"You should not make that decision on
your own."
Gerald Flurry
Really?
"I have the authority to
tell you to do it... I have the moral and spiritual, and ecclesiastical
authority to tell you to do what I have also
done"
Be careful that you don't tell us how to spend your
assets... It belongs to God.. You don't tell God or His servants how to spend
it"
David Pack
Sometimes when being lead up the hill
you need to check your immediate surroundings.
you need to check your immediate surroundings.
And therein lies the
problem does it not? YOU should-should not, must-must not,
are-are not, will- will not, be-be not, go-go not, attend-attend not,
believe-believe not. I suppose we can appeal to "Rebellion is as the
sin of witchcraft," but I'm thinking that was written to consolidate
someone's power back in history and it was a threat to those who thought their
own thoughts. Since "you shall not permit a witch to live," was probably a
well known concept, it was simply a threat to the critical thinker that carried
the message of "or else."
Any time in religion and in particular
the one man show of religion we see in far too many COG congregations, splits,
schisms, splinters and slivers, the idea that you must and should tends to go
wildly out of control. It is all about control after all. If someone
has a differing opinion from the Church or the Pastor, it is an immediate run
back into the Old Testament stories of Moses vs the Children of Israel in the
wilderness. Moses always won. Ask Korah and the WHOLE family who
were finally told, "Well Korah...with ideas like that really big things
are opening up for YOU!" I think you get my drift.
I could never see how complaining about
no food or the same old food over and over ad nauseam was such a sin.
Being thirsty in the waste howling dessert seems to me to be a valid
concern. I have dug at archaeological sites in Israel and by noon of any
day, the day out digging is drawing to a close. There was always someone
assigned to be sure everyone was hydrated during the dig. Heat exhaustion
with its nausea, sweating and fatigue was waiting in the wings and heat stroke
with its no sweating and soaring body temp leading to death was stage
two. But in the Bible, these things were rebellion, bitching,
moaning and complaining. I never go that view. I suppose Moses had
all the water and variety of food he wanted. That's how it usually works
with the one man show vs the people. Telling others to give up their
resources or sell their homes and pull big triggers is easy when you are
building new homes, taking in the resources of others and are the one who
reaps what you shot.
The idea behind the above quotes is
obscene. Neither Gerald Flurry nor David Pack has the authority to
tell anyone anything. Please recall these men are self appointed. No
one calls or believes they are "that Prophet" or "Apostle David" outside of
themselves and an a very miniscule number of zealots and people who have
surrendered their souls and minds to them. Truly, brains are left at the
door for all who enter there. Our most recent comical and relatively
harmless example of this is the self appointment of Dr. Robert Thiel to the
office of prophet. Getting a double portion can also mean one gets twice
as much bullshit dumped on them as they intended but I spare you. No one
believes Dr. Thiel is really a prophet. He is a news reader, speculator
and Internet comber, but he is no prophet.
Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry, cut from
the same cloth on the other hand, are more dangerous to ones mental, emotional,
spiritual and even physical health. It takes a special kind of arrogance
to command people to do the insane, ill advised , illegal and immoral such as
these men do. Telling you who you can see and who you can't, who you can
talk to and who you can't, what you must give and from whom you can take it away
from is simply insane. Those who surrender their own critical thinking,
resources and minds to such spiritual BS probably deserve what they get but
perhaps simply pointing out the insanity of it all here will help someone
somewhere not make some of the biggest mistakes of their
lives.
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.
Christopher Hitchens
"Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hense grappling" with hard work.
Adrienne Rich
"There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.”
Bart D. Ehrmam
"...if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones."
Carl Sagan
I was told the wonderful story of the
good ol' country boy deacon in the WCG who after heard Joseph Tkach's classic
sermon on how WCG was going to change, when asked to lead the closing hymn,
stood up and said, "Now ain't that the biggest load of shit you ever
heard! Let's rise, take our hymn books and sing to the real
God!" I fell out! There was man not easily lead!
Nice job!!
In the COG's everyone knows the
rebellion stories in the OT and the consequences of such. They are marched
out when needed to control current thinking and usually to defend the views,
opinions, pronouncements, edicts and views of the Lone Ranger pastor.
Everyone else is just Tonto and that's being generous. In the New
Testament we have the implausible story of Apostle Peter , through the Holy
Spirit I suppose so he is not charged by the Romans with murder, striking down
Annanias and Sapphira for holding back on their pledge. I can imagine the
Apostle Joshua C. Pack has already pulled this one out on his derelict
pledgers. It was designed to instill "great fear on the church," I suppose
but it also , as I have said before, a slam and a joke on Peter by Luke and Paul
who hated him. Here we have the great Peter killing off two nice
folk who said they would do one thing, give all and did another, held
back. Of course Peter also did the same by saying one thing, "I will never
leave you Jesus," and did another, denied him. We lose the
intent in translation and not knowing the politics behind the ever competing and
rebellious Apostles of the day.
For those of you who visit this site
and who are involved in these or even lesser than these slivers of churches and
egos gone nuts I simply wish to remind you that you do not have to surrender
your mind, resources or common sense to anyone. We, as humans, are all
equal and all connected. We are all part of the one big benevolent thing
whatever you perceive that to be. The idea that one man or one church
tells you and I how it all is, is archaic and in the case of these men, a
dangerous road to go down. You may think you are safely following the
leader up the trail, but don't fail to look to the left or right into the bushes
for your own safety's sake. Looking too far ahead can deceive you into not
seeing what is actually about to happen to you.
"Common sense is not so common."
Voltaire
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha
Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.
George Seaton
Faith is what you cling to before you get the facts.
Dennis Diehl
Step outside the box of "the Bible
says" long enough to realize that it's ok for you to do so. In so many
cases, it does not actually matter what the Bible says which I know is almost
impossible for most Bible haunted Apostle and Prophet followers to
grasp. These men, pillars so called by themselves mostly should make no
difference to you at times in what they declare , demand or expect of you.
If the glorious and also self appointed
Apostle Paul can say of Peter, James and John who he called "reputed
pillars," can say...
"As for those who seemed to be important--whatever they were makes no difference to me: God does not judge by external appearance--those men added NOTHING to my message."
Galatians 2:6
...I would think you can lighten up a
bit on yielding to the kind of men who would say such nonesense as quoted at
the start of this short article. Would it not be awesome if the day could
come when these men and men like them utter profound stupid from their pulpits
and people stood up right there and then and simply said...
"Well ain't that the biggest load of shit you ever ever heard. Let's rise, take up our hymnals and sing to the real God."
I love that guy!
Problem is, the "Holy Spirit" is all over the map when it comes to helping make decisions.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious that it comes down to that some people WANT to believe the Holy Spirit is guiding them a certain way.
In my view, saying that the Holy Spirit leads is the same as saying, "I don't think for myself and I have no ability to think critically about the things thrown at me."
ReplyDeleteThe guidance of the Holy Spirit often means, "this is what I think" or "this is what I want and intend to do." People fall for it in the context of church and the minister who is supposed to be special, which he is not.
ReplyDeleteM.T. Cranium
What's interesting to contemplate, and instructive to remember, is that during the era when his idol HWA was alive, Gerald Flurry was a run of the mill local pastor wannabe. I'd be amazed if HWA even knew who the guy was. There was certainly no mantle passed on, as if it could have been.
ReplyDeleteSame with Pack. Power-hungry. Arrogant. Visions of grandeur. Certainly not personally trained by HWA, as he likes to claim. No doubt he tattled on people whenever he could, but other than that, it's doubtful HWA cared for him or about him.
But both are opportunists, as is Thiel. Anybody with a brain could predict that what Thiel did was coming. And so it goes.
All these self-appointed leaders are exactly that, and about that -- self. And that's it. The rest is all smoke and mirrors. Pity the people who get sucked in.
Assistant Deacon points out that HWA wouldn't have known Flurry or Pack well enough to pass on his mantle to them.
ReplyDeleteWell, HWA knew Meredith well, and specifically rejected the idea that Meredith might hold the mantle, no matter how much he coveted it.
HWA 1980 Letter to Meredith
In that letter, HWA told Meredith:
In brutal frankness, you lack the charisma to lead God's work You do not attract--as I said before, you REPEL people. You are a harsh taskmaster over those under you. THAT IS YOUR RECORD!
Other than GTA, there is nobody HWA specifically disqualified from the mantle as thoroughly as Meredith.
If either HWA or any of the rest of these people actually had the witness of God supporting them, there really wouldn't be a heck of a lot of discussion. Actually, this would also be true if their very public personalities, their lifestyles and lives exemplified what are enumerated as being the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament of the Bible. The sad truth is that their authoritarianism is something which they end up using to compensate for their spiritual inadequacies. They do not trust a God who knows our needs without our asking to put it into people's hearts to financially support Him. Browbeating members, shaming them, and attempting to impress on them that you are the gatekeeper of their salvation rather than a sort of servant/guide is tantamount to admitting that it is your own work that you want them to support, not, God's. Makes a very eloquent statement indeed.
ReplyDeleteAnd, guess what? Giving because you have created duress is of no spiritual value to the giver whatsoever.
It only has value if it comes from a transformed heart.
BB
It's perfectly OK for someone else to make all the decisions for someone else as long as they take absolutely full responsibility for the consequences, no matter what happens and if they gave the wrong directions, be willing to pay fully for fixing the problems and add 20% to it.
ReplyDeleteIf death is the result, the person making all the decisions should be put to death.
Yeah, the basic problem is that this is not Christianity, it is not religion, and with all of the emphasis on the physical, it most certainly is not a spiritual experience. It is mind control, it is exploitation, and domination presented as and marketed as those three things. Totally bogus, but you can't call it a placebo, because placebos are basically harmless things that don't work. This not only doesn't work, it is deceptively toxic. And, there is the rub.
ReplyDeleteBB
Hey stop quoting fake budda sayings...http://www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/believe-nothing-no-matter-where-you-read-it/ you are going to lose credibility on the things you write.
ReplyDelete"I could never see how complaining about no food or the same old food over and over ad nauseam was such a sin"
ReplyDeleteI remember being at a UCG feast where there was only one exit from the place where services were held. The town had a large event going on that had the streets just completely filled up. No one was able to get out of the lot, maybe one or two at a time. By the third day the pastards in charge of the location got up and complained about the complainers. Instead of finding out what the prob was and coming up with a solution, they just did not want to hear the probs. They stayed in the hotel where the event was held, so no big deal for them. All that needed to be done was to ask for local police assist to help people get out when things got too backed up. The problem was never solved and the children complained to no avail. Thankfully these guys were not able to call fire or whatever down to put those in their place who had a ligit complaint. This was a huge waste of peoples time as always and the feast was another lackluster activity for most who were impacted by the lack of concern.