Prove All Things---Believe it---Hold on to it---How?

Remember back in the day when you may have first started attending the Worldwide Church of God or along the way met other members in various other WCG congregations or at the Feast of Tabernacles and you were asked, "So....How did YOU come into the truth?"

The answer was usually a simple story of relating to driving late at night and hearing the World Tomorrow Broadcast or picking up a copy of the Plain Truth at a Newstand.  Some few may have been convinced by a coworker or a family member.  But it was a simple process.  One hears, one likes the message, one believes.

We all claimed, in our minds, that we searched out the matter and "studied" to see if these things be so.  We read the Bible, we compared scriptures Old and New.  We compared what the Bible said with what we were told it said by our previous religious affiliations and found them wanting. We proof texted our way through the scriptures and finally ended up "proving all things and holding fast to that which was good."   We were set. Nothing new to learn and if there was, it had to be presented by the fearful and humble to the high and lofty for approval.  Truth was dribble down theology.  Right up to the end, Truth had to be approved by leadership.  It had to be delivered by leadership in the form of Apostles and Evangelists and even the Evangelists had to get the OK from the Apostles.

On top of all that, we'd never consider that the Bible itself was anything less than "God breathed."  Every quote, every person, every story, every event, every promise and every threat for not believing it were absolutely immutable and exactly how it all happened in history, time and space. To question is to lose faith and to doubt or notice other explanations or problems in text or leadership is scoffing according to the scriptures.  It is also being twice dead when once will do.  

In RCG, you get your truth from David C Pack who is an authoritarian mere Bible reader know it all except he doesn't. There is a price to pay if you don't get your truth and prove all things with his approval.

In PCG you get your truth from Gerald Flurry who is an authoritarian mere Bible reader know it all except he doesn't. There is a price to pay if you don't get your truth and prove all things with his approval.

In  all the slivers run by theologically challenged farmers all outstanding in their field and in their minds, truth is pronounced, dreamed and received from God.  I recall my first "What the hell?" feeling when RCM said in freshman Bible "There is God, then Christ, then Herbert W Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, myself and other leading (not to be named) Evangelists ...."   I chuckled not knowing chuckling was not allowed in RCM's presence.

These not only don't know how to actually view the Bible, aren't theologically and professionally educated but they also can't imagine there is a view different from the ones they come up with. .

And now look at them...  

Too soon old, Too late Schmart

The Scientific Method

"Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

Thomas Huxley

Or....

     "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."?

             

             "So we all can agree, not disagree and be  happy"?

Does this sound like "prove me now herewith" or any real reason to believe anything as important as "What's it all about?"  

A Reminder Just How Dangerous Some Of The COG Teachings Can Be

So many in the various COG's see no problem with all the apocalyptic doom that their ministers continually spout out.  After all, it's in the Bible so it has to be true.  While this is an "old" story of a Church God member, it still has meaning today in light of the horrible rhetoric coming our of Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel, Rod Meredith/Gerald Weston and James Malm.  How long will it be till these false prophets have blood on their hands?  How will they lie their way out of it this time?

The video above is a reminder what can happen when people in the church are pushed over the edge by the ongoing rhetoric and lies of church ministers.  Of course they all start making excuses as Living Church of God did when Terry Ratzman murdered LCG members in Milwaukee.

Human Gullibility

Bob Thiel never got the memo

"Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tricked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action.  It is closely related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence."  A definition taken from the Internet.

Credulity is "a tendency to be too ready to believe that something is real or true." A definition taken from the Internet.

When I was a young man (I am now 74), and in the military, I heard the "World Tomorrow" radio broadcast which was hosted by either Herbert W. Armstrong or Garner Ted Armstrong.  At that time in my life, I was very inexperienced about the world in which we live.   I readily accepted and believed that the voice of the World Tomorrow program was convincing.

In life there are innumerable voices that speak out and to the general public and very often those voices are convincing in what they have to say.  Many human beings are by nature very gifted public speakers.  Public speakers often have an uncanny ability to persuade those who listen to their speeches, or what they have to say.  This is true not only in religious ideas, teachings and beliefs, but in politics, in advertising and in countless endeavors of life on earth.

I have come to the conclusion that a great deal of success in terms of having power and control over the minds of the general public, has to do with salesmanship.  A commercial product can be sold to the public, as in the Home Shopping Channel or by say QVC (Quality Value Convenience), because the products are presented as the greatest, the best, the most advanced, the "you can't live without this", the most astounding, the "your life will be better if you buy this",  only a few are left (implying you better call in and order now),  these will never be available again, three payment plan,  guaranteed or you have 30-days to return and so forth.

Religion is much the same as QVC or Home Shopping on television. Religion teaches that if you pay tithes, you reap a harvest, if you accept Jesus Christ you insure your eternal salvation,  that if you go to church, submit to your pastors and obey those who have the authority over you, you are doing the will of God.  If you attend annual "Holydays" you will be accepted by God.  If you believe what your preacher teaches and says, you are living in the will of God.  If you keep the Saturday Sabbath, God will smile upon you. If you think and believe "the Bible" is inspired by God, you are among the brethren, who also have faith.

Preachers "guarantee" your salvation "if" you believe what they tell you and you tithe.  Preachers quote certain verses from the Bible, because those cherry picked verses equate to what they want you to believe.  Preachers would have you believe that we are "living in the end times" (never mind that "end times", has been around for the last 2,000 years),  Some preachers invent sayings such as "Manna Fest", "Revival", "Holydays", "Reformation", "Prophetic Ministry", "Slain in the Spirit", "Holy Laughter", "Last Days", "Gift of Supernatural Healing", "Infallible Bible" and endless other terms that seduce the naive and the gullible.

There is a great human weakness in common humans to believe charismatic public speakers, and yet 100% of those charismatic speakers will exist planet earth, the same as all other humans, and they will never be seen or heard from again.  Why do people follow these men and women?  Answer: GULLIBILITY!!!

Being gullible or naive is an unfortunate massive problem with human beings.  The "news" media on public television is the single most lying institution on planet earth, closely followed by the movie industry.  When the "news" speaks, it would be far better to turn the television off, because the propaganda is politically motivated with hidden agendas.

Personally I NEVER trust television "news" or even the movie industry with "truth."  To think that preachers speak for God and represent God, is no different.  A few preachers may have sincere motives, but their entire basis of what they believe is based upon INK on PAPER called "the Bible", which was 100% penned by human beings, very UNinspired by God, but who had motives that are little understood in the modern world.

How many thousands of years will pass before common people stop believing preachers?   How many thousands of years will pass before common people stop paying tithes to preachers, who live in mansions and fly around the world in private jets and who make pretense that they are "anointed" by God?  How many thousands of years will families sacrifice their children, their lives, their time and their pocketbooks to preachers?

There has to come a time in life on earth when the world stops believing preachers.  Going to church is a social activity and indeed there may be friendships, but there is also a $price to pay.  The one who reaps the $benefits of tithing, is of course the preachers.   Human governments reap their tithes from taxation. Tithing is the twin of taxation.  Both are inventions of those who rule by force, compulsion and fear-mongering.  If you really believe you should tithe, why not put your check in an envelope and address it to "God in Heaven" and let the post office deliver it?

In time all church goers have to come to the conclusion that they have been deceived, because no preacher who ever lived has come back from the grave, nor has any other human.  It is impossible to prove that there is life after death, it is just something all humans "hope" is real, and in an existence of paradise.  Most things church members think are true are impossible to prove.  To base ones whole life upon ancient writings of men, none of us know or have ever encountered is quite preposterous.  Personally, I would have to believe that the so called "apostle" Paul was a man very much like Herbert W. Armstrong, who appointed himself an "authority" for God.  There is absolutely no valid reason to believe in legends and myths as if God ordained those men, those writings or those circumstances.


Van Robison