tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post2401719894563152774..comments2024-03-28T01:47:50.775-07:00Comments on Banned by HWA! News and Observations About Armstrongism and the Church of God Movement: Aura of Authority: Cult Preachers and ChurchesNO2HWAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018654662518613623noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-57634789725240789632014-10-13T17:08:01.084-07:002014-10-13T17:08:01.084-07:00There is always an aura of mystery where this topi...There is always an aura of mystery where this topic is concerned. We know the conditions of our own existence in the current space and time. Particularly based on the failures of modern day false prophets, and the personal consequences we have shared as a result, it is easy to extrapolate backwards and to assume that this has always been the way things were. Was there an era of miracles in the past? Were there ever any prophets who got it right? Is there such a thing as theophany? <br /><br />We know that there were dinosaurs in the distant past, and that the earth experienced glacial ages, because the records are literally "written in stone" for these things. The basic problem with corroborating the spiritual is, aside from manuscripts, how would it be documented? We have evidence that a meteor impacted planet earth eons ago, right here in my state. But how could you document, let's say, the healing of a blind man in the first century? Does high sulphur content on some real estate somewhere in the Middle East definitively "prove" that Sodom and Gomorrah were supernaturally destroyed? Does the remnant of an ancient temple prove the postulated spiritual component to the legend that God lived amongst the Israelites? <br /><br />My problem in all of this is not so much that events may or may not have happened, and that we are left to guess, or to speculate, based on the differences between evidence for the physical and evidence for the spiritual, but that people become cocksure about their speculations regarding the unknowable, and co-opt and use them to manipulate others, and to collect susceptible ones into their causes, forcing them to pick up the tab for these causes. That is a recipe either for wasted lives, or for later disillusionments which could come about in hundreds of different ways.<br /><br />Does anyone know of a Mormon who looks forward to being caught up in the air with Joseph Smith, or a JW who looks forward to being ressurrected with Charles Taze Russell? We've got people floating around, driving the highways out there right now who can't wait to be swept up into the stratosphere with Herbert W. Armstrong! Their entire lives have been patterned after and governed by his. This goes way beyond simply believing that miraculous events may have transpired in the past, and drawing conservative inferences. They've made him into a type of character worse than they mocked the Catholics for making out of the popes. Is it any wonder why peoples' minds have become a little fried?<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-34900710531770898942014-10-13T13:19:04.935-07:002014-10-13T13:19:04.935-07:00Thanks for the definition DB. This is a good defin...Thanks for the definition DB. This is a good definition, and one that also happens to be a thoroughly accurate description of WCG and its many splinters.<br /><br />A long time ago I was seated next to a guy, I think I was at the Emergency Ward for stitches or something, and we started conversing and eventually the topic turned to religion, and when he finally got it out of me exactly what "church" I was in, he told me point-blank, "That's a cult and you should get out of it." At the time I didn't think much of that opinion, but he was right. However, life is complicated, and you don't change up your life simply because somebody tells you that you should, even if they are right. Eventually I did get out, but it happened because of Dennis' "questions" and because I began to see it for what it was directly, with my own eyes as it were, not second-hand. But I look back on that and just say, yep, he was right, and thankfully I did manage to do what he told me to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-70085678091116258922014-10-13T09:26:00.172-07:002014-10-13T09:26:00.172-07:00Well no, just no.
“Take Back Your Life: Recoverin...Well no, just no.<br /><br />“Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships” by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias in the Chapter Defining a Cult in the subsection What is a Cult? uses the definition of a cult from the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA as noted above in the article), adopted at a 1985 conference of scholars and policymakers:<br /><br /> A cult is a group or movement exhibiting great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, and employing unethical manipulative or coercive techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it), designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.<br /><br />It's good to get definitions straight so we can all be on the same page.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-19098957415167402812014-10-13T04:22:41.232-07:002014-10-13T04:22:41.232-07:00Much if not most of this true especially concernin...Much if not most of this true especially concerning those who are self appointed to be or do all they claim to be and need to do. Their lack of formal training and theological and historical church history is appaling and telling.<br /><br />The Bible itself also has huge historical and errancy issues but few are willing to address them or concoct an appropriate apologetic to keep their false views on inerrancy and "God breathed" in place. The Bible is a very man made book and the books got in it by vote not by inspiration. A number of the NT books are pious forgeries.<br /><br />Most seminarians and such start out young and naive with very good intentions. Ministry fits them and they believe the Bible is what they were told it is. Only as years pass in ministry, questions arise, circumstances unfold and new information becomes available does a man or woman in ministry find themselves faced with "questions"<br /><br />If they have none, they are ignorant or just comfy in denial. If they pursue them, there is a price to pay. <br /><br />None of the COG ministry and offshoots of WCG are well trained in theology and are mere Bible readers and talkers for the most part. Most fundamentalists are. <br /><br />Christianity today is just as caught up in their new holidays for Jesus as the Jewish Christians were and are in the OT Holydays with a Jesus spin.DennisCDiehlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10417850852638492246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-55801749057650351652014-10-13T03:51:57.727-07:002014-10-13T03:51:57.727-07:00Religions are based on sacred scripture written 1....Religions are based on sacred scripture written 1.5 thousand-3 or more thousand years ago. No one knows who wrote any of the books of the bible. There are many contradictions in the bible. There is evidence that many of the writings where revised and changed. Words and phrases where subtracted or added to many books of the bible. There is no evidence that many of the events that are mentioned in the bible didn't take place or where physically impossible, such as the global flood and Joshua's long day. How can this book be divinely inspired when we don't even know who wrote it and it is filed with so many errors and inconsistancies?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com