Don't Confuse Me With the Faith..I Mean Facts..No, Faith...Awww I Forget

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H/T James McGrath

Don't Confuse Me With the Faith..I Mean Facts..No, Faith...Awww I Forget

You can't unring a bell. You can't unsee what you do see. How do you keep them home on the farm, once they have seen Paree? There's no turning back. Did I say you can't unring a bell?


Recently I wandered through the topics being offered for a large ministerial conference of my former peers. While typically the first topic of concern was, as expected, " The Offering as Worship, the other topics were not all that informative on the topic of the actual Bible. When a ministry is made up of Bible readers, you can generally skip the seminar on "A Scripture can never mean what it never meant."


There was one workshop where one might ask questions on theology to the one man provided to answer them for you, but I suspect the questions were rather light and foofy unless the group wanted to probe the depths of the nature of the Trinity or just what plan B may have been for God with Adam and Eve, mostly Eve, mucking up the works. Other than that, I am fairly sure a good hard question about the Bible that was not on the official list of acceptable topics for public disclosure was off limits. One certainly would not wish to become labeled as "he who asks too many hard questions." That would endanger your career. I would be reminded of the Wizard of ID being questioned by a commoner and being told, "well with ideas like that, you're really going to go up in this Kingdom." The next scene you see the commoner standing at the bottom step of the gallows with he hangman saying, "Up you go there buddy."


Long story, but I have managed to outgrow my church and I was the pastor. Not the one of my youth, which was Presbyterian, but the one I moved on to in my youth thinking it was more real and then gave almost three decades of my life to it. In time, nuther long story, they reinvented the wheel and insisted I return to my rather Presbyterian roots taking me full circle. I realized my love affair with organized religion and true churches was over. Nuther long story.


The tribe does not have much use for stray dogs. They either domesticate them for their convenience or they eat them.


In my personal journey through a very sincere belief that I was correct in my Biblical perspectives as a pastor, I have gone from believing in the "God breathed" inerrancy of the Book, to an eyes wide open understanding that the Bible is neither all that Holy, "the greatest Book ever written and full of errors, bad science, implausible accounts and many contradictions. I find my self marveling at the hours spent by sincere pastors straining to understand how the sins of Adam and Eve impact our lives today and place us all under the cloud of Original Sin and the need for blood atonement to make it all good again. The simple answer for me is now that the evolution of humans is good science and that the idea that any literal first humans called Adam and Eve is ludicrous. I"m almost ashamed of myself for taking so long to figure this out with the love of science I have always had but strained for decades to place it all in the context of Bible literalism, which can't really be done well...Ok, at all.


Since there was no literal Adam and Eve (and no, the creation of humans is not a mere 6000 years ago either), there was no literal sin for which everyone forever more after has to be cleansed from by the blood of a dying God/Man. The fact that there has been a score or more dying God/men in history, all of whom were born on December 25th, were tempted to fail, rose to the occasion, were betrayed, pierced and lay in the grave for three days and three nights only to be born again is pretty darn common. While some may love to "Tell the old old story of unseen things above...", they are not aware of just how old the story is or how it really did originate above in the stars.


The fact that this story of the Son of God and his 12 disciples is the same story as the SUN of God moving with it's 12 zodiacal signs over one year is something one never wants to notice or bring up. The fact is that SUN worship is THE origin of SON worship and all religion as we know it. The fact that the word "Galilee" means "circuit" is no coincidence. Jesus of the Galilee the Circuit is not much different than the trip taken by the Sun traveling around the circuit of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. They are both round trips from December 25th and back again with all of the same experiences in their ministry occurring right on cue. Great stuff, but let's move on.
Along with this, realizing that the miraculous events of the OT were mostly borrowed from older non Israelite mythologies, Prophets and Priests wove the tales far later than the stories imply and the real history of how the Bible came to be and "Houston...we've got a problem." At least I have a problem with using the not literally true texts to tell sincere humans how to literally be, think and do after coming to see what I can't unsee. Remember, you can't unring a bell nor return to the farm.


But where does one fit when the tribe has no use for you and stepping outside the box is going to have it's consequences? I'm amazed, yet should not be, of the phenomenal loss of "friends" one experiences when bells ring and lights go on. It's the price one pays for being unable to stay stuck in something you learn along the way is not as one has been told. Few go with you. some talk about you and all ignore you forever more.


The best I can come up with is that you become more of your authentic self...something organized religion is loathe to have you do in the first place. Churches and Priesthoods generally want followers, compliers and sheep. Ministers may seem to pride themselves in allowing for questions, but they are easy questions to answer because when all is said and done, one can claim that "God says it, I believe it. That does it for me" and put the ball back in the court of the reprobate questioner. If all else fails, the one who questions can be told "there is a way that seems right to a man, but the way thereof ends in death," or "God sees not as a man sees," or "The wisdom of God is foolishness with man," and thus all his questions can be dismissed. Of course, these putdowns don't answer the original questions, but they send the message that one is not even smart enough to ask the right ones. The cure for being "one who questions" may be everything from prayer and fasting to get the attitude straightened out to "how 'bout we sit out of church a few weeks and think about our relationship to Jesus." Either way, "he who questions loses." The Church and God always win in such cases.


So after  you outgrow your church, organized religion or the literalism of one's childhood Sunday School lessons, what is the purpose of one's life? Since Churches tell us that salvation through the blood of a dying God/man is the purpose of life, but now one has no confidence in that, what's the point? While I now can stay home from church and save a whopping ten percent, I'd still like to find meaning in life beyond being a food tube that eventually dies.


One of the many meme's of organized religion is that human beings are evil, nasty and worms in God's site. Their hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked to the point of total mistrust. We are sin personified in nasty flesh and worthy of nothing but death, at best. Let's get right to the truth of the matter.


You and I are just fine. We are who we are and it's your goal in life to get to know yourself and who YOU are. We are all unique parts of the same one thing. It's not our goal or to our advantage to believe that we are to become someone else or follow the life, perspectives or world view of someone else. That ruse has restrained and constrained human-becomings for way too long on the planet. The "you're not good enough," meme is a set up for allowing others to control you with fear, guilt and shame to their advantage every time.


The goal in life is to get to know your own unique self. It's a troublesome process as there are more than enough others who feel you need to get to know and be like others who are less defective and wormlike than yourself. Don't fall for it. Nursing homes are full of people who would give anything to have another shot at being themselves. But that goes back in another way to not being able to unring a bell.

DenniscDiehl@aol.com    

Making Yourself "Pure" on the Ambassador Campus

Harvest Rock Church,the owners of the Ambassador Auditorium is a charismatic 'church' that is seen by some as another personality cult. It is deeply centered around it's leader Che Ahn who has his minions at his beckon call just like Herb did.  Some of the  people you come in contact with there are truly weird and downright creepy! 

Ex-Armstrongites that have visited their services have gotten to see first-hand the speaking in tongues, people 'pogoing' where they jump endless in place for long periods of time, people 'slain in the spirit' where they either fall rigidly to the floor and stay that way for an hour or longer, or fall down thrashing about flailing their arms and legs.  One person that visited during one of their conference said that the entire lower lounge was filled with people 'slain in the spirit' writhing and moaning on the carpet.  Others get whipped into such a frenzy that they start barking like dogs, or they have uncontrollable fits of laughter.  Then there are the folks that are 'drunk' with the holy spirit to the point they can hardly stand up and stumble about laughing and slurring their words like happy drunks.

If anyone thought Armstrongism was weird these people are FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR worse!

Checkout this video filmed on the campus with some of HRC's young people taking a 'purity' pledge in front of the old Mayfair dorm. None of them look too excited to be there.  If these kids only knew what went on inside that dorm during the College days they would run like hell the other direction!  That building was certainly NOT the bastion of purity and wholesomeness!

But then, I must have forgotten, that HRC folks 'purified' the Ambassador grounds before they moved in.  They went around the property pouring anointing oil on the sidewalks and on the buildings to expel the evil spirits of Armstrongism and purify the property. They also poured salt into the Auditorium lake to expel the demons that occupied it as well as poured anointed oil around the perimeter of the Auditorium.

The Washington Post has a great article on how ineffective 'Purity Pledges' are: Pre-marital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective

Armstrong and the Church of God Cult

The Doctrine of Death

Another Soul Touched By Armstrongism (And Not In A Good Way!)

The End Game February 2011

I have hesitated posting this because it has been getting so much press lately.  But heck, anything I can post here that gets Watchman in a dither I will do it!  :-)

Bobby Fischer: another sad legacy of Armstrongism.

Fischer was invited to Ambassador College do do a chess seminar. Once there he got caught up in the mire of Armstrongism.  He was already having lots of life issues and mental health issues. Fischer's problems only multiplied the longer he stayed in contact with Armstrongism.

Harry Sneider, former Ambassador College PE Department  trainer has his take on Fischer in this The Journal article.

Ambassador Reports had this information about him in it's first magazine issues

Chess Champion Bobby Fischer had quite a lot to say about
the Armstrongs. In an interview with the Ambassador Report
editor, Fischer said, "I was trying to buy God." From 1967
through 1974 he gave a total of $94,315 to the Worldwide Church
of God. In 1972, the year he won his championship by defeating
Soviet champion Boris Spassky, he donated $61,200 to the Church.
He said, "This idea of Herbert's that you can't trust your own
thoughts - that's the key doctrine that I think has to be blasted
out. I would say that if there's one thing that is the whole
essence of Armstrongism, that is it. That's how he screws up your
mind, that's how he hangs on to people." He said further
regarding Armstrong's prophetic failure, that the Church would be
taken to safety in 1972, "Like the Bible says, when a prophet
makes prophecies that don't come true, then that guy is not of
God and you don't have to be afraid of him. Yet Church members
are afraid of him (HWA), and he's failed umpteen times. This guy,
Armstrong, in terms of religion, is the world's biggest loser....
But I was really upset in 1972 when Herbert Armstrong refused to
apologize. He could have just apologized and said, 'I became
overly enthusiastic. I wanted Christ to return so badly.
Everything seemed to fit. Please excuse me. I won't do that
again.'"
Fischer had not become disillusioned with God, but as he
came to realize that his relationship with Christ was a spiritual
one and was not dependent on massive contributions to a
self-proclaimed apostle, he did become disillusioned with Herbert
Armstrong. He said, "Herbert Armstrong has a way with words. You
know, he seems so sincere. He has all the right principles:
dedication, hard work, perseverance, never giving up. He's
dogged: he's persistent. You know, from reading his stuff and
listening to his sermons, you'd think he was very interested in
God. But when you meet him personally, there is nothing there at
all. I find Armstrong to be an egomaniac. He sitteth in the
temple of God saying great things as if he were God. He
apparently wants to leave his permanent mark on all he comes in
contact with and can bring into submission. He is simply a madman
who would love to rule the world."

(Obviously with the fame Bobby Fisher had, as the world's "chess
champion," he had met HWA, and you've just heard what he said,
"...you'd think he was very interested in God, But when you meet him
personally, there is nothing there at all." --- That says it all.
If you ever meet me, and I do have a little fame of sorts from
this Website, I hope you'll never be able to say such words as
Fisher said about HWA - Keith Hunt)

He gave over ninety thousand of dollars to to the church.  This was a time that Armstrongism was using it's two celebrity "member's" as tools for better publicity.  They were also exploiting Dan Truitte from the Sound of Music.  GTA was trumpeting him out during the America Listen's Campaigns.

He got arrested by the Pasadena Police Department and shares his tale of woe here: I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse

He renounced his US citizenship, and was delighted when the World Trade Center was attacked. He despised Israel and the Jews.

Instead of playing tournaments, Fischer retreated to the protective cocoon of the Worldwide Church of God, an apocalyptic cult that predicted the end of the world every four to seven years and whose members tithed up to 30 percent of their income. Such protection came at a steep price. It was reported that out of his $200,000 income that year he donated $61,200 to the WCG. "They cleaned out my pockets," he later said. "Now my only income is a few royalty checks from my books. I was really very foolish." To show its appreciation for such a generous contribution, the WCG treated Fischer almost as if he were the very deity the Church's members had been waiting for. He lived in WCG-owned apartments, was entertained at fancy restaurants, and flew to exotic spots in the Church's private jet. And Fischer was set up on the first dates of his life, with attractive WCG members. A fellow WCG member, Harry Sneider, says that this hedonistic lifestyle had a detrimental effect on Fischer: "He got pampered and got a lot of attention. It made him soft."

Fischer's relationship with the WCG, like all the others in his life, didn't last. In 1977, after a bitter falling-out that led Fischer to claim that the WCG was taking its orders from a "satanical secret world government," he cut all ties with the Church. Then he crawled even further into his own netherworld. He began dressing like a hobo. He took up residence in seedy hotels. He began worrying about the purity of his bodily fluids. He bought great quantities of exotic herbal potions, which he carried in a suitcase, to stave off the toxins he feared might be secretly put in his food and water by Soviet agents. According to a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated, Fischer medicated himself with such esoteric remedies as Mexican rattlesnake pills ("good for general health") and Chinese healthy-brain pills ("good for headaches"). His suitcase also contained a large orange-juice squeezer and lots and lots of vitamins. He always kept the suitcase locked, even when he was staying with friends. "If the Commies come to poison me, I don't want to make it easy for them," he explained to a friend. Perhaps the most telling sign of his rapid mental deterioration was that he insisted on having all his dental fillings removed. "If somebody took a filling out and put in an electronic device, he could influence your thinking," Fischer confided to a friend. "I don't want anything artificial in my head."

The low point of Fischer's California sojourn came on May 26, 1981, when two Pasadena police officers stopped him for an ID check. By then he had unkempt hair, a scraggly beard, and tattered clothes, and looked like an aging hippie down on his luck. He also generally fit the description of a man who had recently committed two bank robberies in the neighborhood. He refused to answer questions and was taken to jail, where he spent forty-eight hours. "All he had to do was tell the police he was Bobby Fischer, the chess player, and the whole thing would have been over," a friend says. "But he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Submitting to authority is a foreign concept to Bobby." A year later Fischer privately published a fourteen-page pamphlet titled "I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!" The pamphlet, which became a surprise best seller in chess shops across the country, is a melodramatic account of Fischer's confinement. The subheadings say it all: "Brutally Handcuffed." "Choked." "Isolation & Torture." "Sick Cop." The Atlantic