Today's your last chance to have a bacon maple doughnut before the Days of Unleavend Bread set in.
Did you remember to get all the crumbs out of your toaster or did you just throw it in the trash so you can buy another one next week?
Did you check your suit pockets to make sure there is no stray cookie or bread crumb are in there? That is the favorite excuse ministers come up with every year. What about your pants cuffs?
Did you deleaven your car? Every last crumb?
Did you move the refrigerator out and clean behind and under it?
Did you go through every single item in our kitchen cupboard checking for some type of leavening agent?
Did you do the same in your bathroom?
Did you throw out the cat and dog food because it have leavening in it?
What about the Brewers Yeast?
What about the baking soda used for your swimming pool alkalinity?
Did you stock up on "Everything" matzo's and plenty of butter? Are you planing on eating a piece every day?
Are you sending your kids to school with turkey matzo sandwiches, or matzo and peanut butter?
Many COGers are very diligent about doing all of these things, yet they are still the same mean nasty people they were before Passover as they lord themselves over the brethren. They dish out weird and absurd biblical interpretations that are totally irrelevant. They damn people for not following their magnificent words of wisdom.
This is one season in Armstrongism that I do not miss at all.
59 comments:
If they really want to put out sin during the Days of Unleavened Bread, they will have to abandon British Israelism and the supposed church history replete with Waldensians. Until that, they remain totally in error and are consuming the leavened bread of Pharisees which is hypocrisy (with lots of ego and narcissism thrown in). This is not something you can get out of your kitchen or pants pockets.
Looking ahead, it is most curious that this year the Fall Feast of Tabernacles begins in the Summer. Just how do the ACoGs square that up in their Old Testament Christianity?
Ha! The CoGs and their silly rules. Baking powder and self-rising flour is not what the bible writers had in mind.
Yeast used for baking loaves of bread is what it's about. It's that kind of bread that you have to wait for the dough to rise before baking it. While homemade yeast bread used to be common a hundred years ago, most people I know don't even use that stuff anymore - except maybe on special occasions. Strange that Easter is one of those "special occasions" but there ya are.
I caught myself wondering once why we needed to symbolically put all the sin out if 1) it was impossible for humans to live a sinless life and 2) Christ had died for our sins? Doesn't the symbolic act of putting all the sin out demonstrate that the Christian is symbolically attempting to live a sinless life through his own free will, and not Christ? It seemed like the DUB were a bit regressive.
Paul Ray
Seems like a lot of work to me --- cleaning all those cupboards and everything.G.G.
COGS are more puffed up than any leavened bread. Hypocrites of the worst kind. So self-righteous it's a wonder their leaders are worshiped as gods. So full of hate that Satan would love to join them, and probably has. All this despite the scriptures saying people like Apostle Paul sitting with Gentiles and eating with them. When are the COGs going to wake up and follow the new covenant with God and not the old? When are they going to stop pretending they are Jews when they are not?
I remember having discussions about what was leavening. It was even pointed out that if egg whites are whisked enough until stiff and fluffy they act as leavening. Then there was the desperate reading of labels, and what about brewers yeast, didn't stop the winebibbers at the feast, but that wasn't used to make things rise.......
Anon @ March 25, 2013 at 10:56 AM, yes you are on the right track. Christians don't need to bother with the old covenant and Jewish ways anymore. Christ has not only forgiven out sins but the sins of a true Christian are no longer held against them once they commit to the new covenant. Besides, we are told in scripture all those Mosaic Laws are mere shadows of Christ. We are to follow Christ himself and be loving and caring to each other as well as God, something the COGs are dead against. They are full of hate and very little else.
The ironic thing is, you can clearly tell most of these comments are written by former WCGer's because they are every bit as accusatory in nature as current COGers themselves are when referring to others. It seems once folks have been infected by this I'm-right-everyone-else-is-wrong mindset, the habit very plainly continues on long after they leave the groups that infected them with it in the first place.
Douglas: "they remain totally in error"
Corky: "Baking powder and self-rising flour is not what the bible writers had in mind. Yeast used for baking loaves of bread is what it's about."
Anonymous 11:20: "COGS are more puffed up than any leavened bread. Hypocrites of the worst kind. So self-righteous it's a wonder their leaders are worshiped as gods. So full of hate that Satan would love to join them, and probably has."
Anonymous 11:25: "We are to follow Christ himself and be loving and caring to each other as well as God, something the COGs are dead against. They are full of hate and very little else."
This angry, hostile, accusatory, self-righteous attitude is probably the most salient characteristic of these people, whether past members or present members. A tree really is known by it's fruits, I dare say.
Really!
Is there even one member of UCG's Council of Turdwads that isn't more puffed up than a loaf of boring wonderbread?
"they remain totally in error" is scientific and historical fact, devoid of religious connotations.
ACoGs are just totally wrong.
You don't have to get huffy about it... unless you really can prove British Israelism true.
Good luck with that.
Taken the MinusIQ pill?
I totally concur with all these sentiments. WCG was a hotbed of Judaizing legalism, where everything became about blind "obedience" to every conceivable "command" throughout the old and new that could be accomodated. If the creation of a tabernacle and a temple and a levitical priesthood and daily sacrifices could have been accomodated too, they surely would have been. The many splinters still carry that torch.
And with every one of those "commanded" rituals and observances, such as DUB, you had to get it as perfect as possible. If you were less perfect than you could have been (be your own judge here), then god was disappointed. If you had an ongoing health problem and were not supernaturally "healed" then this was a sure sign that god was disappointed with your obedience at some point of law, and that you obviously needed to put in more effort at demonstrating to god just how much he meant to you through ever stricter "obedience" to every possible ritual. Every bad thing that happens in your life potentially becomes "your fault" because your weren't trying hard enough to please a fickle supernatural deity, and now he was "spanking" you for it. Did you get a good night's sleep? Shame on you! What a waste of time!
I know that this makes the "faithful" more judgmental, more intolerant, and more isolationists, but how does it make them more healthy or more abundantly full of life? How does this make their light break forth as the noonday sun? How does this make them better people? It doesn't. They're too busy searching for irrelevant, symbolic crumbs of leavened products in every nook and cranny of their homes, and the like. And having PERFECTLY cleaned their property from top to bottom, the average COGer becomes more puffed up and self-righteous then they were before AND simultaneously more humbled and aware of their imperfection by the passover ritual. Enough to give one spiritual whiplash.
I daresay, not one COGer anywhere could tell you step number one in purging the non-symbolic sin out of their lives, because you can't get it out with a sponge, mop, broom, or vacuum cleaner. In that way, the choice of biblical symbolism itself is remarkably unenlightening. But I guess it doesn't matter, because once you've put so much effort into perfecting your rituals, there's no time or energy left over for the real thing anyway. But that seems to go unnoticed. Maybe their god doesn't care about that? And once the DUB is over, then any thought of putting sin out, whether symbolic or real goes out the window for 10 more months anyway. Truly a pointless exercise, unless the point was spring cleaning.
It is kind of a shame that their god probably doesn't exist to notice how much effort these people go through to demonstrate their devotion. On the other hand, maybe it's a good thing, since biblical Jesus didn't seem especially impressed by that kind of effort anyway. I guess your average brainwashed COGer doesn't have time to notice that either.
So much busyness, so little thought...
Anon @ March 25, 2013 at 11:58 AM, you sound like a puffed up loaf of bread too. The point is those criticizing COGs do not necessarily hate the people in those cults. They hate what the COGs stand for and what they are doing. Even Jesus made similar remarks to the Pharisees and others. We are just following Christ's actions. So, get your perspective right and stop being pretentious and self-righteous.
Well, hey now. I grew up old, old school when it was still forbidden to wear clothing made from mixed materials. And, it took them a while to figure out that "it was OK to wear mixed materials so long as one fiber was natural, like cotton, and the other was man-made, like polyester or elastic."
So, we not only had to go over all of the food labels in the grocery stores, we also had to go over all of the clothing labels in the department store!
This legalism is fine and good if it's in someone's conscience that they should do it to please God, but it is not an essential ingredient to a spiritual experience, initiating a personal relationship with God that will last for eternity.
The poster who detected harshness in some of our comments is correct. Paul had some very constructive comments about the Christlike way to handle such differences, and neither veiled nor overt put-downs comply with his instructions.
BB
A personal comment on custom of de-leavening
I agree the focus of ACOG was and perhaps is very legalistic and often ridiculous, but there was also some logic if a person quite trying to find a standard for righteousness that they could obey that God would accept.
The use of leaven as being symbolic of a human characteristic that is recognized as sin is plausible and putting sin out of our life is not an undesirable objective. For many years I personally have thought of the ingesting of unleavened bread as symbolic of putting in righteous. The idea is that the only way to put out sin is to replace it with righteousness.
I will admit that I was not as diligent in the physical putting out the physical leaven as some of those exposed here, but at least my efforts had purpose and meaning in my effort to improve my social and spiritual behavior.
Anonymous said...
The ironic thing is, you can clearly tell most of these comments are written by former WCGer's because they are every bit as accusatory in nature as current COGers themselves are when referring to others.
Says someone who turns around and does the same thing:
This angry, hostile, accusatory, self-righteous attitude is probably the most salient characteristic of these people, whether past members or present members. A tree really is known by it's fruits, I dare say.
Kinda "ironic", isn't it, hypocrite!
Anon 11:58 appears to be one of those COG folks living that conflicted life of being drawn to this blog, yet once here trying to catch other readers in some type of error or hypocrisy so as to justify the COG mindset.
Flail away, Anon, we're over that. We really are.
"Flail away, Anon, we're over that. We really are."
The harsh responses to my post at 11:58 really wouldn't indicate that your all "over it" one bit. For you to imply that I'm "conflicted" truly seems a rather extreme version of the kettle calling the pot black! I wasn't trying to justify the COG mindset at all - just pointing out that the folks angrily posting here still seem just as hostile and conflicted (to use your word) as they probably were during their time with the old WCG, which was based on non-stop finger-pointing and the resulting split-ups.
And Corky kind of "popped his cork" with his jugular-bulging verbal blast of "Kinda "ironic", isn't it, hypocrite!"
Now that's one furious, simplistic, either/or kind of guy. No sense of nuance with him at all. Is he a regular here, or did he just show up from the Internet's crazy fringe recently? He illustrates the case I made in my first post better than I ever could have. One can just feel the high blood pressures and churning stomachs overly filled with acid here.
"Yeast used for baking loaves of bread is what it's about"
Correct, and that's what they always told us. ("It isn't the Feast of Unleavened BEER!" etc.) although in the mid-80s, they started adding stuff, like no baking powder, no baking soda, no cornstarch.
Brewers Yeast was always OK, however, as is anything labeled "yeast extract" or "torula yeast" at least, that's what I heard growing up.
I never understood the cornstarch, and I didn't throw that out this year...after all, you can't raise bread with it, and I'm certainly not about to start.
Using myself as an example, I didn't throw out much, honestly; because like a sensible person, I ate down what I had, beginning about March. If I was living on my own, it would be much easier, as I don't tend to over-buy, just because something's on sale. Circumstances dictate otherwise at the moment, however.
Last year I went through every piece of clothes I had, shook it out, and swept up the crumbs. Not this year. Either I'm getting lax (or that other L word, hah) or I don't know.
To be fair, I didn't do the whole house last year, but this year I did, which was why my clothes got a pass, likely. (I did vacuum the drawers out, but I have been having critter problems, so I had to do that anyway.)
Everything was going swimmingly, until I lifted the lid on the cooktop yesterday...and realized that part of the stove had not been cleaned since it was purchased brand new. It was apocalyptic, man! Point being, it needed to be cleaned anyway, and if I hadn't been going over the house carefully in the first place, it never would have been cleaned at all. Which could have resulted in fire, or some other nastiness. (I'm telling you guys, it was really, really, really bad.)
Gary's rather sarcastic post does not quite accurately reflect the process...if one goes through it mindfully, it quite hammers home the point that there is always a bit of sin in our lives, that we can never abolish completely (thus my contention that, if you don't find something you missed during DUB, you're honestly not doing it right), and that's where the New Covenant / Jesus comes in.
Just my thoughts.
"Looking ahead, it is most curious that this year the Fall Feast of Tabernacles begins in the Summer."
What calendar are you using, Douglas? The Feast this year will be Sept. 17 - 26 (including LGD). I would hardly call that "the summer" -- in 2011, the Feast was at the end of September, and the first leg of my flight hit a fairly bad storm going out.
September ain't summer, north of the 49th parallel!
"why we needed to symbolically put all the sin out if 1) it was impossible for humans to live a sinless life"
That is the point, IMO; it is always impossible to get everything...like I said above, if you don't find at least one thing, then you're not doing it right. I mean, you may be doing it technically "right" but you're missing the lesson, which is only God can remove sin from our lives, we can't entirely remove sin from our lives, without God's help.
"The ironic thing is, you can clearly tell most of these comments are written by former WCGer's because they are every bit as accusatory in nature as current COGers themselves are when referring to others. It seems once folks have been infected by this I'm-right-everyone-else-is-wrong mindset, the habit very plainly continues on long after they leave the groups that infected them with it in the first place."
I have to agree with this; the extremely bitter Anonymous comments, especially. It's not supposed to be a burden, it is supposed to be your choice! (Yes, I fully realize there was not a whole lot of room given for free will choice in the Church. And there definitely isn't, in the splinter groups.) If it's that much of a burden to you, then don't do it!
Oh, wait, you don't do it, anyway. Why are you complaining again? If the ministers going over members' houses with white gloves is what you are complaining about, then yes, that is justified. But the crux of your post, Gary, is mocking what some people choose to do. (And some of it is not correct to what was done.) Especially now when, at least out of the splinter groups, we don't have the ministry hanging over us, telling us what to do.
Not in the Church, anyway. The splinter groups are a different ballgame entirely.
"And having PERFECTLY cleaned their property from top to bottom, the average COGer becomes more puffed up and self-righteous then they were before"
I'm not denying there were people like this (most, if not all, of the lay-ministry in the Victoria congregation, springs immediately and vividly to mind), but I still contend that, anyone who DOES do this, is missing the point entirely. Completely and wholly and fully missing the point. In my opinion.
"when it was still forbidden to wear clothing made from mixed materials"
I don't ever remember it being forbidden; quite the opposite, in fact (page 20 in that PDF. All of what is written in that file, is consistent with what I heard, growing up.
"This legalism is fine and good if it's in someone's conscience that they should do it to please God, but it is not an essential ingredient to a spiritual experience, initiating a personal relationship with God that will last for eternity."
So! Tell us, Bob! What should one do, to initiate a personal relationship with God? Also, if you could include scriptural support for your answers, please, and thank you.
Never mind, Deacon, I see your point now,
But what's wrong with trolling on here and pointing out hypocrisy? I'm good at it, and the people here are obviously all losers with nothing better to do than cut down Mr. Armstrong and God's Church.
I blame Paul and the rest of the Jewish leaders. Christianity was a trick. Then it was crammed down our throats at the point of a sword to make us more docile and subservient. Thankfully, enough people had enough paganism and survival instinct still in them that they resisted it, did not lie on their backs before the enemy, and the West was saved for 2000 years. Then massive immigration began, and the "Christian" thing to do is to love the invaders. Our time is now almost up as our low birth rate compared to the tidal was of invaders dooms us to the historical dustbin.
*tidal wave, that is
"the people here are obviously _all_ losers"
That would include you then, smart ass.
"...losers with nothing better to do than cut down Mr. Armstrong and God's Church..."
Because we have noble hearts and don't want others to suffer what we did in those cults. What better _is_ there to do than help others? In the meantime, the Armstrongists will be cleaning their pant cuffs.
In 2013, the Feast of Tabernacles begins Thursday, September 19th and Fall begins Sunday, September 22nd -- not quite half way through the Feast.
You know, this is the problem with discussing facts and science with Armstrongists: They just don't get it -- it's like trying to explain rainbows to earthworms.
Perhaps we should just not bother and leave them in their weird dysfunctional alternative Universe.
Velvet,
Asked and answered. Jeff Miller already did a really good job of this at Shadows where you and I last met. How would it help you in your spiritual quest if I took time away from work and doing my taxes to repeat the same things?
I've got a gut feeling that you'd dismiss it once again, even though it was coming from me instead of Jeff. And, it might even set you back.
BB
"Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste--so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt."
-Deuteronomy 16:3
Yeast doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with sin. Not eating it had to do with them leaving Egypt in a hurry! "because you left Egypt in haste"
Armstrong just made this shit up. To the Anon poster, these postings of yours make you look stupid, and why is that? It is because you think you get a wink or something from God? Or are you running up some brownie points with your fictional sky god?
You look stupid because those here realize you still belong to a cult that is milking you free from your money for the benefit of a few. And one of the "few" ain't you!
What others write here you ignore. You live in your own little bubble, protected by fables told from the pulpit. Well here is a fable you can actually learn from.
The Fox and the Grapes.
“The fox who longed for grapes, beholds with pain
The tempting clusters were too high to gain;
Grieved in his heart he forced a careless smile,
And cried, “They’re sharp and hardly worth my while.”
—Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE)
This fable is about people who attempt to hold antagonistic ideas while attempting to maintain their belief system simultaneously. As the prophecies that enticed us into Herbert Armstrong’s family business continue to fail, we all have asked ourselves “What makes it worth their while to stay?”
"Painful Truth." Your name pretty much says it all. My point is made.
Now Anon, there is no point you made. Your a armstrong follower which qualifies you as a barely functional moron. Want to press for the crowning glory?
Anonymous 5:25 is really a mindless ninny. "Mr. Armstrong"... liked fucking his little girl Dorothy, he was a fat little pig who conned dumb asses like you Anon. It is because stupid people like you have a right to exist that guys like your Mr. Armstrong get (got) away with his deception. Now he is a dead, rotting in a box, slime and bones corpes. He is history, and dumb asses like you keep his memory alive, what a stupid fuck you are! :)
"....hammers home the point that there is always a bit of sin in our lives, that we can never abolish completely (thus my contention that, if you don't find something you missed during DUB, you're honestly not doing it right), and that's where the New Covenant / Jesus comes in."
Ha! That is a perfect example of the role of Christ in Armstrongism: to sweep up that last "bit" of sin that you can't abolish completely through keeping the law. Jesus's death allows you to "keep" the law without actually keeping it- that is, your yardstick of righteousness is still the law, but now you don't have to die when you fail to keep it perfectly.
And as to why are people here "complaining" about an adult who is meticulously cleaning his house of yeast products because some guy told him that an invisible super-being commands him to do so, well....well, I think I just inadvertently answered the question.
It's nice to read your rationalization, though. Brings back memories.
Paul Ray
It's all about thinking that they're putting new wine in their old wine bottles in the Olde Testament Christianity, but it's clear that what's fermenting in that old wine bottle is not fruit juice.
Next: Onward to the explanation of the asteroid belt!
Anonymous said...
And Corky kind of "popped his cork" with his jugular-bulging verbal blast of "Kinda "ironic", isn't it, hypocrite!"
Now that's one furious, simplistic, either/or kind of guy. No sense of nuance with him at all. Is he a regular here, or did he just show up from the Internet's crazy fringe recently? He illustrates the case I made in my first post better than I ever could have. One can just feel the high blood pressures and churning stomachs overly filled with acid here.
You wish...but the truth is that I sit at home all day in front of a computer and draw disability - so keep working so I can pay the bills around here, will ya?
I've been around here for years but didn't post much because I know it's useless to explain anything to burned out toaster ovens. So, I make my little sarcastic remarks and then trip on over to Facebook and make fun of idiots like you over there too.
I did have a blog but kinda got tired of it after so many years and discovered that YouTube was a lot more fun than hanging around with brain dead people like you - oh hell, I almost had my third heart attack just saying that...But, that was from laughing at you. If you are going to ruffle the feathers on this ol man, you're going to have to do a lot better than that.
Besides that, I have meds that make me not give a shit...I mean good stuff too. Of course, that may be why I'm still up after 1:00 AM but, hey, there are drawbacks to everything.
"But what's wrong with trolling on here and pointing out hypocrisy? I'm good at it, and the people here are obviously all losers with nothing better to do than cut down Mr. Armstrong and God's Church."
Meh. 2/10, Anon. We were a bit more on the satirical side, when the group of us trolled Ambassador Watch. (Not that we planned it out, or it was any great conspiracy, or anything, it would just be like, "Oh, yeah, that was me, by the way." If one of us had happened to catch one of the others off-guard.)
For instance, I never took potshots like you did above ("obviously all losers"), rather tended to present the bull-headed mindset model (Sending up the attitude, not criticizing those criticizing the attitude--wait, did that make sense?). Fine line to walk, IMO. There's nothing "wrong" with such trolling, per se. In fact, it was hilarious to me, whenever I would do it -- I can't speak for anyone else.
However. If you are serious about the "pointing out hypocrisy" bit, that's actually not what I used to troll for...more of exorcising some of the bad attitudes I saw, from a small minority, in the congregations I attended when I was growing up.
Happy Passover!
"In 2013, the Feast of Tabernacles begins Thursday, September 19th"
The old calculating program (available here), as well as the current calendar published by a member in the UK, have Opening Night services on the 17th, and the first holy day on the 18th (and this is the schedule the Feast site in the UK I attend still follows)...if you don't consider those to be part of the Feast, then, yes the Feast "begins" on the 19th. But you're rather splitting hairs here, Douglas.
"Fall begins Sunday, September 22nd -- not quite half way through the Feast."
That's still hardly classifiable as "the middle of summer" though. And in Canada, the "seasons change" (by the calendar, anyway, on the 21st, not the 22nd.
"Asked and answered. Jeff Miller already did a really good job of this...."
So, Bob, if Jeff "did a really good job of this" how come he deleted whatever his current blog was, EVERY TIME that he COULD NOT answer the objections (both Biblical and common sense) that were raised to his nonsense "arguments"? Arguments which entailed NOT initiating, nor even making the attempt, to develop a personal relationship with God at all! And mocking those who made the attempt....
In fact, as I recall, the crux of Jeff's argument was "Look, everyone! Jesus saved me! You don't need to do anything else because I'M SAVED! Isn't that so wonderful for me? Aren't you so happy for me?" And all of his Baptist minions on the board, fell similarly in line with that same toxic, SELF-centred (as opposed to Jesus-centred) attitude problem. Talk about THE WAY OF GET; those Baptists were steeped up to the eyeballs in it. (And, I should also add, they all lied by omission, and did not tell anyone they were specifically pushing the Baptist denomination.)
Additionally, whenever someone poked enough holes in Jeff Miller's SELF-congratulatory and thoroughly un-Biblical assertions, Jeff simply deleted the works of it all, rather than admit that he had NO basis for his vain idol-worship.
I am sure Questeruk can verify that, despite repeated attempts, neither Jeff nor Bill H. provided ANY solid scriptural support for their toxic beliefs, on the second-to-last blog Jeff had, which (yet again) he deleted, only AFTER he determined that he and Bill H. were not going to "convert" Questeruk to their poisonous professing Christianity (falsely-so-called).
If, however, you are following Jeff Miller, Bob, I would only point out to you the dangers that surely we are all, by this point aware of, in following men.
So, tell me, where is YOUR scriptural support, for how to initiate a personal relationship with God? What do YOU say? What do YOU believe? Don't just parrot what someone else said, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away! (Anyone who steps up to the plate and accuses me of doing just that, has clearly not been paying attention.)
And, no, the question has not been "asked and answered" -- because I asked YOU, Bob. Not Jeff Miller, nor whatever version of Jeff Miller that lives inside your head and tells you what to do. (Instead of, oh say, the actual Head of the Church, Jesus.)
So answer the question, Bob. How do YOU believe that one initiates a personal relationship with God? And what is the scriptural support for YOUR beliefs?
I said: "In 2013, the Feast of Tabernacles begins Thursday, September 19th and Fall begins Sunday, September 22nd -- not quite half way through the Feast."
I did not say that the Feast begins in the middle of summer. I said the fall begins near the middle of the Feast.
It's no wonder Armstrongists believe the things they do.
If you want to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread absolutely right, go read Scripture: You're supposed to keep the first two Days as holydays. (But also the last one as well.)
The Lord's Supper is different from the Passover as well and is kept on a different day. The Passover begins the Days of Unleavened Bread.
If you want to keep it, keep it right.
I thought we were making such good progress. A female version of Robert Thiel?
I would not want such careless folks to change the oil in my hybrid, take care of my cat, work in a nuclear plant or be air traffic controllers.
Herbert Armstrong played fast and loose and so do his followers.
Hey, everybody, in the United States, Winter begins right after the Thanksgiving Day Weekend.
And maybe in Canada too, although it's much earlier for their Thanksgiving there.
(People in Australia and New Zealand: You're still going to have to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread at the beginning of Fall. It's too bad we couldn't synch it up with Anzac Day.)
Wow!
Entering "The Season of No Doughnuts" apparently gets some people quite riled up.
Maybe they have an inner Homer Simpson, or an inner HWA.
-Norm, off to check my pant-cuffs for sin...
Yep. It being spring in one part of the world while it is fall in another part of the world illustrates why the 'holy days' can only be "kept" in the Levant.
And the Sabbath? Well, today here is already tomorrow in Australia.
That's because the God who created the world didn't know about the equator or the western hemisphere or even that the world was spherical at all. From Ethiopia to Syria and from Persia to the Mediterranean sea was the whole world to Yahweh.
Watching these people blog with each other is like watching a unbridled food fight in a middle school cafeteria - everyone against everybody else, and to no constructive purpose!
And such relevant topics:
Arguments about when FOT/summer begins or doesn't begin.
Arguments over how to keep passover.
Arguments over past arguments about previous arguments.
And then there's Crazy Corky - accusing others of being brain dead when his rambling posts make about as much sense as a drunken sailor! You might want to diminish the dosage of those meds a bit, Bro, because your posts are completely baffling.
Like I mentioned in my first post, Armstrongites can't seem to do much other than to engage in squabbling with each other over who's right - and the funniest thing of all is that even irate ex-Armstrongites can't shake the habit of bickering over such minor and completely irrelevant issues.
The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?
A simple reminder, please do not feed the trolls. It's just a game and you don't have to play it.
Truth hurts, doesn't it, Anonymous? And it isn't a game. Whether you like it or not, all are forced to participate in it one way or another. You can run away like a scared rabbit from open and honest talk, or you can just cowardly chalk it up to "trolls." It's your choice, but I hardly see how not playing gets you anywhere.
Velvet,
Any Christian mentoring that I do will be devoted to struggling people probably in my own community, one on one.
I don't consider conversing with those entrenched in cultic beliefs to be beneficial in any way. It becomes a never ending argument, kind of blog theater put on for a captive audience. It goes nowhere.
At least, if I can assist someone local struggling with alcohol, abusive relationships, or substance abuse, or aid a person who is temporarily down and out, I know that it's going somewhere. Sorry, cause I know you find debate stimulating, but I've fallen into the trap of arguing with Jehovah's Witnesses, Armstrongites, Scientologists, and others one too many times. It's a waste of precious mentoring time.
So, worship as you will for as long as you feel it works for you.
As for the Millers, as I've told you before, I only knew them from their blogs. Since they shut those down, I have no clue where they might be, or what they might be up to. I have only heard your side of the story on all of that.
BB
Velvet, your 5:15 AM post to me is just completely off the wall, and over the top. Irrational, and not making any sense or connection with reality at all. Are you sure you are OK?
BB
"I did not say that the Feast begins in the middle of summer. I said the fall begins near the middle of the Feast."
So you did. My mistake. Though the fact that you assign an honest mistake as an automatic indictment of others (not of me, I trust), is a bit much, Douglas.
"A female version of Robert Thiel?"
So your outlandish accusations are somehow completely beyond reproach, just because I made an honest mistake over one thing you said, a mistake that I admitted to making?
I don't think I'm the one digging any holes here, Douglas. But you go right ahead, keep it up. Have you reached China yet?
Bob,
My 5:15 post that was "completely off the wall" to you was, I admit, over-long. Let me distill it for you.
I asked you a direct question, to prove your statement (initiating a relationship with God); a question, I note, you STILL have not answered.
You replied that "Jeff Miller did a really good job of answering this." I provided evidence that, in my opinion, he did NOT do "a really good job" at all, in fact he tended to cut and run, whenever he couldn't do that "really good job" you said he did.
And you still didn't answer my question.
Finally, you ended your way too condescending post with an insinuation as to my mental health, which, I assure you, is perfectly fine (although you're probably just dogpiling along with Douglas, because I mistook one thing he said (a mistake I admit to making, by the way), that's fine, if that entertains you, go right ahead).
As for the rest of what the Baptists on Shadows of WCG did to me, you're just dismissing the REALLY painful truth about what they did, and trying to discredit my experiences there, and to discredit ME by questioning my mental health.
I'm sorry, what were you saying about THE CHURCH being cult-like?
One nugget, the beginning one, would be Rev. 3:20.
BB
OK, thank you for answering my question. But since this was a verse often used by the Church, what's your point? Some are called in this age, and those who choose (note I said choose) to live godly lives, are inviting God into our lives. (i.e., "He will come in and dine with you")
And yet another argument over what scripture actually means about to take place between two called and chosen of God's beloved. The spirit of peace and unity is obvious at work once again!
There is not going to be any argument. I don't debate with Armstrongites any more than I would with Jehovah Witnesses, Scientologists, or the people who go around chanting Gnengamarachamarumbabeepuss.
I happened to have been on a forum that Velvet was on several years ago. She feels as if the webmasters there victimized her. I had never met them, never exchanged personal email with them, and have no idea what happened to them. However, I seem to have the misfortune of being the only one around besides Velvet who posted on that blog, and it appears that she somehow holds me responsible for whatever she feels happened to her there.
Just thought I'd clear the air, so everyone would know what is going on.
BB
"There is not going to be any argument."
Ironically enough, Anon @ 10:07, I agree with Bob!
"it appears that she somehow holds me responsible for whatever she feels happened to her there."
I'm sorry if I said anything to make you think that I hold you responsible, Bob; rest assured,I DO NOT hold you responsible for what happened to me on the forum, and Jeff's various blogs.
I don't even hold Jeff responsible, anymore; he most assuredly has Another to Whom he will have to answer...but then again, so will we all.
I certainly don't hold you responsible for anything that happened on Shadows of WCG, Bob, and I'm sorry if I have said anything to you that indicated I did, as that is NOT the case at all.
I hope that clarifies.
It does, and thanks. Actually when you guys' friendships broke apart, I was concerned for all of you, because it had appeared that the three of you had at one time functioned as a kind of mutual support group. I can see where there would be a feeling of betrayal, and that's one of the unkindest things that can happen to any of us in the course of life.
I got involved because someone had posted at WCG Alumni Forum that a new forum had started. So, I visited Shadows, or whatever it was called at first, and found that there was a completely different group of people than were on my regular haunts, such as Alumni, PT, or AW. It was fun for a while. I learned about some new things there, one noteworthy nugget being panentheism.
BB
"It does, and thanks. Actually when you guys' friendships broke apart, I was concerned for all of you, because it had appeared that the three of you had at one time functioned as a kind of mutual support group."
I wouldn't say we were a mutual support group at all, personally; it seems to me, looking back on that whole crazy period of time, we all brought out the worst in each other, not the best.
"I can see where there would be a feeling of betrayal, and that's one of the unkindest things that can happen to any of us in the course of life."
Eh. All things work to the glory of God.
"I got involved because someone had posted at WCG Alumni Forum that a new forum had started."
Oh, right, I had almost forgotten that existed. Weren't you getting a lot of grief from one or two regulars over there at the time?
"So, I visited Shadows, or whatever it was called at first, and found that there was a completely different group of people than were on my regular haunts, such as Alumni, PT, or AW."
I think it was the first, and quite possibly the last, ex-WCG website where those of us who grew up in the '70s and '80s in the Church congregated. Now, they're probably all on Facebook or something, I don't know.
Shadows of WCG had the potential to be something good, and to truly be a force for change in the Church, if really HAD been "open to people from all perspectives and all ways of life" as it claimed to be; said claim which became a blatant falsehood to anyone who wasn't either a Baptist or a professing Christian, who tried to participate. With endless, unceasing proselytizing towards same.
The betrayal part came later, when I was led (by God, I believe), to discover that Jeff had blocked my IP address from his current blog (which he has since deleted, as he did the forum, and all his other blogs, in an attempt to deny responsibility for his actions), specifically so a group of them could badmouth me behind my back without being caught. All things hidden will come to light, etc.
It's typical of professing Christianity to engage in that kind of duplicitous behaviour, of course, but there were a few people involved that kind of stung to see their usernames, I'll be honest.
But, eh, it precipitated every event that followed, which led me back to the truth, and eventually back to the Church, where I discovered the prophecy of the 7,000 remnant might actually hold water. (Or it might not.) Which never would have happened, if everything that occurred had not taken place in exactly the way that it did. Like I say, all things work to the glory of God.
"It was fun for a while. I learned about some new things there, one noteworthy nugget being panentheism."
Ugh. I can't believe I pushed that as heavily as I did. Needless to say, I have fully repented since!
I was still pretty heavily involved with the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) mailing lists when all that went down; I do wonder though, if God hadn't used the events with the Miller brothers to turn me back to Him and His grace, if I would have continued down that road at all. I've certainly prayed about it since, but so far, the answer seems to be a pretty clear-cut "No." and I am to remain where I am, doing what I am doing.
Glad I could clarify, and I hope there are no hard feelings, Bob. I know it gets pretty tetchy around here at times, and I am not immune to that myself!
No hard feelings. It's all good!
BB
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