The Profound Impact of Religion
When innocence is raped by man-made religion, the impact is profound. The Worldwide Church of God was a religious rapist. The minds of many innocent human beings the world over were scarred for life by the
Worldwide Church of God experience. The proof of this profound impact is that many ex-WWCG members have turned to atheism and many others committed suicide. The fruit of being spiritually or religiously raped
is profound. We all know that in the middle ages that some were actually burned at the stake for denouncing the orthodox views of the then church world. Those in power or control are the status quo and those who reject or resist are the whistleblowers that the status quo hates. Jesus Christ Himself was a Whistleblower who denounced man-made religion. Real TRUTH is always a lie to the religiously indoctrinated. Humans have most often perceived that lies are truth and that truth are lies. We see this in the propaganda of the "news" media.
I once had a Jehovah Witness dentist come to my door with his sidekick and try to give me some of their literature, which I refused. I told him that if He would give me enough time, I would prove that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh to which he replied that "there would not be enough time in life to prove that." The reason is because Jehovah Witnesses consider Jesus Christ as a human being and not God. Young people are especially vulnerable to religious groups and they are seduced into going to their colleges. This is of course a sure ticket to indoctrination. Ambassador College was no exception and it indoctrinated its young students into their particular belief system. The same is true of Brigham Young University and Mormonism. Baptist colleges are no different.
No matter the Bible college, there is no doubt that what is taught is that which the founders or their inheritors believe. If you listen to anyone, they tell you what they believe is "true" and that is common to all of us. Those who call themselves "Christians" are not the only ones in the world with religious beliefs. In fact the world is an ocean of differences in what is perceived to be "truth." If "Christians" had been born in another culture, there is not even a doubt that they would believe in some other belief system. Does this not prove that human religious culture defines what most people believe?
I suspect that God is actually far more and exponentially greater than human thought or belief. If God exists then He is light-years beyond human thinking. I choose to believe that God is and the Worldwide Church of God experience never caused me to doubt God. What it actually did is cause me to question and question and question and never stop questioning. Atheism is not the answer to human life, existence or the future.
Van Robison
Van, I enjoy reading your articles. I have a question. For those of us that have proven that the god of the bible is a myth how can we be anything other than atheist? I suggest you continue to question as you said. If you continue to do that with an open mind you will find that the god of the bible didn't make us; we made him.
ReplyDeleteYou've come a long way. Van. Like Newlife pointed out, you have a blind spot and can't see that the entire Bible is a contrived book of fiction about an impossible sky fairy who is no more real than Thor, Zeus, etc.
ReplyDeleteTook me several decades to come to that realization.
You imply that atheism and suicide are about equally lamentable reactions to the Worldwide Church of God experience.
ReplyDeleteActually, atheism offers a number of advantages over suicide. One of the most important is that people who have fallen into atheism make more entertaining conversationalists than those who have committed suicide.
Besides, suicide entails a powerful disadvantage: there's no future in it.
"suicide entails a powerful disadvantage: there's no future in it."
ReplyDeleteVery true! Very true! That's why, even in the darkest times of my life, I ended up rejecting the idea. It may be a lousy game sometimes, but it's better than the nothing suicide entails.
@Retired Prof: Well said, and tempered with charm and wit no less.
ReplyDeleteI can't let this go, though (from Robison)...
"The minds of many innocent human beings the world over were scarred for life by the
Worldwide Church of God experience. The proof of this profound impact is that many ex-WWCG members have turned to atheism..."
Were you sent here from ESN?
Atheism is not a scar, okay? And it isn't something you "turn to"--like hard liquor or prostitution. It's a position on the existence of god--one that can be supported by sound argumentation.
You have to be pretty clueless not to know that atheism has a long tradition stretching back thousands of years (and more, to be realistic), and was and is prevalent among some of the greatest thinkers this planet has ever known (did Epicurus "turn to" atheism? Or Bertrand Russell? Or Einstein?). To imply that it is worthy of being discredited out of hand as something people who are "scarred for life" "turn to" is inexcusably ignorant. Worse, it's an inane talking point for a certain--shall we say "less-than-honest"?--segment of the ex-CoG crowd. It's a cop-out for those who have seen through the CoG's organized superstition racket, but who react with paralyzing fear at the prospect of eliminating that last superstitious belief: God. They can prop up their paltry faith by convincing themselves that atheism is a disease. Those with real faith do not require such bigotry for a crutch, however.
As for atheism not being "the answer to human life, existence or the future", well, that's good--since the only question the position of atheism is prepared to answer is, "Does (some particular) god exist?"
Those other interesting questions are pondered in philosophies orthogonal to atheism, such as...humanism, nihilism, naturalism, existentialism, etc.
May I helpfully suggest you do some reading on a subject before presuming to write about it?