Just sayin'....

Sunday School Syndrome

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Church-Members-Bill-of-Rights----Basic-Rights-Any-Member-of-a-Church-Should-Expect-to-Enjoy&id=165318

"Readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic don’t occasion much questioning. But subjects like history are another matter! Learning history, or anything else for that matter, can be likened to learning Bible verses if questioning is excluded from the process. This kind of learning without questioning is carried over to our colleges and universities where the problem becomes really severe.

Subjects are taught as if they were comprised of revealed truths. Hardly anyone ever questions them because questioning them is discouraged. So we end up with people who graduate with degrees under their arms who are no wiser than they were on the days they matriculated as freshmen. No new idea ever enters their heads. In this society, people who are learned are not educated. They are little different from hurdy gurdy monkeys, but we elect them to office. Such is the legacy of the Sunday School Syndrome. It yields the stubbornness of what are essentially stillborn minds. No amount of information conveyed can ever make a stupid person smart! So nothing fundamental will ever change until intellectual development rather than the conveyance of information becomes the principal goal of learning."

"In many homes in America‘s Bible Belt, children are nurtured in constrained intellectual environments. The only recognized book is the Bible, and children are told from early ages on that it contains the revealed word of God himself which not only is never questioned but is never even questionable. These children go or are taken to church three or more times a week where they are enrolled in Bible school and hear stories, often as outrageous as the parting of the Red Sea, that are never questionable. No one ever asks, or is even ever allowed to ask, How can that be true?"

http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/learning-without-questioning-in-america-the-sunday-school-syndrome/

How did asking questions of the ministry or concerns about the blustering ideas 'the church' could come up with from the Bible, which usually was really what HWA or Joseph Tkach could come up, work out for you?  I once asked Gerald Waterhouse what he was going to think and do when HWA died just like every other old man on earth?  That didn't work out well for me.  He said "I'll believe it after three days and three nights."  And no I am not making this up.  I once called Joe Sr and asked if it was true HWA was divorcing as it was all over the church and I'd like know as minister.  He screamed "put a lid on it!"  and hung up.  Of course it was true.  In my world, 100% of my questions asked of the Tkaches were 100% denied and 100% true.  Yes meant no and no meant yes is what I learned real quick towards the end.

Take me! Take me!

Ever express a concern or fear about the how can this be after a sermon proof texing for an hour over the "Place of Safety" and not get the "God will work out of faithless one" look?  I hated that topic and any sermon on it I had to sit through raised ever antenna and alarm I ever had.  To be honest, I was not ever going to tell a church "it's time" for anything.  But questioning it could be fatal to your advancement I suppose.  

Does anyone in Dave Pack's Deplored Church of God EVER get away with questioning Dave's sermon content?  Anyone uncomfortable with "And yes brethren , I am an Apostle" or "I am Joshua as spoken of by the Prophet Haggai"?  No?  Why not?  Are you stupid?  Anyone ever question Dave not abiding disagreement, "study papers" or input he didn't ask for?  Are you stupid?  You can't tell me at least some of those who had to endure MONTHS of sermons on Dave's personal view of his vast importance in the world of religion weren't wondering if this was really so.  I know when he was told by one of his former "agreers", Michael Venish,  that it might not be the best idea to build a replica of Ambassador College in Wadsworth, Ohio he got fired.  I'm glad he wasn't stupid.  You don't question Dave....ever, and you accept the answer you get one time only. 

"Pretty cool huh?  Didn't cost me a cent. Fred Diehl in NY paid for it"

Anyone get uncomfortable when HWA traveled around the world giving out expensive gifts and paying for audiences because he was to "go before Kings" never quite telling them why?  The "strong hand from somewhere" was code for "Jesus" but we don't want to offend.  Those that did found out you don't ask questions about obvious abuses and foolish perspectives in the Church of God without going to the penalty box.  I always like the "blessing for the Czar" that was in Fiddler on the Roof.  I applied it to many men in the church who had stupid ideas and answers to sincere questions and concerns.  "May God bless and keep the Czar...far away from us."   I always wondered why ten healthy WCG ministers or members didn't show up at Joe Tkach Sr or Jr's office and haul their sorry asses and furniture out to the curb and be done with it.  "You want to go to church on Sunday, get swoozy over Jesus, put up your Christmas tree and enjoy and Easter Egg hunt, knock yourself out. But not here.  I'm sure there is a church of your choice somewhere," seemed the proper response to me.  Letting the Tkaches take the helm of WCG was one of religions more stupid moves without question.  It is said Joe Sr. died admitting he had "been so stupid."  Why does it take so long?  It amazes me in all things political and religious how ONE  Person can control the minds and opinions of the many without question.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1czlapsLgEA

It doesn't get more embarrassing than this and I am sure Ron was used at "Idea City" for entertainment. Many folk got up an left.

During the Weinland "I don't need a point for a sermon. I just need to talk for 90 minutes.  Me and Mable are the Two Witnesses" era, did anyone sitting there raise their hand to express concern or caution for his ideas?  Evidently not.  Were you stupid?

We know the folk in Gerald Flurry's grasp are stupid.  That man can put those folk in a steel box, shut them off from family and real life and demand all their resources and get away with it week after week evidently.  He can declare himself "That Prophet" of Malachi all he wants but I'd declare him "That Fool" personally.  How long will it take PCGer's to do the same.  Anyone tired of passing the baton of religious empire control over to the kids?    Let's see..HWA/GTA  Joe Tkach Sr/Joe Tkach Jr.  Gerald Flurry/Son Steven.   I'm seeing a pattern here. Dave Pack will pass his empire on to himself after he dies no doubt.  Are you stupid?

Read it again, in your Church of God context and ask yourself just how much longer am I going to sit here standing up on the inside but sitting down on the outside acting like I agree with the answers to my concerns, fears and sincere questions from my "minister"  when I don't.  Of course if you are a Deplored Church of God member under the all knowing Apostle David C Pack, you won't be allowed to restate the question a second time. 

"Readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic don’t occasion much questioning. But subjects like history are another matter! Learning history, or anything else for that matter, can be likened to learning Bible verses if questioning is excluded from the process. (And in my Church it is)This kind of learning without questioning is carried over to our colleges and universities where the problem becomes really severe.

Subjects are taught as if they were comprised of revealed truths.(Because my minister runs all over the Bible hunting and fishing for scriptures and concepts that fit his story) Hardly anyone ever questions them because questioning them is discouraged.(Ya think!) So we end up with people who graduate with degrees under their arms who are no wiser than they were on the days they matriculated as freshmen. (And broken homes, anxiety, depression, shoot outs, suicide, and theological zombies) No new idea ever enters their heads.("Everything you need to know Brethren is right here.") In this society, people who are learned are not educated. They are little different from hurdy gurdy monkeys, but we elect them to office. (Or let them be undereducated ministers who know it all) Such is the legacy of the Sunday School Syndrome. (Sabbath School Syndrome) It yields the stubbornness of what are essentially stillborn minds. No amount of information conveyed can ever make a stupid person smart! So nothing fundamental will ever change until intellectual development rather than the conveyance of information (Way too long sermons where you don't get to raise your hand) becomes the principal goal of learning."

"In many homes in America‘s Bible Belt, children are nurtured in constrained intellectual environments.(i.e for example, the Restored Church of God.) The only recognized book is the Bible, and children are told from early ages on that it contains the revealed word of God himself (Or Gerald, Ron and Dave) which not only is never questioned but is never even questionable. These children go or are taken to church three or more times a week where they are enrolled in Bible school and hear stories, often as outrageous as the parting of the Red Sea, that are never questionable. No one ever asks, or is even ever allowed to ask, How can that be true?"

"The Prophecy is very much still on"
Apostle David C Pack

Dennis muses on small minded theology

The "6000 Year Plan of God"

Logic or Theo-Logic?

"The Bible clearly reveals a 6,000-year period during which human beings follow their own ideas apart from the Creator. This will be followed by Jesus Christ's thousand-year reign on earth, during which He and the resurrected saints will literally teach the entire world God's true ways. Notice: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6)....

Which may not be the same as real facts

...The Jews of Jesus' day understood well the concept of each day of the week representing a thousand years in the Plan of God. Peter explained this principle: "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). So, the seven-day week represents God's 7,000-year plan, with six days of the week representing the time of our present human society, followed by the thousand years of Christ's reign as King of kings (Revelation 11:15)."

Roderick C Meredith-When will the end come?  Tomorrow's World Magazine

Whether the Bible "clearly" spells out anything is a matter of opinion and theological debate.  Apostle Dave Pack assures us that "God's word is crystal clear" on his muddled  and muddied prophecy of Haggai in which he sees himself spoken of by the scriptures and just knows that God intends to unifiy all the splinters under one leader, which of course would be himself.  The idea that it is the Bible that is clear and it is the humans who are blind to the clearness or not called to see the clearness at this time is ridiculous reasoning.   It is not uncommon to find Church of God Gurus coming up with codes and mysteries, puzzles to be solved and hidden meanings that only one man, the guy in charge of all truth can explain.  It's a con more than a truth but some folk seem to like it.

2Peter:3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction 

Even here we see the Greek author of 2 Peter (Not written by the actual Peter and much later in the game) get tired of all the arguing and admitting that Paul is not the easiest guy to understand theologically. That's because he was 'all things to all men" so at times you can never figure out what the man stands for.  Rather than admit the man's clarity is not so clear and he might be off track on some things big time, this author typically blames the people and reasons that they don't understand because they are unlearned and unstable souls and headed for destruction.  Typical blame placing and name calling when the problem is really not the listener.   The Apostle Paul had is own issues with "clear as mud."

Personally as a minister I always thought the explanation as to why Jesus spoke in parables was somewhat lame to my way of thinking.  These mysterious sayings to keep folk from understanding were not all that hard to understand. 

"And He said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand"  

Luke 8:10

(I wanted to put a "Jesus teaching Parables" picture here but I can't find one for free.  Jesus pictures are not for free evidently! LOL)

Unless I am missing something, the parables of Jesus were very simplistic and rather easy to understand. Seeds on various kinds of soil, lost coins, pearls of great price and so on are not all that hard to figure out and see what Jesus of the Gospels was getting at.  

But whether it is clear or not, what RCM means here is that if we just go by the Bible, we can discern a 6000 year , (can we really?) oral/written traditions made up along the way by Bronze Age men who packaged it in what we now call the Bible.  It does not meant they understood anything about the real age of the universe, our solar system or how life actually came to be on the planet.  The first mistake would be the start point and taking the Adam and Eve mythology, taken from Sumerian creation stories and given a Hebrew twist as literally true.  They are not and until the ministry and laity in all fundamentalist churches can come to grips with this reality, it will be endless name calling.  

"The Mesopotamian myths, then, agree with Genesis: (1) _all_ the gods REST _after_ creating man, and (2) _all_ the gods rest on a seventh day _after_ man's creation (but this seventh day of rest is _after_ a flood instead of _before_ a flood) and (3) Yahweh sets aside a seventh day for man (Israel) to rest on and on a seventh day the gods caused man to "rest" (his "rest from toil" is that which accompanies man's death by the seventh day of the Shuruppak Flood). These, for me, are the "new twists" the Hebrews have applied to the earlier Mesopotamian myths! 

Hebrews apparently objected to the Mesopotamian storyline and denied that Yahweh-Elohim had created man to endure back-breaking toil in his Garden of Eden to give God a break from self-toil in growing his own food (Yet Yahweh is fed food twice a day like a Mesopotamian god beginning with the Exodus at Mount Sinai and this feeding of God is to continue for all of eternity -even after the Messiah comes- as Ezekiel envisions a future Messiah at Jerusalem with the help of Levitical priests preparing God's daily food via burnt offerings and sacrifices cf. Ez. 44:7,15; 45:13-25; 46:1-9). Via a series of brilliantly orchestrated inversions and reversals or "new twists" to old Mesopotamian motifs and concepts the nomadic Hebrew shepherds apparently recast the Mesopotamian city-dwellers' myths which had man being the ruthlessly exploited innocent victim of the gods, instead it is God who is the victim of a rebellious, unappreciative, evil-hearted mankind. Why did they do this? The city-dwellers despised and feared the nomads characterizing them as uncouth and a threat to civilization as cut-throats, thieves, bandits and raiders of cities out for plunder. In defense of their way of life the nomadic herdsmen apparently took the city-dwellers myths and recast them _via a series of inversions_ in such a way as to portray themselves (Abraham and Abel being shepherds) as blessed by God and the city-dwellers (Cain and his descendants) as the accursed by God. The nomads had the "correct" understanding of man's origins and his relationship with his Creator, the smug city-dwellers had it all wrong."

http://www.bibleorigins.net/sabbathorigins.html

The "is the story of Adam and Eve literally true?" question is not a difficult one to answer with a little bit of modern critical thinking and study.  I do understand neither of these traits are common to literalists. These stories and myths, which is mostly what the first 11, at minimum,  have meaning but they do not have the meaning literalists have assigned to them.  I recently reminded a pastor giving a sermon and making bold and unscientific statements to be careful.  He needed to realize that while he was speaking Bronze Age myths as literally true, some bored teen is using his Iphone to search it out and before he gets finished will conclude the pastor is a sincere idiot. He just got offended at me.  He'll learn the hard way I suppose. 

Of course, I am not going to prove there is no 6000 year old plan to anyone nor do I need to.  I simply want to point out we don't live in the 1930's or 60's or 70's anymore.  Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear realize we have learned more about the origin, makeup and time scale of our universe and planet in the last 30 years than in the last 3000.  Our parents were taught our galaxy was the universe until Edward Hubble noticed other fuzzy patches from Mt. Wilson Observatory over Pasadena and the rest is history.  There are BILLIONS of Galaxies and I will venture to say that "soon" humans will have to realize we may just be one bubble of a universe in a bath billions of bubbles.  Very cool!  It also makes the God of the 6000 year plan seem rather wimpy and confined to a just about nothing earth bossing amoeba around.  I'd like to live long enough for some confirmation of life elsewhere in our solar system past or present.  Like the few Europeans who tried to explain to the majority that one would not fall off the edge of the earth if they went west across the Atlantic and would possibly find "others", I think this will be proved correct also in time.  Marco Polo was jailed by the church for a time after his round the world travels because he had found "others" and it would erode the authority of the Church over everyone in Europe is that got too widely known.  It did eventually get widely known.  Truth is like that.

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24, 2003, through to January 16, 2004. Looking back approximately 13 billion years (between 400 and 800 million years after theBig Bang) it will be used to search for galaxies that existed at that time. The HUDF image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. In August and September 2009, the Hubble's Deep Field was expanded using the infrared channel of the recently attached Wide Field Camera 3(WFC3). When combined with existing HUDF data, astronomers were able to identify a new list of potentially very distant galaxies.^[1][2]

Located southwest of Orion in the southern-hemisphere constellation Fornax, the image is a little more than 3arcminutes across.^[3] This is just one-tenth of the diameter of the full Moon as viewed from Earth, smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held at 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The image is oriented so that the upper left corner points toward north (−46.4°) on the celestial sphere.

Someday a much bigger minded Church is going to have to cope with the truths, not of science falsely so called, but of science done well.  Genesis 1-3 has meaning and the Priest who wrote it had message for Hebrew men and women.  It was just not meant to explain literal origins.  Nothing happens in a literary vacuum.  The stories of others are always copied and amended to tell the story others wish to tell about themselves.  Big stories give cultic people a huge pedigree which is the goal.  

"Ok, i admit it. I messed around with the Sapien Babe. She had awesome browridges.  Am I so bad?"

All life on this planet has evolved over the last 4 billion years and most a lot more "recently" than that.  How that occurred is not fully understood but is far better understood than ever.  Humans arrived around 160-200,000 years ago.  There were many intriguing cousins and ancestors for a few million years before that.  All Europeans are now known to have 2-5% Neanderthal genes in their makeup.  I think that 's cool.   Arguing is endless and will always divide humans into the camps that understand it and don't understand it and those that want to understand it and those that do no wish to go there because it is a threat to their mistaken but comfortable views of how it all is.  

The Bible may portray a 6000 year "plan' but that minuscule time compared to all of time that has passed while we came to be is the thickness of the coat of tar on top of the worlds tallest building compared to the height of the building.  Reality in scientific exploration should not be the threat to spirituality that it seems to be.  It certainly is a threat to religion which is a horse of a different color as they say.  Yes, "Houston We have a problem" is true in religion when it comes to not taking all stories Biblical literally.  Theologians admit that the idea that "all of us are sinners and subject to eternal death because of Adam's sin..." becomes moot if there were not a literal Adam and Eve as portrayed in Genesis, and there wasn't.  That is the kind of problem you cause yourself when you start with a wrong premise. It's what you get building doctrine on a mistaken idea in the first place.  Catholicism had to do back flips theologically once they decided Mary was literally a virgin when the literal and sinless God Jesus came from her womb. Modern genetics biology leave one only with "it was a miracle" to explain it theologically.  It is a faith issue and faith is not biology or genetics.   There is logic and there is theo-logic.

The 6000 Year Plan is simply too small

(We're gonna need a bigger boat)

s

What's It Like To Grow Up In the Armstrong Family and the COG?

Secular Safe House, has a one hour interview with Deborah Armstrong and her life as part of the Armstrong family and as a church employee.  Sadly, her story confirms the messed up lives that Herbert and his lust for power brought upon his family and relatives.

The Secular Safe House has this up:

Deborah shares about her abusive childhood, troubled relationship with her parents, impressions of her uncle Herbert, and her non-typical experience growing up in the church under the shadow of Armstrong. She also shares about her time attending the church’s Ambassador College, employment as a writer for the church’s The World Tomorrow telecast, and time spent in Russia on behalf of the church’s educational and cultural foundation working in television, which is where her doubts about the church were solidified.

In this interview Deborah shares her opinions — and the views expressed by several in her family — about Herbert and allegations that he committed incest with his daughter, her views on religion and society in general, as well as her recommendations for those who are having doubts about their own faith.

Listen to her story here:  Deborah - Worldwide Church of God