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Complete E-mail Index Page Here Email To The Editor
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12/05/2013 Dear Bill, This morning I was looking for scriptures from the bible where it said “trust no man” and I came upon this web page article written by you. First, let me say I am a born again believer. No, I’m not going to preach or quote the bible, but I wanted to write and tell you that even though I am born again I can definitely relate to the things you said on this page. I agree with you that we do have to watch out for people in authority and most especially for those in the church or assemblies. Yes, people are people, whether saved or not. When I was born again I experienced that “new man”, because I could feel the change that Jesus made in me, in my thoughts and words and even actions, but I was still a man. There were times when I got down, upset, angry and even acted arrogant and haughty. It took me a while to recognize these things in me and even longer to admit to God (and other people) that I was doing them. I also understand your frustration with God and the bible. I have had times (and still do have them) where I get frustrated with God and the things He says. Sometimes they just don’t make sense and I get wrapped up in my frustration and get all haughty and angry for a while, but I eventually come around, which is usually after I’ve calmed down and start talking to God about these matters (instead of yelling at Him and being a haughty jerk). I just wanted to write and say I understand your point of view about these things. We are, like you said, all human, and we all make mistakes. This is definitely true, which is why we need Jesus as bad as we do. Thank God we have Him and not some haughty jerk, eh? Sincerely Yours, 11/23/2013 I just ran across your writing- You ARE excellent with words- man you are good.
You add that interesting twist (Serling like) that really says things clearly.
Thanks George. I am not the only writer here. The list is rather extensive and covers a span of 16 years that we have been on line. It is good you found your way out. True freedom is found in the ability to think for yourself. This is called free thought. PT-Editor, 11/23/2013 I think you're wrong about many things in your site, including prayer.
If God exists He knows everything and thus if He makes someone live who
you claim was meant to die, then it was cause they where never meant to
die. (Email by Raul)
Raul, You wrote: "I also reject much of what the Bible claims, it's unscientific. Yet that does not mean that God cannot do things such as bring us back." You are assuming that the god of the bible is a true God. It is not. The god of the bible is patterned after petty, narcissistic, and tyrannical men. He is angry, jealous, full of threats that he carries out with zealous glee in punishing humans to the death. ( Google: Who has killed more, Satan or God? ) You wrote: "I think you're wrong about many things in your site, including prayer." Try this test. Pray for all paraplegics. Pray that God will restore their limbs. Let me know how this works out for you. Raul, I see the possibility of a higher power, I really do. Whatever it is, there is no book written by it. There are but books written by uninspired men. We all came from the universe and will return to it. Energy does not die, it just changes form. Go out and get the book "Who wrote the bible" The Armstrong idea that those within the fighting sects will someday rule with a christ, and they will be over all of men is nothing but a master/slave relationship pipe dream. How very human their thoughts are. The bigger picture is beyond them. PT-Editor,
Raul Replies: I doubt that God would cure all paraplegics, why? That's a mystery to me, yet those things seem to be rare" Why? Because as children we were taught all these great things about some god. As adults, we should be in the process of shedding these ideas because they were based on lies in order to control our behavior and that of society at large. Its fine to believe in a higher power. Just don't assign some purpose or message to your thoughts as if God is talking to you. He's not! No one person can divine the purpose of life. If you find someone who seems to "understand" or has "truth" it is best to consider them a charlatan. One can live best when they are at peace with themselves and their fellow man. PT-Editor,
Raul Replies: I doubt that everyone is a charlatan, just as I think God is completely
impersonal. You don't know just as I don't know, nothing wrong with
that, I've never read any religious text where God cured everyone of
every disease. In the bible view we suffer due to evil entering the
world, sin being the cause of the loss of immortality. 09/23/2013 i agree with you in many respects and i too cannot understand the GOD of the old testament but there are other possibililties! perhaps GOD does have an opposite call him satan or whatever ! have you heard of enke and enlil ??? look up them in sumerian times i do not have any answers , only questions but those two people if they did exists explain a lot Bill
How about: "God is...greater than anything we could possibly imagine and the other characters such as Satan are myths to create answers for a superstitious world." PT-Editor, LET ME TELL YOU YOU NEED TO DEDICATE YOUR TIME TO YOUR OWN SALVATION AND TO LET GOD TO HANDLE ERRORS AND MISTAKES OF PEOPLE. HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN CHANGE LIFES, INCLUDING YOURS. STOP SPREADING HATE AND EVIL TO THE WORLD. "TO THE LAW AND THE TESTIMONY" YOU ARE USING YOUR TIME TO FIGHT AGAINST SOMEONE IS ALREADY DEAD. USE YOUR TIME WISELY.. IF YOU ARE WISE!! SATAN THE DEVIL IS DOING HIS WORK THROUGH YOU AND YOU DID NOT REALIZE YET, EVEN "BEING SO WISE" AS YOU THINK YOU ARE!! I WILL PRAY FOR YOU, SO GOD FORGIVE YOU AND CHANGE YOUR HATE WITH LOVE TO OTHERS!! INCLUDING DEAD PEOPLE!! AND YOURSELF!! WORK IN YOUR OWN SALVATION, AS EVERYONE HAS TO DO!
You wrote: "I WILL PRAY FOR YOU, SO GOD FORGIVE YOU AND CHANGE YOUR HATE WITH LOVE TO OTHERS!! INCLUDING DEAD PEOPLE!! AND YOURSELF!!" God has blessed this work exposing false prophets, pedophiles, perverts, and other narcissistic deviants! It is my calling! And don't you worry about my salvation. It is guaranteed because Jesus said so. I don't need a cult leader to get between me and Christ. All this is true if I was a Christian and it is true for real Christians who need not a man to come between them and Christ. Now I am not talking about the armstrong variety. Not the followers of false prophets, dead or alive. They are lost. They turn down the free gift of salvation and embrace idolatry by following a man and his teachings. So you have made your effort before the feast to uphold HWA as a fine christian gentleman. You folks do this every year just before the feast. Do you know why? Let me tell you. You are attempting to justify yourself before your opening service. The time when you will stand with song book in hand, and sing your opening hymn. It is at this time you feel you've done something positive before you set into eight days of negativity that you dread. But stand you will and listen you must because THEY tell you they represent God and you better listen or you could land up in the lake of fire! But for those who once looked upon Herbert Armstrong as a man of God, the first time they learned the truth about him they still rejected it. After a year or so, these folks stop lying to themselves and admit to themselves that yes, the man was a devil. He was not the genuine article. You learn that the nagging voice in back of your mind wasn't Satan, it was your subconscious screaming to be heard. It has been said that "Honesty is a Virtue" and I agree. Honesty, (I am talking about real honesty) starts with the self. It is when you cannot ignore, put-off, or otherwise turning your back on something you experience, something that jumps out at you as the only logical answer or choice. Honesty is facing the issues as they arise and confronting them head-on. Honesty is the facet of real moral character, it is integrity, trustworthy, towards oneself and others. Honesty is a way of life. Honesty is not making excuses for others the way supporters of Barack Obama do for their man. It is not ignoring facts and logic in defining themselves and the reason for their choices. With this in mind, have the best feast yet.....by staying home and with your two eyes opened, withdraw your consent to be ruled over by men that care not a iota about you. PT-Editor, The following letter is in reply to this one. Hello James - - -
You have a way of hitting the nail on the head;<<The reality is that the Armstrongists cannot even maintain their bonds within the various COG community's, nor bring us closer to God, or generally work to the betterment of Man and society. It is indeed amazing how they still pimp out Herbie who's when dead since 1986. But mention Jesus and they turn on you.>> religion of the time "well spoke Moses of you" etc - - "Re 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." was around in HWA's time - almost certainly HWA will have known about Comparet - he also covered such subjects as the sabbath etc - in my opinion someone like Comparet would have caused less damage than HWA -because his application of the sabbath question was not as destructive - This research of mine has proved undoubtedly that the supposed "exclusiveness" of HWA, restoring truths etc is complete bunkum !!! I could probably find 100 groups on the Internet now that even today cover at least a part of this spectrum -
Why should this not be the case? Can other church members all over the world not read?
HWA and his followers think they are the only ones who ever read the old testament -
James, thanks for your encouragement:
<<I am pleased you got your consulting business going. There is nothing better than having the freedom to work on your own, doing what you want to do and when>> I never get such responses form "christians/churchgoers" - my best long term friend is an atheist(!)
who has moved back to UK now - he will sometimes send me an email with links to a site
that he knows will interest me - he can only do this since he has actually taken the trouble
to find out what MY interest are - when do "christians" do this?
Whenever I get the chance, and I speak to any church minister,
I tell them clearly that christianity is a farce: the members do not practice any of that stuff that they
profess - I offer them this "solution":
I say give every chistian in your church/community a copy of Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence
people" - put this book next to their bible, read it and go and practice that stuff for TWO YEARS - only then
can they claim to know anything about christianity!
Well, that's my 2 cents worth for today
All the best,
John
John, Interesting statement his book makes on the last page of that pdf document. ( Page 8 ) THE NEW CHRISTIAN CRUSADE
CHURCH It seems Bertrand Comparet was an Aryan Nations bigot. As you may know, Herbert Armstrong's booklet "The United States and Britain In Prophecy" was being used by the Aryan Nations and other hate groups to justify their insane notion of white Anglo Saxon superiority. But just to be fair, I did notice one difference between the Armstrong cults and this guy. He used the name "Jesus Christ" eight times within this short article. You might have to wait a year in one of Herbie's spin offs to hear the name "Jesus Christ" that many times! You got to wonder why the members of these crackpot organizations don't "counterexcommunicate" their leaders? The meatless bone of demagogism gets old but it is a time worn method that causes people to feel "special" and gain a following of useful idiots in their maligned cause. PT-Editor,
08/10/2013 I have visited this site many times and confess to laughing at some of your comments. The piece was very informative and well written. If I had been a follower of Armstrong and his Merry Men I probably wouldn't have laughed as much. I wish people would ask questions in their own minds and not automatically assume someone correct on everything they say that speaks from a pulpit. Example: The Armstrong's and many others, believe Jesus is a God in a God Family. Nothing in the confession of faith requires this to be true. Most denominations believe Jesus literally pre-existed in some form prior to his earthly birth and many believe he is God which raises this obvious question: What do we have in heaven right now? God tells the Son to sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool. Two separate beings with the one God sitting on the throne able to make Jesus' enemies his footstool in the future. That's not total equality. Why doesn't Jesus do it for himself since he is God or a God? Two God's in heaven? Jesus said his Father was Greater, so he must be a lesser God? Of course that is impossible by definition since God has always existed. We must seek to interpret unclear bible verses in light of clear scripture. The book of John is where the preexistent believers go to make their case disregarding scripture that contradicts. The word in 1st John means "something said", and not a separate being. In Genesis God spoke everything into existence and used His creative Spirit to create. We have history to look back on to see the development of these false beliefs. The fact that most professed Christians follow these false beliefs proves they are indeed manmade and not biblical. Much more could be said, but it is not necessary. I have a study that goes into much more detail concerning Christ's deity and other false beliefs. I search the internet and can agree with many denominations on certain biblical beliefs, because they use scripture in a logical manner to prove their point. People need to study more and ask questions on what is being taught and not be so accepting. Good Luck with your site.
Gordon, PT-Editor, The site titled: Painful Truth 209 False Prophecies Written by: The Watcher. I liked the sarcasm used as I am often sarcastic in order to make a point. The statements that the Germans may have taken Stalingrad if Herbert had predicted the opposite was good. Same for moon landing etc. He lived a very good life off of tithes (other peoples money), as do probably all televangelists. Kenneth Copeland has many fine homes. Actually they are more like estates. A lady we work for lives in a home that should be condemned. It smells of urine. Her husband is a heroin addict and she gives much hard earned money to Kenneth Copeland ministries. Bill, her ex brother in law, tries to talk to her about it to no avail. Bill has a good heart, but isn't interested in the bible. I, on the other hand, still believe in the gospel, but not how modern day televangelists have made it into a buisness. Herbert W. Armstrong was correct on some bible beliefs as are many others. God's true ministers mentioned in the bible, lived a rather humble life style with few exceptions and the exceptions didn't live well on other peoples money, but used their own as God prospered them. This whole of organized religion is really organized confusion. Churches only have some truth mixed with many errors. Giving money to charities and directly to those in need makes much more sense than giving to greedy ministers. I won't support fraud so that it can continue in God's name. Thanks for responding to my E. Mail.
Gordon, These cults have robbed us of our lives, our health, our honor, and our belongings. They have kept us separated for too long from the love, contributions, and challenges of our brothers and sisters in this wonderful adventure we share together—life! Contributors to The Painful Truth have poured out their hearts as they purged their minds free of this religious bullshit that the Armstrong's taught. Thank you Gordon, I appreciate your support. PT-Editor, Hello James - - - It's now mid 2013;things have been very slow since my exit of WWCOG about 10 years ago; I guess the loss of momentum in one's life plays havoc The last while I've made a bit of progress in my consulting business; I'm finally getting a bit of recognition and respect - no thanks to anyone in particular Contacts with WWCOG people have almost completely dried up, I could say the same about my family, cousins etc, many of them staunch church-goers - my father died about 2 years ago, what little contact I had with my family/cousins/distant cousins has since dried up completely - One of my father's sisters (my aunt) did not even attend the funeral - neither did she call anyone of us children - another staunch church-goer - as for my family: I do not know where my two brothers or my mother is - the more things change the more they stay the same - I have one contact left from WWCOG - despite his admission that HWA made a lot of mistakes - in the same breathe he still venerates HWA as the "one who was most right" (??!!) There is much evidence that there have always been other groups who promulgated similar (individual)beliefs/doctrines as HWA - yet many who still cling to HWA ( a dead man) refuse to even look at what these groups have to say - It's like being a ford mustang enthusiast, but insisting that the only supplier you will consider is the one around the corner from where you stay; the most convenient one, the one you have ALWAYS gone to to spend your money - you do not believe that a genuine ford mustang alternator from any other supplier is the same as the one from your favorite supplier of the last 10 or 20 years - despite the fact that the parts are manufactured in the same factory to the same specification - THAT'S THE LOGIC! HWA made a big deal of the "gospel of th kingdom" - the only true gospel (?) - Yet today, there are MANY groups that claim similar emphasis - they typically call themselves the kingdom ministries etc - there are others - the one thing they expound better than HWA is the "present" aspect of the kingdom - ie they allow their members to be "kings and priests" now, rather than relegating them to a slave culture in this life - the excuse being that christians are changed into kings only in the future - allowing the church members to be abused and milked until their "change comes" - ie milk them unto death When I point these things out the die-hards always make some excuse and revert back to HWA - HWA almost certainly knew about various groups during his life-time who taught what he taught - yet he never gave anybody credit - I came across an article which was written some time back by a non-WWCOG minister called "MYSTERY OF THE AGES" - while this was a short article, it is hardly likely that HWA was not influenced to write his book Mystery of the Ages Such evidences are pooh-poohed by the die-hards The thing I like most about the Painful Truth is its honesty - funny how after all these years I still believe in "truth" - Even if it's unpleasantI hope all is well your side, Regards
Good to hear from you again John! I am pleased you got your consulting business going. There is nothing better than having the freedom to work on your own, doing what you want to do and when. The contacts in the WWCOG should dry up except for anyone who wishes to maintain a friendship outside religion. You don't need the constant reminder of your time in the cult from the religiously benighted, mentally deficient prats. These people persist in their belief that he (Armstrong) possesses infinite wisdom from God. The reality is that the Armstrongists cannot even maintain their bonds within the various COG community's, nor bring us closer to God, or generally work to the betterment of Man and society. It is indeed amazing how they still pimp out Herbie who's been dead since 1986. But mention Jesus and they turn on you. As to the book Mystery of the Ages, the article you speak of would have to have been written before 1985. But as it stands, Herbert had a long track record of using others works and claiming them for himself. He's was not the real deal but a fraud. Proof of this can be found HERE. PT-Editor, Dear John B.: This email may be 6 or more years too late, but here it is. I am approximately your age and have experienced the “fullness” of the WCG and all its aftermath. Your interesting article “Death Sentence”, ends with the concern about the “children”. My daughters grew up, they have nothing to do with any WCG offshoot, and they are doing well in their lives. But I have always been a believer in God, and still am, despited all the “Worldwide” phenomenon. I did not believe half the crap that was pushed in WCG, including “Petra”. All this stuff to a realist is just donkey kong. Going to Jordan in 1972, on Boeing 7ss, where are 150,000 people (men, women, and children) going to live??? My belief is in God, not in Armstrong or any of his offshoots. Thus, I went thru a period of self examination, but I continued my life. The world today is nothing like the world that Armstrong or any of his followers believed was possible. The question is, where is this world going? David Froloff |
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