Blinded By The Liars

Prophet Thiel has another entry today condemning various non-COG false prophets that have been uttered stupid predictions over the last few years.  He points out all their foibles while promoting his cultic book that is supposed to have all the answers.

He can rightly discern that these men are liars and false prophets, yet, he is blinded to the fact he follows one of Armstrongism's biggest liars and false prophets, Roderick C Meredith. Meredith has uttered  many damnable lies over the decades that have been publicly exposed over and over.  Yet, Prophet Thiel turns a blind eye to them, just as he refused to acknowledge the lies of Herbert Armstrong, Herman Hoeh, Dean Blackwell, Gerald Waterhouse and others.

They still gloss over the fact that Herbert Armstrong and Roderick Meredith lied in the early 70's when they said that we would be fleeing to Petra by 1972.  They lied that famine, disease and pestilence would destroy the nation in 1975.  They lied over and over and still today they have followers who deny they ever uttered a false prophecy. 

Thiel writes:

On January 2, 2011, in an article titled False Predictions for 2011 I had denounced several false predictions for 2011.
The false prediction with the largest following was Harold Egbert Camping of Family Radio.  And I stated that the following were some of his predictions which would be proven false in late May and October of 2011:

As we have noted, God further solidifies or locks in this date, May 21, 2011, by placing the day of shutting the door, when the rapture will occur, on the 17th day of the second month of the Biblical calendar. Significantly, the number 17 links perfectly to the fact of the rapture because spiritually, the number 17 signifies heaven. Moreover, the number 2 (second month) spiritually identifies with those who have been commissioned to bring the Gospel. Is it not amazing that they will be raptured on the 17th day of the second month? Is that coincidental? We also have learned that the last day of the earth’s existence, October 21, 2011, is the 23rd day of the seventh month of the Biblical calendar. The number 23 normally signifies God’s wrath being poured out. The number 7 (seventh month) signifies the perfect fulfillment of God’s purposes. Could this also be coincidental, that the final completion of God’s punishment on the unsaved occurs in the seventh month on a day that features the number 23, which is a number that completely identifies with God’s wrath, thus signifying God’s perfect wrath on the unsaved? (Camping H. We are Almost There! 2008 edition, p. 61-62)

Jesus did not return on May 21, 2011 nor did the world end on October 21, 2011.  Tens of thousands read my long article about him titled Harold Camping’s Teachings About the End of the World Do Not Agree with the Bible.

Then in true COG fashion, Prophet Thiel pulls a Dave Pack rabbit out of the air to promote his new book.  Dave Pack has the worlds largest and best web site on "the truth" while Prophet Thiel has the worlds most important and ONLY book currently dealing with false prophecies.  It is the worlds best documented book on the topic.

Those who seriously would like to compare various predictions and how they align (or in certain cases do not align) with Bible prophecy should check out my book 2012 and the Rise of the Secret Sect as it seems to be the most documented book on the market to do so (also world events have already aligned with at least 20 predictions that it contains, with none shown to be false).

It just goes to show that Prophet Thiel is as big of a liar as his spiritual leader Roderick C Meredith is.

Dennis On: "They Come...They Go"

They come....They Go

Having been a 26 year pastor in 13 congregations in 5 states, and after having gone through the theological slaughter of the 90's perpetuated upon the membership by "leadership," of the WCG, I have to ask the question, where did all the friends go?


I found myself in an odd situation. I loved the people in my congregations and had many wonderful friendships and friends, I thought.  This final congregation in South Carolina was the toughest by far, even if everything was going well.  They were used to being rewarded by the minister for their loyalty and friends became deacons and included in the lives of all the brethren. There were always three or four waiting and chaffing at the chance to be the real minister.  Ugh!  I didn't work that way so quickly fell afoul of their system. I didn't take deacons on visits to  know and hear the problems of others.  That was not their business and people aren't honest when they feel they are being grilled.  One on one worked for me, because someday I'd be moving on.  At any rate, Church Picnics went from really fun to drama events. We stopped having them.


Some would tell me what the church was really up to at HQ and that this or that really was going to change. Dumb me would call Joe Tkach and simply ask him if A/B or C was true or not.  It was never true according to Joe.  It was ALWAYS true according to what actually came to be. As a result , I'd come back and tell the church all was well and then end up looking like a fool caught between the Administration that lied to me and the members who thought I was stupid and naive.  Of course I was..ha.   Thus, as the baloney in the middle of the sandwich, neither side kept much in touch.  That was my experience with friends.


The only time those who have either stayed with the new and improved version of the Church, which has changed it's name to distance itself from it's own past, or those that have left it for splinter groups that profess to keep the old ways intact, or those that have moved on to greener and more stable pastures, or the disillusioned meet is at funerals or in the final days of some former church friend. Sad isn't it? One has to be dying or dead to find out you had friends after all. But then unless you were having an out of body experience attending your own funeral, you'd not know. It is more comfortable being friends to the dying than the living. And I am sure after I am dead, thousands will once again say that we were friends. Dealing with a dead Diehl is easier than dealing with the real Diehl. :)


When churches implode, as they do, friendships explode. I can count on one hand the friendships that have stayed in tact since my being labeled a minister who "knew a lot about Jesus, but did not know Jesus" and then being terminated.  Don't misunderstand. I was outgrowing the literalism of any church but was in a transtion.  And...I have fingers left over!
It is reckless change and administration of policy that tears friendships apart when associated with churches and the hope the promote in their teachings. Local ministers, who can have their own dictatorial ways, can tear friendships apart as well by causing "friends" to make choices and take sides in endless and stupid disputes or personality cults.


In my own case, I have had more than one former member, whose children I had married and whose husbands I had buried, pass by me at the lobby desk in a hospital where work to make ends meet. I simply do not exist to them because I am no longer one of them, whatever that might mean. I have known minister friends who have drank themselves to death after reckless change confused them and their friends marginalized them for being hurt and confused. One minister even jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge if you can imagine that. That takes planning and a total lack of friends left to help you through. Suicide seems often the mistaken idea that the death of an old idea mistranslates into we think we have to die  It's a permanent solution to a short term problem. . Very sad but I understand it.


So when your church implodes, why do your friendships explode? There are several types of friendships built when we become a part of a church and their dynamics are all a bit different.
First of all, everyone in any particular believes that "we all have to be friends," because, well, we are in the Church. The common bond of similar or same beliefs is what constitutes the friendship. In any other setting, we would not be friends with most of these people as we would really have nothing else in common to hold it together. Thus, when the church implodes, the friendships explode, fall apart and are not salvageable. They are based on being in the common church with a common belief. When that falls apart, that is generally the end of your friendships.


If you leave the church in discouragement, anger or theology fatigue, you are now a seed fallen on bad ground. Those who you leave behind will read about you in Matthew as one of the seeds that fell on hard ground and when trials came alone etc, did not have the ability to survive. Of course, it will be a bullshit explanation, but it makes them feel good to see that they are off the friendship hook with you for being disillusioned, hurt, marginalized or just worn out by controversy. Without the church work, doctrine or goals, you have no friendship. These people will disappear quickly should you ever begin to wake up to the fact that NO church knows all it needs to know about the Bible to be THE one true church. Of course, since no one attends the one false church, you will be labeled, disfellowshipped, avoided and generally cast into the Lake of Fire, Hell or other imagined bad places for the wicked person you are. These are mere not friends that stick closer than brothers, or at least not unless you live in the same house. Since you moved out, you are no brother of theirs.


The second kind of church friends you will cultivate are genuine friends that are friends in spite of church. You have the church in common. You met at church, but you also have kids, ideas and needs in common and develop a friendship outside of just church stuff. Your kids grow up together, make fun of the church and minister together, as do you from time to time and it's just normal. But if you leave the Church or the Church leaves you, they have agonizing decisions to make. If they stay, they might sneak your friendship but if the Church was still the main draw, they eventually will leave you alone, high and dry. They might even leave the church themselves, but if they move on to an even more righteous church than the one they left, and you just became disillusioned and non-committal, they will spend some time getting you to follow them into the truer church, or drop you in time as well. They don't mean it. You're not being theologically tied to any belief and even willing to step outside boxes that lead to different conclusions about religion will leave you without these friends in time. They will feel sorry for you for not moving on to even an more true church in their quest for the one true one. These friends will make you feel icky if you insist on staying around them just because they are all you have left. They will make you feel inferior for your beliefs or lack of them compared to their now new and improved ones, which is always a sign you might need to just forget the friendship. It's not real.

Another group are those that may be somewhat like you in your skepticism and having learned more than the church would have wished you to learn from the whole experience. You'll have all the bitching in common about the past. You will have quality time living in, mulling over and analyzing the past, but when you tire of that and realize that your life is not going forward in the past, these friends will also dry up and blow away.

You may outgrow them and bring your life up into the present while they wallow in the past and you grow tired of it, or you may stay stuck and they move on. Either way, the friendship will dissolve in time, as friendship based on sharing only a bad experience is doomed in the long run. You'll know the "friendship" is over when they keep sending you updates on the goings on the past Church and you don't care. In the world of blogging and email, you may have attracted these types of friends because of your common disastrous experience, but you have never even met these people in real time and would not know them if they sat next to you. But you were friends, until you weren't.


I am writing this while listening to the great hymns of the Church. Me...Mr. Skeptical, listening to the old hymns. I get teary because it provokes the chemistry of a more simple time, when I was younger and didn't know I was going to learn and experience all I was going to with regards to Church, ministers, theology, politics, behavior, humans and reality.
Wait a sec, It is Well With My Soul is playing...gotta get teary...ok, back.


Seems a shame church friends who have suffered through the ridiculous and reckless folly of those who are determined to not think change through, have to meet only at funerals of the wounded and now dead friends of the past. Maybe if someone had been a real friend, in spite of Church, they would still be alive.


Well, I guess that answers in part, where did they all go? People who hop from truer church to truer church in pursuit of the TRUE Church build friendships based on being a member of that particular church or set of beliefs. That is one kind of friendship but they also tend to dissolve quickly when conditions in that church change. That has been my experience in spades.
While the Bible says "a friend loves at all times", that has proven elusive to say the least among the survivors of the WCG debacle.



In reality, I  find that many who say they love you or are you best friend don't tell you it's conditional.

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Armstrongism Guilt

While this is not about Armstrongism, it has similar parallels.  Catholics are always the first to talk about Catholic "guilt."  They know what it is like to have ingrained in you over the years all the rules and regulations that revolve around Catholicism.  Then when you leave it, even though you know it is not important anymore or you may not even believe it any more, you have guilt pangs when you do something you think you shouldn't

The same can apply to Armstrongism.  We have our own version that could be called "Church of God Guilt", or "Armstrongism Guilt."  When you leave the cultic mentality and move on, every once in a while you stop and think, "...what if it was all true...", "what if eating bacon really is wrong," "what if we were supposed to keep the holy days," etc.

If my perusal of COGlet web sites and groups I run into that every once in a while with my self.  When you start reading  the writings of adamant people you get wrapped back up in the subtleties of what they are saying and then you begin to doubt things that you know are blatantly wrong.  That question of "What if..." pops into your head.  Because of that it is easy to see why so many still remain entrenched in the unholy mess of Armstrongism when they realize much of it is not true.  That "What If..." has enslaved them

 Hat tip to Van Robison for this.

The serious consequences of childhood religious indoctrination

by mirandaceleste on September 6, 2011

The concept of “Catholic guilt” has become a cliche, a joke, a truism. But it’s real. For many of us who experienced Catholic childhood religious indoctrination, Catholic guilt is a pernicious and inescapable burden with serious lifelong repercussions. It clings to us, a dark spectre of our pasts, a cruel and vicious voice whispering to us, reminding us of the lessons of our childhood: that we are unworthy, that we cannot do anything right, that we do not deserve to be happy, that we are dirty tainted sinners who must constantly punish ourselves and atone for our sins, and that we are nothing. Nothing. 

Read the rest of her entry here.