existence higher than your own? My guess is that you do not. So you are the ultimate sentient being in your view."
I really have to take strong exception to this. I, as an atheist for the particular gods that are presented to me by the religions of the world (i.e., sentient ones), do not place myself on the penultimate pedestal as being "the ultimate sentient being".
Those who do so are psychopaths. There are psychopaths in this world yes, and yes there may even be atheist psychopaths: But not all psychopaths are therefore and automatically atheists.
It is that age-old divide: The religious believe that the irreligious are unemotional, amoral, and unable to participate fully as members of the human race with empathy and compassion for their fellow man....all because they don't believe in a particular individual's particular version of god.
I have empathy and compassion for my fellow man. I live a moral life, not because some voices in my head tell me to and not because some errant set of scriptures handed down from a Roman emperor a couple thousand years ago, then re-translated by an English monarch six hundred years ago, tells me to.
I am not a psychopath. I am not lacking in compassion, nor do I lack in empathy or morals. I am not religious. But I do not need to be, to have morals, empathy, and compassion. I have all of those things just because. Because I do, because those things are hard-wired into the human brain for survival of the species.
I really take strong exception to the implication that I must be some kind of self-centred psychopath, simply because my version of 'god' does not match up with accepted canon.
Lussenheide said...
MY COMMENT: I believe that it is fair to state that Atheistic Communist States, ie, Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, et al, have murdered en toto, more people than all religious wars in history combined.
Not exactly "fair", those wars and exterminations were not to further the cause of the logical and rational thinking of atheism. They were to further the cause of a dictatorship of despots in each and every case of those mentioned.
In fact there has never been a war fought for the cause of logic and rationality. There have been many religious wars against logic and rationality though.
Since when has anyone ever been harmed by practicing logical and rational thingking?
Response to Paul:
According to the best research I can find on the web, no more than 10 thousand deaths can be attributed to the inquistion from the period of 1476 to 1834.
One needs to understand that in a Communist society, that the STATE is God! Atheism is state doctrine.
Please name for me a nominal Christian country anywhere in the world that imprisons atheists simply because they are atheists.
It is very easy to name Communist countries that will imprison you for having a Bible, or a house church.
The historical political record shows, that state sponsored Atheism is the ultimate intellectual bully, and fosters arrogant bigotry towards those who believe in God. There is no tolerance in such systems for those who have a faith.
Christianity has a much higher record (yes imperfect) for tolerance, forbearance, liberty and freedom. Christianity, and western thought, have been the biggest contributor to progress in the world than any other system.
If you are a "libertarian atheist" then my apologies to you.
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
Neotherm said...
Corky:
I have no evidence that you would accept. You will not find God by sorting through material evidences, because you will always interpret these evidences as you will.
In other words, you don't have any evidence whatsoever. However, all material evidence we have so far says just the opposite of what religious beliefs say.
The God that I worship could reveal himself at any time to you, as he has done to many others, and he has chosen not to. It is up to you to ask yourself why.
I know why - it doesn't exisit, simple ain't it? That's also why it has not revealed itself to anyone else either, including you.
What I am saying is that there are two principal reasons for disbelief. Either God has given you over to a reprobate mind or he will still reveal himself to you at some future time. My guess is that you know right now which of these two conditions apply to you.
Well, since I don't have a reprobate mind or practice any other kinds of debauchery and "sins" you are wrong on both guesses, because a non-existent god thingy cannot possibly reveal itself to anyone.
Just wanted all to know, that as a former agnostic, I really have nothing against non-believers. And, I do recognize that the vast majority of atheists and agnostics do attempt to live good lives.
Intellectual honesty is important to God, too. I believe that when He looks into the hearts of some atheists, He probably likes what He sees more than when He looks into the hearts of modern day pharisees, or half-hearted Christians. If the atheist or agnostic is a truth seeker, there's plenty of room for God to work!
Isn't it nice that God allows U-turns?
BB
>>>...until the next subject matter is brought up by the managers of AW...<<<
Are you suggesting Gavin is schizophrenic, demon possessed, or has God, the Holy Ghost, Jesus, or angels working with him on subject matter?
Did I leave any entities out?....
Tom's incredible popsicle-stick?
Leprechauns?
Thunderbirds, Supercar, or someone from episode 30 of Fireball XL5, entitled "A Day in the Life of a Space General"?
Casper?
Tree-hugging liberal commie pinko hippies?
Ronald Reagan?
Flurry's praying rock?
A dead rabbit that Pack threw in Gavin's window?
The mean ghosts who gave Casper grief?
Miss Crabtree?
Miss McGillicuddy?
Spanky?
Mel mentioned
SUPERCAR
That was pre Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. Not sure whether it ever screened in the US. I was a wee chap in short pants when it screened in living black and white on TV here. You could see the strings, but man I loved that show! (Probably even more than Clutch Cargo... though it'd be a toss up.) And YES, I had a red and white model Supercar in the toy box.
Ah, nostalgia. I'm going to have to do a Google picture search now, just to remind myself... ;-)
Supercar
Weinland Watch said...
“I am not a psychopath. I am not lacking in compassion, nor do I lack in empathy or morals. I am not religious. But I do not need to be, to have morals, empathy, and compassion. I have all of those things just because. Because I do, because those things are hard-wired into the human brain for survival of the species.”
Hard-wired into the human brain for survival of the species? I don’t think so – not if you are going to go along with that High Priest of the Atheists – Scientist Richard Dawkins, who states in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’:-
‘Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense’.
Dawkins then says ‘I am not advocating a morality based on evolution’ and he goes on to add ‘My own feeling is that human society based on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live’.
In other words – evolution works one way, but Richard Dawkins advocates we as humans should conduct our lives in virtually the opposite way. Although he advocates evolution as a definite fact, he disagrees 100% with the ‘morality’ of evolution.
So who is the ‘better’ atheist – Weinland Watch or Richard Dawkins? At least Dawkins realizes what sort of society would exist if the principles of evolution were correct, and everything was run in the way the brain is 'hard wired',
Dawkins wants no part in such a society.
'...I should spend zero time trying to convert atheists, they want test tube proof and repeatable events such as raise the dead,walk on water more than once, come God now and show yourself type of events...'
An incontrovertible historical fact:
Jesus rose from the dead. Deal with it.
Neotherm said...
Because of this, the mistake that Christian apologists make, such as Strobel and D'Souza, is to believe that if they make rational arguments that demonstrate the existence of God that the atheist community will be backed into a corner and will have to confess the existence of God, and, the apologists hope, receive salvation.
A friend once described those who view evolution as an explanation of origin (as opposed to a possible process of creation) took that tact because as academics, they wanted to sleep with college coeds without religious guilt.
There might be some truth in that particular variety of atheist, and
I suspect that is variety of which you speak.
These are the same materialists who debunk most anything not of newtonian physics.
Nothing could be further from the truth. This is because it requires the work of the Holy Spirit in your mind to even enable understanding of the material evidences in a way that is adequate for salvation (Special Revelation).
I disagree. I can find no evidence the Holy Spirit is anything different from what we common call the Human Spirit.
There's a lot of unconscious humans out there doing a lot of unholy things...but everything we ever needed, we have always had. But like I said, if you are spiritually unconscious, you can't preceive much of anything spiritual in nature. Humans can operate purely on an animalistic level, for we are both.
We depart from this point very quickly into the idea that atheism is really a religion. It is essentially the worship of the Self. An atheist really has no reason to believe that there is objective reality. He only has a subjective reality. He can only prove that his own personal subjective reality exists and, hence, the Self is the highest form of sentient life in the Universe.
The person you describe is simply caught in what the Buddhists call the "illusion of separateness". The illusion (perhaps delusion is a better term) that humans do not share a common connection and that what we do doesn't affect other humans. But there's lots of religious people caught in the same illusion. Its the very core of sectarianism, bigotry, us vs them.
There is only us. And they are us. Humans are the Body of Christ. We have to see all humans as being holy and as children of God.
A good example of how atheists reject evidence is the Antrhopic Principle. It incontrovertibly demonstrated, at one time, that the Universe is parameterized or finely tuned for human existence. The atheistic response to this is to state that there must be, then, countless universes not just one and this Universe happens to be the one where the parameters were set just right by happenstance. As Jared Olar said, if one can believe in many universes with no physical evidence then you can believe in God and Angels. At this point, atheism steps into the domain of faith and becomes just another secular religion.
-- Neo
The many worlds/universe idea is an explanation used to explain some odd quantum behaviors I've not heard it used to explain away the anthropic principle, that's certainly not why that explanation was created. In any case, its only guess, its never been proven.
Kscribe said...
>>>One must be able to have the gift of rational thought before they may participate in rational discussions!<<<
Well, I have demonstrated that most people here are completely irrational. Most here have argued that they were deceived by HWA who was a false prophet. Yet some still believe that they are Christians, and that their baptism or ordination was valid, even though God warns his people to avoid false prophets. If that stance is rational, I am very happy to be irrational!
But the more cogent question is, how come rational people allowed HWA, who was supposedly irrational, to deceived them? If irrationality was rational, it might be able to answer that question!
>>>No abuse Tom, just your logic applied to yourself. So you are reaping what you sowed.<<<
I often used the divine, satirical genre of laughter to poke fun at the idiocy of detractors, who are still camped at the base of mount Sinai, shouting abuse at Moses.
My detractors have already returned to Egypt to build treasured cities for Pharaoh. In Egypt they can once again eat garlic, feed on the flesh of unclean things, offer their children to the god of Xmas, Easter and Halloween. And as their task masters, Lust, Greed and Pride flog them to death every day, they are reminded of the mantra: "As for this Moses, we don't know what has become of him."
It's too bad the dualism of me vs. you, Us vs them, is so much a compulsive need those soaking in a particular way of thinking divide everyone into.
What's wrong with respecting the journey, path or experience each has had as an individual? Only group think produces sameness of thought and that only superficially as I think we have learned. Many comply on the outside but have reservations about this or that on the inside and go along until they get to their tipping point. Some don't have a tipping point, I realize. They just go along and hurt inside.
Name calling, labeling, declaring one's truth over another is all ego. The fear of being wrong or having to kill off an idea that does not serve one any longer just makes the ego, the unawakened, posturing, defensive part of us that has forgotten we're all part of the same one thing, just go nuts.
Anytime anyone endeavors to make you feel inferior, defective or incapable of grasping their great truths and perspecitves, the problem is not with you at all. It's all about them and their ego need to sooth itself by getting agreement or compliance. If the ego can't get that, it feeds off criticism to make it feel even more right.
As Stan Rader once told me, "I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right." Dave Pack has a similar feel to him which is a class one narcississtic trait.
It's the same reason George Bush can go throw out a baseball at the opening season game, get booed by thousands and keep a chimp like smile on his face. He doesn't care what you think. He's just always right and we're going have hell to pay for him for a long time, just as with similar COG types running around out there incapable of saying, "I was wrong."
Here's the bottom line to all of this.
Let's assume, just for the moment, that there is a supreme being. Where would you go for information about this supreme being, and how would you know what He wants from you?
Does anyone seriously believe that one could learn these things from people who are attempting to prove His nonexistence? Is any transcendant behavior going to result from relying upon them as a source?
What about the philosophers and great thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, or Darwin? Each was revolutionary and brought much to mankind, but did they know this supreme being, and were they able to communicate any special knowledge of Him to mankind?
How about Buddha, Mohammed, or Krishna? Again, you have revolutionary philosophy which advanced the cultures which had adapted their thinking, but did these men (none of whose existence ever seems to be questioned for some reason) have any special contact with the supreme being, and did they contribute anything which would take man's knowledge of Him beyond what man could deduce from observation and philosophy?
The Bible, errant as it might be in the form which we have available today, seems to be a unique document. The Old Testament points toward the need for a Messiah, and the New Testament documents that Messiah. Of all the great holy men, Jesus Christ stands alone as having claimed to be the son of God, who died for our sins, and who provides the knowledge that goes beyond what even the most intelligent members of the human race can deduce from inside of our insulated and closed ecological system.
That, as nearly as I can tell, is what draws people to the Bible, and to Christianity. It is the desire to obtain knowledge and answers that mankind cannot provide by himself. There is also the Urantia Book (setting on my bookshelf), but it hasn't really caught on to the degree which the Bible has. Probably even most of our scholars here, although they might be able to quote Irenaeus, Origen, or Eusebius, have never cracked the cover of Urantia.
Is there any particular reason why atheism or agnosticism affects such a small minority of the human population in general? Let's face it, by its own numbers, atheism requires classification as an anomaly or aberration. And, by definition, it does not provide salvation, enlightenment, or advancement to the next phase. It's a void, a vacuum, a state of non-awareness. But, it's not a bad starting point for the collection of knowledge.
BB
"Is there any particular reason why atheism or agnosticism affects such a small minority of the human population in general?"
Yes there is. Humans are group compliant. Stepping outside the boxes imposed by birth, culture, religion or government is not common because of the collective penalty for doing so.
All the great leaps in human consciousness came from individuals who were not compliant to the way of being, thinking or adhering to the compliance expected of them by the group. This would even include Jesus in Judaism.
Induviduals change group think. Groups suppress the individual. Good new ideas come from individual thinkers. Adherance to error and old think tends to be a group project.
History is replete with examples of this in all fields. Without the individual unwilling to abide by the cultic and mythological tales of old, there would be no progress.
It's no coincidenced the dark ages paralleled the rise of the Church as an institution bound on thought control and compliance to doctrine and unformity of belief.
Byker Bob said...
>>>...atheism requires classification as an anomaly or aberration. And, by definition, it does not provide salvation, enlightenment, or advancement to the next phase. It's a void, a vacuum, a state of non-awareness.<<<
I couldn't agree more.
BTW, if I may be so bold, this is perhaps the most intelligent and well reasoned post you have submitted to the forum since I have been posting here. If you keep this up, you soon have lots of enemies.-:)
Anonymous said...
An incontrovertible historical fact:
Jesus rose from the dead. Deal with it.
The incontrovertible historical fact:
There is no incontrovertible historical evidence that Jesus ever even existed, much less rose from the dead. Deal with that!
Byker Bob would have to work long and hard to make enemies here at AW.
A later Christian pretending to be Paul said:
Tit 1:10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
Tit 1:11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.
We know from history what happened there, the church turned from all things that smacked of Judaism. The gentiles stopped their mouths by kicking the Jews out of the churches.
However, this took place long after the time of Paul, so there you have a fake letter, as if from Paul. So, what else is fake? It all is. Christianity was invented after the destruction of the temple. Before then it was just another sect of Judaism that believed that salvation was without sacrifices and temple worship (sort of like the Essenes).
Tom, you wrote:
"In Egypt they can once again eat garlic, feed on the flesh of unclean things, offer their children to the god of Xmas, Easter and Halloween."
Is eating garlic not ok?
I've never heard that one before in COG circles.
It's just that you lumped it in with practices I AM familiar with, that some folks in COG circles consider an abomination.
~Mel
"Return to Egypt"
Of course, Egypt accomplished and contributed more to knowledge and culture than the Canaanite offspring Israel ever dreamed of. Egyptians did not have to invent a fantastic history for themselves. They actually had one.
Hillary Clinton was ducking under enemy sniper fire in Bosnia and Rod C Meredith was a Golden Gloves champion.
Yeah Right!!!
Tom said...
Yet some still believe that they are Christians, and that their baptism or ordination was valid***************
Well, as far as the Herbster goes, his ordination was a fraud. He never repented. As far as all the minions in the splits, they are the "Children of the Herb." A true Christian is one, according to the bible, is called and chosen. JN 6:44
But really, what is a true minister of Christ? Well first of all, they are called and chosen, and they don't molest their daughters. They give their time (their lives are made of time) and like Paul, work for a living and do not play "sponge bob." If God chose Herbie then he did not know his heart. Herbert was a sexual predator.
Then there is the money to help the poor. Yes, all those gold plated dishes and cups, the gold statues, the high living that the Herb did. Did this edify God? No. Just Herbie's ego
You wrote....But the more cogent question is, how come rational people allowed HWA, who was supposedly irrational, to deceived them? *************************
Well, as for myself, I had no idea that Gods apathetic apostle was a goof ball. I really believed at that low spot of hopelessness in my life the Herb was telling it like it was. I could use several other examples or descriptions from the psychology classes I have taken in recent years to describe the man, but Mr. Becker has said it well. He has the grasp on what made the man "tick" and it is correct.
So Tom, there you have it. Deception. Even educated people fall for it. Do a google on cults. You will find that many educated people fall into the trap.
By the way, if your ever "passover" this way and find yourself visiting Egypt, stop on by my place for some garlic pork steaks. Their out of this world! YUM!!! You bring the Hefeweizen bud!
Kscribe.
Has anybody seen a picture of Tom yet? How difficult can getting a picture to Gavin be?
Anonymous said...
Has anybody seen a picture of Tom yet? How difficult can getting a picture to Gavin be?
Tom is getting a haircut. Be patient. He is allowing his wife to cut it! Then he has to go out and allow someone to take his pic.
Tom Moron wrote about Byker Bob, "BTW, if I may be so bold, this is perhaps the most intelligent and well reasoned post you have submitted to the forum since I have been posting here. If you keep this up, you soon have lots of enemies.-:)"
MY COMMENT: I hate to be the one to burst your bubble Tom, but I read all of Byker Bob's posts here and on other forums. Unlike you and your posts, BB while being intelligent does not come across as being self righteous and judgmental. Even your backhanded complement appears as if you are blessing him with your supreme judgment. And, having read enough Byker Bob's posts, I think it is safe to say that BB doesn't deify your God idol Herbert W. Armstrong.
I don't think Byker Bob will soon have lots of enemies.
But you Tom, are a different story. It's fun playing meaningless WCG theology games with you Tom. You will have your work cut out when I come up in the second resurrection, and God assigns you the responsibility of training me about how right and righteous you and Herbert were all along. :-)
Richard
Egyptians did not have to invent a fantastic history for themselves.
And yet they did anyway . . .
For all the accomplishments and intellectual and cultural contributions of the ancient Egyptians, they're not even one the same plane of existence and not fit to be compared to the accomplishments and intellectual and cultural contributions of the Hebrews and their Christian offspring.
Is eating garlic not ok?
"To eat garlic" is an ancient Hebraic euphemism for conjugal sexual relations, so I would have to say yes, eating garlic is A-OK.
Probably even most of our scholars here, although they might be able to quote Irenaeus, Origen, or Eusebius, have never cracked the cover of Urantia.
The Urantia Book? Wow, it's been years since I've thought about The Urantia Book, and I'm quite amazed anybody else even know of its existence. There's a copy in our public library, and I used to read it back when I was in high school and college. Of course it's complete and utter male bovine excrement, and obviously the work of a very longwinded and unoriginal writer of fiction, but it has its fun bits. Actually, as I recall, it seems to present a cosmology quite a lot like Mormon cosmology, or that's the impression I got.
Garlic can produce a prolix phenomenon.
Jorgheinz
Corky said: We know from history what happened there, the church turned from all things that smacked of Judaism. The gentiles stopped their mouths by kicking the Jews out of the churches.
The historical record is utterly silent about Gentiles kicking the Jews out of the Churches back in the days when the Epistle to Titus could have been written, and for a long, long, long time afterwards. Indeed, there hasn't been any era when Gentiles have refused to admit Jews into the Church, nor did the Church ever turn from all things that smacked of Judaism -- though the heretic Marcion and others like him sought to do that.
However, this took place long after the time of Paul, so there you have a fake letter, as if from Paul.
Well, we know that Jewish Conversos were viewed with great suspicion in anti-Semitic Spain during the 1300s and 1400s, but no serious scholar is going to entertain the proposal that the Epistle to Titus was written during the late Middle Ages.
The simple fact of the matter is that there's not a shred of evidence that the Epistle to Titus was written by anyone other than the person who the Epistle to Titus says wrote it. It's nothing more than arrant speculation that's taken on the aura of established fact, but it's just another emperor prancing around in his altogether.
"To eat garlic" is an ancient Hebraic euphemism for conjugal sexual relations..."
Well, I'm learning all the time.
I thought "con-jugal" had to do with the falsie salesman that BB recently mentioned.
Jared,
I once had the Urantia Book, too.
You surprised me by saying you used to read it!
Heck, I'd even bought the Concordex to it, which was like a concordance is to the Bible.
That was during my "new-agey" phase, and I eventually donated both during a 'garage-sale' fundraising effort for the new-agey church I was at my tail end of frequenting.
The sheer volume of it kind of made me think, "It's probably true.", at the time I was into it.
There were other people into it, just as there are groups who meet and study the hokey "A Course in Miracles" and it's study guides.
Interesting, your comparing it to Mormon teachings. I never thought about that before. I think it's a good analogy, since both teach inter-galactic cosmogony with the specific messages for inhabitants of our planet.
I imagine some Mormons thought the same after reading Book of Mormon as I did after reading the Urantia Book, which was, "There's so much here, the writer must be sincere"
In retrospect, I wish I had just thrown the book and it's concordex in the trash. I hate to think that someone might have fallen for it.
'...The incontrovertible historical fact:
There is no incontrovertible historical evidence that Jesus ever even existed, much less rose from the dead. Deal with that!...'
Wow! Now - someone has to be wearing blinkers!!! II Corinthians 4:4.
Tom
Perhaps you could submit an article on a topic of your choice for the public to consider?
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
-Mario Savio, student leader of the 1960’s free speech movement at the University of California Berkeley (December 3, 1964
Anonymous said...
'...The incontrovertible historical fact:
There is no incontrovertible historical evidence that Jesus ever even existed, much less rose from the dead. Deal with that!...'
Wow! Now - someone has to be wearing blinkers!!! II Corinthians 4:4.
And you consider 2Cor.4:4 as incontrovertible historical fact? History is history and the bible is the bible and never the twain shall meet.
"Egyptians did not have to invent a fantastic history for themselves."
But they invented a hell of a one for "modern" Christianity!
(With apologies to Jared Olar: I'm only making fun Jared, I know pagan roots discussions set your teeth on edge. :-)
"Because I do, because those things are hard-wired into the human brain for survival of the species.”
Weinland Watch or Richard Dawkins?
'Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense’.
Blogger Neotherm said...
"I believe atheists fall into two principal categories:
1) People to whom God has revealed himself and who have rejected God.
2 People to whom God has not yet revealed himself in a way that is necessary to build faith for salvation."
"I suspect that most atheists know, at their core, what category they fall into. "
I don't contribute to these discussions often, but I just have to respond to this one. Neotherm's assertions are presumptuous in the extreme. He assumes the very thing he cannot prove - that god exists - and then he presumes that atheists also accept this presumption!
I fall into the following category of atheist: those who finally started listening to that nagging voice in their head that said "c'mon, gimme a break, this "god" stuff can't possibly be true". So I decided to get over my fear of death, and to live without the comfort of fairy tales about god, and to live in reality.
I know a person can't "choose" to believe or disbelieve. It's all in how we're wired. So I understand how Neotherm is so sure he's right. He doesn't see that there is no evidence of the god he assumes. But I can tell you, once you acknowledge reality and live life without fantasy, it's a very heady experience. The wonders of the real world - the universe as it really is, life as it really is - far surpass any fairy tales dreamed up by stone-age man.
The Skeptic
'...'Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense’...'
That's our human nature. Surely a religious faith that strives for universal love and the welfare (even eternal) of the species is something to praise and to strive for.
'Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense’.
This was a quote from the well known atheist Richard Dawkins. I was contrasting what he said with the opossite idea submitted by the admitted atheist 'Weinland Watch'.
Two atheists - two opposite viewpoints on human nature. Neither would want to include religious faith in their thinking.
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