"Mom! He
called me a bad name!"
You have to love the religiously human...
Titus 1:
12 Even
one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes,
lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so
that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to
Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.
 Paul was
demanding his followers and the Cretan brethren pay no
attention to Jewish Myths and go with his newer more pagan ones. He was
also saying they should only obey his COMMANDS. In other words,
it's Dave Pack telling the brethren not to follow the commands of Bob Thiel
or Rod Meredith. (Did I put them in the wrong order?) It's Ron
Weinland telling the brethren not to listen to Dave Pack. It's
Dave saying don't listen to Gerald Flurry. Its Gerald
saying...well we get the point.
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The Apostle Paul must have liked Epimenides, the 6th Century BC
philosopher' at least for his proposing, contrary to Cretan
belief, that Zeus was immortal. The lie of the Cretans
was denying that Zeus was immortal and thus would fit Paul's assertion that
Jesus was too. He and Epimenides were telling the truth about God-Men as
long as you did not think of Epimenides as a Cretan, who always lie...
Since Paul told us several times in his letters, "I lie not,"
we KNOW he can't be lying!
Epimenides wrote in his immortalize poem from which Paul quoted,
"They fashion a
tomb for thee of high and holy one
The Cretans, always
liars, evil beasts , idle bellies!
But thou art not dead,
thou livest and abidest forever
For in thee (Zeus) we
live and move and have our being"
Paul loved these Pagan quotes even though Dave Pack tells us he rejected
his mother's pleas to read Plato, Aristotle and Socrates. Dave also
discounts Einstein because "he had wild hair," but I spare you.
This , "Cretans are always liars, and this is true" concept
that Paul had leads to a paradox which Mr. Epimenides may not have considered
or even thought of.
Thomas Fowler (1869) states the paradox as follows:
"Epimenides the Cretan says, 'that all the Cretans are liars,' but
Epimenides is himself a Cretan; therefore he is himself a liar. But if he be a
liar, what he says is untrue, and consequently the Cretans are veracious; but
Epimenides is a Cretan, and therefore what he says is true; hence the Cretans
are liars, Epimenides is himself a liar, and what he says is untrue. Thus we
may go on alternately proving that Epimenides and the Cretans are truthful and
untruthful."
All that aside, here
we have Paul calling a whole nation of people liars and since he is not a
Cretan (Well, not that kind), he gets to pronounce that indeed they are all
liars, evil beasts and idle bellies and declare that "this is
true."
While the paradox of a
Cretan saying all Cretans are liars, which would mean he was lying about
Cretans being liars, the Old and New Testaments are FULL of the religious
bashing the religious for their views and lying too. The Prophets made a
living off bashing everyone but themselves. Each group said the pens of
the other were lying and the writers thus liars. There must have been
many pants on fire in the OT.
The Apostles often
confronted each other and pointed out each other's faults in thinking. Paul
bragged in Galatians about how he "withstood Peter to his
face." Of course we don't have Peter's side of the confrontation,
but I suspect we aren't talking about pork here. I believe Peter now
could see that Paul was not abiding by the Acts 15 injunctions about eating
meat sacrificed to idols, by what was on the table. I bet Peter called
Paul a liar and Paul called Peter a Cretan.
The entire book of
James is a repudiation of Paul's book of Romans. "Show me your faith
without works, and I will show you my faith by my works." In short,
James was calling Paul a doof and a liar for teaching against the
teachings. Paul taught against lots of teachings and other teachers
"tried those who say they are Apostles and are not," and
got an "A" from Revelation Jesus for doing so.
The true ministers end
up calling every one else, "twice dead," "raging waves of the
sea," "foaming shame," and "whose God is the
belly," to top it all off. If this is the case then we
must consider Burger King, McDonalds and all Buffets to be Churches in America.
Paul called people
whited walls and Jesus called them whited grave stones. Whited walls
are different from whitened grave stones and tombs. The walls of Paul's
mind were the ones made smooth so when men 'pisseth against the walls,"
they don't get as much splashback as when those bathhouse walls were
rough. When he called the High Priest one of these, he got his mouth
slapped but apologized because he didn't know it was the High Priest. You only
curse the lower classes.
I guess one can
criticize and make fun of the members but not the supreme leaders in the
COGs.
The Apostle Paul crows
about "when cursed, we bless and curse not." (I Cor 4:12)
This held true only for so long as cursing others was not necessary. Once
it became necessary, he cursed them. He cursed them for accepting any
other Gospel besides the one he delivered to them and he hope they'd not only
get circumcised, but cut off their private parts completely. Nice!
(Aside-I hear the guy
at the zoo that circumcises the elephants doesn't get much pay for that
dangerous work, but he does admit the tips are big...sorry:)
Matthew 5: 22 finds
Jesus saying "But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to
his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say,
Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire, " and then going on to curse
the Pharisees as fools. (Matthew 23:17). The apologetic is that Jesus
meant not to call fellow believers fools but it was fine to call the
unbelieving fools...fools. I guess ALL those at the Sermon on the Mount
were automatic believers and not a fool in the crowd. It's like
Dave Pack forbidding members to give to charity because he can better us their
money and it says help if for "...the least of these, MY
BRETHREN," so that doesn't count those outside the group.
The point is that when
there are hundreds of versions of the one True Church , the
Restored Church, The Living Church, the Packaged, I mean PKG Church, the
Plain Truth, the Present Truth and the One Truth, you're going to get ministers
and members bashing each other big time. On top of that, some of the main
players in the COG saga say and do such amazingly stupid things based on their
view of scripture, it simply can't be helped.
I NEVER met anyone who
knew they were in the false church or any minister who thought he was a false
prophet, priest, king, watcher, witness or lunatic, until it was apparent to
all, and then they would deny it and dig in. The Apostle Paul
set this form of denial as standard practice for ministers when he noted
"all those in Asia have turned aside from me," and then went on to
ask God not to hold against THEM. It never occurred to Paul to wonder why
they ALL forsook him, because he could not see he was any part of the
problem. The eye that sees can't see itself as we should understand.
Reputation bashing is
standard procedure between members and ministers, friends and foes when talking
about their faith and church. You bash others when you can't think of a
logical way to disagree or think critically, but most of us don't do that
anyway when the painbody erupts to feed. We think more clearly and
critically after it eats it's full and then goes back to sleep for a
time until the next time. I can write a dozen articles on what's really
going on this or that story, scripture or Biblical teaching and get two or
three comments. Post something on stupid is as stupid does and all the
pain bodies erupt and the comments soar.
It's just easier to play
"yeah? yeah! Oh yeah? " than it is to have a good
discussion on a new insight into what one misunderstood in the past.
Criticism is more fun than Critical thinking.
If you are truly
seeking to understand what is true and honest , correct and more real, you
don't get your information from a painbody while it is feeding. But
that's for another day...
All
Christians criticize each other. Those hurt and offended by the
behaviors or teachings of others criticize those that do it. Those
that do it, criticize back for being criticized and to reestablish , in
their own minds, that they are not teaching what is not so in reality.
Remember, NO one believes they believe the wrong things and most ministers
don't believe in their most introspective moments they are teaching what is not
true. Their ignorance is a function of their education and not
in the ability to read or be somewhat charismatic in their delivery.
We all like to believe
we are above the fray and as time passes the few can rise above it and let it
all be what it was and is. That is a skill and a gift from the universe
if one ever gets there, "and there be few that be that find it," as
they say.
Until then, even with
all the injunctions to "bless and curse not," found in the
Bible, written by those who can't do it themselves, criticism is to
be expected as part of the curriculum here at Earth School. I guess
the Cretans could have sued Paul for defamation of character but he'd just say
he was quoting their own Cretan guru so go talk to him. He could also
make the point that since the original comment was a lie from a lying Cretan,
Cretans are not really liars. Awwww...never mind!
