Oh No you don't.....Not here Buster.

No Ron Weinland or Gerald Flurry type is ever going to get anywhere near Jerusalem to act out the role of the Two Witnesses.  Dozens of Two Witnesses, no doubt, have already had their say in Jerusalem to no effect.  Most end up for a check up at the local psych ward and if warranted are deported back to where they came from.  Israelis don't put up with much monkey business in one of the worlds most dangerous religious cities.

Perhaps Dave Pack has figured out he has no hope to ever get into Jerusalem as both of the Two Witnesses so has moved the entire operation to Wadsworth where he can continue to deceive his gyrating members with his delusional perspectives about himself and his utter importance to the success of Jesus ever returning a second time.

I imagine Dave also will declare Wadsworth the Place of Safety  out of sheer convenience to him and the fact that , as with Jerusalem, no God-Haunted prophecy hounds from the United States are going to get to move in to a World Heritage Site, which Petra is,  without being confronted and sent home.

Jerusalem Syndrome

The temporary psychiatric condition-characterized by patients
believing that they have become biblical figures such as Jesus, John
the Baptist, or Moses-has been known to Israeli psychiatrists for
decades. It affects mainly Christian pilgrims but is occasionally
diagnosed in Jews who tour holy sites. Those affected begin to act
strangely, sometimes proclaiming that they are ancient religious
figures sent on a holy mission. Apocalyptic Christians expect the next
millennium to herald the second coming of Jesus on the Mount of Olives
in Jerusalem, so experts have warned that the number of patients may
increase sharply.

Professor Eliezer Witztum, a psychiatrist at Jerusalem’s Herzog
Memorial Hospital, explained that many Christians view Jerusalem as
the site of the Armageddon and the second coming. When they visit
Jerusalem, they may experience cognitive dissonance because of the
conflict between their mental image of ancient Jerusalem and the
reality of the modern city. Religious Jews with the syndrome may
believe that the building of the third temple is imminent, that the
ancient animal sacrifices will be restored, and that their own Messiah
will soon arrive.

Types

The classic Jerusalem syndrome, where a visit to Jerusalem seems to trigger an intense religious psychosis that resolves quickly or on departure, has been a subject of debate in the medical literature.^[2][3][6] Most of the discussion has centered on whether this definition of the Jerusalem syndrome is a distinct form of psychosis, or simply a re-expression of a previously existing psychotic illness that was not picked up by the medical authorities in Israel.

In response to this, Bar-El et al. classified the syndrome^[1] into three major types to reflect the different types of interactions between a visit to Jerusalem and unusual or psychosis-related thought processes. However Kalian and Witztum have objected, saying that Bar-El et al. presented no evidence to justify the detailed typology and prognosis presented and that the types in fact seem to be unrelated rather than different aspects of a syndrome.

Type 1

Jerusalem syndrome imposed on a previous psychotic illness. This refers to individuals already diagnosed as having a psychotic illness before their visit to Jerusalem. They have typically gone to the city because of the influence of religious ideas, often with a goal or mission in mind that they believe needs to be completed on arrival or during their stay. For example, an affected person may believe himself to be an important historical religious figure or may be influenced by important religious ideas or concepts (such as causing the coming of the Messiah or the second coming of Christ).

Type II

Jerusalem syndrome superimposed on and complicated by idiosyncratic ideas. This does not necessarily take the form of mental illness and may simply be a culturally anomalous obsession with the significance of Jerusalem, either as an individual, or as part of a small religious group with idiosyncratic spiritual beliefs.

Type III

Jerusalem syndrome as a discrete form, uncompounded by previous mental illness. This describes the best-known type, whereby a previously mentally balanced person becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem. The psychosis is characterised by an intense religious character and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the locality. It shares some features with the diagnostic category of a "brief psychotic episode", although a distinct pattern of behaviors has been noted:^{[by whom?]}

1. Anxiety, agitation, nervousness and tension, plus other unspecified reactions.
2. Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family and to tour Jerusalem alone. Tour guides aware of the Jerusalem syndrome and of the significance of such declarations may at this point refer the tourist to an institution for psychiatric evaluation in an attempt to preempt the subsequent stages of the syndrome. If unattended, these stages are usually unavoidable.
3. A need to be clean and pure: obsession with taking baths and showers; compulsive fingernail and toenail cutting.
4. Preparation, often with the aid of hotel bed-linen, of a long, ankle-length, toga-like gown, which is always white.
5. The need to shout psalms or verses from the Bible, or to sing hymns or spirituals loudly. Manifestations of this type serve as a warning to hotel personnel and tourist guides, who should then attempt to have the tourist taken for professional treatment. Failing this, the two last stages will develop.
6. A procession or march to one of Jerusalem's holy places, ex:The Western Wall.
7. Delivery of a sermon in a holy place. The sermon is typically based on a plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life. Such sermons are typically ill-prepared and disjointed.
8. Paranoid belief that a Jerusalem syndrome agency is after the individual, causing their symptoms of psychosis through poisoning and medicating.^[7]

Bar-El et al. reported 42 such cases over a period of 13 years, but in no case were they able to actually confirm that the condition was temporary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome

Darris McNeely and Days of Unleavened Bread

There is another excellent article on As Bereans Did concerning the Easter/Unleavened Bread teachings of the Church of God.  In the article is a section on the baseless claims if Darris McNeely about what Easter supposedly does not teach to Christians and what keep9ng Days of Unleavened Bread supposedly do.

I think it's safe to say that things haven't changed much since I left the COGs. I recently read the March-April edition of the United Church of God's “Beyond Today” magazine and, predictably, saw these regurgitated claims and more in Darris McNeely's article, “What Easter Doesn't Tell You.”

Here are the downright absurd things McNeely claims Easter fails to teach:

1. “Only God coming in the flesh could open the door of salvation for the human creation.”

2. “What's missing is understanding the way to eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Son of God!”

3. “Jesus Christ tasted death for every man so that God might give eternal life to those who call on His name.”

4. “You are missing out on the wonderful meaning of Passover and the death and reconciliation of Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered, died and was resurrected once for all time so that men might have the opportunity to enter into eternal life. Easter obscures the truth about that.”

Some other things mentioned that are worth conversation are:

2. Physical acts don't factor into your salvation.

Try as the modern COGs might, it's hard to get around the fact that the Days of Unleavened Bread focus on the physical. For days, weeks, and sometimes months, you focus on getting physical leaven out of your home. You pause to celebrate the Passover, and then the Night to be Much Observed – a lavish celebration not observed by Jesus' disciplines and AT LEAST as extra-biblical as Easter – then continue avoid leavening for the next seven days. Do you do it because you WANT to, because it's time to clean out the house, or because you want to try a low-carb diet? NO!!! You do it because you believe that not doing can keep you out of God's Kingdom. Yes, it was commanded – for Israel – and we have record of a few New Testament congregations like Corinth keeping it. It's likely that Christians like Peter and Paul observed it, although they certainly knew that doing so neither secured nor disqualified them. I get the distinct feeling that's not the impression members of UCG, COGWA, LCG or PCG get.

3. You will never be good enough – and that isn't the point, anyway.

You must put leavening out of your house, your minister tells you, because it symbolizes sin. In fact, those that don't put out leaven are sinning. But don't go overboard, because it's not possible and your focus should be primarily spiritual anyway. Also, laugh it off when you find a sandwich crust wedged in the bowels of your recliner next week, because God knows how hard you tried and will give you a pass. That one wasn't really sin because, you didn't know it was there. Or you forgot. Or whatever.

Huh? NOW who doesn't understand the gravity of sin?

Read the rest of the article here:  What the Days of Unleavened Bread Don't Tell You

One Year Left Till Ron and Laura Weinland To Be Left Rotting In The Streets Of Jerusalem

There has been so much idiocy spewed out by Ron Weinland, aka Weinerdude,  that I forgot that the timing is now short for the end time Two Witless Witnesses.  In April of 2019, Ron and Luara Weinland will be breathing fire and turning rivers into blood as they preach for 3 1/2 days in the streets of Jerusalem.

Weinerdude and his loony wife will then be slaughtered and left to rot in the hot sun in the streets of Jerusalem.  Then they will be raised to life after 3 1/2 days to wreak vengeance and destruction in the name of their creature they call "christ."  All of this happens while his money laundering daughter and weasely son Jeremey are travelling around Germany and Switzerland in their BMW's withdrawing hidden tithe money and recovering diamond rings Laura had hoarded in various banks for the end times.

martin says:April 3, 2018 at 10:22Oh, by the way, Ron is supposed to martyr himself at the end of the 1260 days, he said it would be physical “this time”. So that means by next April, Ron will go to Jerusalem (I wonder if he’ll get approval for that), and then both he and laura are to be martyred by the beast.  from False Propeht Ron Weinland

David C Pack On Jesus Return: Where and When

Having Parents Who Still Defend The Past

Are Church of God Members TRULY Your Family?

There is an excellent post on The Painful Truth site about what really constitutes a family in the Church of God. Are you fellow church members your "new" family?

Will they truly support you in times of need?

Will they give you unconditional love and support?

Will they accommodate your beliefs and understandings?

Will they stand beside you at all costs?

What is your experience?

Joining the Worldwide Church of God meant major sacrifices. Being a church of God member made it harder to fit in with the outside world. Some things we had to give up entirely. Armstrong tried to provide substitutes for everything we lost when we joined the Worldwide Church of God, but they were poor substitutes indeed.

Armstrong deliberately structured his belief system to alienate his followers from their families 

and make them more dependent on the church. When I joined the Worldwide Church of God, all of a sudden I couldn’t participate in most family get-togethers because they were “pagan holidays,” I couldn’t eat the food on the occasions I could attend because it was “unclean,” and I offended family members, especially my mother, when I did not give gifts on Christmas and birthdays.

My family still gave me their unconditional love despite my beliefs. When I visited my mother, she would always make sure that there were no “unclean” ingredients in my food, and while I felt unable to compromise my beliefs by attending infant baptisms and holy communions, she would attend church social events occasionally. I couldn’t bend to accommodate her, but she did all she could to accommodate me.

Compare that to the so-called substitute “family” the church provided. The “love” the church gave had many strings attached. If you didn’t obey the ministers and submit to their authority, if you didn’t agree with “Mr. Armstrong” in every respect, you could find yourself kicked out, and all of your “family” members were forbidden to have any dealings with you. If you did not regularly attend all of the church’s activities, you were loved less. The more blindly you submitted, the less you complained, the more “love” you received. If you had any questions or doubts, all of a sudden the love was withheld, and if you weren’t careful the “love” disappeared altogether. Former church members were and still are shunned by those still in the Worldwide Church of God and its splinter groups. The church did not only encourage the shunning of disfellowshipped members, it required it. There were serious penalties for associating with disfellowshipped members.

Read the entire story here:  The Family
SaveSave

One Hell of a Way to Insure Compliance and Obedience? (Warning: Graphic Images)

Nigerian Christians Burn a Suspected Witch

Let's get this part over with.  "There is a way that SEEMS right to a man...Dennis, but the ways there of end in DEATH....yours".  "The wisdom of man is FOOLISHNESS with God...Dennis...and so are your observations."  "God laughs at the wise...Dennis, and is laughing at YOU."   There...

Now....

As a child growing up in a rather mainstream Christian Church, the topic of Hell Fire was disturbing to say the least.  I had burned myself several times so equated the concept of an ever burning hell for those, at the time whom I assumed did not profess the Westminster Confession of Faith, as something quite horrific. 

The experience of burns in real life magnified over the entire self and for all eternity ever burning but never able to die or burn up did accomplish the intended goal of watching out that I did not do bad things that were unforgivable or leave the church. How one never burned up, however, remained for me as scientific impossibility.

The old feeling of I might be going to the ever burning Presbyterian Hell returned when I got a letter from the Board after having gone to AC reminding me I had yet to confess my faith even though they knew I had been home visiting.  I was to contact them as soon as possible.  I didn't of course.  I had found new truth. I burned but  not forever so I would not be confessing that faith.

The Presbyterian Version rarely mentioned

In this hell  I think I imagined people bobbing or doing everything to keep themselves afloat in molten lava, as if it mattered .  When National Geographic allowed me to look into the spewing heart of a churning volcanic magma chamber I recall having to put out of my mind just how would feel to fall into such a lake of fire. Recently a young Oregonian accidently fell into a hot water cauldron in Yellowstone and all they ever found of him was his wallet. The rest had dissolved away in a day. I imagined what those last "Oh shit" moments must have felt like emotionally and physically for that young man. The best solution is just not to think about in too much detail and stay on the pathway.

The price humans exact on Unbelievers

Then came the teaching of "Is There a Real Hell Fire" from the Worldwide Church of God.  Now this was better I reasoned.  We don't burn forever.  That's a plus.  We burn up!  But still we burn and it takes time to burn up.  Even as a minister for the Burn Up Church of God, I wondered if God would not better exemplify "God is Love" if  He just stopped their hearts like we do in executions of hardened criminals today.  But then I was I was told that God is a just God and can do as he wishes.  It would be a quick lesson and realization by the wicked of just how wrong they were.  For what purpose I still cannot come up with. I guess that was supposed to comfort and distract me from wondering or doubting that this truly is an example of "God is love."  It's certainly not the I Cor. 13 kind of love.

Both growing up and as a minster, I wondered why an all powerful God could not simply show up and have a one on one chat with the doubting sinner.  I promise, if a real God sat me down and conversed with me as in "Come let us reason together,"  I'd listen well.  It's the middlemen that muck up the message and fuel the doubts and skepticism.  God needs to rethink that middlemen thing as it doesn't seem to convince the masses very well on something as important as not being burned alive for not confessing the truth of it all.

I have probably had a dozen people, from the Churches of God, warn me over the years here that "You'll think differently when you are facing the Lake of Fire"  This does not concern me as I have long since gotten over the idea that there is a Lake of Fire to be thrown into regretting I had eaten pork, tithed more faithfully, put the leaven out better and admitted that I was rejecting the one true Church, split, splinter and sliver along with competing Apostles and Prophets each cosigning the other to the Lake of Fire for watering down the teachings of Herbert W Armstrong who was only guessing at best.

And I simply don't know how to repent of good science done well that contradicts the Biblical explanations for all that is actually true.

The concept of Hell and The Lake of  Fire is a human construct. The concept evolves even in scripture and the bottom line is that it has been used for 2000 years to keep the faithful organized, faithful, supportive and gyrating in their seats. It is a FEAR based threat for consequences of non-church compliance. And while perfect love may cast out FEAR.  Evidently it does not cast out this one Fear put into the hearts of men by the clergy or the God they claim to speak for.   It is the reason the philosopher Denis Diderot said:

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

So to avoid being told to get back to my On and On Anonymous meetings, let's let one picture be worth a thousand words and ask:

In what way is this the Love of God and the only way God , even the Church of God,  God, can deal with the skeptical and unbelieving?  My apologies for using such a horrific example in picture form to illustrate the obscene theological solution, portrayed to the faithful and unbelieving of that which I know the thinking Christian also wonders about but will not speak about in church of course.

But the fearful, (Can God not ask what they are afraid of?) and unbelieving, (Can not God find out why they don't believe?) and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, (Can God not find out why they are this way?) and all liars, (Can not God ask why they fear to tell the truth?)shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Revelation 21:8

The reality is that human beings of all creeds and religions have only been around the last 38 seconds if you portray the last 570 million years in one hour, and our individual lifespan of 70 years is just 0.00035% of the human experience. 
Yet are punished  for billions and billions and zillions of quintillions of years into eternity for not getting it right. 

Think about that!

The Jewish Christian Churches of God might do better at least to adopt the Jewish view of the topic but that's another story...

Musings

Pain comes in many forms. There is the pain of a headache and there are many kinds of headaches that produce various degrees and quality of pain. There is organ pain when something is wrong inside and muscle pain when they are pushed beyond the norm either by exercise or emergency. Pain can be mild and a mere annoyance, or brutal and debilitating.  

Emotional pain, and many say they'd much rather have physical pain than the kind of pain that spins the mind and weakens the body due to emotional upheaval is part and parcel with the WCG experience. I assume it is the emotional pain of having it that leads many here to BannedHWA as a means of processing the pain of good intentions gone south. 

All emotional pain is the body's reaction to the mind. There literally are molecules of emotion released into the blood by the brain, that find their ways to our cells and lock on to produce the effects we know all too well when emotional pain strikes. It may be that kicked in the stomach feeling, dizziness, crying or shock, but it all has its roots in the chemistry produced by the mind when the mind has to deal with the way things are.

It's why funerals are as they are and bad news sucks. It's why chronically bad thinking produces chronically bad health. We are both what we eat and what we think. Emotions can be checked by proper attention to the breathing which most never do properly. When we breath from high in the chest, as when under emotional stress, we literally send the message to the brain we are stressed and anxious. In response, the brain sends the appropriate chemicals for fight or flight. To change that, we simply need to breathe deeper and lower in the body which literally sends the message to the brain that "all is well." The brain then says "fine then, here comes the feel good stuff." 

Most people hold their breath more than they realize. It produces bad chemistry. Meditation skills emphasize attention to breathing for this very reason.  

The human brain is not just in the head.  It also extends into the blood where and how the molecules of emotion are delivered to the appropriate physical receptors.  We stay angry and can't calm down because the chemistry of anger is locked onto the appropriate cells and it takes time for the keys to fall out of the locks and normalcy returns.  "Just calm down" can take time physically.  It can take time in every context. 

My journey in WCG both as member for a very short time and minister for way too long a time was wrought with emotion and ,in hindsight, mostly negative as the Armstrongs  and Tkaches played out their dramas inflicting the pain of it all on those who did not come to the  Church, or any church, for such a stupid and reckless religious experience.    It almost killed me. 

Creating new problems trying to solve old ones is also a skill humans seem good at. Anger, fear, doubt, anxiety, depression, regrets and much head shaking and forehead slapping seemed pretty common. My reactions to the emotions were not always stellar or helpful to me personally or my family either. The art of numbing the painful emotions ignited by the all the problems such an organization can come up with, rather than face and address them, never solves and always magnifies negative emotions and problems that weren't even problems to begin with.

No you don't just have big bones...

In my experience we don't address problems head on because we don't feel we have the right to do so or the price of doing so is way too high. It is not uncommon to listen to a client describe the pain in their hips, knees and ankles but never mention the fact that they are obese which means they will always hurt.  I've been asked by clients that weigh 350+ pounds to "fix my hips" and again the voice in my head says "How?  I can't even find them."  I cannot, however, in my level of profession tell them they are too heavy. They'd freak out and I'd get fired for hurting their feelings. The topic of "I know I am too heavy and need to lose weight" never gets admitted to. It never comes up.

  I did get fired once when a client, after mentioning they might consider quitting smoking as their skin and breath was reeking of nicotine coming out during massage, got upset for mentioning it.  I asked the Christian owner if he'd forgive me but he said no. lol     

Perhaps there is another perspective about literal pain and that which is emotionally painful that would be helpful to keep in mind. Pain , literal or emotional, is also weakness leaving the body. Think of that. PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY.

In my therapeutic massage practice, "I'm hurting" is always the theme of the day with clients. EVERYONE tells me "I tend to carry my stress in my neck and shoulders" as if they are the only ones who experience it there.  By nature I want to say "Really?, I carry mine in my big toe," but that does not help client/therapist relations. :) 

Much pain I see in clients is caused by the underlying emotions in their life which is why we have a chat before each session on what stresses are in their life. That tells me a lot about where it's going settle in the body.  

Sometimes we talk about the words a client uses to describe themselves, "I'm getting old," "I'm a mess," etc, as those words can also translate into pain in the physical body. I tell them that we only get old if we are lucky and that seems to help.  Self labeling can be a source for dis-ease.  I have clients that I know what they are going to say before they say it because they repeat the same litany of pain and symptoms every visit.   My dad always talked about his age as just laps around the sun and perhaps that attitude contributed to both my parents living to just under 100. 

One client walked in looking like he was carrying all the weight of the world on his shoulders. When I pulled back the blanket to start working on the back there it was.  A almost life size tattoo of Jesus on the cross complete with crossbeams and red blood flowing from a disfigured Jesus face.  It stretched from his neck to his hip.  He was literally bearing his cross daily and it showed.  

One client blew out a big sigh when relaxed and said "My boss is such a blowhard. He even said he knows he's a big bag of wind at times."  Interesting I said.  Let me ask you what organ "blowhard" and "bag of wind" corresponds to those words.  "Lungs?"  Yep,  I then asked if her boss had any lung problems?  She shuddered, looking up and asked, "Why did you ask me that?  He just told me has lung cancer."  Just a theory I said and we had a chat about the negative words we use that the mind buys into as literally true delivering the appropriate chemistry, in this case, did-ease in the lungs.  Or it's just a coincidence I also said.

All that to say, watch your words and labels and certainly the tattoos you choose. They can  set you awash in the molecules of emotion. 

It's painful when people we love or we ourselves become less than perfectly healthy. It's painful when loved ones die, either too soon or very late. It's painful when life changes, jobs are lost, careers change, relationships deteriorate or change. But all pain is still weakness leaving the body.

The pain of loss wakes us up to our emotional weaknesses and we either grow through or become bitter as some do. Most grow through and are stronger for the pain that comes into their lives. Without the pain, there could be no growth and no getting stronger. I suppose this is why we cling, at times, to "what does not kill me, makes me stronger." Very true.  "What doesn't kill me pisses me off " is also true along the road to healing. 

Life is a bit like walking. Walking is, in fact,  a controlled crash that comes out looking like the smooth and flowing experience it is. For every muscle that needs to engage in support and forward motion, others have to let go so movement can even take place.  It's quite amazing.  If your hamstrings don't relax at the same time the quads/Psoas etc, engage in lifting your thigh, you aren't going anywhere.  Letting go is part of the process of moving forward.

I've learned that I could not be here today if I had not been there then.  Somehow that helps. If you had told me a few years ago that I'd have a great practice in the Pacific Northwest , I would have said you were nuts and why would that happen?  Well it did and I do. Without all that transpired then I would not be here now.  

Whether pain is literal and hurts the body, or emotional and hurts the mind and spirit, perhaps if we remind ourselves that "Pain is weakness leaving the body," we can see the bigger picture of what it might be here to teach us. It is universally true that in our weaknesses and pain, we are made stronger, if we allow it and don't allow self pity, anger and "why me" (why not?) to distract us from an opportunity to learn the lessons here at Earth School.

BannedHWA is one way the pain of religion gone bad  can leave the mind for our healing and scars to fade.  

A Springtime Read: Going Beyond "Ask For Our Free Booklet"

     

Father Raymond Brown (1928-1998) was perhaps the greatest biblical scholar (certainly the greatest among Catholics) of the 20th century. As he did in his masterful book on the infancy narratives (The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)), in this book (which received both the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur), he turns his keen analytical reasoning to the gospel accounts of Jesus' passion.

Brown describes the primary aim of this book as "to explain in detail what the evangelists intended and conveyed to their audiences by their narratives of the passion and death of Jesus," adding, "I do not think of the evangelists themselves as eyewitnesses of the passion; nor do I think that eyewitness memories of Jesus came down to the evangelists without considerable reshaping and development. Yet as we move back from the gospel narratives to Jesus himself, ultimately there were eyewitnesses and eyewitnesses who were in a position to know the broad lines of Jesus' passion." He candidly admits that "I can scarcely reconstruct how a book of mine published twenty years ago was composed. Therefore, I, for one, cannot hope to reconstruct with great exactitude the interrelationships of the Synoptic Gospels."

"Too often, however, the truth has led people to assume that everything related in the NT about Jesus has to be historical. The problem is compounded when it is assumed that the Gospels, the NT writings centered on his life, are historical biographies."

Raymond Brown 
The Death of the Messiah
Introduction

"In particular, E.L .Martin assumes Matthean historicity and harmonizes Matt with Luke, which he assumes to be equally historical... It is regrettable that Martin mars his thesis with such extravagantly precise hypotheses reflecting overhistorizing."

Raymond Brown
The Birth of the Messiah
On WCG's Ernest Martins taking the story of Jesus birth too literally
Pg 608

Father Brown also always intended to stay in the good graces of "The Magisterium" of the Church and could pull a good punch leaving it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions without danger to his status in the Church