COG Members View On What The Internet Is To Truth

Ever since 1987 the Internet has helped bring down the Church of God splintering it into hundreds and hundreds of splinter personality cults.

Ex-members of the COG's love it while the die-hard conservatives despise it, yet love to be titillated by it.

Of course when it comes to religion, the only truth can be found in a COG blog or web site. 

Finding the truth on the net, is a bit like finding dry water.
When I go to bed tonight I will tip my head on its side and give it a good
shake, trying to tip out all the junk I have just read.

The Web is like that tree of good and evil. When the Web comes to religion
it must be 99.999999% evil and 0.111111% good.

Bob Thiel: My God Is Tired of Tornadoes and is Now Using Fire to Get Peoples Attention

Bob Thiel has been running on and on lately about his god using tornadoes to smack up vile sinners and get them to join the "True" church.  After wrecking havoc over the Midwest, Bob's god is headed off to California where he/it is causing wildfires to burn people homes and kill animals.  Those dumb stupid animals are filthy sinners that need to die too.

The logic he uses below to try and prove his point makes him look rather silly.

June 3, 2013
LANCASTER, Calif. Nearly 3,000 people from some 700 homes were under evacuation orders Monday as a wildfire north of Los Angeles kept growing, feeding on old, dry brush, some of which hadn’t burned in decades.

The blaze had burned about 46 square miles in the mountains and canyons of the Angeles National Forest, destroying at least six homes and damaging 15 more…

The Bible shows that God uses weather to get people’s attention.  Sometimes to punish, sometimes to lead to repentance, and other times to consider that God, not humankind, is in control.

With it being so wet in the East and Midwest and dry in the USA West, the following weather passages came to mind:

15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. 17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. 20 “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21 The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (Deuteronomy 28:15-24)
6 “Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord. 7 “I also withheld rain from you, When there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city, I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon, And where it did not rain the part withered. 8 So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water, But they were not satisfied; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord. (Amos 4:6-8)

Although California historically has wildfires and the rest of the USA storms, the Bible also mentions fire as something God sometimes uses. Here are some examples:

11 The Lord said:
“Surely it will be well with your remnant;
Surely I will cause the enemy to intercede with you
In the time of adversity and in the time of affliction.
12 Can anyone break iron,
The northern iron and the bronze?
13 Your wealth and your treasures
I will give as plunder without price,
Because of all your sins,
Throughout your territories.
14 And I will make you cross over with your enemies
Into a land which you do not know;
For a fire is kindled in My anger,
Which shall burn upon you.” (Jeremiah 15:11-14)

12 O house of David! Thus says the Lord:
“Execute judgment in the morning;
And deliver him who is plundered
Out of the hand of the oppressor,
Lest My fury go forth like fire
And burn so that no one can quench it,
Because of the evil of your doings.
13 “Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,
And rock of the plain,” says the Lord,
“Who say, ‘Who shall come down against us?
Or who shall enter our dwellings?’
14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,” says the Lord;
“I will kindle a fire in its forest,
And it shall devour all things around it.”‘ (Jeremiah 21:12-14)

11 The Lord has fulfilled His fury,
He has poured out His fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion,
And it has devoured its foundations. (Lamentations 4:11)

15 There the fire will devour you,
The sword will cut you off;
It will eat you up like a locust. (Nahum 3:15)

Although my prayers are with those affected by the fires and other severe weather, I also pray that those in the USA will repent as worse problems are ahead if it continues to go in a moral direction away from the Bible. Weather problems can be a warning.

Dennis "Musing on Trying and the Weather 'gods'"

Muse on This...

A low pressure system typically brings stormy weather

or

The Bible shows that whirlwinds are one of the forms of weather that God controls:

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
And will not at all acquit the wicked.
The Lord has His way
In the whirlwind and in the storm,
And the clouds are the dust of His feet. (Nahum 1;3)

If You HAD to Guess--Which Would It Be?

#1

Job 27:

21 A cyclone sweeps them up — gone!
Not a trace of them left, not even a footprint.
22 Catastrophes relentlessly pursue them;
they run this way and that, but there’s no place to hide —
23 Pummeled by the weather,
blown to kingdom come by the storm.’
 THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.)

#2

National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration

NOAA

Severe Weather

Thunderstorms, Tornadoes, and Lightning  - Nature’s most violent storms.

Thunderstorms affect relatively small areas when compared with hurricanes and winter storms. The typical thunderstorm is 15 miles in diameter and lasts an average of 30 minutes. Despite their small size, ALL thunderstorms are dangerous! Of the estimated 100,000 thunderstorms that occur each year in the United States, about 10 percent are classified as severe.

Tornadoes - Although tornadoes occur in many parts of the world, they are found most frequently in the United States.....

• A tornado is a violently rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground.
• Tornadoes cause an average of 70 fatalities and 1,500 injuries in the U.S. each year..
• The strongest tornadoes have rotating winds of more than 250 mph.
• Tornadoes can be one mile wide and stay on the ground over 50 miles.
• Tornadoes may appear nearly transparent until dust and debris are picked up or a cloud forms within the funnel. The average tornado moves from southwest to northeast, but tornadoes have been known to move in any direction.
• The average forward speed is 30 mph but may vary from nearly stationary to 70 mph.
• Waterspouts are tornadoes which form over warm water. They can move onshore and cause damage to coastal areas.

Lightning...

• Causes an average of about 60 fatalities and 300 injuries each year.
• Lightning occurs in all thunderstorms; each year lightning strikes the United States 25 million times.
• The energy from one lightning flash could light a 100-watt light bulb for more than 3 months.
• Most lightning fatalities and injuries occur when people are caught outdoors in the summer months during the afternoon and evening.
• Lightning can occur from cloud-to-cloud, within a cloud, cloud-to-ground, or cloud-to-air.
• Many fires in the western United States and Alaska are started by lightning.
• The air near a lightning strike is heated to 50,000°F--hotter than the surface of the sun!
• The rapid heating and cooling of the air near the lightning channel causes a shock wave that results in thunder.
• When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors! - NWS lighnting safety site helps ypu learn more about lightning risks and how to protect yourself, your loved ones and your belongings. The site offers a comprehensive page of handouts, brochures, links and more.

Straight-line Winds...

• Straight-line winds are responsible for most thunderstorm wind damage.
• Winds can exceed 100 mph!
• One type of straight-line wind, the downburst, is a small area of rapidly descending air beneath a thunderstorm
• A downburst can cause damage equivalent to a strong tornado and can be extremely dangerous to aviation.
• A “dry microburst” is a downburst that occurs with little or no rain. These destructive winds are most common in the western United States

Flash Flooding...

• Is the #1 cause of deaths associated with thunderstorms...more than 140 fatalities each year
• Most flash flood fatalities occur at night and most victims are people who become trapped in automobiles.
• Six inches of fast-moving water can knock you off your feet; a depth of two feet will cause most vehicles to float.

Hail...

• Strong rising currents of air within a storm, called updrafts, carry water droplets to a height where freezing occurs.
• Ice particles grow in size, becoming too heavy to be supported by the updraft, and fall to the ground.
• Causes more than $1 billion in damage to property and crops each year.
• Large stones fall at speeds faster than 100 mph

The pagans that surrounded the Hebrews, who historians now feel were merely low class Canaanites of the day who detached from the family instead of battled their way into the Promised Land, felt this guy did all the dirty work.

Baal (Lord) Raingod

The real purpose of Genesis One was NOT to explain how everything was created in reality but to send one clear message to Mr. Baal and all the gods of wind, rain, fire, animals, vegetables and minerals.   Our Hebrew God MADE Your little gods.  And the rest we call the Bible. 

This short essay is not about proving that weather is just weather whether you believe it or not.  It is about common sense in our own times.  It is about superstition gone literal and religion gone nuts.  For thousands of years humans have seen the anger of the gods and of the Hebrew/Christian God in the weather.  That's a very very old superstition.  Humans anthropromorphize the common things of our planet that shape and form it and occasionally run into it into acts of the gods and even today of God. 

This...

Becomes this...

The first is a reality that has erased life from this planet several times in the past and without which humans would not have evolved to the present state.  The second is the humans who have conscious awareness of who they are and that they can die and then what trying to explain it all to themselves.   But that was over the past 100,000 years and we have learned more in the last 200 years than in all of them.  We have learned more in the last 20 years than the last 200. 

Read all the "where were you's in Job asked by YHVH to Job and realize that most if not all those questions that Job was stuck with a "no I don't" answer , today are simple "Sure we do," answers most grade school kids can answer. 

Bob Thiel and others use the ancient "this is where we think it comes from and why" scriptures to motivate people not only to "repent" but in reality to be so impressed by their insights (which are not actually impressive)  and use of ancient ideas that they will come to them , join them and support them. It's a very old gig.  All fundamentalists do the same thing.  Dave Pack motivates with the normal, though violent weather issues on the planet as do they all.  But the conscious or subconscious motive is to get others to join their organizations and support them in the style they want to get used to.  IMHO.  I'm not saying they don't believe their own views or do so insincerely, but I do believe they are stuck in time and selling ignorance and stupid to other sincere folk.  Intelligent stupidity is not a great quality.

"God uses weather and other events to TRY to get people’s attention.
God does NOT WANT people to suffer, but to turn to Him:

Mercy!  If a God wanted to get my attention, just talk to me!  I'm listening if I can prove I am not psychotic or schizophrenic.  God can't "not want" and "want" at the same time.  That's the old "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you," when in fact it does not hurt any God at all and totally hurts humans.  YHVH of the OT does not seem "hurt" by the 2,140,000 or so documented and horrific murders of men women and children who disagree with or never heard of the Hebrew version.  NOT ONE OF THOSE FOLK TURNED TO YHVH because of this approach.

10 “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?”‘ 11 Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezekiel 33:10-11)

Oops..

Deuteronomy 28:63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

Proverbs 1:24-26 But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you.

Guess it depends on who you quote

Not every OT prophet saw Baal (Lord) now YHVH (Lord) in the weather.  Or if he did there was a time when YHVH set him straight on that.

1 Kings 19:11-13

King James Version (KJV)

¹¹ And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was NOT in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was NOT in the earthquake:

¹² And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was NOT in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

¹³ And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?"

I'll ask you COG ministers who still use Bronze Age ignorance to motivate people into current age organizations the same question.   What are you doing hiding in the cave of ignorance, fear , guilt and shame?  God doesn't have to try Bob and Dave, I know Haggai and you ain't no Haggai.  

Here is the modern version of that "Still and small voice..."

About 1,500 galaxies are visible in this deep view of the universe, taken by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995. The image covers an area of sky only about width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.

Or a grain of sand held out at arms length on the end of your finger.

Can you hear the still and small voice now loud mouths


contact Dennis at: denniscdiehl@AOL.com