The Plight of the Follower and Group Think

"The moment you follow someone, you cease to follow Truth,"

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“We are not supposed to all be the same, feel the same, think the same, and believe the same. 

The key to continued expansion of our Universe lies in diversity, 

not in conformity and coercion. 

Conventionality is the death of creation.”

― Anthon St. Maarten,

“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you've lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger than you are and that controls you.”

― George Carlin, Last Words

"But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty. "

Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas

(No wonder it didn't make the cut)

“It was a well-known fact that humans became more addled than usual when running in herds.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“There is no need for us all to be alike and think the same way, neither do we need a common enemy to force us to come together and reach out to each other. If we allow ourselves and everyone else the freedom to fully individuate as spiritual beings in human form, there will be no need for us to be forced by worldly circumstances to take hands and stand together. Our souls will automatically want to flock together, like moths to the flame of our shared Divinity, yet each with wings covered in the glimmering colors and unique patterns of our individual human expression.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“Group Thinking” or lack of courage to ask the tough and strategic questions 
is the chief weakness on Boards today.”
― Pearl Zhu,

LCG: The Joyless Church of God

Sermon summaries are from an LCG source:

Gerald Weston has deep issues with LCG members who talk to COG members in other groups and who might even attend one of their Feast sites for a day or two in order to be with friends. Weston even has a derogatory label for those who do this, they are travellers on the "Highway Church of God."

One of the reasons for this sermon by Weston is that COGWA is starting a congregation in the Charlotte area n June. Many LCG members will be visiting it.  LCG members are already visiting COGWA and UCG Feast sites if they are close by LCG sites. Weston is loosing control and he is not happy. Thus, he has to lecture LCG members on tithing, government and baptism.  To be real baptized LCG member one must SUBMIT to everything that the leadership says and requires, which is far above anything Jesus ever required.

00:21:46

There were seven churches in Asia Minor. Can you imagine Philadelphia and Laodicea, which were at the opposite ends of the valley, that Paul is saying that, ‘Boy, if you’re on one end and you are mostly (because it wasn’t everybody in the congregation, but this was the attitude in one congregation), you can’t fellowship with those people over there,’ how foolish; they’re all the Church of God.

Now, we do need to understand that there are differences out here and we’re not all the same. But to say that one should never, uh, you know, sit down with somebody and have a meal with somebody because they’re of a different group - I don’t think we should just be going back and forth, and this church and that church, and be a, uh, oh this one fellow described it, he was in the, what, the “Highway Church of God” or the uh, something like that. Uh, one week he’d go one place, one week he’d go another place. That’s confusion, and it certainly doesn’t help brand new people who don’t understand all the history and so forth. But we’re just talking about the fact that you can’t even be civil to someone who might be of a different group. I think we need to know why we’re here and be strong in why we’re here, and not go back and forth and to different festival sites and that sort of thing - I think that that shows a lack of understanding.

But at the same time, the point is that it’s talking about the world here in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, that we’re to forsake… well we’re, we’re… we’re not to go out of the… of, stop fellowshipping with anybody in the world, in other words, your neighbors. You can be friends with them even if they have a few problems, but as far as the Church goes, if someone is going to be sexually immoral, or an idolater, or covetous, or whatever, then he says those individual, if it’s, you know, a real extreme case there, you put ‘em out. The point I’m trying to make here is that we have to decide where our loyalties are. And Christ says you must put him first above all else.

Anyone who has loyalties to Jesus Christ, would NOT be a Living Church of God member!

Weston also has major issues with LCG members who do NOT respect the GOVERNMENT power structure he has put in place.

1:03:58

Another part of the whole counsel of God is that there are ranks in the ministry. Ephesians 4:11, first apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, etc. Do we have every one of those at all times? We don’t think so. Mr. Armstrong certainly didn’t think we had prophets at that time. Will there ever be a prophet in the future? Sure, probably. The two witnesses I’d say would be probably prophets. But, right now we understand that there are ranks in the ministry, but because people are so adverse (sic) to GOVERNMENT, they want everybody to be equal. And as, uh, somebody told me one time that was a part of a group that split off from us back in the Kansas City area that first year - another church started, so some people went that direction, and then they split - um, as he said, they have two forms of government. [said with smirking expression] The minister is in charge of the congregation, but on the ministerial level they were all equals because no one wanted to answer to anybody else. You know, this is part of the whole counsel of God. You can’t read Ephesians 4:11 and really do away with the fact that there are different levels within the ministry. And they say, “Well, those are just (what, uh) functions.” Well, you have to decide that, you have to look at it objectively.

Weston then seeks to chastise LCG members who do not tithe in amounts he thinks is required.  Even though it has been proven over and over that tithing is NOT a new covenant command, the current iteration of COG groups DEMAND that their followers tithe in order to keep the hierarchy in its privileged lifestyles.  Apparently, some LCG members are waking up to the fact that the new covenant does not require tithing.  Good for them!

Tithing, as a law, not just a nice principle. I remember going out on the internet - the CompuServe forum, that shows how far back it was. I haven’t been back on any of these forums ever since that time, but for a period of time I was on that and I realized I couldn’t sleep at night because I (always) checked it just before I went to bed, and I’d be so angry that I couldn’t sleep, so I finally had to get rid of it and ditch it. But it was amazing how many people, how many ministers were out there saying that tithing is a nice principle, a good principle, “And oh, I tithe, by the way,” you know, is the way they’d put it, “but it’s not a law of God.” We need to prove these things for ourselves. You need to know WHY you are where you are. And I think that most of us in this room KNOW why we are where we are. That’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re not someplace else. But we need to know those things. These three pillars - knowing that God exists and knowing that the Bible is the Word of God and knowing where the Church is will serve you well through trials, disruptions, and times of confusion. And I’ll be the first to tell you I’ve had to go through those pillars time and again. You can’t be in the Church of God for 50 years or more and not, at times, have to go back through it. And I’m not afraid of going back through it because I know the answer’s going to be the same. But at some times I have to remind myself, and maybe you’ll have to remind yourself someday.

So why should you be baptized? [proceeds to discuss repenting of “wrong religion”]

Adult Sabbath School: Spitting Out Truth

It's in our spit

Awhile back I participated in the National Geographic Genome Project. I did a simple cheek swab for DNA and sent it to the project. My Y chromosome results identify me as a member of halo group R1b, a lineage defined by a genetic marker called M343. This halo group is the final destination of a genetic journey that began some 60,000 years ago with the ancient y chromosome marker called 168 originating in Eastern Africa. Women can be traced back further, up to 200,000 years via their mitochorial DNA.

It seems my personal DNA, the stuff that makes me who and what I am today managed to cross the southern Red Sea about 60,000 years ago in the area of Yemen. This was a tad easier than today as an ice age was locking up much of the water on the planet and the crossing was much easier than today. Spreading north, as Marker 89 through the Arabian Peninsula, "I" migrated across Iran and Iraq into Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and on into the area of Pamir Knot, a four mountain confluence on the Eastern Himalaya. dragging Marker 9 along with me.

It was here someone said go south into India but my ancestors said, "no we shall go north" into the Asian Steppes about 40,000 years ago. After another 5000 years, my DNA had to make a choice. Someone said on the steppes said "we're heading east," and became the Siberians who crossed the Bering Straits and became the first Americans. The Navajo are the direct descendents of these ice savvy Siberians. That was my one chance to become one of the True People.

My DNA, however, headed West as Marker 173 across modern Russia and slid into Europe as Marker 343 35,000-30,000 years ago as Cro-Magnon heading into what today is Western Europe. It was here my DNA routed the Neanderthals who had been surviving nicely as not quite us in Europe for the previous 200,000 years. They walked out of Africa long before I did in the form of Homo Erectus and adapted in Europe to the harsh Ice Age environment. They had little self consciousness and aren't our direct descendants. All non African Europeans have 2 to 4% Neanderthal DNA in their genome.. In 200,000 years they never changed their stone tools and living seemed to be in the moment without vision, insight or the consciousness we have today. My DNA was smarter in the form of Cro-Magnon, the people responsible for the intriguing cave paintings in Lascaux Cave in southern France. My DNA drove their DNA into southern Spain where they died out in, perhaps, as little as 18,000 years ago

Finally, with Europe warming and glacial ice withdrawing north, my DNA ancestors moved into Britain and Ireland. They evidently hung out there for most of what we know as civilized history, and finally made the jump across the Atlantic at the end of the 19th Century, settled in Rochester, NY. It was here I learned that I had no DNA trail but rather was a direct descendent of the long lost tribe of Zebulon, being one of the truly true people, Dutch. After all, if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much... :)

Naw, just kidding. Yes I am Dutch, but my DNA never took the trip north out of Africa into Israel. When my DNA got to Iraq, it never looked back and went east not west with our dear father Abraham. It seems my DNA insisted on a much more difficult way to get to Europe over a period of 35,000 years completely bypassing Israel. I guess we might conclude if "I" was never there, and I am Dutch, then I am going to have give up the idea I am one of the descendents of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Actually I did long ago.

DNA testing spells the death nell of such nonsense as the Book of Mormon and British Israelism.

In fact, my DNA tells me I am a black African Saudi Iraqi Iranian Eurasian who made a choice to head north from the Himalayas into the steppes of Asia, and then West bypassing the Middle East and sliding into Europe 30,000 years ago after a 30,000 year trek to become me 68years ago.

Ya gotta love science Goodbye bad theology and mythologies taken too literally. . Goodbye exclusivism and false prophecies. Goodbye  Adam and Eve of literalism and the idea that Shem, Ham and Japheth brought us the White, Black and Yellow races. Our skin changed color as we moved north where we no longer needed the massive darkening protection of melanin and did need to literally lighten up so we could receive enough sunlight to produce vitamin D for our bones. Someone tell the KLAN they all started as a small, incredibly tough tribe of "black" men and women who needed to move out of Africa on the worlds most amazing journey, over 60,000 years ago. And goodbye to a mere 6000 years since a literal Adam and Eve weren't our literal first parents. The implications are both stunning and troubling for fundamentalists.

We are all one after all and every cell in your body contains the truth of your own origins and journey out of Africa

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