From Exit and Support:
Saying Drought in Australia Was a Curse From God:
February 16, 2020
I been thinking recently about the bushfires in Australia. Flurry (and other similar people) would have people believe that the lengthy drought in Australia was a curse from God for people’s (the public’s) sins, and that God would give them rain when they repent of whatever sin was the cause of the drought.
I seem to remember that we were taught in the WCG that it is God who grants repentance. If only a “few” are “called now” and given the chance to “repent,” then why on earth would God be punishing the rest of humanity for their so-called sins when He hasn’t even granted them repentance?
Now there has been rain across the bushfire regions and the fires are effectively put out.
Did the people of Australia “repent” of their sins? No, probably not, but it rained anyway. There are floods now which are a natural result after a drought.
These religious leaders all seem to say the same thing in their literature and television broadcasts to suck people into their cults by saying the words, “You need to know.” No, you don’t “need to know” anything that they have to say.
–Australia
And here I thought all this time that the Devil was the "Bad Guy" who did evil stuff , and not God.
ReplyDeleteI guess you learn something new every day!
Just like California, parts of Australia - particularly NSW and Queensland - alternate between long periods of severe drought followed by flooding. And major areas of the country are subject to seasonal bushfires. This has been going on for yonks, and governments have been avoiding schemes that would reduce the impact.
ReplyDeleteThen there's climate change, intensifying all of the above. I remember Mark Armstrong's man down under, Murray, was an ardent climate change denier...
If there were no humans on the planet, there would still be floods, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. etc. It's not about sin or repentance at all if you ask me. Just nature doing its thing as it has for billions of years.
ReplyDeleteThe ministers use this ploy on a personal level as well. If a member suffers any setback or misfortune, it's because they didn't obey their minister. Obey being a code word for being the ministers mindless puppet.
ReplyDeleteWe all understand the model. Armstrongism misinterprets the message that Christ brought. Instead of seeing the good news of salvation in Christ's message, they see predictive prophecy about the End of the Age as the gospel. This leads to a desire to seize on anything that looks tribulational to lend support to the idea of the painful End of the Age bearing down on us. It leads to scare tactics that have the bonus effect of generating funding to continue "The Work." Sorry to go over the obvious but I need to use this as a point of departure.
ReplyDeleteThe really bad thing about this is that latter day Millerite prophets just may be attributing to God all kinds of disasters that he has nothing to do with because of the free agency he has delegated to others. Every time there is a tornado that kills a bunch of people and destroys property, Armstrongites are trained to see God in this. This results in a defective and malformed view of God. It may bring in money and stir up the base but at what spiritually ruinous cost?
Tonto wrote:
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought all this time that the Devil was the "Bad Guy" who did evil stuff , and not God.
The COGs teach that the Devil is presently the God of this world, biding his time until Christ returns to claim the ruler's throne. This means that if YHVH/Christ are starting fires and causing mayhem, the Devil is letting them do it. So, if the actions of YHVH/Christ are good, the Devil is also doing good.
Stuff like this is why there could never be a successful Systematic Theology Project coming out of the Armstrong movement.
The ministers use this ploy...
ReplyDeleteAnd they offer the "Place of Safety" - the COG version of the Protestant "Rapture".
Don't join our church out of love for the Lord and receive eternal life, but to save your hide from disaster in by hiding in a cave in Jordan. It reminds me of Scott Adam's take on Bin Laden: "Let's go and attack the most powerful country and then go and hide in caves in Afghanistan!"
there would still be floods, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteAlthough YECs would not agree, these things happened BEFORE there were humans as well.
NEO
ReplyDelete'..because of free agency He has delegated to others.'
Not really. God hasn't 'delegated' free moral agency. Rather it is inherent in being made in Gods mental image. Remove free moral agency, and man is just another animal. Which is why there is NOT ONE INSTANCE of God making a decision for a human being in the bible. God cannot - because it is MURDER.
Yes, God can harden hearts, stir people up, inspire people, and put pressure on people, but there is the line He cannot cross of making a decision for another person.
Fear sells. This is the only reason the ACOG's exist, to sell fear for financial gain.
ReplyDeleteFear, the overwhelming desire to save your own ass.
Tonto wrote:
ReplyDelete"And here I thought all this time that the Devil was the "Bad Guy" who did evil stuff, and not God."
Well, the book of Job says they team up on the evil stuff. And their activity has very little to do with punishing humans for evil or rewarding them for good. It's just a couple of supernaturals, each trying to win a bet and demonstrate what measly worth human beings have.
Gives a whole new insight to Genesis 1, right? The chief god set the trap and the trickster-god urged the humans to take the bait. That gave the chief god all the excuse he needed to assert his dominion by making human life miserable.
The clear implication? Same thing Job learned: bad things that happen to human beings don't need to make sense. It is the duty of a righteous maggot to take the bad along with the good, whichever his god dishes out, and shut up about it.
The bad and the good come about as collateral damage or inadvertent benefits of games played by supernatural rivals. The patterns that result average out to be the same as if no supernatural beings existed at all. It's just that our carnal minds insist on seeing patterns in random phenomena. Dragons and bears and hunters and rams and all that in the distribution of stars across the sky, for example.
This is where I should bring up that guy who was on here a few years ago insisting that some earthquake would trigger Yellowstone and wipe out the West. Well, his prediction came and went. And Constance telling us James Malm would call down fire on Gary. Well, Gary's appointment with the local burn unit didnt happen. If anything, you would think experience with the COGs would make you *less* prone to wild predictions and associations, not more... but of course all these self-appointed mucketymucks can't stop.
ReplyDeletewhat about Matthew 5:45
ReplyDeleteThat ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Armstrongism is a mental disorder
ReplyDelete11.55 AM
ReplyDeleteWe on Banned are not mind readers, so what's your point?
Anonymous (9:07): "God hasn't 'delegated' free moral agency. Rather it is inherent..."
ReplyDeleteMy "delegation" may be your inherency. I am not sure what the process and terminology would be in reality. Let us say that God authored and set the scope of the free will that humans have.
Anonymous (9:07): "Remove free moral agency, and man is just another animal."
This may seem apparent to you but it does not resonate with everyone. Calvinists believe in complete determinism without loss of the human condition. My guess is that they would argue that the difference between man and animal is, rather, sentience.
Gerald Flurry is mentally ill from all the demons between his ears.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous (8:33) wrote: "The COGs teach that the Devil is presently the God of this world, biding his time until Christ returns to claim the ruler's throne."
ReplyDeleteI think most Christians would agree with the COGs on this. Christ overthrew Thrones, Principalities and Powers but has not implemented their replacement in this time of "already but not yet." This does not prevent God from taking action if he wants to - for example, the Flood - either in Christianity or in Armstrongism.
The reason why there could be no systematic theology project is because Armstrongism has no systematized theology - still to this day. It has a collection of little booklets and magazine articles with only HWA's Imprimatur at the time of publication. Add to this that ministers in the field could pretty much say anything they wanted as long as no one reported them. I not sure anyone speaks for the credentialing of this body of writing and oral tradition today. Nobody can tell you if all this ad hoc "literature" is even internally consistent. It was designed for marketing not for a church canon.
Armstrongism has no systematic theology for the same reason that the Branch Davidians have no systematic theology. Can you imagine all the splinter group leaders getting together in a Synod mutually to decide what Armstrongism actually is? I see some impediments.
2:18 said "Gerald Flurry is mentally ill from all the demons between his ears."
ReplyDeleteIs there ANY COG leader who is NOT mentally ill? I can't name any.
The whole idea of retribution and punishment is silly. We are all on the planet to learn whatever lessons we decided we needed to learn before we took on this incarnation. The learning process may involve good stuff, bad stuff, or in-between stuff happening in our lives. If you don't like this go-around then maybe you will want to go to a safer planet next time. The possibilities are endless because we are endless.
ReplyDelete@ 6:34 PM, your silly idea doesn't explain why anyone would decide to spend a lifetime as a worm or a cockroach. Most life on our planet isn't human life, so why do most souls choose to incarnate as life-forms that don't have much capacity to learn?
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to posit reincarnation, I don't think your proposition is compatible with the idea of "deciding." Your past karma may land you in the body of a snake or a Prime Minister, but that's only "deciding" in the sense that your actions decide your next birth.
11:55
ReplyDeleteGood reference! ;-) Being from Oz myself I believe it’s kind of like Jonah and Nineveh too. During the fires people prayed for rain and we’ve now received it abundantly. But, with years of drought and then the devastating fires we’ve been experiencing floods. Then again we’re not alone ie UK and MS having floods too. I believe He is listening and watching, but doing what He sees as fit so in the midst of curses He will protect and/or enable His people to do good. And if some die then like Daniel’s trio of friends remarked to Neb it’s a form of protection too from any further evil that might yet come.
And just like Bob Thiel, this is ex post facto revelationem. If GRF and his PCG are up to their armpits in new revelation, why can't they give specific warnings "in 40 days" like Jonah?
ReplyDeleteGreat Britain has floods because it has a 3rd world sewage system from the Victorian age and a serious divide between the rich and poor.
ReplyDeleteMoreover they build in the valleys and water tends to look for the lowest point. In the Iron age Britons were smart and built on hilltops.
Nck
In his Feb 21 weekly update, Mark Armstrong tells us "There are freak weather events, and there always have been. It's the weather after all, and we see anomalies from time to time."
ReplyDeleteHis context is not about COG scare mongering, but denial of Climate Change...
NEO
ReplyDeleteSo Calvinists believe in determinism without the loss of the human condition.
Golly, and to think that silly me believes that truth is determined by 'you shall know them by their fruits,' ie, the scientific method, and living by every word of God. Thanks for correcting me NEO. So now I've decided to become a Roman Catholic. There's so many of them, that they must be right. So there's no point for me to read or post on Banned with all their pesty facts and arguments.
Farewell Banned!
Television is such a marvelous educator. I have to admit that watching some of the British TV shows on DVD has given me a totally different view of the various cultures of the UK. I have particularly enjoyed "Lovejoy" with its presentation of life in the beautiful English countryside, the police procedural "Line of Duty" for its overview of British law enforcement, "Judge John Deed" for insights into Anglo jurisprudence, and "Inspector George Gently" a period piece on British law enforcement during the 1960s, complete with restored British cars from that era. I've also recently discovered "London Kills".
ReplyDeleteThe British accent of most characters is relatively mild, so it is easy to understand what the characters are saying, with the exception of the occasional Cockney character.
There may have been the odd scene which took place in the sewer system, but points were not made about it being particularly Victorian. Since England was part of the Roman Empire, there are relics from that era as well. Quite amazing, since our oldest American relics are ruins from ancient Native Americans, with remnants from white people dating from the 1600s forward.
BB
BB re UK TV you should check out Endeavour (2012-). One of my faves! Watching it before I retire for the night it always puts me in a relaxed mood—probably the theme score has a lot to do with it besides the slow gradual pace to the plot.
DeleteI don't know if British people would take it as a compliment or an insult that you use British TV shows as a tranquilizer. As a matter of fact I think they would remain their poise If you told the m that and despise you for telling it in a group instead of silently informing them on the fact.
ReplyDeleteNck
NEO
ReplyDeleteYour Calvinists are definitely Borg (resistance is futile) like. John Steward Mills mentions them in his 1859 book 'On Liberty' Page 57 below. I suggest you read the book since you lack understanding in this topic. Which is the norm in present and past HWA members. As I said, life is intellectual independence. That's the meaning of the parable of the talents.
'It is so on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, the one great offence of man is self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience. You have no choice, thus you must do, and no otherwise: 'whatever is not a duty, is a sin.” Human nature being radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature is killed within him. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is better without them. This is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will of God; ..'