Gerald Flurry: "Correction brings joy" because "feelings and physical evidence don’t matter; just believe."

Gerald Flurry recently held a speaking engagement in Norwalk California.  After flying in on the Flurry family private jet, he spoke to a group of Trumpet subscribers. With 200 people present (most of them PCG members) God's mighty spokesman delivered a "masterfully put together and delivered" message.

Here is what Grant Turgeon reported:

Mr. Flurry was markedly more direct in Houston than he had been in Norwalk: He emphasized that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews just before Roman troops destroyed Jerusalem in a.d. 70, killing 600,000 people and resulting in the starving Jews resorting to cannibalism. This suffering, Mr. Flurry said, is a type of what Americans will soon experience.

The same tired and broken record of endless destruction and starving American citizens continues on. It is disgusting watching these COG leaders get all orgasmic at the mere thought of this happening.  They need starvation, parents eating children, rampaging Germans hanging Americans from meat hooks, and more, in order for them to be proven right in their endless prophetic speculations.

Then Flurry makes an incredibly ill-informed and absurd slam against Christians.

Mr. Flurry said that in Hebrews, Paul tried to give members of God’s Church a hopeful vision. “Lose the vision, and you will fall,” he said. While traditional Christians focus on the dead Jesus Christ, true Christians should focus on His role as Advocate and Intercessor in their lives each day, and on mankind’s potential to become Spirit-born Sons of God as Christ did, Mr. Flurry said. He also urged listeners to prove and keep the Sabbath day to have rest from sin.

The only Christians I have ever seen that focused on a "dead Jesus Christ" has been COG leaders.  Every Passover they take great pleasure in sacrificing him once again, in amplified matzo cracking glory, in some godforsaken school gym. Then, a week later they are back to amplifying the law because they refuse to follow a risen Christ.  Jesus has been left on those gym floors for decades.  Its no wonder they can't find him. Plus, the Christians I know worship a risen Christ.

Mr. Davis called the lecture “masterfully put together and delivered.” He said, “I know that God inspired that. It was a noticeably strong message both nights, and the people responded positively to that.”

On the second night, Mr. Flurry spoke to a group of approximately 80 subscribers, giving two reasons why God’s people should be bold:

1. Be bold because you can enter God’s throne room.

2. Be bold because Christ is in the Holy of Holies interceding for you.

Flurry expects his followers to believe and follow every single thing he says, with faith.  Word is spreading that PCG now realizes that his eminent prophetic predictions are not happening and therefore may be many years further down the line before anything happens.  He has to keep his troops in line and subservient.

Faith is assurance before possession, Mr. Flurry said, citing Hebrews 11:1. Noah built the ark for 100 years without a sign of the coming Flood. If God has made a promise, Mr. Flurry said, feelings and physical evidence don’t matter; just believe.

Correction brings joy, Mr. Flurry said. God corrects His sons, who will one day be made perfect spirit beings free from evil human nature.

The sick legacy of Armstrongism continues unabated.

Getting Over the Past by Wes White

Getting Over the Past

By Wes White

(Submitted to Banned By HWA)

            Over the past year or so, I have had the pleasure to communicate with blog sites such as “Banned By HWA.”  I learn a lot from these sites and I am glad whenever I can contribute to the dialogue in a positive way.

            But lately, wow, have I been getting some flak over this!  The leaders in some of the big, corporate COGs tell their members how awful it is that Wes White has relationships with these blog sites like “Banned,” “Painful Truth,” “Church of God News,” etc.  They ask, “How can Wes justify being friends with those people who have rejected so much of God’s truth?”  Further, they claim that too many of us “just can’t get over the past and that we need to move on.”   

            Let’s be clear on three points:

            First, the editors of “Banned By HWA” owe me no explanation for their beliefs.  And I owe no one any explanation for who I talk to.  Any person who doesn’t like who I talk to is the one who needs to “get over it.”  Also, what if I were to be dialoguing with a Baptist blog or an atheist blog or a politically extreme blog?  Would I have to justify my relationship with them?  Anyone who answers “yes” needs to grow in maturity.

Second, when it comes to my getting over the past, I have nothing to get over.  My experience in WCG was almost all good.  I benefitted a lot from twelve years in that organization.   

When I first came into the church, I was befriended by the district superintendent of the Chicago area because he wanted me to give him guitar lessons.  Poor man had a tin ear.  But I tried to be nice about his lack of talent and I encouraged him to keep practicing even though I believed any chances of him improving his music were pretty much doomed.

Then I started a church band with a ministerial trainee.  You talk about being with the in-crowd. 

When I arrived at AC as a student, I lived with the ministerial trainee’s older brother who was associate dean of students and who played music with GTA.  So I had the benefit of “knowing the right guy” all thru Ambassador.

On and on I could go.  I only mention all this to reiterate that I don’t look at myself as a victim of WCG.  I was the beneficiary of the tithes and sacrifice of many hard-working, generous members.   

But that’s not the point.  What’s important is that I know dozens and dozens of victims of that organization and I feel for those people.  I still pray for them because so many got a real raw deal from that organization.   I was one of the lucky ones and I have no business callously writing the off the victims.  I owe them more than that. 

It is important that Christians always have compassion on those who have been wronged.  Justice is important to God.

Third, I have never done anything like work on a crisis hotline, so I don’t speak from authority about victims of abuse.  But I think I am correct when I say that, when dealing with someone who has been sexually abused, physically abused, verbally abused, financially abused, etc., it is NEVER my job to say, “It’s time to get over it.  Move on.”  No.  I can’t say that. 

The only person who can make that decision is the victim.  Only he/she can say, “I can now move on because my healing is complete.”  Only he/she can make the determination as to when they are over being the brunt of someone else’s abuse. 

The primary problem we have today is NOT those who are still healing or trying to understand why they had to go thru what they went thru.  The problem is with the church leaders who refuse to apologize!  Therein lies the problem!

And I can’t say enough about how much it would help healing if these guys could just admit they were wrong in how they handled people, money, assets, doctrine, etc.  Then, if they could just be sorry and say they’re sorry, a whole lot of good could come out of it.

Any COG splinter group that dares dare to take on the name “Christianity” is going to have to learn what Christianity is truly about.  They are going to have to stop doing quick readings of Matthew 5, 6, and 7 as they gloss over Jesus’ profundities.  Instead, they need to slow down and spend time in the Sermon On the Mount, learning what Jesus has to say about showing true love for other people.

But they won’t.  Their unwillingness/inability to admit wrong-doing (followed by an apology) is limited by their:

1)    Christian immaturity and deliberate lack of biblical understanding about brotherly love.

2)    Fear that admission could lead to legal action.  

3)    Self-centeredness.  Some of these guys love to talk about how they were the ones who were wronged by the Armstrongs, while having no ability to acknowledge the wrongs they did to those “below them.”  It’s almost as if they are saying, “When I get my apology, you’ll get yours.  And since the Armstrongs are dead, I’m not going to get an apology.  So guess where that leaves you?” 

Christianity doesn’t work that way.

I have heard that some ministers get furious when they are asked if they would please apologize for some of the things they have done.  They proudly proclaim, “You will never hear an apology from me or from my church organization.”  I really hope that, on the day they stand before Jesus, they don’t express that vehemence because I fear their intransigence could keep them out of the Kingdom. 

But this is not my call.  Whether they make it into God’s Kingdom is between them and Christ.

In the meantime, let’s communicate with each other, not in spite of the fact that we don’t agree with each other.  Rather, let’s communicated with each other because of the fact that we don’t agree with each other.  It’s foolish to only communicate with those who we agree with.   We have much to learn from those with whom we disagree.

Wes and Nancy White have a self-funded ministry 

Dynamic Christian Ministries

that neither asks for nor accepts donations from the general public.  

They have a live, Friday evening internet show called “Start Our Sabbath.”

"Stick to your own religion sunshine. Stop attacking mine."

Below are a few experts from a love letter from the Kitchen clan.  You remember them, they are the wild and crazy guys on Facebook that have made it their lifelong duty to worship at the base of Herbert Armstrong's altar that they have erected.  These are also the same guys who have made a business out of stealing copyrighted works of the Worldwide Church of God to post on their altar to all things Herb.  They have elevated Armstrong almost to the point that he was immaculately conceived and was/is incapable of doing no wrong.

The Kitchen's are particularly upset that we compare Gerald Flurry's heretical filth to that of his nemesis, Herbert Armstrong, the very man Flurry learned all of his doctrinal tricks from.  Both Armstrong and Flurry got their doctrines from the William Miller fiasco and the subsequent Sabbatarian/Adventist groups pitching fits that they and their groups alone had the correct doctrines.

Using the heresies and actions of Gerald Flurry and "his" Church and organization(which is NOT the Church Herbert W. Armstrong was a member of) to slam and berate Herbert W. Armstrong again I see. Gerald Flurry's Church, incorporated into the PCG organization. He does not teach what Herbert W. Armstrong taught, and yet you keep "preaching" to your flock that he does. 

Gerald Flurry is precisely a member of the exact same group that Herbert Armstrong started and all of the 500+ heretical splinter groups belong to today.  To say they are different is to deliberately lie, something that true Armstrongites claim to NEVER do....Ha Ha!

Since HWA's death, a lot have tried to copy the Worldwide Church of God. They went out to form their own organizations calling themselves a Church of God, and are trying to copy what Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God did. Why? Because they want the money. It really is a marketing scheme being played out by these COG sects. HWA and the WCG was genuine, and the opposite. HWA taught the Word of God. Plain to see. Easy to research and find the truth.

I can't argue that most of the splinter groups formed as a marketing scheme that brings money to line the pockets of the current leaders.  When all of these guys saw their "prestigious" positions as ministers in the Worldwide Church of God swiftly coming to an end, they did the only thing they knew how to do, divert tithe money to their greedy pockets.  One of Armstrong's biggest mistakes was having a paid ministry.  Most of these men have never worked an honest day's hard labour in their lives.  They have had everything handed to them on a platter, fleet cars, ministerial allowances, free travel, housing allowances, etc.

Yet you spend your time, spreading tripe and diatribes against HWA and the Worldwide Church of God, trying to grasp for "invisible straw" to set fire to, so you can convince others of your beliefs? You are just as bad as Gerald Flurry, with your wacky beliefs. But no one cares. But you definitely care about whether or not people share the same beliefs as Herbert W. Armstrong. You probably make money from this right? No wonder Herbert Armstrong appears to threaten you. 

Herbert Armstrong has never threatened me, even when I worked in his house.  Stretch much?


I have never discussed my beliefs on this blog.  That was never the purpose.  The purpose was to expose the lies and absurdities of those entrenched in Armstrongism.  I can honestly say I don't give a rats ass what you think about my belief/unbelief and the questions/uncertainty I prefer to live with.  What I do know as a fact is that Armstrongism, no matter which flavour of the month it is, is entirely based upon the false teachings of Herbert Armstrong and many of his minions.  Are there some real Christians in some of the splinter groups who are actually are living faithful lives?  Absolutely!  They are the ones who have chucked Armstrong's booklets into the rubbish bin and are followers of Jesus. The sad fact is that thousands of COG members have had their lives ripped apart by the heretical COG leaders who litter the landscape today and those are the people that this blog has been reaching.

And does your Church endorse your blog, dedicated to attacking another human being?
Stick to your own religion sunshine.
Stop attacking mine.

Well, actually the church where I volunteer in various capacities knows exactly what my blog is about.  They know because two of Herbert Armstrong's pathetic minions, Wade Cox/Russell Hilburn, tried to make them tell me to shut the blog down.  Knowing the rich history of abuse and the endless scandals of the Armstrong empire that made the Pasadena papers on a regular basis, they basically told him how deep he could stick it and that they would in no way tell me what to do.

Sorry to rain on your day, Sunshine!  Stop taking Armstrongism so seriously, your salvation does not depend upon it!

Its a sunny glorious day in Pasadena where the truth still goes forth...from this blog....Hee Hee!

The Female Template: Implications for the Male Dominated Churches of God

The following facts, ladies,  are not ones in which your husband, your fundamentalist pastor, nor your literalist Church will rejoice in. In fact, they may ask you to quietly leave if you are going to believe this rather than the inspired, inerrant and historically accepted word of God."

"The primordial plan for both female and male fetuses in mammals is initially feminine.

Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round.

Masculinization results from organisational effects of fetal testosterone (and its derivatives), which in humans occurs during the second trimester of pregnancy.

To be masculinised means that certain areas of the brain grow larger, while others remain smaller.

These differences to some extend explain sexual behaviours and preferences even in humans"

Dr. Alexander Thiele University of Newcastle upon Tyne Lecture 7: Social emotions -'the sexual brain'

In reality it seems that FEMALE is the default position as human beings develop in the womb. Maleness comes after with the proper wash of hormones applied at just the right time and in just the right amounts. The implications for literalists are staggering and for women, liberating!

In some cultures, young men are taught to pray "Blessed Art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman."

Mohammed is said to have stated, "When Eve was created, Satan rejoiced." Much if all of the orignal creation mythology's sole purpose is to depose any notion of "goddess" worship, which was an absolute fascination that women had the power to give birth and bring forth life etc, and replace it with a male patriarchy.

The Genesis story is not so much how life came to be or that we all came from two humans, named Adam and Eve, as it is to send the message that women, who are the fault of everything, are to have babies painfully now and say "yes Lord" to their husbands. From the totally mythological tale of the fall of man by the disobedience of woman, much misery and ridicuoulously false roles have been demanded of them by men and in particular the Christian church.

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. FOR (the reason being) Adam was first formed and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." I Tim. 2:11-14

None of the above is literally true.

So according to "Paul" (I Timothy is not currently considered an authentic writing of Paul but of a later author writing in the name of Paul when the church was in need of rules),  the literal truth of Eve's sin produces the literal idea that women are more easily deceived than men and prone to sin, and thus should be silent in church. Or as St. John Chrysostom, a fifth century church father noted, "The woman taught once and ruined everything. On this account...let her not teach." It seems wrong ideas of how things really came to be have very big consequences over a very long time!

Paul goes on to say..."The head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God....for as much as he is in the image and glory of God, BUT ( as in , don't get the same idea about women) the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is NOT of the woman, but the woman IS OF the man." I Cor. 11:3,7,9.

None of the above is literally true. 

1 Corinthians 14:35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

Reminds me of the woman who asked me about this one and said "what if your husband is stupid?"  

Very simply put, Paul said that men are over women, Christ alone is over men and God alone is over Christ. So it's God > Christ > Man > Woman > pets and small animals. It is notable that it is here that Paul makes it plain, based on the creation of woman out of man mythology, that Men don't come from women at all and that women owe their physical existence to men too. Like it or not guys, we come from out mom's literally and from the default fetal template of the female in time after we get our hormones in the womb. So men actually do come twice from females. Someone tell the Church!

St Clement, father of the Roman CHurch denied women the right to even exercise as men. He felt rather it was more in keeping with scripture that they be confined to spinning, weaving and cooking. Of course he could barely bring himself to add "and se..se...sex, unless it was out of the need to bring children into the fold.

St. Augustine, not the most balanced Church Father of the lot proclaimed that man only was made in God's image and not woman. But that's what Paul said too. He went on to note that men were quite complete without a woman, but that women could only be complete with a man. Man alone was self contained and complete alone. Once again, time has shown how untrue this all is, but the concept is still used by many churches and pastors to keep women in "their place" and fulfilling their "role".

Other theologians and Church Father's went on to note that men were the spiritual aspect of God, while women were merely a symbol of the flesh and thus she is the temptress and weakener of men who fail to see what the Church points out.

In the 16th Century, Clifford Alderman notes in a his book, A Caldron of Witches, that an early Church report noted that "Woman is more carnal than man: there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed with a BENT RIB. She is imperfect and always deceives." Now there is some hot scientific reasoning for you! Of course no one notes that if women are deceptive because of being made out of a bent rib, men made out of dirt have dirty minds. 

Modern Christianity is still designed and used to annihilate the spirit of women. It's is still here to keep patriarchy in place and to defeat the matriarcy of former times. Women were mystical in those cultures as opposed to utilitarian in that of a patriarchy or man led society and religion. I believe I would much rather to have lived in a society where women were held high for their spirituality and creative abilities. As it is, we live in the age, not of Aquarius but of testosterone, where men rule badly, kill often and take the spoils from those who cannot oppose them. I like Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along" far more than those who bluster "Bring em on." But alas, tis not that way in our real world at this point.

The great philosopher Rousseau noted...

"As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, her faith in matters of religion should , for that reason, be subject to authority. Every daughther ought to be of the same religion as her mother, and every wife to be the same religion as her husband; for though such religion should be false, that docility which induces the mother and daughter to submit to the order of nature, takes away, in the sight of God, the criminality of their error...they are not in a capacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their fathers and husbands as confidently as that of the Church." Or as Paul would say, "if any woman has a question, let her ask her husband..."

So when does the church grow up and face the facts of science, and not base silly and demeaning demands upon women on mythology and error? When does a church finally admit to errors in teachings that hurt people? Never from what I can see. Let's remember, the Church took 350 years to apologize for almost burning Galileo at the stake for informing them that the earth was not the center of the solar system with the sun revolving around it or around the Church for that matter. Yet that's about the right amount of time for Churches to come to their senses and stop demanding of people things based in fallacies. 

Only a relative few Christian women will have the confidence to step out of the box of fundamentalist Church control. They will suffer at the hands of ministers who quote Paul who frankly was misinformed as to how things really are in biology, endochrinology and genetics. Literal control over a woman by using allegorical or just plain wrong "facts" is wrong. It hurts the spirit and demeans the woman in a world where we better soon wake up to the fact that we all are one and the same.

So sorry guys...without a woman, you would not exist, and without a good sprinkling of hormones at just the right time after your conception, the female default position you started out as would keep you there or perhaps acting in ways that the Bible also goes on to condemn you for, sometimes with death.

Whether your pastor, church, tribe or friends like it, good science, truthfully so called, trumps sincere but ignorant Apostles, Priests, Popes and Kings. Dr. Thiele is correct.

"Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round."

Remember..."How did you come into the Truth?"

I grew up in the Presbyterian Church and I don't believe I ever heard anyone use the words "the truth" when speaking of their beliefs. It was just beliefs. You know, the ones passed on from generation to generation and being Presbyterian, no one in the local church ever would think to question any of it. It didn't matter. Behind the scenes, one could believe what they wanted and it was all so generic and nice that I can honestly say I never remember one issue coming up that maybe needed to be looked at, or anyone uttering the words, "new truth." Old truth was just fine and who cared.

When I discovered, as a teen, the really true Church of God, that seemed to me to be concerned with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that's all we heard about. People were asking each new member "So how or when did you come into the truth?" It was a nice way to say ask how long they had been in the church and from what error had they arrived. The word "truth" was thrown around a lot by that church.

Everything had to do with "the truth." We kept the true sabbath, the true holydays, understood the truth about being born again and the truth about unclean meats and how to have a happy marriage. There were the true seven ways to be happy or be a leader or study your bible. You could be called into the truth and you could be dismembered for falling away from the truth. There was the truth about tithing and the truth about not tithing. There was the truth about who God has chosen and who He had not chosen and who He now loved and who he was pissed off with. There was the truth about the end times, which of course, we were living in and Jesus second coming simply has to be in the very near future. In my lifetime in fact! We evern knew the Plain Truth about everything from trade wars to crime and queer men. Never heard much about the truth of queer women though.

If you wanted to know the truth, just ask the Church, preferably on the local level by way of the minister, who knew all the truth there was. We knew the truth about evolution and the truth about the flood. Often we knew the "plain truth" which is the truth stripped down to the really core truth of the truth and was so simple to understand. However, simple as the truth might be to understand, God still had to open your mind to the truth, or you were never going to understand or know the truth. But it was simple after that. I later found out that "God has to open your mind," meant that one who came to the same conclusions as the Church and leadership had indeed had their mind opened by God. Those who disagreed or only saw some of it were still in the grip of Satan or at best had a bad attitude.

Gosh, we knew the truth about life and death. No one knew how consciousness or quantum physics worked, but all things God, just ask! We knew where you went and where you didn't went. We knew when you went to where you were going and how to get there and who wasn't going along with you because they had yet to discover the truth. We knew when they would discover the truth and, while not as good as when I discovered the truth, it was not bad at all. What's a thousand year difference compared to eternity? Nuttin! We knew who was in the right Church, which would be us, and who would be in the wrong Church, which would be all not us.

We knew the truth about the God of the Old Testament and why he was so freaking mean and loved killing both animals and humans. We knew the truth about the New Testament and how the Son of the Old Testament God was the nicer of the two and canceled all the stuff His Dad liked. We knew that the truth was that this bachelor son lived alone with His Father, after everyone that loved him the week before killed him. We knew they lived somewhere and the Father never had a wife or female to keep him company. But that was just the truth. God was a He and if you were a she, then you still had to be a "son of God" just the same, because that was the truth. Of course, I had to accept the truth of being the Bride of Christ, but that was the truth too, so I had to rejoice in it.

Wow, we knew it all. Just ask! But once in a great while we discovered "New Truth." I can't tell you how amazing new truth is to discover. Now I may have been hoping that we would have discovered the new truth about the actual origins of man and the evolution of life over millions of years as opposed to the truth of everything being around 6000 years old, the story of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, but that was not up for discussion.

I thought maybe there was some new truth on why so many of the stories in the Old and New Testament are either scientifically incredible or historically impossible and unprovable, but no luck there either. I thought maybe some new truth might have to do with how the Gospels aren't harmonious eyewitness accounts of Jesus life, nor written by the men whose names appear on the books. But no banana there either. I thought maybe we'd get some new truth about why Paul never mentions Jesus' life, teachings, miracles, life events, birth or stuff like that, including why he never quotes him, but no, wrong again.

What really would have been nice would have been some new truth on how the local minister was just a guy too and didn't know everything and that was ok, but nope, nothing like that either. And it really would have been nice if, as a minister, I could suspect there was such a thing as "new truth" out there that maybe those in charge had missed to, but whoa baby, don't even think about it! New truth had to come from the top down and only agreement came from the bottom up. That's the way all churches area really. Top down, not bottom up. Bottom uppers are an endangered species in any church.

Recently a friend of mine told me the guy at the top of her church made a really good point in her church. Seems the minister fired the music director of 25 years without permission from the people. He said he was the guy at the top and it was his call. One guy at the bottom asked to speak and was given permission to do so. He reminded the minister that that is now how things are done and that he was wrong to do this firing on his own. Then the really good part comes up. The son of the minister walks up the isle and decks the guy opposing his father's actions. Police are called and it's all good! The bottom uppers won because decking the good guy never pays. I love the truth!

Once in a great while New Truth did come to the Church of "all Truth all the Time." But alas, it was always something like, "The New Truth About Make-up" or "The New Truth About Divorce and Remarriage." I learned these truths came from God when leadership was being being given a hard time about make-up by God's leading wives or some of God's leading wives left their leading husbands and the leading husband wanted a new leading wife. We did have the New Truth about Healing as well as leaders aged, needed care that they didn't need when younger and rethought the idea of only trusting God for healing etc. I'm glad that was old truth to me but I managed to keep that to myself and members in my care who asked.

But over all, New Truth just doesn't make it's way into Churches very often. They don't love to tell the old old story for nothing! As Mark Smith says in "Damn the Truth."

"Christians, unlike scientists, hate any and all evidence that goes against their theories. Theologians have a very hostile and oft times irrational attitude towards any evidence that would even suggest their theories need to be changed to fit the facts. To a Christian, a faulty theory is like an old member of the family whose mind has seen better days- something to warmly embrace and shield from all criticism. Christians, rather than being disinterested seekers of truth as they oft times pretend to be, are thus shown instead to be preachers of established dogma, opinions firmly set in concrete, with their minds already made up for them two thousand years ago by a Jewish rabbi. To a fundy Christian, there is no "new truth" to seek out or be discovered. So rather than seeking out new truth, they instead only seek out new ways to defend their old "truths". This is the reason you'll never see a "Research and Development" department within a school of theology. It is also the reason why, in defense of Christianity, no argument is too circular, no appeal to emotion avoided, and no straw men are left unconstructed."

He goes on to ask if a genuine new Gospel of Jesus were ever found, would it be added to the current New Testament? The answer is, of course, "NO" because all the truth there is, is already in the Bible. Besides, they have already found really great new Gospel writings, but one says the Disciples got miffed at Jesus for kissing Mary too often on the lips. When they asked Jesus why he loved her more than them, he came back with, "why does she love me more than you?" Great answer!!! Lousy Gospel. You'll never hear it in church.

One of the other problems out there when it comes to "The Truth" is that it gets suppressed a lot when someone who knows finds it. After all, it did take the Catholic Church 450 years to apologize to Galileo for noting that the sun was the center of the solar system and the earth revolved around it, not it around the earth. I personally think that 450 years between learning the truth and applying the truth is too long and certainly too long between apologies. Now the Catholic Church is not so sure about unsaved babies going to Limbo and may, in fact, get to go to heaven like baptized babies. Cool huh? Like they know, but isn't that amazing how something that was so much "the truth" for millions in the past, is now probably not after all...oh well.? This is great news for babies, if retroactive which I suppose it is or at least we can hope. Now those who thought one thing can think something else more comforting. Gosh, I hope this new truth does not only apply after a certain date. Bummer! All kidding aside, that kind of truth is just opinion because of questions raised about the state of certain categories of humans that die in certain states of being according to the Church. Don't mistake any of that for truth. We must not forget that Church Father's of the past were not above adjusting the truth to fit a real need. As Gibbon noted,

"The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has SUPPRESSED all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion...(he has thus) so openly VIOLATED one of the fundamental laws of history." (On Christianity, Edward Gibbon, Prometheus, Buffalo, New York, 1991 pp. 131, 132)

Even Paul made a big deal about being duplistic. He would be a Jew to a Jew, a Gentile to a Gentile etc. which always left me wondering just what and who Paul really was. He said so often in the New Testament that he wasn't lying, I wonder why he felt he had to say that so often? Sounds like lots of folk thought he was.

So ask yourself, when was the last time my church found out there were more truths to understand than the ones they have in all their booklets and tracts? And I don't mean the Plain Truth About Eating Out After Church! I bet you'll have to say never. Church's don't really deal in truth as much as tradition and control of how those traditions are defended and apologized for.

Church apologetics really are that you know. They are apologies for the fact that there are those times when we can see that something about the Bible or a "truth" as explained by a Church just does not fit the facts as we know them in this day and age, and yet we will not examine them. Sorry, the old truth is THE truth and we simply are not admitting any new ones at this time. Churches don't do new truth, but are good at doing new ways to defend old truths, which might not really be true.

This attitude of all churches and religions really should be your first hint that something is very wrong with it all and perhaps it really is all about tradition, not making waves, money, control and keeping the old old, yet inaccurate story alive so we all feel better. Most are afraid they or others will be disillusioned if "New Truth" rears it's ugly head, but when it comes right down to it, do you wish to live your life based on illusions? Actually many do which is why they never question anything...

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