Comments on Ambassador Watch: Comfort Zones: Meant to be Broken

Dear Anonymous 666, You said, … This is probabl...

2007-01-28T04:59:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 666,

You said,

…

This is probably not the appropriate venue for a discussion for this particular material.

"Although rabbinical Judaism, Muslim apologists, and Arian disciples pounce upon what Matthew records as if they were a litter of tabby cats with a church mouse,"

Might either of these suffice?

http://sabbatarian-anabaptists.blogspot.com/ or

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SabbatarianAnabaptists/

T, L & F

Dear Anonymous 666, You said: … My favorite part ...

2007-01-26T17:27:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 666,

You said: … My favorite part is:

"Although rabbinical Judaism, Muslim apologists, and Arian disciples pounce upon what Matthew records as if they were a litter of tabby cats with a church mouse,"

I can hardly wait for the third in the series.

It appears that the next one is up.

Respectfully,
Anonymous

Thinking outside the box, leaving comfort zones......

2007-01-23T20:24:00.000+13:00

Thinking outside the box, leaving comfort zones.... all nice phrases and perhaps used by us when we entered Harmstrongism.

Yes, we had the courage to blow the dust off our Bibles, search the scriptures daily, and proved all things - and yet we were duped into believing the false.

As an architect, I know that building hotel towers works best using concrete framing, not steel. Yet every so often along comes a client, thinking outside the box, that "knows" that he can make steel work. We wrestle with the question for a while - and end up building in concrete.

Give the man points for innovative spirit - deduct points for fighting a battle lost many times before.

But that's the problem with breaking comfort zones - often our own ignorance leads us into Don Quixote discipledom, fighting battles that need not be fought, triumphant in our own minds over things that do not exist, like sabbaths in new covenants and grace that only exists until the next sin.

I'm not advocating being a bunch of happy fat frogs on some lily pond that never seek change, never leave our comfort zones. All I'm saying is that movement is only the first step - the new idea needs to be tested, challenged, and refined before it should be accepted.

That's what my steel loving clients are doing - you'll note they didn't rush right out a buy a few tons of the metal. We worked out the right course of action before any action was taken. Of course, he could have just taken my word for it - but then again, one day steel may make sense and I'd be giving him bad advice.

Hypothesize. Test. Evaluate. Repeat.

Dear God, I wished I'd read something other than what WCG published during all those years. Might have found the real Comfort Zone much sooner.

KMS

An LU just doesn't make sense. Who is going to tea...

2007-01-23T14:38:00.000+13:00

An LU just doesn't make sense. Who is going to teach and administer it? They only have 40 or so paid ministers. They are going to pull more from an already sparse ministy? I can't see them doing that. I doubt he's going to let laymembers run it. What about the strain on an already tight financial budget? Wouldn't that take away from the preaching of the gospel Thiel and others like to brag about.

I just don't see it happening.

Apparently RCM disagrees with you. Remember, LU administrator Dr. Mike Germano is an expert in distance learning. As far as I understand, LU is supposed to be an "online" university.

Dear Anonymous 11:26 AM, I got everything fixed y...

2007-01-23T14:07:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 11:26 AM,

I got everything fixed years ago. Got therapy, have had a fairly good life, and have lots of friends. No bitterness, either.

I do, however, believe in doing my part to debunk scams, especially toxic ones that continue to hurt others. You see, part of continuing therapy is helping others who find themselves in the same unfortunate position that I myself was once in. It's really fun to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Armstrong only 'got' me for about a decade. In 1975, when Jesus failed to adhere to the schedule HWA tried to impose on Him, I realized we had a Deut.18:20 situation, and split the scene. If I'd known about some of the earlier false dates, I probably never would have gotten involved in the first place.

Hope you're happy. If not, be free.

BB

"One of the most important things HWA taught was n...

2007-01-23T11:51:00.000+13:00

"One of the most important things HWA taught was not to believe him, but to blow the dust off your Bible, read it for yourself and make a decision based on what you read."

That's one of the big reasons why there are so many ex-Armstrongists -- they made the mistake of taking him at his word (though he only meant that for outsiders -- as you probably know, insiders had to submit to his divine authority and not cause division).

Dear Dennis, Byker Bob, and Anonymous 666, One of...

2007-01-23T11:26:00.000+13:00

Dear Dennis, Byker Bob, and Anonymous 666,

One of the most important things HWA taught was not to believe him, but to blow the dust off your Bible, read it for yourself and make a decision based on what you read. Did you do that or did you just read the PT and other literature and warm a seat in church each week like dutiful little church mice? Were you able to use the Spirit of God that is given to those whom obey and, therefore, be able to discern when someone in the pulpit left off preaching truth and began preaching opinion? When he did, did you disregard what he said, even if other sheep around you couldn’t, or did you go along so as to be seen as towing the party line, hoping for that promotion to deacon or higher?

I live in my mind—don’t you? Isn’t the real you what sees outside your mind, regardless of whether your eyes are blue or brown or you now need glasses or longer arms? Can’t you look up to God and think spiritually, kicking it up a notch, instead of looking horizontally and being consumed with the physical? When I was young child my brother had a “Little Golden Book” about Digger Dan, the Steam Shovel Man [I think this is right, but I may be combining several stories] who worked behind a big fence surrounding a deep hole in which was being built a skyscraper. There were no skyscrapers where I lived then and I longed to find someone upon whose shoulders I could stand to peep through the hole in the fence so I could see this awesome building going up.

Yes, it’s lonely when you find the rug jerked out from under you and you no longer have family or friends with whom to fellowship with “like minds,” when there is no one whose shoulder you can stand on or cry on. Think how Christ felt—none of the men with whom He lived and worked for 3 years really understood a thing He said until after He was dead and buried. They actually gave up on Him and went fishing!

So the “man” who taught you and me about God and how to worship Him turned out to have feet of clay. But, not everything he taught us was wrong, or wrong headed, or dare I say “right.” When you get up in the morning and your particular face is either shaven or foundation is applied depending upon your particular plumbing, can you face yourself honestly and throw out all he taught you? HWA had “little man” syndrome and he could sell Eskimos ice cubes. Did he “sell” you on his brand of fear religion, or do you believe God means what He says about reaping what you sow? His work has proven to have been built with wood, hay and straw—it’s all splintered and burned up or blowing in the windy COGs. Did you carry around your own “yardstick” to compare yourself among yourselves so you could pat yourself on the back instead of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling? Are you building on the foundation yourself your own temple of God to house the ark of the covenant, your heart with the laws of God written on two fleshly tablets? Or have you thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Successful people do not continue to bash their heads against brick walls, and crying over spilt milk does no one any good. Get back into the Bible, read it for yourself and let the Spirit of God breathe some life back in you. And start looking up!

And be thankful that Gavin gives us this forum …

Respectfuly,
Anonymous

"the Gospel of Peter, where Peter chides Jesus for...

2007-01-23T08:12:00.000+13:00

"the Gospel of Peter, where Peter chides Jesus for kissing Mary too often on the lips"

Some niggling pedantry here: I think that's the Gospel of Mary you're thinking of. It's definitely not the Gospel of Peter, which is the one that plays up Herod's role in Christ's death, and docetically shows two men hauling Jesus' lifeless (or nearly lifeless) corpse from the tomb, followed by a giant talking cross.

new anonymous "This pastor friend of "aw fan" i...

2007-01-23T08:04:00.000+13:00

new anonymous

"This pastor friend of "aw fan" is going to feel awfully silly when he talks to any of the people who attended the singles events in Charlotte last month. RCM talked to them about LU, and Dr. Mike Germano is indeed the elder who is taking the lead role in putting it together."

An LU just doesn't make sense. Who is going to teach and administer it? They only have 40 or so paid ministers. They are going to pull more from an already sparse ministy? I can't see them doing that. I doubt he's going to let laymembers run it. What about the strain on an already tight financial budget? Wouldn't that take away from the preaching of the gospel Thiel and others like to brag about.

I just don't see it happening.

kathleen kakacek: I read McCarthy's book. It is,...

2007-01-23T04:36:00.000+13:00

kathleen kakacek: I read McCarthy's book. It is, like most of his writing, very dark and disturbing. He portrays what would happen if there were a "nuclear winter" leading to the extinction of all flora and fauna. Faulkner creates the same darkness in his prose. But it is honest. It is intended to be dark and it is. On the other hand, you can read a lot of pre-1995 WCG literature and get this feeling of substance when there is very little weight present. A sense of truth, when there is very little truth present.

I'll take honesty.

-- Neo

Yes,the first step to breaking out of your comfort...

2007-01-22T15:12:00.000+13:00

Yes,the first step to breaking out of your comfort zone is to put a comment on AW.

Yes, Worldwide was a comfort zone for many of us: all the thinking was done for us.Mind you, looking at some of the splinters today, perhaps it was a good thing the thinking was done for them.Their resources for cognitive input were/are Spartan indeed.

All need to step outside the circle, or whatever their favourite geometric construction is,and meet life at many new points.

jorgheinz

Big Sandy native Lovie Smith, who no doubt went to...

2007-01-22T13:37:00.000+13:00

Big Sandy native Lovie Smith, who no doubt went to school with many WCG kids, is now the the first African-American to lead his team to the Super Bowl. I saw lots of Big Sandy signs being shown during the game.

Just a bit more... Regarding the Bible, I have lo...

2007-01-22T13:10:00.000+13:00

Just a bit more...

Regarding the Bible, I have lost confidence in the literalism of the first 11 chapters of Genesis and the history of Israel as expressed. Up until about ten years ago, I had no idea how many factions were vying for attention in the OT and the politics of it all. I don't believe the perceived order of the OT is the true order.

Concerning the New Testament, I don't find the Gospels harmonious, the birth or resurrection stories of Jesus coherent, nor the style of the writing to be literal eyewitness accounts of Jesus as we have learned of him.

I find Paul to be both suspect but also the real founder of Christianity as we know it. The Jesus of Paul was not any Jesus he ever met personally and is literally a cosmic Jesus of Paul's hallucinatory experiences. When Paul says, "have I not seen the Lord" he meant in his head and in vision.

If Paul was a Pharisee, he didn't reason like one and was like no Pharisee anyone ever knew. Luke tells stories of Paul's conversion that Paul himself neither mentions and often contradicts. Luke in Acts told stories to make Paul look closer to the Jerusalem Church when in fact, they did not care for Paul, nor he for them.

The book of Revelation is probably Jewish apocolypic lit that has been adapted to Christians and we know what a mess that has made.

I have not liked this path life has taken me on necessarily. I accept it and have learned more this way than any other I suppose. It's painful, lonely and sometimes just not darn fun.

The last sermon I ever gave was entitled "Nothing is for nothing," and I choose to believe this will still prove true...

I smoke three cigars a year, and I think I shall go outside in the rain and do just that...

Annon666 I am not atheist far as I can tell. I a...

2007-01-22T12:30:00.000+13:00

Annon666 I am not atheist far as I can tell. I am fairly adept at what I no longer believe, but not willing to commit to believing anyone one thing at the moment. I tell those who ask I am "non-condemnational"

My sense of "God" is that we are ALL part of the same ONE positive thing. I believe it is benevolent, doesn't care what I eat, how I dress, which day I worship, facial hair, or the length of it on my head, and probably doesn't require to be worshipped to begin with. Something that demanded worship and did so because, "I am a jealous God," bothered me even as a Sunday school kid. Seems like a petty requirement from an insecure god. I know, "God doesn't see as you do Dennis" and "there is a way that seems right to Dennis, but it ends in death." I can live with that. The many anti learning, thinking and investigating scriptures are man made to promote conformity backed by threats, fear, guilt and shame. Levitical priests were very good at reminding people not to think for themselves and just do what they were told by the priests...sound familiar?????

Everyone's way seems right to them or they wouldn't express it. And yes, I use human reasoning because I am...ummmm, human, and that's the only kind of reasoning I have. Anyone who thinks they have the true mind of "God" and reason like God, is either delusional or lying.

I am very open to there being a creator, mind, spirit, force, energy or whatever behind the scenes. I just notice that it doesn't communicate well nor clearly if he is a he and a being as we understand being a being.

Actually I am a fan of scientifically based consciousness studies, possible reincarnation of the energy or spirit that is "us" and learning as we go.

John 9:2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned (in the past), this man or his parents, that he was BORN blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus..."

When does one sin in space and time to end up born blind? (It would have to be before the man's birth:) Or maybe the blindness is allegory and it's spiritual,which is the gnostic perspective in most of the NT but to think this would threaten literalists.

that any God I could ever find or could find me would be one who loved investigation, encouraged consciousness, allowed for evolution, pointed to the realities of quantum physics and reminded us that we are spirit of sorts, trapped in a very limited 5 sensed, carbon based wetsuit that gets us around but has to go after so many cell divisions over about 70 years or so.

While I would prefer God to be a Goddess, I would hope it to be a good balance of both and not a single God with no partner, having engendered a son in a young human girl, betrothed to another man, by a holy spirit and not enjoying it one bit. I would also feel better if the single son, who went home to live, did not just live with the dad without the encouragement of a feminine principle for balance. I also would have preferred the disciples to actually have relationships in their lives I can identify with instead of just single guys or guys that were just dumb followers of the single guy and then defined mostly in the Epistles by, you guessed it, an unmarriageable single guy. I would have felt better if the Gospel of Peter, where Peter chides Jesus for kissing Mary too often on the lips had been included in the cannon. Nice touch when Peter asked "why do you love Mary more than us?" And Jesus said, "Why does she love me more than you do?" Real stuff!

Sorry, I blather. Don't tell Dave who said this. When his mom encouraged him to read this guy, he balked...

"The unexamined life is not worth living. ... Wisdom begins in wonder." Socrates

aw fan wrote: One of the "anonymous" posters ment...

2007-01-22T12:12:00.000+13:00

aw fan wrote:

One of the "anonymous" posters mentioned Mike Germano (former Ambassador academic dean) being asked to help establish an accredited university for RCM's LCG.

I asked an LCG pastor friend for his comments.

His response: "No way, José. Where DO you hear these things?

This pastor friend of "aw fan" is going to feel awfully silly when he talks to any of the people who attended the singles events in Charlotte last month. RCM talked to them about LU, and Dr. Mike Germano is indeed the elder who is taking the lead role in putting it together.

Why would an LCG pastor be kept in the dark about this? And why would he consider it something so bad that he felt he had to deny it when he didn't have the facts? And how will he backtrack once he finds out the truth?

G'day Stinger. Interesting comment. I'm happy that...

2007-01-22T10:35:00.000+13:00

G'day Stinger. Interesting comment. I'm happy that the readers include more than just the "enlightened" few. I'm guessing that the recent LCG posts in the wake of the Bryce thing have brought a lot of those folk here, and if they're willing to read the "liberal" stuff and engage with it, that's a good thing I think (I remember how I used to react that way too.) Like you, though, I look at some of those poll results and think OUCH!

Dear Anonymous 666, On second thought, you're rig...

2007-01-22T05:49:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 666,

On second thought, you're right … I did miss the REASON for your satire--I've never really liked the Devil's Advocate--but I must yield to the need for one; I just wish one were not needed so often.

And, I must confess, as well, that once my dander is up, I often speak [email] without thinking--I've been known to have my feet in my mouth almost up to my knees. I shall endeavor in the future to think before I let my fingers fly.

Respectfully,
Anonymous

Gavin, a bit off topic here, but not really. I ...

2007-01-22T03:45:00.000+13:00

Gavin, a bit off topic here, but not really.

I was under the very mistaken notion that most of your readership was comprised of more enlightened people. And there are quite a few intelligent ones here.

But looking at your poll results of late leaves me scratching my head. The polls indicate that the majority here are still Bible thumping, Saturday keeping kosherites, who won't even credit the reformed WCG (doctrinally, that is) with even having the status of a sect. I left that sorry cult over 10 years ago (after giving almost 30 years of my life to it). But the WCG certainly can no longer be classified that way.

It is not very encouraging to me, considering the wealth of information that you provide here, plus the very thought provoking articles from people like Dennis, to see these poll results. This tells me that too many of your readers are comfortable in their sand box of kooky Armstrongology. And that is sad indeed, again with all the information out there that could help them move on in their lives.

BTW, when I tried to vote in the latest poll it locked my out, saying I had already voted. This happened to me once before. But the same poll later on did let me vote! Something is wrong with their tracking cookie, me thinks.

Best2U
Stingerski

And it is ironic that one of the persons who has t...

2007-01-22T01:26:00.000+13:00

And it is ironic that one of the persons who has the most credibility is one who was a minister of the Worldwide Church of God who is now an atheist.

The turn of fortunes never ceases to amaze.

Kind of humerous that a posting about breaking out...

2007-01-21T13:22:00.000+13:00

Kind of humerous that a posting about breaking out of comfort zones has turned, for not a few commenting, into a brawl over who has the true comfort zone. The more things change the more they stay the same...

Dear Anonymous 666, Interesting you should single...

2007-01-21T12:09:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 666,
Interesting you should single out__The mindset you apparently hold is not anywhere near the target of hypocrisy held by the bigger guys. Think Norman S. Edwards.__ and follow on with ___United doesn't understand some major things because they won't come to grips with stalking, fondling, breaking the Sabbath and other issues.___

Norman S. Edwards walked into Bible Study one morning in August 2004, and said out of the blue, "If one of us commits adultery, you have to forgive us." His wife quipped up, "Ah, the Garner Ted Armstrong syndrome." The rest of us at that table had to pick our jaws up off the floor. Who would have the brass _____ to ask for forgiveness in advance of such a sin? Was he, as the supposed 'college' administrator hoping to _do_ all of the coeds he hoped/hopes to get to come to Port Austin?

I am currently challenged just to continue Reading...

2007-01-21T11:23:00.000+13:00

I am currently challenged just to continue Reading A User's Guide to the Brain by Dr. John J. Ratey.

Anyone having any contact with any of the Churches of God could do worse than to have an exposition of neuroscience -- particularly in the area of perception.

It not only challenges comfort zones, it makes for understanding of how people come to their perceptions.

Dear Anonymous 666, __Nevertheless, this wasn't ex...

2007-01-21T10:44:00.000+13:00

Dear Anonymous 666,
__Nevertheless, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but is still interesting to those of us who value knowledge for the sake of knowledge with the Inward Point of View.

This is probably not the appropriate venue for a discussion for this particular material.__

Where might we discuss this type of material?

Respectfully,
Anonymous

Armstrongist thinking is best described by The Per...

2007-01-21T10:09:00.000+13:00

Armstrongist thinking is best described by
The Personal Hype Cycle and
Finagle's Law.

Excellent points there, 'baz (hope you don't mind ...

2007-01-21T09:54:00.000+13:00

Excellent points there, 'baz (hope you don't mind the brevity thing).

Back in the day, HWA used to entertain the intellectually inclined COGgers by turning them on to Velikovsky and Hislop, whose works have since been largely discredited. Another HWA source was Woodrow, who has actually reversed many of his previous positions, and has written a book to correct them.

BB