It's very difficult for humans to say the words "He/she/they died." What a marvelous number of euphemisms for death we have. We pass on, croak, kick the bucket, go home, expire, succumb, leave, meet our maker, go to our reward, get wasted, check out, eternally rest, are a goner, end, bite the dust, get liquidated, terminated and annihilated. We CROAK! (Thanks Tonto!) We give up the ghost, make the change, transition, get mertilized, go to to the other side, fall asleep, get taken, rubbed and snuffed out. We depart, transcend and buy the farm. We are feeling no pain, lose the race, cash in, cross Jordan and go with the angels. We get done in, translate into glory, return to the dust, wither away, give up, take the long sleep and a dirt bath. It can be curtains, a dropped body, six feet under and out of our misery. We find everlasting peace, new lives the great beyond, ride into the sunset and that's all we wrote. But in plain fact, we are dead.
All of religion is predicated on the fact that we have to go somewhere after death. "We" being everything from our spirit and energy to our mind and ethereal body. We like it better if there is a good place for the nice ones of us and a bad one for the jerks. Although the idea of reincarnation lends itself to allowing everyone their spot after having learned lessons along the way many times over.
Western Churches spend your lifetime convincing you that their understanding is THE only understanding of what happens when we die and usually provide you with a program whereby you can leave your worldly goods, you know the ones they told you in sermons not to store up on, to them. I have seen many a family outside the particular denomination of the one who "went home" have to face the fact that all the goodies went to their church and not their family. Let's make a rule that if a person gives a church their stuff after they die, and sons or daughters protest, the Church has to give it back to the family. This will help the church to practice what they preach and give that which actually belongs to a family to the family it actually belongs to. Beware of Churches who have a program for you to "honor God with your death," or "Your will, a way for you to continue giving after you die," program. The money given to the Church will be mis-spent and it would be more satisfying to have your kids mis-spend it than your church,( no matter what Dave Pack says.)
It's funny how if you ask someone about quantum physics, how evolution works or universes are born, , it's such an unknowable mystery in the final analysis, at least for now. But ask a religious person about what happens after death, and pfffft...that's easy. We go to heaven, they go to hell, we get reincarnated often, we are deader than dead, we wait in the grave until Jesus returns, we rise in a physical body, we rise in a spiritual "body", we this and that as if they knew and the truth is that they don't. Westerners would never question the Bible as knowing what happens after death even though one can find all of the above mentioned in one form or another in the pages of the Bible. Like Humans, the Biblical understanding of death evolved into what we see in the Evangelical Christian Church today.
The Catholic Church has gotten good at adding new places the dead go, such as unsaved babies, or the unborn or the not quite saved types, but it's all a crap shoot. Because we can come up with questions like "well what kind of God would throw an innocent child in hell for not knowing.....", we have to figure out new holding pens for such categories of people. They are not real mind you, but they help us cope.
Missionaries rush to save the lost before they die while admitting, in some circles that if they left them ignorant, a loving God would automatically translate them into heaven upon death. I mean, they can't help it they were born in New Guinea or the Great Plains. I loved it when Geronimo was asked by the General who hunted him down and imprisoned him in Florida if he wanted to go to heaven when he died? Geronimo asked if the General was also going to be there? "Why of course," came the response met by as simple "Then no" by Geronimo.
Hell would indeed be for many having to spend eternity with those that drove them nuts in this life! I mean, do you really want to spend eternity closer than ever to all the people in your church, including the same pastor day and night forever! I think not! Heaven just might seem like one big endless potluck of boring people who are still pretending to be what they never were back on earth. It would be an eternal obligatory Thanksgiving or Christmas with the relatives that most never wanted to attend anyway! Nope, if I get to go to heaven, please God, let there be quiet places where no one can find me and those I want to be around. You know, kinda like we can do down here if we choose.
My quirky sense of symbolism caught up with me in my pics of a downtown Greenville Cemetery.
I saw a lot of death as a minister. Sometimes it was after the fact long enough to just bury someone in a nice funeral service in a nice setting. Sometimes I found myself standing at the edge of a river while they searched for a lost one or taken to a morgue to roll the dead body of a child or friend out of a drawer for a private family look. I even dug a grave once on a farm while we waited for family to arrive for a quick same day funeral and burial. I've picked up the cremains, ugh what a word, of people I had just talked to a few days earlier, now reduced to about 10 lbs. of gray sand. I have transported the neatly wrapped body of a newborn to another city in the backseat of my car, as the couple could not afford for the funeral home to do it.
Since writing this article, I have seen two out of three brother's in law die, a Nephew hit by a train, the loss of both parents at just under a 100 who died of evidently nothing much according to the Doc and the accidental death of my sister, a nurse, on the way home from work. And finally to be followed by my former wife and boys mom of Glioblastoma, an always fatal brain tumor just last year. When I belatedly posted her obituary on the Ambassador College site, not knowing I could, I was immediately attacked in the "sorry for her loss" comments by a zealous former AC student and now ministers wife (of another denomination I surmise) as the SOB she knew I was because she knew was in touch with my ex etc. I had just come from going to Grandparents day with her in her final month and a tearful talk on the back patio about our experience together and my own regrets of all things church and the pressure it put the family under for years. We made our peace.
This is all I need to know for purpose. It is enough and it is true
I have no illusions about my own passing in time. No wait, my own death. Unlike others who either worry for or can't wait for me to find out there is a Lake of Fire, I am quite at peace with having had the conscious human experience and all that made me up, save for the conscious part, which indeed is still a mystery, of elements forged in the cores of exploding stars over billions of years. Not a bad beginning at all!
Once I had visited a mother, just socially, who spent much of the visit recounting the talents, skills, and beauty of daughter, which is normal when a parent is well pleased. I specifically remember thinking on the way home "how would she cope if she lost that daughter, who was the center of all the mom lived for? When I got home, the phone was ringing and I was returning to the hospital where this young woman had just been brought fatally run down at 18 miscrossing a street. Tough stuff.
More quirk...
As a hobby, I took up paramedic skills. I learned why so many paramedics are overweight and smoke like chimneys. Pure stress. Most paramedics are wonderful caregivers but face the most horrendous of human deaths often. They eat and smoke too much and party way too hard. I don't blame them. I won't relate what I have seen. Just know that I have seen it. Death at it's worst. A Soldier could certainly top that.
The point seems to live in the moment, staying both out of the past of our lives, where we tend to store our anger and hurt, and also the future, where we store our anxiety and all that is unknowable. No one knows what happens at death. Just to say that is to stir the pot of religious surety. I know, no one but YOU.
There are some great stories of past lives recalled by some with uncanny detail. Hmmm, could be. Even the Bible gives the account of the blind man who caused the disciples to ask if the man's blindness was the fault of his parents or his own sin, "that he was BORN blind." We at least have to admit there is room there to question that if one is born blind due to sin, the sin must have taken place in a previous life. No other explanation is possible. Some in the early church believed in reincarnation. General George Patton was famous for his knowing where he had fought as a Roman Soldier in a previous life, while fighting again during WWII in Europe. He wasn't kidding and no one made fun of him either.
When my parents had my brother who ended up O2 saturated back in the day before someone figured out nitrogen was also a part of the breathing experience and then blind, deaf and unable to speak, their Presbyterian minister told them "well you must have sinned in some way for God to allow this." So it's an age old leap to false and judgmental conclusions on the part of those not so affected.
There are stories of those who have left their bodies in near death experiences only to return and recount the experience in detail that only a, well "Ghost" could give. They got recalled to finish their lives evidently and everyone who experiences such a thing never again fears death. Well worth the experience if only for that little peace of mind, I'd say.
The Gospel of John presents a risen Jesus who exhibits all the signs of one who survived a sure death and came back a changed man. It's the "Jesus survived the crucifixion view that grew from there.
Stories abound of those who were given organ transplants donated by those who have died, only to mysteriously acquire the deceased's taste in foods, books or familiarity with topics never studied in their own lives. This would give credence to the idea tha cellular memory can be passed on. Whoa..pretty inspiring stuff and not just a little bit spooky.
Crass religions make big bucks off the masses who need to purchase their places in the Kingdom of God. I remember once shoveling a drive buried in feet of snow for a woman who then paid me in Catholic indulgences. They gave me a full 90 days less in Purgatory. I told her I was Presbyterian. She smiled and closed the door. I almost shoved the snow back into the drive.
I'm glad that so many can be so sure they know what happens at death. Some just know because they read it in the Bible never thinking that even that book is just another attempt by humans to figure this out. Some just know it's true because it's "true for me." Some feel that it just has to be true or what's the point. One cannot just die for nothing after learning all this stuff in life. And some just know what they know is true because somehow even science can prove it so.
As I mentioned earlier, my brother in law died just two days after he was told he might live another three months. My boys mom was told 16 months and she died in three. If there was ever an example of a mind saying, "uh, no, I believe I need to go now," that was it. They just left, and I believe on their own terms. Or maybe they passed on, or went home, or bit the dust, or left this world, or got mertilized, transcended, lost the race, cashed in, got translated into glory, are on heavenly shores, out of their misery, carried by Angels, found peace, went into the zero point field, the great beyond, rode into the sunset and that's was all he wrote. I am not so arrogant to think that I know. But we all spend our lives wanting to know, hoping there is (that's what faith is) and fearing the "if not".
Personally I assume that because I did not notice or mind not being here the first 14.5 billion years of our Universe's existence, I won't mind or notice it after my death as it expands out into thin nothing or implodes to bang again. All that we are, were and perhaps could be in some way again, will always be in the soup. And if perchance there is a Deity, He/She/It and is not of the Hebrew cultic kind that will like me enough, I'm sure, to include me in Plan B. :)
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/155908
Reposted with edits as death never gets old :)
42 comments:
DD:
I appreciate the logical consistency of your post. You are a materialist (I know you object to labels but you do blatantly wear several) and so your life and death don't mean anything. And to you, at least, neither logically can anyone else's life and death. The oddity is that you can write such a post invested seemingly with some emotion. You could have just as well written a post with the randomness of Brownian Motion and it would have been all the same within the materialist regime. Oh well, sometimes what people do and what they believe don't match.
Dennis, are you giving in to some woo-woo in this article? You should know that the NDE phenomenon contains elements that suggest an other-than-supernatural source. Christians often see Jesus in their NDE, while folks in Eastern cultures rarely see him. As myriad NDEs contradict each other, the reasonable explanation is that the content of an NDE comes not from the supernatural, but from the patient's own mind.
Even the idea of a "soul" is hard to substantiate. Most ACOG members will tell you that life begins at conception. Well, twinning occurs shortly AFTER conception! Does one of the twins have no soul? Or does the soul split when the twin cells split? If the latter, then why aren't there MILLIONS of souls in us, not just one?
People will believe the most improbable things, if they want to believe.
All I can say about Posts like this is " I will not bother to check this blog any more if this is all that is posted here. People do not need be given discouraging information in today's mixed up world. They need to be given the hope and encouragement the Christian Faith promotes. There are many in my family relationships who are on end time of like I am who need support not things that question what life really. ASB
You forgot "CROAKED".
Dennis- how can you ignore the clear words of scripture?
After death you can be called to seance (Samuel).
You can preach to the spirits in prison (Jesus).
You can suffer in torment like the rich man or be in Abraham’s bosom like Lazarus.
You can be resurrected at Christ’s return or 1000 years later.
Or maybe at some special event like Jesus resurrection or being thrown into a prophet’s grave.
"... and so your life and death don't mean anything. And to you, at least, neither logically can anyone else's life and death."
My life means just as much to me as I would suppose yours does to you as well as the lives and deaths of others. My emotions are completely intact and not just seemingly so. I suspect I am more of a materialist idealist realist depending. Labels are fine. Just be careful not to put too fine a point on who you think someone else is as they express themselves.
Everyone filters their life through their own set of unique qualities, experiences and perspectives. Some, as you must know, are more curious than others. Some are very content just to say put where they are and believe what they are told by others. . That would not serve me very well as you can imagine.
When I was young, naĂŻve and rather idealistic, I repressed much of my nature to conform to the Church and Biblical, though Bronze and Iron Age, views. Not only can I not do that anymore, I won't in the time left not to do so again.
I agree that "sometimes what people do and what they believe don't match". That's reflected in the masks they wear as expected by others so going along to get along can thrive. But occasionally one wakes up from that foolish way to be and live.
The do/believe aspect of life, to me, is like the focus on my telescope. It may take a bit of time, fine adjustments and patience, but once the eyepiece is the proper distance from the mirror, the lens fine tuning the light and the view matching the object sought, nice!
I spent some well focused time on the Moon last night. Awesome :)
PS and too....
We went over and got our 80+ year old neighbor who has never seen the moon through a telescope. We held him steady up to the eyepiece and his reactions and appreciation were worth the long perilous journey across the lawn in the dark for him. I told him "wait til I show you Jupiter and Saturn.
It was an enigmatic, meaningless experience fraught with a total lack of care about Jim's life or death. That's how "Eye Roll" :)
ASB said " Anonymous said...
All I can say about Posts like this is " I will not bother to check this blog any more if this is all that is posted here. "
Of course, this is not all that is posted here by any means. Just wait it out. Topics of positive interest and such to you will come your way.
Tonto! I did? Oi!!! Nice catch! How can that be! I'll have to add it.
"All I can say about Posts like this is " I will not bother to check this blog any more if this is all that is posted here. People do not need be given discouraging information in today's mixed up world. They need to be given the hope and encouragement the Christian Faith promotes. There are many in my family relationships who are on end time of like I am who need support not things that question what life really. ASB"
Let P = "the hope and encouragement the Christian Faith promotes"
1) If P is false I will be sad.
2) I do not wish to be sad.
3) Therefore P is true.
How ridiculous and condescending it is to say that people need to be fed feel-good pablum.
If that's what you feel you need, and you're upset that you're not getting it here, and you're going to resort to passive-aggressive ultimatums to try to extort those comforting yet demonstrable falsehoods from the content providers here, then my advice to you is to not let the door hit you on the way out.
ASB ~ Surely there is some merit to your comment above. I believe it's time to introduce some humor here to lighten things up!
Dennis, could you please start an entry in which we can post and exchange our most embarrassing fart stories?
🤧🤧🤧🤧
BB
"Swimmin wit da fishes"
Best I can do BB is relate that in a Bible Study I was giving on Splits and Schisms in the church and how that really is not a healthy Church etc, I said "We can't afford to have anymore shits or splisms in the Church." Dead silence until I said "Did I just say what I thought I said?" Then pandemonium. I recovered by noting that, at times, it seems there indeed were some shits in the church. More pandemonium...
DD wrote: "My life means just as much to me as I would suppose yours does to you.."
I am sure it must. I am just mystified as to what logical mechanism you use to promote yourself in importance above, say, an amoeba.
Jim-AZ said...
Dennis thanks for your post. Almost everyone thinks they know where they are going when they die...but no really knows. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings about Karen before she died. I am glad you had some quality time with her during you trip to SC before she died. I knew her brother and liked him when I knew him back in the AC days.
I am glad I have moved on from the HWA days. I take each day as it comes. I have a comfortable place to live. Plenty of food, warm clothing for the winter and pretty good health. I had to give up my Harley, wife felt I was getting too old to ride. Of course I disagree but it was easier to get along if I gave in now and then.
It will be interesting to see how the future plays out. Down the line people might chuckle when they read our posts back in 2020
Jim-AZ
NEO You wonder and reason like a droid. I'm sorry you are mystified. Can't help you there evidently.
Hi Jim, Knowing where one is going usually detracts ultimately from where one actually is. Someone once said that most people are so concerned about going to heaven they are of no earthly use. Seems true. Here in my area there is a church every block it seems. The radio is more full of religious stations than secular. The exact opposite of Portland of course. Here they turn restaurants into churches and there, churches into restaurants. I prefer the Portland approach.
Very glad I have moved on and didn't off myself in the dark times where it was pretty much me and myself. Karen was a very good person and could not do enough for those in need or just to encourage or comfort them. I hauled us all over the east coast because the church told us to and she never complained. Ultimately it hurt us all in every way and no one seemed to care that it did. The Church Administration, in hindsight, used people and moved them around like pawns in their chess game of Church. I was so naĂŻve and compliant. Those days have passed obviously. I handled or mishandled the stress of it all but learned much that I could not learn any other way.
I am content and grateful for where I am today, literally and emotionally. The Social Security issues worked out better than I could have hoped. I still work four days a week with 4 to 6 clients a day and a good rep for good work. I can do this as long as I can do this. I am so glad I did not remotely think to join a splinter and drag out my ultimate waking up as I personally needed to do.
If there is a "soul mate" in life, I feel I have that as well. She and I converse and share at the same level of interests and she thinks I'm hilarious! lol. We both share the same profession so we understand people pretty well with 20+ years in practice.
Anyway, I blather... Imagine that!
Dennis:
I just understand what materialistic atheism really is. And trying to adorn it with touchy-feely doesn't alter its essence.
So Mr. Diehl there is a plan B?
Your comment: "All of religion is predicated on the fact that we have to go somewhere after death" is interesting for the fact that the WCG essentially taught that you go nowhere after death, but will reside in the same place that a person inhabited in his/her living years.
Dust to dust and then from that dust back to ..... dust for some (and all according to Dave Pack) all in the same realm that a person has always known. So the WCG teaching was never about "going" anywhere, it was about transformation. For some that transformation would be the fourth incarnation of dust and others would attain a spiritual state in the third incarnation depending upon who teaches what.
I have found it interesting just going back and reading through the bible with out a WCG perspective and finding a real sense of the elevated adamancy from the writers about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Will thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel and a known prophecy about a valley of dry bones begs a pointed question of what was the specific topic of conversation for those 40 days after the resurrection? A kingdom to alllllll of Israel?
Birth and death are just happenings. Transformation is what happens in between and after.
The dynamic of the power of the world to come has been experienced by many who know what is possible. The academic sense of wanting to believe has been a state I and others have experienced. Having the tangible proverbial "burning bush" before myself many of times unwanted or asked for means wanting to believe is no longer an option, it is believe and have Hebrews 6:4-6 hanging over my head at all times.
I and others had no say in their birth and I and others will have no say in our death, but maybe just maybe we have a part in the transformation.
TL;DR
I enjoyed your article Dennis. Must admit I find some of your writing a bit pretentious and tedious and repetitive, but this one was good. You could expand it out a bit, polish it up etc., and maybe have it in one of those glossy magazines like the New Yorker. It is a topical subject these days.
You travel through your own life with experiences in the death of others, many of them close. I suppose that is one of the duties of a minister. Probably all those young guys at Ambassador didn't realize that when they signed on for the ministry. On top of the personal details there is also a bit of a spooky feel. I am not a believer in anything, but I have to admit there is something a bit spooky about death. This leads to superstition. I would probably be worried about talking to you in person about this topic, or meeting you at a funeral.....
People in the past used to 'touch wood' or throw salt over their shoulders, I might have to find some kind of talisman. I have escaped death a few times already and it is hard to know why some of us go early and others hang on for the full ride.
Jim, AZ: Ever consider building a trike? It gets noticed like a car, and you don't need to balance it at every stop. I may go that route sometime off in the future. For right now, I'm good on my old Shovel.
BB
Best article yet, Dennis.
Thank you. From someone whose life you helped save.
ASB
As a former Herb elder, your mind is imprisoned by it policies. In science, they have peer review. It's purpose is to correct or refine scientific beliefs. The same is true of philosophy and similar. Ones beliefs are refined if incorrect, or given 'life' when incorrectly challenged. Ones beliefs are stenghtened when defended against wrong beliefs. Herb himself used this by giving opposing religious beliefs in many of his writings. Your complaint of dissenting points of view creating division and/or discouraging people,is from the church culture of treating members like children and not trusting freedom. I remind you that Christ constantly confronted dissidents and in Acts the apostles had a heated debate on circumcision that clarified the issue. My computer is down, so l can't cut and paste from a book on this point just now. But challenging students beliefs has always been a historic teaching tool. And having ones beliefs passionately challenged by a sincere opponent is the ideal
Anonymous January 7, 2020 at 7:49 AM said: You should know that the NDE phenomenon contains elements that suggest an other-than-supernatural source. Christians often see Jesus in their NDE, while folks in Eastern cultures rarely see him. As myriad NDEs contradict each other, the reasonable explanation is that the content of an NDE comes not from the supernatural, but from the patient's own mind.
Looking at the UFO and alien abduction phenomena I believe that aliens are not extra-terrestrial beings, but inter-dimensional beings; and learning that alien abductions have been stopped by Christians who have rebuked them in the name of Jesus gives me cause to pause. Further, assuming Biblical Christianity is true and those of other belief systems are duped by the devil and his spirit messengers then wouldn't it be simple for these demons to continue the deception (or psyops) upon the death of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. via NDEs that shore up their false beliefs?
NEO's point is probably the one HWA made very often, that even the love of a mother to HER child without God is selfish love in the end..........
Science is proving more and more that humans are capable of altruistic behavior end that toddlers respond to crying babies by handing them some of their toys.
nck
931, "Further, assuming Biblical Christianity is true and those of other belief systems are duped by the devil and his spirit messengers then wouldn't it be simple for these demons to continue the deception (or psyops) upon the death of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. via NDEs that shore up their false beliefs?"
Or perhaps Allah, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and Shakti are sending their hordes to continue the deception and psyops upon the death of Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and Catholics?
And if you are correct, does it not reveal a weak Christian God who allows it when clearly stating that he is not willing that any should perish but all should come to the knowledge of the truth? Does this not make God the author of the confusion He denies being the author of by allowing or even sending "strong delusion" which is no one's fault if it inflicted on them by God? I mean really, if God decides to delude someone and strongly, how can you win that one? God would be responsible for the delusions and not exactly showing he was not willing that any should perish after all.
There is a term "Diabolical Mimicry" which is a little different in that it is the apologetic for why many of the stories and characters in the Bible seem so much like the Pagan ones of the past. It holds that Satan and the demons anticipated Jesus so long before set up history and the gods of the pagans to seem like they were born, acting like and teaching the same things etc to damp down the influence and reality of the "real" Jesus and Son of God etc.
Diabolical Mimicry is a very old, old as Christianity, explanation that admitted that the story of Jesus was very much the same in many ways as that of other gods before him.
ANNO 8:37 PM comment shows that people think they can read a persons character and mind. I will point out that I am business owner who has dealt with people in all walks of life. My dealings with religious people covers all denominations of the Christian faith. My main reason of commenting here has been a concern the strong effort used to science to destroy the Christian faith. If the Biblical records are no longer valid what remains is what we see on the news today. Like I pointed out this Blog sight is damaging to the Christian faith. ASB
Interesting subject, talking about dying. Lost several members of my immediate family, my father when I was a child, a brother who was in his early 20's and another brother at 50. Remembering how insignificant we were told we were, funerals by many of the ministry skipped over the grieving part following a death. I rarely saw my mother cry, and as children we never expressed emotion, only told we would see our daddy in this mysterious kingdom someday. Just recently we had to put one of our beloved dogs to sleep after her 14 year run, and I surprised even myself by welling up in sorrow at the end. So death, in my family anyway, was glossed over, buried, shelved. When my mother died 3 years ago at age 92, my sister and I were at a loss as to what to do with her after her cremation. She had been horribly physically and emotionally abusive to us kids, always, always putting the WCG first, even after 60 some odd years. We felt a tremendous peace after she died, and very little grief. She and the WCG did its job, wiped all emotion out after her passing. We decided on an ocean burial, my sister singing a song, we both groping for some kind words to say, finding few. So, at almost 66 years old, I've given death a lot of thought. I recollect the moving Soylent Green with Charlton Heston and Edward G Robinson. In the dystopian future, when you reached a certain elderly age, you reported to a center where they'd lay you out in front of a huge video screen and play beautiful music and show calm and breathtaking scenery. Then they'd euthanize you and turn you into food. This is how I'd like to go. Well, maybe not the food part but I'd never know! The aging process has me terrified. I can't put my kids through what my mother did to me in her last years. I think of Alzheimers, dementia and debilitating diseases. I remember being told that suicide was the unpardonable sin. It is less relevant to me to me anymore if I "make it" to the resurrection although it would be beyond joy if I could reunite with my dad and brothers and friends if even for one day. Transformation? I'll leave that decision up to God. Thanks HWA for my rosy golden years. LOL
Jim-AZ said...
I had to chuckle at your comment. Yes have thought about a trike. Would love to see your shovel. I guess we never get too old to want one last ride
Jim-AZ
Dennis
You're twisting the 'strong delusion' thingy. Strong delusion is not the same as being denied free moral agency. Choice is still there. A modern day example of strong delusion is plugging into the main stream media. They deceive and twist peoples sense of normalcy. Strong delusion is what God uses to get people off the fence and learn something. It's not confusion and being irrational.
ASB
Yes, I should have said 'you appear to have your mind imprisoned by Herbs teachings.'
After decades in Herbs church, you are a McHerb Christian. Admit it. Your complaints against this site is the typical Herb church teaching. The only way a person can break free from McHerb teachings is to extensively read secular writings (Christian writings are all Pharisaic) and do ongoing meditation, which the church conveniently omitted to teach members. So I can't read your mind, but have a good understanding of at least part of you. BTW, watching the tele evangelist shows that Christian denomination don't differ very much.
PS You did not respond to my key point that having ones beliefs challenged is profitable.
"Like I pointed out this Blog sight is damaging to the Christian faith. ASB"
Then I expect we should be hearing less from you as you find that which better supports your faith. Thank you for participating in the past and we wish you well in your pursuit of sites that make you feel good or at least much better than this one.
AS noted: Like I pointed out this Blog sight is damaging to the Christian faith. ASB
You say that like it's a bad thing
To ANNO 10.03 and DD I do not want you to think the comments I read or list effect my personal belief in God and the value of the Christian bible. I look many Christian internet sites and can recommend them to Christian believers. My point was that this blog started out revealing the flaws in HWA's groups but has evolved into questioning value of Christianity. I believe that Christianity is the only hope that people have in a world such as we see today. I will cease comments here since they create offence. I have other things to spend my time on. I believe that Gary knows me since he knows some of my family. It doesn't matter what people here think of me. My life is filled with people who believe in the Bible and the Biblical God. ASB
It still does reveal the flaws in the WCG experience and splinters ASB. The vast majority of posts are about just that and always will be. I bring the occasional "have we ever thought about this" in relation to the literalism of the Bible as opposed to what we can know today better than those who wrote the Book. I do maintain that the unspoken splinter is made up of many who were awakened by their WCG experience to take a look at long standing questions about the Bible that get weak or insufficient answers and the fact that science has revealed much that no Bronze or Iron Age Prophet, Priest, King, Disciple or Apostle could have ever known.
Knowledge did not stop when the Bible went to press. Well, for many it did.
7:44am... I can relate to the idea that many ministers and others in the cogs tend to over the grieving process. Emotions in general are seen by many of the older generation as a sign of weakness, or giving into "protestant" sensibilities. Most cog funerals I have been to say very little about the person who has passed away, and instead focus on telling people about the resurrections. While I personally believe in the resurrection and have no problem with sharing a basic scripture or two about that belief, I think that the traditional cog funeral service can come across as a bit cold, scripted, and lacking in empathy for the grieving family. It also at times can come across as trying to "sell" the beliefs of the corporate group the minister happens to represent. To be fair, I have also been to some "protestant" funerals and while they do tend to be a little more emotional, they also can come across that way. It seems that no matter what the dis ceased person's history was, they always end up being talked into heaven. No one ever goes to hell at a funeral.
ASB,
There are definite concerns that one's faith can be shaken. The combination of anger and disillusionment increases the odds, sadly. What is the solution?
I believe the WCG and Armstrongism need to be strongly debunked because there are cult or cultish tendencies with those that adhere to it. I think we need to pray before posting articles or comments on this site. We also need to recognize that even most of the current leaders were deceived, but all is not lost because our Lord can bring us to Him even when our path goes through Armstrongism.
We developed a relationship with the Lord even while attending the WCG, but the relationship can now be greatly improved and the room for growth is inspiring as we see that Christ can break down the strongholds of the mixed teachings of Armstrongism. Sometimes I think, "why Lord did my experience with You include Armstrongism?" But, it also shows us how the Lord can show us new understanding quite regularly as some of those false teachings are removed. And, I think they are richer understandings due to the contrast to Armstrongism.
And ABS, I have, from my youth to this day, had an interest and fascination with the Bible. I always wanted to know first, what it said, then why and eventually by who and the actual history and background of it. That unfolded out of my WCG experience. I find its actual origins, history, authors, politic, intent, contradictions and obvious lack of knowing how the real world actually works along with the stars, planets and universe out there, fascinating. Others find such things intimidating, threatening and maddening.
We filter the Bible through the Western mind. It is an Eastern book and often those in the West who took and ran with it did so in a manner that it was never meant to be taken or applied it to things to which it has no real relationship.
It also became an instrument of far to many to play on the guilt, fear and shame of people for personal ego and gain.
To date, I don't find many or perhaps any in the WCG experience or splinters who I consider insincere or manipulating for their own prophet. Is simply find ministers who are stuck in one idea with updates from time to time who have never had the appropriate education in the actual origins and inner workings of the scriptures. They also have had no training in the art of pastoring or how to actually help their members with real problems that arise in life without just throwing an unhelpful scripture at them or throwing them to the wolves to get over it alone. My personal experience is one of men who lack compassion, empathy and the fact that there aren't any 10's. Not in the members and certainly in the ministry or leadership.
"I was mistaken" "I am sorry" "I'm not sure about that" and "I love you" are not phrases you find flowing from the lips of most of these men. If they do, it is on their terms only it's still going to be your fault.
The sad thing to me is that precious little if any of what men like Flurry, Pack, Weinland and Thiel think or predict is actually going to come about or is true. I think of what a waste Gerald Waterhouse made of his life focused in on what clearly, even years ago when I got stuck with him coming to my churches to bore or scare the hell out of the church, was 100% wrong 100% of the time. These other men are wasting their live even as we speak and those who sit week after week hoping that they got it all right are in for one big let down in time.
All these ministers will grow older and eventually pass from the scene just like everyone else. No Second Coming, No changing in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump changes avoiding death. No passing leave or collecting $200.
Much of the Bible was never meant to be taken literally or if it was then that topic was misunderstood in the day and today we know better. Much of what we think is for today as we read the 2000 year old texts as if they were written to us yesterday, isn't for today. Its time has past and horror of horrors, it was wrong then too. The Book of Revelation comes to mind. We don't get that and don't want to for the most part.
You can see how I view, at times, at least in the pictures I took across the cemetery into downtown Greenville in the background. Buildings full of busy people can look just like big tombstones. It's a reminder that there might be more to living than working in a cubicle and perhaps sitting in a church listening to man who really doesn't know what he is talking about and giving false hope because he wants to make something mean what it never meant and be something or someone that is a mere fantasy in their mind. That's what Dave Pack does well as one of our more illustrious examples of pious convictions based on marginal information.
ASB
You write that you recommend internet Christian sites for believers. There's a problem here. They all tell the same lies, ie, 'the wicked band together' as the NIV translation puts it. Some of these lies:
1. They all hide that relationships are two way rather than one way. That's what's behind the endless give, help, serve. The word 'one another' appears over 50 times in the NT, as in serve, comfort etc, one another. Relationships being one way is social justice warrior theology.
2. They all rob adults of their adulthood and treat members as children. The pounds that every Christian is given by Christ in the parable of the talents is stolen by the church leaders and their ministers. For instance, I heard Kenneth Copeland claim in one of his programs that God was in fact whispering into Adams ear when he was naming the animals. So no freedom for Christians. Another example, the Focus on the family web site tells its readers to immediately tell their spouse if they are attracted to a member of the opposite site. How humiliating. Image a husband telling his wife 'mommy, I was attracted to this woman, keep an eye on me so that I behave.' This same article said to refuse being alone with a member of the opposite sex at ones workplace. And such rules are always inflexible. It's one rule fits all. Imagine a 20 something telling his boss that he can't work alone with an old woman. Which leads to point 3.
3. All these churches are murderous, plain and simple How can people be robbed of their adulthood otherwise? This takes the form of members being deliberately fed spiritual milk rather than meat, with the ministers following members like dogs, treating their lives as their own. This also means attacking members self image by promiscuously treating them like children. This includes attacking self confidence, self esteem, and a taboo on assertiveness and rights.
This beating down and tearing down of members is mislabeled humility. Religious literature is saturated with this word. But it's plain murder.
ASB, as an elder, the above gave you under power and influence, so I'm not surprised that you defend the system. Unsurprisingly, Protestantism (about 25% of the population) is declining in America.
Not forgetting, when such churches fall apart, it's always the fault of some traitor, never the church culture itself.
It's a very human thing to want others to share our views. Like, "Why cant't they see and understand! We all need to be Christian and be working out our salvation! There's too much corrupt communication around here! I'm leaving!" Or, alternatively, "Doesn't Science mean anything to anyone? There's proof readily available of so many things so that people don't need to be looking to Bronze Age or Medieval superstitions that others impose to control and manipulate people." Or finally, "Why is it that so many have now rejected the truths God gave to His apostle, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong? The crown stealers have clearly gained the upper hand here! Nobody is interested in qualifying for leadership in the first resurrection any more!"
These are all attitudes expressed by people who are preaching their own personal gospels, and most do have one. It's our own version of partisan politics. From time to time, when others appear to have gained an upper hand, various partisans become frustrated that they are not changing anyone's opinion, and threaten to leave. Me? I'm a people person who finds it stimulating to exchange ideas. I'm around when I have time, and am off busy exchanging ideas with customers and colleagues the rest of the time. My opinion on one thing has not changed for years, and that is that basically, in so many ways each of us is alone, and, like that old song, we've got to walk that lonesome valley for ourselves. People around us can make that tolerable and enjoyable, or we can get pissed off at them for not thinking the same ways in which we do as they walk their own lonesome valleys too.
BB
" I find its actual origins, history, authors, politic, intent, contradictions and obvious lack of knowing how the real world actually works along with the stars, planets and universe out there, fascinating. Others find such things intimidating, threatening and maddening. "
The problem is that you think you know its origins. You have no idea what transpired 100 years ago without written documentation, yet you think you know what happened 4,000, 6,000, 10,000, or a million years ago though we have absolutely no written documentation of what was taught. We have a few writings in stone all interpreted in varying ways by "scholars". You are so sure of yourself when in reality you should just acknowledge that you/we just don't know. The arrogance here is so thick!
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