The non-ordained self-appointed false prophet of the Continuing (sic) Church of God has posted today about the tornado outbreak predicted for today in the Midwest. He quotes a news article and then says this:
My prayers go out to those affected.
Tornadoes can be very destructive.
While humans often seem to think otherwise, God is in charge and controls the weather. Notice the following:
Of course all of these 60,000,000 Americans are filthy, disgusting, sinners, and worthless worms in his god's sight. Because they are such grievous sinners his god is justified in allowing storms to destroy, kill and maim.26 “Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; Nor can the number of His years be discovered. 27 For He draws up drops of water, Which distill as rain from the mist, 28 Which the clouds drop down And pour abundantly on man. 29 Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds, The thunder from His canopy? 30 Look, He scatters His light upon it, And covers the depths of the sea. 31 For by these He judges the peoples; He gives food in abundance. 32 He covers His hands with lightning, And commands it to strike. 33 His thunder declares it, The cattle also, concerning the rising storm. (Job 36:26-33)
17 He casts out His hail like morsels;
Who can stand before His cold?
18 He sends out His word and melts them;
He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow. (Psalms 147:17-18)
Fire and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word” (Psalm 148:8 , RAV).
17 I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not turn to Me,’ says the Lord. (Haggai 2:17)
3 He sends it forth under the whole heaven, His lightning to the ends of the earth. 4 After it a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice, And He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. 5 God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend. 6 For He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’; Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength. 7 He seals the hand of every man, That all men may know His work. 8 The beasts go into dens, And remain in their lairs. 9 From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, And cold from the scattering winds of the north. 10 By the breath of God ice is given, And the broad waters are frozen. 11 Also with moisture He saturates the thick clouds; He scatters His bright clouds. 12 And they swirl about, being turned by His guidance, That they may do whatever He commands them On the face of the whole earth. 13 He causes it to come, Whether for correction, Or for His land, Or for mercy. (Job 37:3-13)
Woo Hoo! Another SURE sign of the end times!!30 God…commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30)And while tornadoes are common in the US Mid-West this time of year, weather-problems are one way that God uses to try to get peoples’ attention to repent (cf. Haggai 2:17).
I don't want Bob Thiel praying for me! His prayers are meaningless and patronizing.
ReplyDelete"...weather-problems (sic) are one way that God uses to try to get peoples’ attention to repent."
ReplyDeleteHow about, you know, effective preachers and teachers?
Instead, we get a zillion theories and interpretations, leading to mass confusion, bickering and even wars.
The historic impact of religion, including the COG movement, is akin to a first grade teacher saying "1 + 1 = 3" and then advocating punishment for the students because they keep getting the answer wrong.
I wrote Dr. Thiel and said:
ReplyDelete"Bob, I am just curious. Do you really not understand that tornadoes in Spring are normal as are blizzards in winter? As an educated man, do you really think God uses weather to make some kind of point that is lost on modern humans because we understand weather? It's a sincere question. I know as do you what the Bible says, but do you really believe Bronze Age fears and inexplicable events such as violent weather are really God events and tools of teaching? If anything, all the "I will protect you" scriptures get falsified in such events as I am sure many victims of such things can attest to. Isn't it time to give up motivating folk with such ancient ignorance?
Dennis"
Dr Thiel wrote Dennis:
Dear Dennis:
Did you read the entire article?
Notice, please the last line:
And while tornadoes are common in the US Mid-West this time of year, weather-problems are one way that God uses to try to get peoples’ attention to repent (cf. Haggai 2:17).
People are interested in weather and I attempted to provide scriptures related to that. I did not say that the current storms were necessarily unusual as you seem to be implying.
Bob Thiel"
I wrote back:
Yes I did. In what way then does weather make people turn to God? Do people actually do this in this age where weather is just weather? With all the other scriptures you are implying God has his hand in this and weather is a tool used to get to humans. Many if not most of the "Do you know how...?" questions God asks Job in the story can easily be answered "yes I do know" in our times today.. In my view there is zero connection between weather and Deity. That is ancient ignorance and fear promoted as fact.
Just asking since it is a common way many fundamentalists find to motivate and I have never seen that kind of ignorance motivate anyone to any genuine newer and higher ground of being. I've buried COG children caught in such events and it certainly did not help the parents in their faith with many of the other "their angels do watch over them," implications of scripture. It rains on the just and unjust and all that....
At any rate, " And while tornadoes are common in the US Mid-West this time of year, weather-problems are one way that God uses to try to get peoples’ attention to repent (cf. Haggai 2:17)." would leave me asking why does God have to have "ways" to "try" to get my attention. Does Deity have to "try". I grew up with this thinking in WCG of course and saw natural weather events erode more faith than build it with sincere folk. I never met anyone who lost everything to weather and decided to go back to church. I have met many who never went back because they weren't protected as promised. Perhaps one of the ways Deity could work as well would to actually protect when natural events happen. LCG was always very sure and rabid about the real source of earthquakes and weather and why but it's just not true and makes more people think a church is way out of touch or out to get something from them by promoting fear and bad theology.
Anyway Thanks!"
And that's where it stands....
Thiel has his gods mixed up...Ba'al was the storm god. Yhvh was the god of the mountains (volcano god? - Mt. Ararat?). Is the mountain god greater than the storm god? Who knows... Ahura-Mazda, now there's a nicer god, right there.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Corky, YHVH absorbed Baal in the OT. The original EL was cannanite but got Hebrew adoption papers and became El of Genesis with the Elohim, or the council of the gods to serve him, which eventually got written out of the text. dd
ReplyDeleteThe scary thing about this literalist theology is that it can encourage people to skip insurance of all kinds, because they think that they already have full coverage, because one thing they imagine their tithe money is, is a supernatural insurance premium. Of course, the reality is, they're totally uninsured, and when time and chance comes knocking on (or down) their door, they're going to wonder what they did wrong. Of course, what they did wrong was allowing themselves to get suckered into a fundamentalist cult which convinced them they didn't need to be insured.
ReplyDeleteWe can all hope that such events WOULD ERODE such misplaced "faith" in bronze age deities, because that means they're starting to understand what they really did that was wrong.
I noticed that Oklahoma was prominently mentioned in the MSN reports on the tornadoes.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the significance of that might be? Every time a disaster happens anywhere within California borders, Heraldo Flurry states that God is punishing California because it persecuted HWA with receivership.
Just what could be taking place in Oklahoma that so displeases God?
BB
Oklahoma would be wise to expel the Flurry cult from its compound. Ever since he moved his cult to the state it has been devastated by one tornado after another. This one came close to Edmond. It's too bad it did not wipe out the Flurry cult compound.
ReplyDelete..and if it had, one can only imagine the gloating from the Packmeister..
ReplyDelete