Why is it that so many leaders in Armstrongism say the stupidest things about subjects they know nothing about?
Do you know why atheists exist? A certain COG leader has the answer and like any good Church of God leader it involves sex:
Did all the fornicating Church of God members cause thousands of atheists to be formed? Did GTA's fornication and adultery cause more atheists? Did the sexual escapades of various evangelists lead to more atheists?Now, actually one of the reasons that there are evolutionary atheists is, believe it or not, in the 19th century various male “intellectual” were looking for excuses to not have to abide by biblical standards of sexual morality. And back then, some of them even admitted that is why they embraced the concept that life randomly evolved without a creator God.
I would also add hypocrisy to the list. The fact that evangelicals, for one example, are more likely to be involved with fornication than the general public, despite biblical admonitions against it, turns people off.
This highly "enlightened" leader also blames war:
Did the fact that the Church of God not represent the God they claimed to follow lead to the formation of more atheists?War is another factor. Many non-believers point to religions such as Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism as major causes of war, which turns many people off to the idea that there is a truly loving God. But of course, all scholars realize that early Christians would not participate in carnal warfare. And in my opinion, this is still true of faithful Christians today.
There are also scholars, for example, like Bart Ehrman, who started out as Protestant but when they learned more about church history, realized that Protestantism simply did not fit with much of the Bible nor church history. And while he may be more of an agnostic than an atheist, the fact that most of what is considered by the world to be Christianity, is not Christianity, and this turns many off of religion (though it does not necessarily make them atheists).
Did the hundreds and hundreds of schisms in the Church of God cause more atheists? Did the lies of Dave Pack, Rod Meredith, Gerald Flurry, and Vic Kubik cause more atheists?
All of this amazing information comes from our very own "doubly blessed" apostle and prophet Bob Thiel. Long may he reign!
13 comments:
How embarrassing it must truly be to be a Church of God member these days. With all these idiots running loose it has to be really humiliating.
A gross oversimplification of history......typical of COG groups.
I was highly amused that Thiel used an excerpt from a CT article to support his position... but left out the entire second half, which talks about a concept Bitter Bob can't bear hearing: humility.
Facepalm-worthy.
These are tropes. Invented ideas that were never true to begin with, but serve as easy formulas to be trotted out any time you need to inject a little extra "certainty" when you're feeling unstable. They're dogma to Armstrongist leaders, every bit as much as the bible verses they summon to do their bidding before pursuing their own extra-theological agendas.
The most false and the most overused is the first one:
"looking for excuses to not have to abide by biblical standards."
I assume he's talking about Aldous Huxley, but other than that, which by the way is a statement about the political, when was this ever true?
The fact is, there's a huge difference between the outlook of the person for whom religion fails—complete with its worldview—and what the fundamentalist who merely imagines the repudiation of his god—and yet still cannot fathom any other perspective except that from his intensely supernatural worldview. The fundamentalist doesn't realize that atheists haven't simply rejected the authority of god.
It's especially funny when the religious try to reconvert us by saying things like we're "mad at god" or say things that belie the fact they think we're either in love with, or still afraid of "satan." We are as likely to be upset with their gods as they are to be upset with Zeus, or Sherlock Holmes.
It's also funny that they imagine there's some incredible "liberty" to no longer imagining a god breathing down their necks. They're so preoccupied with the imaginary carrots and sticks of their religion, that they fail to recognize how little power those things really have to motivate them in the first place. As soon as they step out the door of their rented Masonic Temple, and leave the theoretical world behind, they, like everyone else, have to deal with the very real natural consequences of their actions. So, being an atheist only creates an amoral wonderland in the feverish imagination of the religious mind that fails to even know itself. And even their morality, which they think we've chosen to shuck off, doesn't come from their book, which condones slavery, racism, misogyny, and treats rape like petty theft. No, their morality, like everyone else's, comes from the Enlightenment, from the society which surrounds them, and which they then read into their bible.
If we live our lives without god, it isn't because we "willfully" decided we wanted to "ignore" what is to christians, the only possible "reality." No, it's because the bubble of christianity, complete with its pantheon of gods and demigods, simply popped. And we were left having to deal with the consequences.
One of the consequences of that, like it or not, is that those for whom that bubble has not popped, appear rather foolish. Most of us don't wanna be douchy about that, but, like I say, it's just a consequence we have to deal with. We didn't choose to sincerely not believe any more than sincere christians chose to believe. These are things that just happen.
What is it about Bob's writing that makes it sound so amateurish? If Bob were to take an English Composition 101 class would his writing become less painful to read?
the fact is that the behavior of they what professed to be Christians (everything from racism to child molestation, white supremacy to misogyny to bloody crusades) has, from the beginning, profaned the Holy Name and Way of Christ, and much of the contempt that non christians have for God stems from the disdain of these action done in the name of God.
even in the cogs there have been at the very least some rather unsavory behavior that has been a contributing factor.
the old testement also makes reference to how the behavior of the children of israel caused their neighboring nations to hate God....
Bitter Bob sounds like a sexually repressed man who always wanted to go "marching as to war " and be a literalist fundamental preacher with a YouTube ministry who didn't want to be ignored or work with anyone if not in charge....oh wait...
Thiel's view of Bart Ehrman's theological discovery is bogus. I bet he has never read Ehrman or sat through his class or lectures
You know, it's about time all the Armstrongists read The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails edited by John W. Loftus with a foreward by Dan Barker.
What Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia leaders need to do is answer every last one of the challenges posed by the essays by the atheists in the book. They need to defend their faith.
Unfortunately, if you believe British Israelism, there's not much chance of mounting any kind of defense that matters.
Atheists don't believe in God because they can't find proof. That's it. Atheism isn't a faith. Atheism isn't the product of wishful thinking.
Atheists leave all that to the Christians....
He seems to have taken the one specific group with which he is familiar, and their history throughout his lifetime, to have extrapolated their experience from the particular perspective of an Armstrong loyalist, and to have made it apply as a one-size fits all cause for atheism from the 1800s forward. The conditions he cites actually existed in the WCG circa 1972, and have often been held responsible for the so-called "great apostasy" which happened in a couple of waves beginning shortly thereafter. Would we expect anything different from him? How could he rise above, and not be confined to his normal box?
However, as some of us have often noted, there is a tremendous difference between the people who became atheists as a result of Armstrongism, and those who throughout history arrived at non-belief through science. The scientists were not for the most part confronted by, and previously living under a totalitarian system which someone had imposed upon them and relabeled as being "God's government on earth". You don't see attitudes amongst the scientists akin to ex-smokers's zeal, or the typical Alcoholics Anonymous personallity. Or lingering anger towards various targets.
Did the spiritual rape victims of HWA reinvestigate, attempting to find explanations for their own misery, and answers to the great questions of life which Armstrongism was not able to address? Finding the cruel anthropomorphic "god" taught by Herbert W. Armstrong repugnant, illogical, and unacceptable, did some members read in ever widening circles, and begin to regard non-believers' thought as an acceptable, probable alternative? Did that become one of several survival techniques, even enabling some to continue living and breathing? Of course it did!
Reality is, without even realizing it, Bob Thiel has tarred and feathered his own group. Outsiders to the Armstrong movement who happen to see his article are going to be just as shocked as a geneticist might be in encountering the theory of British Israelism for the first time. Armstrongism is an incredibly powerful modifier, contaminating anything and everything which it touches!
BB
That was exactly the point of the article he quoted from, Anon 5:04. But he only used the opening paragraphs so he could turn it into a stick to beat others with.
Or just take the Outsider Test of Faith. Simply examine your religious faith from the same point of view, and with the same skepticism that you use when examining other religious faiths.
If you feel there has to be a god because of the existence of the universe, that's okay. But that only gets you to deism. As Hitchens used to say, "You still have all your work ahead of you." To get to only one god? That takes special pleading.
Oddly enough (maybe ironic, given his own issues), one of Spanky's attempts to disciplining Thiel was to advise him to learn humility.
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