It's Time For UCG, COGWA and LCG's Annual Christmas Celebration Weekends

It's late December and time for the annual United Church of God, Church of God a Worldwide Association and Living Church of God's pseudo-Christmas weekends.  All three groups have been been raked over the coals for holding this event for years now.  They pick Christmas time to do this every year.

Of course this has set apostle Malm off the deep end today because he sees this as further proof that paganism is rampant in the Church of God.

The apostle starts his article off today bemoaning the fact that none of the COG's keep the 7 day Unleavened Bread like the WCG did prior to Loma's death.  Malm blames this on Stanley Rader, but for most it was a matter of survival to not have to travel twice a year to feast sites.  Jobs were lost, families suffered and children had issues at school.

Malm wants these two 7 day feasts back because they are true festivals of God, unlike the Christmas festivals that UCG, COGWA and LCG now hold. He does not like the fact that they refuse to keep these days like they used to, but instead pay homage to Christmas in an indirect way.

Malm is not entirely wrong in pointing out the hypocrisy of the UCG's stance on Christmas when they have these weekends during Christmas.

Why mention this now?  Because most of  the WCG daughters still do not obey God and keep the Festival of ULB for the full seven days like Tabernacles, yet they can hold several days of partying around Christmas time.

Whether it is called a “Winter Festival”  or a “Winter family Weekend”  is only semantics.  If it is observed between the winter solstice and the end of December it is a Christmas celebration in the eyes of every onlooker and it is a terrible example for society.

To teach that it is wrong to observe and then to be out partying as others hold their office and pre Christmas party’s makes us all appear hypocrites and is most confusing to people.  This is most definitely NOT letting our light of example shine before the world.  Quite the opposite it is an appearance of evil and an attempt to get as close to what we claim to abhor as we can without using the actual word Christmas.

COGWA is also holding their own version that is animation of UCG's weekend.  Malm writes

This annual event is now being copied by several other churches, including the Church of God a Worldwide Association, which is linking attendance at its Family Weekend in Louisville, Kentucky (Dec 21-25), to pursuing righteousness (Matt.6:33)

“Throughout the years the Winter Family Weekend has served the church as a wonderful escape from what the world offers during December.” 

When UCG stated this family weekend end it was done so a supposed opportunity to "escape" from the filthy pagans around them.  The problem is that they hold these events in locations that are decked out in Christmas decorations each year.  COGWA just carries on that tradition since they apostatized from UCG.

Malm is particularly incensed at COGWA for the location of it''s winter family weekend. It is in a location that is decked out to the max for Christmas.  Malm is is right in asking what they are supposedly "escaping" from.

COGWA denounces the pagan symbols and rituals of the Christmas festival, but how will its choice of venue, the Galt House Hotel, help its “spiritual family members … to escape from what the world offers”?

COGWA President Jim Franks says this weekend in Christmas fantasy land will exceed even the Feast sites!  WOW!  I love it!

Jim Franks, COGWA President, states that the attendance at the Galt House Hotel will exceed that of many of their Festival of Tabernacles sites.

Then Malm points out the best part.  Dave Register is having a White Elephant gift exchange at their Christmas weekend!

In Portland, Dave Register is asking everyone to bring wrapped presents for a White Elephant Bingo. This is a party game with one gift being given to each person, and then when unwrapped they are traded around.

 David Register:    Pastors Update and Announcements – Dec 13 2012

White Elephant Bingo!

We will be playing Bingo on Saturday night, December 22^nd. As a participant, please bring a wrapped, inexpensive (under $10) prize/gift that has no markings on the wrapping. No one should know who it is from or what it is. Adult tables will be able to trade in their prize for a better option. The children tables will not be trading gifts. More details to follow. Please bring both adult and children gifts that are individually wrapped. Please see the White Elephant Rules on the announcement table for more details.

 Malm nails them with this comment:

 How like a traditional pre-Christmas party game.  But the name is different so it isn’t really observing Christmas?  Right?  What pathetic and childish  self deception!  Remember that Christmas was originally a celebration of the winter solstice and  the rebirth of the sun, and was only relabeled Christ-Mass by the Roman Catholics.

Even Meredith's shrinking group is joining in for Christmas celebrations at this time.  However, like most hard core Armstrongites, LCG is looking backwards in time.  Things were better years and decades ago.  Things were simpler.  In light of those wishful times LCG is encouraging their family weekend attendees to dress up in costumes of clothing that they think earlier generations of COGers wore.  I mean REALLY????  How stupid is this?  Dressing up like COG members in Eugene Oregon?  Give me a break!

LCG Winter Weekend in Kansas City:   We will have a Friday night Bible Study beginning at 7:00. Services on Saturday will begin at 1:00 p.m. We will be serving taco salad with all the fixings for dinner after services. Or if you’d prefer, there are plenty of options for restaurants in the area. After the meal, we’ll be having a fun show and dance.

The theme for this year’s fun show and dance is “Through the Ages.” Dress up in your favorite fashions of any decade in the 20th century. Remember, you don’t have to dress in “church clothes,” but the tasteful styles that might have been worn by Church brethren during a specific decade in the 1900s. Of course, casual wear, including jeans, is acceptable. For entertainment before the dance, the “Through the Ages” Radio Show will “broadcast” timeless songs, skits and fun for all ages. We would love to add YOUR talents to the show! If you care to share, please visit the Web site and click “Fun Show” to sign up. If you can perform or put a spin on a song, comedy routine, famous radio broadcast or even a commercial of the 1900s, please sign up.

Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

M John Allen: Yahweh is a Reptilian Extraterrestrial From the Planet Nibiru

John Allen, that crazy COG member who pitched a temper tantrum last September when he said he was quitting his ministry because no one paid any attention to him is back after a crisis in faith

He claims now to have rejected his belief in God, at least according to Armstrongite mythology.

Allen has changed his view on God:

I do not consider myself to be a Christian anymore in any traditional sense of the word. I believe in GOD, but my concept of God is so far evolved past anything that so called “Christianity” embraces that it is like night and day. 

Yes, there is a God, but none of man’s religions, including the tired and worn out Churches of God, come even close to understanding Him in any meaningful sense of the word. Let me illustrate just one small point.

The traditional religions of man view God as some celestial King sitting on His Throne, frowning down on a sinning mankind and hurling down thunderbolts on “sinners.” He also “passes judgment” on the dead, who are either sent to a Heaven if they were good or a Hell if they were bad in this life. 

They thus treated God as some kind of human King and thought He organized the universe accordingly, which is not true at all. “God” actually IS the Universe, or the Force, or whatever you want to call it. He doesn’t judge the way that men would judge things because He doesn’t think the way that men would think. He is so far above all of this stuff going on down here it is like night and day.

He also has a hard time with the Bible and how it is written:

My position on the Bible has also changed. I no longer believe it is the literal word of God, in the sense that He “dictated it” to various scribes down through the ages. I also know that certain important books that were in the original Bible, like the Book of Enoch, were ripped out by the Catholic Church and repressed because they didn’t like what it said. Never mind that certain passages of what is in the New Testament are direct quotes from the Book of Enoch, or that it is not possible to understand certain portions of the Bible without this knowledge.

The Plain Truth is that the Bible was tampered with by evil men who tore things out they didn’t like and inserted some things they liked. Thus, even though the Bible is an ancient book filled with great wisdom, to say that it is word for word the “Word” of God is flawed at best. However, the Bible IS still like a jigsaw puzzle and you can’t fully understand it without putting the pieces together on each subject as we have always taught. It would be foolish to just toss the whole thing in the trash too. So we draw on it as a source of wisdom.

These changes in understanding pale in contrast to his belief in extraterrestrials.  That remains unchanged:

As to my thoughts on the reptilians, Nibiru, etc., at this point let me just state the following. I will elaborate further as time permits and as the subject comes up. I believe what the Bible calls “angels” are actually shape shifting aliens from Nibiru whose ultimate form is reptilian. You can read a whole chapter on this on our old website. It needs serious revision, but as far as it goes, Secret Mysteries of the Ages is still mostly correct.

Nibiru was called “heaven” in ancient times, and “heaven” is where the “gods” came from. Primarily, the faction that reached this planet was the negative faction, because there “was war in heaven [Nibiru], and Satan [the leader of the losing side in the war] fought against God Almighty the GOD OF ARMIES. Since “god” had 2/3 of the angels on his side, he defeated his rival and banished him and the majority of his “angels” to this planet. He plans to come back on the next passage of Nibiru and finish the job, and banish them to a “bottomless pit” on Nibiru. 

Thus, the being that we know as Yahweh, or the “personal god” is none other than the King of Nibiru. He is not to be confused with the Force, or the Universe, which is actually the true GOD. In this respect, he is sort of an impostor, albeit a very powerful one. From our limited perspective, he and his council of gods in heaven ARE gods as they are far more powerful than we are, but they are NOT GOD in the ultimate sense, although they may have convinced themselves by now that they are.

The Annunaki are one of the first civilized races to have evolved in the universe. They date from the dawn of time and have very long lifespans. However, they have stagnated while much younger races have finally discovered who they were, what they were, and progressed to the next level. Meanwhile, the Annunaki are stuck running around in circles chasing their tails. I am convinced they are caught up in this dualistic so called reality, and still see the physical universe as real. They have never come to grips with the problems of the ego, and have never progressed any further than they are now. They are technologically very advanced. Satan is the champion of the technological path. It is his belief that competition is the right way to go and that it is every “man” for himself. He is the originator of the divide and conquer method used to rule this world, because, behind the scenes, he is the ruler of this world.

Yahweh, on the other hand, is close to enlightenment but is still missing the mark. He and his angels realize that cooperation is the right way of life, and that love is the main force in the universe. However, they are somehow still missing the mark. I don’t know how, but they still don’t get it correctly, whatever “it” is.

 


You can read previous entries about M John Allen here:

UFO's, Space Stations, Inhabited Planets, Lucifer's Home Planet, Autotrophs, and Dating Issues

$1,000 A Month Gets You Into This COG Inner Sanctum

"I don't even care if you are listening anymore. If you refuse to obey God from now on, YOUR LIFE IS OVER."

Armstrongite Confirms: War In Heaven Is Going On NOW!

Jesus and John Allen Say $1,000 A Month Gets You In On Plan "B"

John Allen: About To Lay Bare All The Deep Dark Secrets Of The Ages

M John Allen: Passive Aggressive Prophet Calls It Quits (Again)

COG Leader/Prophet Says: "A Big Plane Will Fall From Sky"

The Church of God has always had prophets in it's midst, but none have ever been as successful as E W King in making his prophecies come true.

Today he has two prophecies:

*A big plane will fall from the sky.

*A female leader will die.

This is the Marker

This morning I had a “dream” about a big plane falling from the sky. At the same time I saw what appeared to be birds or “a” bird falling next to it. After this, I awoke and heard a voice in my mind tell me: “This is the marker.”

Now I do not know what this exactly means and I do not usually share my dreams. But this one seems important in that it points to something bigger. I will also tell you that I had another dream recently where a woman leader died. She appeared important and the impression was that she held some kind of important position.

I bring these up because lately I have been studying Matthew ch.24 regarding the Great Tribulation. I believe that before the tribulation begins those leaders of the fallen “Worldwide Church of God” groups must repent and throw away all of their false doctrines, if they do not they will become part of the coming “abomination of desolation”. Perhapes my recent dreams have something to do with marking a time regarding the abomination of desolation.

Unfortunate News For Gerald Flurry

COG Prophet Declares: My Prophecies are Coming True!

God's greatest end time prophet is so accurate that all of his prophecies are coming true!  I am not talking about Dave Pack who perceives himself as God's most super-duper Church of God leader since Jesus.  I am not even talking about Gerald Flurry, God's greatest beer connoisseur prophet centered in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma.  I am not even talking about Weinerdude Weinland, God's most favorite convicted felon.  Meredith has become so irrelevant that he is no longer on the radar anymore, so he's not being discussed either. I am not even talking about James Malm who has bastardized the law to his own perverted purposes.

I am talking about God's greatest prophet, E. W. King!  I stand in awe of his most amazing prophecies.  Never in the course of human history has a prophets predictions come true in such amazing ways!

God's prophet writes today on his blog:

COGSR Stays Awake...prophecy is coming true!

In my prophecy forecast for 2012 I stated:

“Many countries are experiencing violent acts. People are full of stress and confusion. Since my last prophecy forecast we have heard of school shootings and other bizarre shootings taking place not just here in the US but around the globe. This unfortunate activity will continue, sad to say.”

And the sad recent reality is that on December 11,2012:

“Gunfire rang out in the mall food court, instantly transforming a casual afternoon of holiday shopping into a nightmare. The shooter, armed with a rifle, was dressed in dark clothing and wore a hockey-style face mask.”

“As panicked shoppers fled for cover, workers ushered some into hiding places within stores, or helped them to the exits. The first officers to arrive formed groups and rushed into the chaos, rather than waiting for the more heavily armed SWAT team.”

I have talked about this type of behavior and the fact that it would increase.

While these incidents are unfortunate, they are NOT prophecy coming true.  These are events that can happen at any time and any place.  Its not prophecy coming alive in front of us.

Prophet King continues:

I also predicted in my 2012 prophecy forecast the following:

“I predict that more riots on American streets will take place. We have become much like Greece economically speaking. We do not have the moral strength to rise up. All those currently running for president have no real moral vision for America. It has become a world of global greed and corruption.”

And just recently we find out:

“In evaluating Tuesday’s union melee in Michigan, as protesters physically attacked supporters of right-to-work legislation and collapsed a large tent set up by the conservative Americans for Prosperity…”

“This week, menacing union goons unleashed threats, profanity and punches in Michigan, which is now poised to become a "right-to-work" state. Obama met the initial outbreak of violence with the same response he's given to every other union outbreak of violence under his reign: dead silence.” Read the story

We have also seen trouble in the NFL sports world which I predicted in the 2013 forecast. Are you awake? COGSR members are seeing things before they happen while others ridicule us.

Union goons have been doing this kind of stuff for decades.  Granted they seem to have more  power now, but you cannot look at it as major prophecy coming alive either.

I also see that we seem to have hit a sore nerve with Prophet King.  He doesn't particularly like being made fun of, but as God's greatest prophet he will take the ridicule gallantly.

If King was really a prophet he would NOT be dwelling on silly everyday events like sports controversies but upon major things that will catch the worlds attention in dramatic ways.  Union goons in the US, France or UK are not earth shattering events.

If anything, King, Malm, Pack, Flurry, Weinland and the others are nothing more than prophets of baal.

Convicted Church of God Felon Says: "This Is His Last Warning!"

Weinerdude Weinland is trying to go out in a blaze of glory before he goes to prison to be bunk buddies with Big Bubba.


Today on his pathetic blog he makes excuses for not posting on his blog because the world is fast asleep and ignoring his message.  Could it be because he has been in and out of court where he was convicted of stealing from the government by using his members tithe money to maintain his lavish lifestyle?

Weinerdude calls this his LAST WARNING!

December 12, 2012

LAST WARNING:

It has been two and a half months since my last posting. There has been no need to make another, as the world is fully asleep—practically comatose when it comes to any true concern or worry over the possibility of WWIII. That war was the context of that last post, and that war is continuing to draw closer and closer as that time is now upon us. Even now, there are leaders in Russia and in China who have plans already in the works to engage in such a war.

Nothing like starting the very first paragraph with death and destruction. For some reason he fails to mention that he is now a convicted felon.  Wonder why?

After some more useless blabberings he has this to say about a soon coming gathering of true believers. 63,000 to be exact!

Just as God’s Church was fully caught off guard and asleep when the apostasy (great falling away) occurred on Dec. 17, 1994, the world and the Church that was scattered are now going to be fully caught off guard concerning the final end-time events. For the Church that was scattered, the devastation that begins once the Second Trumpet sounds will be the beginning of a great wake up call that will eventually lead to 63,000 scattered brethren being brought together once again into one true fellowship—together with God—reunited at last!

So what is this event that will gather the lost brethren all together one last time?  Jesus is returning! oops, sorry, make that Christ. Can't have the nelly, pansy, long haired hippie Jesus in the picture.

The Church that was scattered does not believe that end-time events can happen so quickly and powerfully or that Christ could return by Pentecost of 2013. But what people “believe” is what has magnified their state of “sleep.” Such statements are not happily received, but it is the truth.

I can guarantee that Weinerdude will be an epic failure on Pentecost 2013.  His fat ass will still be in jail.  His wife will still be using tithe money to maintain her home and daughter Laura will still be writing the checks to keep herself and mommy happy.

Weinderdude then blabbers on some more about comatose COG members who will be shocked to see his warnings  come to pass.

He then says this:

After this post, there is really no more need of warnings for what is coming, for the world is asleep and time has indeed fully run out. The “Day of the Lord” is at hand—we are IN it! We have just passed through the night-time portion of God’s final day. It began at sundown after May 26th when we entered the night-time portion of this last prophetic day for mankind in this present age. If only all could see! Paradoxically, it is by this very day-time portion of the “Day of the Lord” that mankind will be brought to “see” and “hear,” and by this, the blindness and deafness of mankind will begin to be healed.

No More Warning:

In the future, any post that might possibly be written on this site will no longer be warnings, but only explanation of the realities that are taking place in the light of the day of Christ’s return as King of kings. God is not going to give any more warnings to this world or to the Church that was scattered. The time for warning has ended because the time for fulfillment is at hand—it has arrived! 

 The truth about his above comment is that there will be no more posts by Weinerdude because he will be in prison!  Apparently his second in command are too stupid to carry on his prophetic tradition.  His second in command will only be posting the explanations that Weinerdude will give them to post.

Its not about God being so pissed he is giving no more warnings.  It's not even God being pissed at laodician church members.  Its because God's most important human being is sitting in prison.  Will we have earth shattering earthquakes that soon will free Weinerdude from prison like Paul supposedly was?

With any luck Weinerdude will find a boyfriend and will leave preaching all together.

Dennis On: "Booking on Down Life's Road"

Booking on Down Life's Road

How much of our belief is based on the contents of a book?  Torah, Bible or Koran...  How much of what most humans believe or practice  comes from a book?  How of much are OUR lives based on the experiences, real or imagined of OTHERS? How old are these books?  How long ago were the ideas,perceptions, views and beliefs of others written down?   For the most part, we'd have to admit that the religious views of how it all is, what life is all about, who and what a God is and what on earth it is doing, comes from the ideas of now long dead men, mostly, who simply filtered their world and experiences through the filter of their own times and perceptions.  By writing Books, we can adopt their Bronze Age ideas as our own and address our own fears, guilt and shame just as they did.  Whether we should do that or not is another question.

How quickly, when we read in a religious book,  "and God said to Moses," or "And God said to Abraham" or "Allah, praise be his name spoke..."  or "And Jesus said," depending on our orientation, think, "well, that's what God/He said to the man,"  as if it is an absolute fact.  Then we adopt the view as our own, if it is the Book we were born into,  because it was in a book and written down.   It's like magic.  We'd not learn and quote the Iliad or the Tibetan Book of the Dead the same way of course.  Those are not our experiences and we know that Greek gods were just made up or Tibetan ideas of death are just wrong.  Ours are real and right.  We'd not take seriously a genealogy that instead of having Rahab the Harlot in it had Rapunzel who let down her long hair as one of Jesus ancestors. 

Let's consider...

Who knew what God said to the Council of the lesser gods, when it said, "Let us make man in our image," or "Now, lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever...let us..."?  Just who recorded that heavenly scene?  Who taped that?  Is it not really just a story that is not only told, but borrowed from others , by men who want to tell a story that defines themselves? 

Who was it that just knew what Adam said to Eve or Eve to Adam in the Garden of Eden?  Who was there to write it down?  Did God take notes and pass them on to Moses?  Some would simply say, "yeah...that's how it happened,"  and would not have to think about it again.

 Who knew what Abraham said to Isaac just before he didn't cut his throat?  Who knew the words of Jesus as he prayed alone, all distant and all disciples asleep, just before  his arrest and being spirited away to a private hearing?   Did Jesus shout back as he was led away..."Hey guys!!!  Write this prayer down!"  Who knew the contents of Pilot's wife's dream about letting Jesus go?  That was a conversation just between them evidently.  (Actually it's a theatric gimmick used by the story teller.)

Who knew what a serpent (NOT, by the way, ever considered Satan until many centuries later when someone needed to formulate a good story about how we all got in such bad shape and write it down in a book), said to one person alone? Or a Jackass for that matter?   Who knew what God said to Cain alone or Cain to God?   Who told Moses all this stuff and, in fact, who wrote down all Moses private stuff?   (Hint:  the same guys who wrote about Moses body being taken by God and buried where it would never be found. Moses could not have written the account of his own death and burial.)

I think we can play the "who knew" or "who heard and wrote down" these many one on one conversations or even private thoughts thousands of times from scriptures of all religions.  And it is with simple faith or trust that we tell ourselves that it is not really just a story but rather a revelation or an inspiration, or really a God saying what they wanted to say or a prophet seeing and saying what he really wanted to share.  We say that because it's in a Book.

I'm sure in the future someone will say, "Well, it's in The Kindle."

Now we don't take books like Hansel and Grettle or Little Red Riding Hood quite as seriously.  We know that stuff didn't happen but we like the story.  Those are not  The Books, they are just books. 

Christians are pretty sure that no Allah really spoke to the Prophet and Muslims are pretty sure no Jesus really died for all the Christians.   Christians are very sure the Torah is toast because their man in the NT, Paul, said it was.  Of course others think those Christians are wrong because they can take the same book and man and make it  say other things that says it ain't necessarily so. 

Stories in books can be debated and argued with to one's delight  and utter insanity.  Proof texting can lead you in a thousand directions and they do in ALL religions that depend on ancient books.  It simply depends on who you read and in what order you read them.  Wanna obey the law?  Read Paul and Jesus.  Wanna do away with the law? Read Paul only and only certain books.

Did Jesus family flee to Egypt after his birth or did they go home to Nazareth a mere 40 days later?  It depends who you read.  Did Mary know who Jesus was before his birth or did she forget and come get him with her sons to take him away because he was nuts?  Depends who you read.  Did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on one or two animals?  It depends who you read and it really depends on how the one you read, read the original text in the Old Testament.  Did Jesus ascend to heaven after the dinner or did he ascend weeks later?  Depends who you read.   Did Paul really meet Jesus on the Damascus Road or was he called from the womb with no such meeting?  Depends who you read.  And so it goes.

Another problem with getting stuck with the truths or ideas of truths found is books is that we can never really know what the book said originally.   Remember, with the Bible, we have copies of copies of copies of copies.................and they weren't Xeroxed.    Did Jesus say "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," or did he say, "it is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle." ?  You guess...   Did Jesus really say anything at all about that topic?  Who knows?  Being a book doesn't make it so.  Maybe someone just didn't like rich people along the way.

The facts are that no Moses really wrote the Pentateuch.  Priests did that and did so much later in time than the time presented in the Book.  In fact, it was competing priests who wrote and it all got mixed up into one.  There were a few Isaiah's all cobbled into one.  In Ezekiel it is a battle royal between Priests and Scribes for who did and didn't make true prophecies.  Isaiah is full of prophecies gone wrong.  That made the scribes laugh at the priests and the really ticked the priests off.  If you could inject a failed prophecy into a book, you could make the writer look like a fool worthy of death.

The names of the authors of the Gospels were affixed decades after the originally anonymous books were written to give them credibility.  Peter was not written by any Peter and no Paul actually wrote the letters to Timothy or the Ephesians and probably not Colosians either.  Those books were written much later in the "how do you run a church" times rather than about  issues that would arise in Paul's lifetime a mere ten to 30 years after Jesus. They are Second Century concepts, not First. 

No Paul wrote Hebrews for sure as whoever did rarely talks about themselves if at all.  Paul often talks nothing but about himself using "I" very often.  James doesn't have to be Jesus brother James and the John of John, I John and Revelation can never be proved to be the same person or disciple of Jesus.  These are all assumptions most are comfortable making to keep the story coherent. You can never know for sure and is the stuff of faith I suppose.  Faith is what we plaster up our walls with until we get the facts.

And lastly, for now, we get so offended thinking that someone like Herbert Armstrong, GTA, Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Rod Meredith, Joel Olsteen, or thousands of other Christian Lone Rangers seem to know it all and speak on all things as if they knew.  But that's how the Bible, the Torah and the Koran function too.  It is just that it is easier to believe the one lone man's view if it is in a book thousands of years old than it is to believe someone who we know or are contemporary at least. 

The entire  Christian truth of life , death, God, Jesus, Satan and the Wonderful World Tomorrow are the product of maybe seven to ten men mostly unknown and mostly Paul in the New Testament.  Strangely, Jesus wrote nothing.  Jesus is simply written about and others tell us who he was and what he did and said.  Hearsay mainly when you think of it.

Moses could have been a sociopath for all we know but we can't know.  Isaiah and Ezekiel just may have had Schizophrenia or Jeremiah Bi Polar Disorder or melancholy, but we'd not know that.  They'd not know that nor would the people who were intrigued by their behaviors know that!!!   Paul may have had temporal lobe epilepsy for that matter hearing voices and seeing lights in his head, according to Luke, or not, according to Paul.  Paul may have had out of body experiences and visions that being in an old book seem ok but if Dave Pack said he had one, we'd laugh our asses off, and call for medications not congregations.  

The character in Gospel Jesus may have had issues with not knowing who his real father was.  Maybe when pressed as a youth Mary just said "God is your father," and the rest of the story stems from a genuinely human being struggling with abandonment issues.  We can't know from a Book.  We weren't there and saw none of this or knew anyone who did. 

Remember, no one goes to the hospital to see the birth of a later famous person.  Fabulous Birth Stories are made up AFTER the adult becomes famous and bear no resemblance to the truth.  All Caesars and gods are born of virgins, get visits from Wise Men and are found under a "star."   Even Yassir Arafat claimed to be born in Jerusalem for credibility when , in fact, he was born in Cairo.  It's how we tell our stories.

But some books are magic and evoke powerful emotions.  Just this week in Georgia a woman hung the dog of a neighbor that chewed up her Bible.  No joke..she hung the dog who chewed up her Bible.  Had the dog chewed up her copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People," the dog would have lived.   I think we know where  burning a Koran can get you.  Burning "Ali Babah and the 40 Thieves" not so much.

The bottom line is that all major world religious views about the who, what, where, when and why of God and life is left in the hands of a very few men who are said to have lived lives thousands of years ago, had experiences with the gods and written them down as truth which led to copies of copies of copies of copies of it all.  On top of that, at times we can deduce that the writings are not actually those of just one man or of the man whose name is affixed to the book.

The Book also has contradictions, mistakes and boo boos.

What would it be like if every time someone wanted to know what life was all about , or what may happen after death, we didn't feel the compulsion to go back to a Bronze Age Book filled with people somewhat like us but somewhat not like us at all?  What if every time you had a spiritual thought or scientific fascination you did not have to filter it through the Bible, Koran or Torah for verification?  How nice not to have all of earth's geology and formation not filtered through Noah's Flood or the craters on the moon through Satan's rebellion. 

Would it be so bad if we could get away from "The Bible says...", "The Koran says..." and "The Torah says..."?  

It's kinda like hot dogs.  If you really could see and understand just where they come from and how they are made, you'd not feel so compelled to serve them as if that was all there was to eat.  You'd probably feel better and not feel so limited in your allowed tastes and perspectives. 

Dennis
DenniscDiehl@aol.com