This bulletin from Living Armstrongism:
I have just got an email from Tempest Sixt Car Hire.
They have assured me that the PCG magazines are being removed. PCG's publications will no longer be distributed via that particular avenue.
My thanks go to the company for choosing to act in such a decisive manner.
Well done people! We did it. My thanks go out to all those who have participated in this needed protest. Your effort is greatly appreciated. Be proud with what you have done.
This is a great lesson in the power of speaking up and getting information out where it is needed, one small step at a time.
116 comments:
Great! That just made my whole day.
I can just hear it now though, "brethren, the Church of God is being persecuted. We have been maliciously attacked by those ungodly people who have turned their back on God's Church and returned to their vomit...blah, blah, blah"
Yep, one of those all day sermons coming up, I can feel it in my bones. It will be followed by a demand for more money, property or whatever in preparation for Jesus' imminent return, "time is short brethren, this is a sure sign of the last days...blah, blah, blah"
Woo-hoo! A victory for freedom! It's comforting to know we might have helped prevent someone from ruining the rest of their life....and the lives of their children.
Someones life has been protected and not harmed due to your actions. Praise Beelzebub!
Good work!
A popular website that has about a dozen new links daily to articles about the real estate problems in the United States started to include links to the doom and gloom articles in the Philadelphia Trumpet magazine that were written by a certain young pervert at PCG headquarters.
I notified the webmaster about the PCG and what it is really like, and he stopped posting links to the PCG's Trumpet magazine articles. This simple action could save many people a lot.
I also once notified some high government leaders in Jordan who were being tricked by those PCG scumbags.
Somebody has to warn potential victims of that PCG fraud. If Gerald can tell LIES all over the world, how much more can honest men tell the TRUTH?
Ah, Flurry's small potatoes. Think bigger! Think better!
Next, we take down GCI.
You people are pathetic! Quit blaming COGs for you miserable lives.
Ah, Flurry's small potatoes. Think bigger! Think better!
Next, we take down GCI.
And just how do you propose to actually "take down GCI (WCG)"? Hire a private investigator to snoop on Tkach Jr? Send out anonymous spies to various WCG local churches looking for any kind of dirt? What about their efforts on the web...are you going to find fault there as well? Looks like someone in WCG/GCI is moving ahead (wonder who?) with the work of God despite your antics.
Anonymous said...
A popular website that has about a dozen new links daily to articles about the real estate problems in the United States started to include links to the doom and gloom articles in the Philadelphia Trumpet magazine that were written by a certain young pervert at PCG headquarters.
I notified the webmaster about the PCG and what it is really like, and he stopped posting links to the PCG's Trumpet magazine articles. This simple action could save many people a lot.
I did the same last week with an economics web blog that I frequent. They had a link to a PCG article that was just a thinly disguised re-write of the UK based Telegraph Newspaper. When I saw it I thought WTF is that doing here. I let the writer know who he was linking to.
Flurry's "Trumpet" poses as a legitimate news blog. They don't tell people they are actively seeking the end of democracy, the imposition of a theocracy and that they really really dislike free speech.
Gerald Flurry is not a concerned patriot. He's a self-absorbed, HWA worshiping apocalyptic nutcase. I'm surprised he hasn't dug up HWA's bones yet.
The only good trait of these WCG spin-off cults is that they have the same streak of Quaker pacifism HWA had, so they are not armed to the teeth with assault rifles. They believe Jesus is armed and going kick butt for them.
Anonymous said...
You people are pathetic! Quit blaming COGs for you miserable lives.
Ooh..we struck a nerve here! Did they think they'd sneak into the blogosphere unobserved?
Bamboo_bends said...
Ooh..we struck a nerve here! Did they think they'd sneak into the blogosphere unobserved?
-------
There's no nerve struck. Only sadness that you seem unable to move on with life!
Anonymous said...
You people are pathetic! Quit blaming COGs for you miserable lives..
Oh, YES SIR, we sure will obey your every command (grovel, grovel). We will quit blaming the loving, righteous "church of god" and quit having miserable lives just because you command it, sir.
NOT!
Why don't you just go slop your hogs or whatever you hillbillies do and leave us poor, miserable, sad, bad ol' sinners to take care of the necessary business of watching out for your victims.
Take care, I think one of your pigs just got out . . .
You can preach the endtimes from the standpoint of love. Jack and Rexella have been doing it for years. And, there are others.
If you are currently beholden to an angry, threatening, manipulative teacher, his demeanor should raise some serious red flags.
Wait, wait Corky. Please!
I was raised in the Ozarks, and we no longer accept the epithet "hillbillies." Political correctness has finally arrived. From now on we're "altitude enhanced persons."
That's not just for Ozarkers, either. It's also an Appalachian appellation.
Seriously, I caught a certain amount of grief at Ambassador for my Ozark speech. Leftover West Coast prejudice against the down-and-out Arkie and Okie migrants of the Depression, I guess, but everybody made it seem like an offense against god as well as Californians to talk the way I did. I made no special effort to change, but changed in spite of myself. When I got off the Greyhound back home and said a few words, my sister screwed up her face and asked, "Ooh, what makes you talk like that?"
I finished my college career in Arkansas and regained the ability to talk right.
Sorry, didn't mean to threadjack.
Retired Prof.,
Heh heh, I am from Arkansas, born a "flat-lander" and I now live in the Ozark foothills.
Yes, I know for a fact what a redneck hillbilly is. It's a guy that has one leg longer than the other from walking on the side of the hill.
Do you know why they have a red neck?
Anonymous said...
There's no nerve struck. Only sadness that you seem unable to move on with life!
Since when did "moving on" mean leaving people we care about to the wolves?
Or did you mean "moving on" in the disfellowship sense that we should not be seen or heard from again once we left Armstrongism?
"...we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses..."
Here is my description of a miserable life:
1) beholden to men in ill-fitting suits
2) giving 10% of your income to these men
3) living life in fear of the imagined wrath of an imaginary being
4) being under the assumption that you, of all people, are going to rule the earth as a supernatural being one day
5) being afraid of bacon and shrimp cocktail
6) afraid to mow your yard on Saturday
7) believing that there supernatural beings who are out to get you
8) believing that true knowledge comes out of a book that features talking animals
The Apostate Paul
The removal of PCG magazines speaks volumes.
AND,of course, as Corky observes they will now get a persection complex.Their own worst enemies.
It couldn't happen to nicer people.
Cheers,
Jorgheinz
Anonymous said...
You people are pathetic! Quit blaming COGs for you miserable lives.
Anonymous,
It is those false prophets like Gerald Flurry who are truly pathetic and should stop trying to ruin other people's lives. Reading Stratfor will never help Gerald to get his guesses right and be a true prophet.
Some people here are just doing the very same thing that Jesus did and warning about false prophets like Gerald. Why do you oppose Jesus and take the side of the false prophets that He warned about?
Why do you reject the truth and support the PCG's nonsense and falsehoods? The PCG even rejected and changed some of HWA's major teachings, while pretending to be his loyal succesor!
Why do you ignore Jesus' warning and support those who tell lies in His name, and even steal His titles and identity like Gerald did?
Why don't you go learn the truth, which is now available on the Internet? Is it because false prophets like Gerald have forbidden you and all the other cult members to learn the truth, which would set you and them free?
Once you come to your senses--if you ever do--do not just sneak off quietly. Come back and tell the truth about your own actual experiences in the PCG. Maybe then you could help others--that is, unless you don't even care about them enough to say anything.
Paul, I'll tell you what "miserable" is: thinking that there is nothing more than the here and now. (this apparently describes you)
The current world crisis in leadership certainly illustrates that we drastically NEED leaders who put principles ahead of self-interest, and who adhere to ideas of mercy, justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation. (we don't have them now)
We don't live in "fear" of anything, and we are more interested in saving mankind and planet Earth than "ruling".
To quote from the REAL Apostle Paul:I Corinthians
13But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14and if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.
15Yea, and we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up, if so it be that the dead rise not.
16For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised;
17and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
18Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
19If in this life ONLY we have hope in Christ, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE.
20But now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of those who slept.
21For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive;
This life is very short. If this is all you have, then you have essentially nothing.
I don't believe that all those who have gone before have lived and died in vain.
Corky,
My dermatologist, ignoring my heritage, explained that my neck is red on account of sunlight exposure, but I'm sure your explanation is much better. Tell us.
By the way, I am married to an Arkansas flatlander. You can imagine the cultural adjustments we had to make. I can stand to eat grits now. She is no longer bothered by junk cars in the yard.
(At Ambassador I got chewed out by Carl McNair for making jokes like that. He was an Arkansawyer too, but unlike me, he felt threatened by the stereotypes.)
Retired Prof.,
The red neck is caused by accidentally wiping sweat bees off your neck with a bandana. No, seriously (heh heh).
Larry saith...
I don't believe that all those who have gone before have lived and died in vain..
Since when does it really matter what we believe and don't believe?
Does believing something make it true? Does not believing something make it not true?
So, okay, you believe something of which you have absolutely no proof or evidence of, just the words written by men you don't even know.
But, what do you know for a fact? I know I've never seen someone come back from the dead and I'm pretty damn sure you haven't either. Am I right or wrong?
We need some new fairy tales for modern times. The old ones are a little too gruesome.
Larry,
I've noticed over the past two years that there are many people whose worldview has been skewed. They were born and raised in a nation founded by Christians, based on God's principles, straight out of the Bible, and don't even know it! Yes, there were two or three atheists or deists who have recently, via revisionist history, gotten way too much credit as founding fathers. And, yes indeedy our ex-brethrens' worldview had initially been set up by HWA, who called our founding fathers "Christians falsely-so-called" simply because they "didn't keep the sabbath."
People raised in communist countries or in nations with cruel war-lords live their lives in environments which most closely mirror atheist beliefs. Many of them would give their everything just to live in a nation patterned after God's laws of freedom and justice, as we do every day. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are not presumptuous in setting up a system of governance. These documents freely attribute our freedoms to God, and simply seek to acknowledge them as self-evident.
BB
Corky, you are absolutely right. I have personally never seen anyone return from the dead.
But, does that mean it can't or won't happen? Not necessarily.
One hundred years ago, no one had walked on the moon, and anyone who suggested it could or would happen, would have been considered insane.
From just a scientific point of view, we now understand theoretically (resurrection of the dead) how it could be done. We don't have the technology today to do it, but to assume that God does, is not that great a stretch anymore.
And, as for immortality, we really don't understand why people or animals age. There doesn't seem to be a scientific reason why aging is absolutely inevitable. The more we learn, the more we realize that we are incredible biologic machines, that theoretically could be fixed in such a way as to prevent aging and death.
It is the spiritual aspect of our nature that is the most problematic.
There is the story of a great Sultan who once asked an historian to summarize the history of mankind. The historian replied that the entirety of human history could be described with eight words:
"They were born, they suffered, and they died."
Yes Corky, you could be right about everything, or not.
Belief is a powerful thing. You should try it sometime.
Larry's comment above...
"I don't believe that all those who have gone before have lived and died in vain."
...illustrates a common (and illuminating) inner motive of religious believers: namely, if I believe something, then therefore it MUST be true because I just can't bear to accept the alternatives – they’re just too uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Fine, I can accept the metaphysical angst such a viewpoint wrestles with, but your belief or unbelief doesn't change the actual objective reality one way or the other, does it? True, it may help you cope with the uncertainties of life in the short run – as would a whole host of other irrational beliefs that are patently false.
I've had this discussion with several diehard COG believers, and when all their arguments are exposed as fraudulent, they virtually always retreat to one final position because they have nothing else left to offer in support of their ideologies: I believe because I couldn't face the reality of human existence without belief.
And somehow they think this makes such beliefs true.
Strange reasoning, but the bedrock of many a believer.
Isaac Asimov said, in "Murder at the ABA", precisely that. To paraphrase, "Go ahead and believe whatever you want. It doesn't change reality one bit."
Why is it miserable to take joy in our every day lives, and not worry about some mythical life after death? You can't prove what you believe is true so why all the high-minded arrogance about it?
OK, I'll ask you, BB:
Who are the "...two or three atheists or deists who have recently, via revisionist history, gotten way too much credit as founding fathers."?
Thanks.
LARRY SAID:
To quote from the REAL Apostle Paul:I Corinthians
13But if there be no resurrection of the dead
...not in the way he thought...physical bodies....the Spirit contains the information
pattern of the person, it cannot be destroyed, even proof-texting HWA knew that!
then is Christ not risen:
...I wouldn't go that far....
14and if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.
...Paul's words not mine...
15Yea, and we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up, if so it be that the dead rise not.
...a false conclusion based on an erroneous premise... Judaism does not address the lifeafter. Paul took Jesus appearance to the Disciples to be a new thing.
16For if the dead rise not,
...they don't rise, they transform to a new state...flesh is corruptible. Flesh is but the matrix for the Spirit.
then is Christ not raised;
...just transformed like the dead are...
17and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
...sins are of the flesh, they die with the body...the Spirit goes on. Judaism never addressed sin in terms of the next life, only this current life. That concept is a European invention.
18Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
...NOT AT ALL! You think God went to all this work to create intelligence to watch it all go away?
19If in this life ONLY we have hope in Christ, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE.
...AGAIN, HIS WORDS NOT MINE!
20But now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of those who slept.
...If that's true, how did Saul talk to Samuel? What about Elijah being translated so he did not see death? What about King David, the man after God's own heart?
21For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead.
...Nice poetry, but death comes with physical biology. It was there long before mankind came on the scene. Its God's way of keeping things from getting overcrowded and recycling nutrients.
22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive;
...Again, very nice poetry, but it doesn't make it so. We came from God, we return to God. Jesus included. God is the origin of all things.
This life is very short. If this is all you have, then you have essentially nothing.
...I AGREE COMPLETELY!!!
I don't believe that all those who have gone before have lived and died in vain.
...I don't either. I DIED last March, from congestive heart failure through a freak illness. And I was sent back to my hospital bed. It wasn't my time to die.
YOU GOT NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT IN THE NEXT LIFE. GOD HAS IT ALL UNDER CONTROL!!!
NOW STOP YOUR WORRYING AND GO LIVE LIFE FOR A CHANGE WHILE YOU HAVE IT!
PHYSICAL LIFE IS A PRECIOUS GIFT, ENJOY IT WHILE YOU GOT IT!
I just might be the only ex-WCG-er to admit experiencing this....but I don't think I am the only one, in fact I know I am not. I've spoken to a couple of others.
I just don't care if people think I am nuts. I am sure my atheist friends will think that.
I am just happy to be alive and healing! I thought I had reached the end - I had surrendered my spirit into God's hands! I am not complaining about what happened to me! I'm very glad to be back and bugging all of you guys again!
Leonardo,
Yes, the alternatives are unbearable and unpleasant, but they are also irrational.
It just does not make sense on any level that such a superb biologic machine with a quantum-level supercomputer and sentient consciousness, a human being, that requires such an incredible investment of time, energy, and expertise to create, would be so temporary. It only SEEMS logical, rational and normal to you, because you haven't considered the possibility that it shouldn't be.
It would be something like building super-luxurious 747's just to take them on one flight and then crash them.
Now what do think? Rational or not?
No, Larry, It wouldn't be logical or rational to waste all we learn in life at death - if there was a God. That's the reason why people want to imagine that there is a God to start with.
God is only an assumption that comes from the imagination because of the desire to never die.
So, if we have only one flight, like your 747 analogy, we better make it a good flight while we can. Because, as far as God goes, it is evident from all the suffering in the world that God doesn't take very good care of his airplanes.
I should just ignore the arrogant and self-righteous remark you made:
Belief is a powerful thing. You should try it sometime..
But instead, I want you to remember it when you finally wake up to reality.
Well, Larry, it just seems to me that in your arguments and comments you attempt to smuggle in many unproven premises. And not only do you just ASSUME them to be rational, self-evident and true, but also assume that OTHERS will accept your premises without proof as well.
But this is baloney.
In this particular blog, for example, yours is the argument from incredulity – a logical fallacy that is committed when a thinker comes to a conclusion for no other reason than because they cannot personally conceive the opposite as being true. Many people argued this way against the atomic theory of physics back as it was seriously emerging during the 19th century because they just couldn’t conceive of such “nonsense.” It just didn’t seem to make sense that the hard, visible physical objects all around them were mostly comprised of empty space, and not matter. But this is what atomic theory predicted – and what has now been proven beyond all doubt, such that even YOU probably don’t question it.
For many years I believed with all my heart the very same unproven supernatural premises that you currently accept and argue for. But through time and life experience I came to understand - against my will, contrary to what I WANTED to be true, I might add - that such premises simply were nothing more than truth claims based on a combination of ancient writings and wishful thinking, or in other words, faith. There is no evidence whatsoever to support them if one doesn’t first accept the foundational assumptions they are based upon as being absolutely true and unchallengeable.
What amazes me is how religious believers glibly claim to possess supernaturally-given knowledge and understanding with absolute certainty – almost to the point of astounding arrogance – when in actuality their lives and intellectual arguments demonstrate clearly that they “know” and “understand” no more than anybody else.
“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.” — Michel Montaigne
If believers come right out and say, as some occasionally have the honesty to do, that "I believe because I WANT to believe, because I NEED to believe to get through life" – then OK, I can accept that perspective, even if I can't accept such beliefs as valid.
But when folks try to argue as if their religious beliefs are so blatantly obvious such that they do not require proof, evidence or reasonable demonstration, and that the only reason they aren’t obvious to certain people is because they are evil, close-minded unbelievers, then that is nothing more than a desperate strategy that is employed because those making such empty assertions themselves deep down somehow understand the paucity of evidence and the tissue-thin credibility of their many nutty metaphysical assertions.
Byker Bob, perhaps I misunderstood your post, but you are extremely mistaken IF you make the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. There is a big difference between the popular religious beliefs of the time incidentally influencing America’s founding, and the erroneous assertion that America was directly and purposely founded as a distinctly Christian nation.
Much of this unhistorical urban legend comes from the ideologically-driven and fraudulent work of David Barton.
Google the excellent article "The Christian Nation Myth" by Farrel Till, former fundamentalist pastor. It's a good start.
Also google and read “A Critique of David Barton's 'America's Godly Heritage' " written by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
I bought into this myth when I was in the WCG, mainly because it fit in quite well with my COG religious beliefs, especially the nonsense of British-Israelism.
David Barton's well-produced video "America's Godly Heritage" really persuaded me, and I heartily recommended it to many folks...until I started researching into some of his claims, most of which have been greatly exaggerated, grossly taken out of the historical context of the time, and in some cases outright fabricated. In fact, my understanding is that he’s been forced to make some public admissions to this effect.
Christians will stop at nothing trying to provide "evidence" that their religion is the one true religion.
Folks with enough wisdom and guts will research into these claims before biting "hook, line and sinker" into such groundless assertions.
And again, please forgive me in advance if I misunderstood your post, and you are NOT advancing the Christian nation myth of America's founding.
Byker Bob wrote:
"People raised in communist countries or in nations with cruel war-lords live their lives in environments which most closely mirror atheist beliefs."
Uh, Bob, have you ever heard of a country by the name of Afghanistan? It’s one of the poorest nations on earth, if not THE poorest. And its ruled by cruel war lords and Taliban fundamentalists – hardly an environment resembling atheistic beliefs. And for the most part, it’s population lives in horrific poverty, superstition and fear. The same can be said of many other nations, currently on the world scene or in history, and not only in those dominated by atheistic ideas, as you seem to imply.
Actually, when viewed from an historic overview, I think it can be argued that religious ideologies have butchered FAR more people than have atheistic ones. As a developed thought system or worldview, atheism is relatively new on the world scene, historically-speaking. Religion has a considerably longer track record extending far back into antiquity. (This is not to justify in any way the predominantly atheistic systems, such as Soviet or Chinese Marxism, which have butchered millions of people in the 20th century.)
My argument here is this: let’s be done with the erroneous concept that atheism is more dangerous to human freedom than is religion. You just cannot demonstrate this assertion from the record of human history.
Aggregate statistics in modern times, when taken together on the whole, for instance, clearly show that the more secular countries become in terms of predominant political ideologies, the higher they rate on virtually any measure of quality of life. And before you lash out against this last statement (which I’m sure many fundamentalists will), please read Sam Harris' "Letter to A Christian Nation" before doing so. Don’t use religiously-driven subjective opinions when you argue, use demonstrable facts instead. This is what Harris does in his excellent little book, which I would recommend to all my fellow Ambassador Watch bloggers.
Brutal dictatorships, hardcore communism and fundamentalist religions do have one thing in common: they are all irrational, and opposed to human freedom. The historical record on this is very clear. And please don’t try to argue that the Christian religion provides freedom of thought and politics. The facts of history just don’t show this.
The Founding Fathers of America essentially founded a religiously neutral nation because they knew from history all too well what happens when religion without restraint is allowed to take over the reigns of power, especially in the European religious context, with which they were most familiar.
Belief is simply what someone thinks is true. Understanding the origin of belief gets more complex. Many of us believed that HWA was an apostle but it was not true. Analysis of belief using secular methodologies will establish the truthfulness of it. Except if there is a spiritual dimension to the belief and that cannot be discovered through secular approaches. For some people the argument stops there. For others, there are experiential data points that do not yield to secular analysis. But these people will never convince the secularists that these data points exist.
The idea that there is a God who created reality can be worked through with some effort and reason. If one is convinced, one becomes a theist. The idea that the creator is also the God of the Bible is much more difficult. But if one comes to have this belief, he is a Christian theist. I believe this step from theism to Christian theism is mystical rather than a process of a priori logic. This, again, is unacceptable to someone who stops at secular methodologies. No test tube demonstration, no God.
Every human is different in the outplaying of their lives. When God wants you to know he exists, he will ensure that you do.
The Bear
bear_track wrote:
"The idea that there is a God who created reality can be worked through with some effort and reason."
OK, Bear Track, I am really looking forward to your providing me the steps in this reasoning process. But you know, whenever I've made this request in the past, the forthcoming logic just never seems to materialize.
You also wrote:
"When God wants you to know he exists, he will ensure that you do."
Well that's good to know. Same old lame and evasive tactics, my friend. This is a plain and blatant cop-out if I ever saw one.
Mel,
The beliefs of the following have been debated, based on writings speeches from different eras of their lives, but their names are often linked with deism:
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
John Adams
Benjamin Franklin
Hope that helps.
By the way, for anyone else interested in this topic, while David Barton, like anyone else, is not 100% accurate, there are quotes substantiating the Christian beliefs of the majority of our founding fathers. As with any other topic, I suppose individuals are going to simply believe what they choose to believe, and it's not my job to convince anyone of anything. But, if someone wants to do some honest research rather than latching on to their side's particular cliches, there are going to be some surprises.
BB
"God is only an assumption that comes from the imagination because of the desire to never die."
Larry, and other Christians on here. (I mean true Christ followers, not the fabricated OT, OC law abiding wannabe Jews with Christian leanings) understand that it isn't about giving you more *information* about Jesus. That has never worked, not even 2000 years ago. "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles"
It is foolishness to you, for sure. That's OK, because our reward is not here and now- but later. Your reward, however, is here and now. Enjoy it and revel in it! You will, quite possibly, prosper and thrive more than we (are you prospering more than us?), and we are *OK* with that. That's not meant to be snide, just based on our belief and the testimony of Christian history.
Our belief in eternal life after death isn't just an afterthought, but central to the hope that lies within us. I am not ashamed of that in the least. It is weakness that brings me to the cross, and also gives me strength to toil on this earth. There's nothing wrong with that in the least. You call it mental weakness, we call it mental strength. Our minds are more than knowledge.
Bill Ferguson said, "I don't either. I DIED last March, from congestive heart failure through a freak illness. And I was sent back to my hospital bed. It wasn't my time to die.
YOU GOT NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT IN THE NEXT LIFE. GOD HAS IT ALL UNDER CONTROL!!! "
MY COMMENT - I am reading a book entitled "Trailing Clouds of Glory" by Harold Widdison, Ph.D. which compiles stories of people who have had near death/death experiences and have returned. People who have all experienced death and returned say the same thing.
I wonder how many ex-WCG people still hold on to the "soul sleep" doctrine.
Richard
Larry, it’s good that you call for rationality, but as Leonardo pointed out, even the most rigorously rational arguments won’t persuade people who reject the premises they are based on. Let me demonstrate.
Let’s go ahead and allow, for the sake of argument, that the universe was built by a creator. We can’t know that creator directly, so if we wish to get acquainted, the rational approach is to examine creation and make inferences. Based on the most thorough examination made by our fellow “superb biologic machine[s] with [their] quantum-level supercomputer and sentient consciousness,” the universe is made up of 71.5 percent dark energy, 24 percent dark matter, 4 percent gas, and .5 percent stars and planets. (Michael S. Turner, “Origin of the Universe,” Scientific American Sept. 2009, 40) I’m not sure how much faith I place in those figures, but they seem at least as credible as the Genesis accounts of creation, the flood, and the Tower of Babel.
You spoke of how creating a human being “requires such an incredible investment of time, energy, and expertise to create” and implied that the creator would not want to waste that effort. Well, what about all the effort the creator wasted on those vast amounts of dark energy, of dark matter, of unconsolidated gas—and for that matter, all those trillions upon trillions of planets and stars that make up only half a percent of the whole shebang? Talk about wasteful—this represents extravagance on a literally cosmic scale. For the human drama to play out, the only setting that was really required was a wet, lukewarm ball of rock with the right chemical composition to support carbon-based organisms. The scenery could have been more efficiently accomplished with a painted backdrop.
So if we’re going to preserve the notion of a creator who budgeted effort in some rational way, we need to rethink the purpose of that effort. Here is one idea. See how you like it.
The creator was experimenting with dark matter and dark energy, trying to get the attractive gravitational force exerted by the matter into a dynamic balance with the repellent force of the energy. Inadvertently, the interaction generated a tiny bit of hydrogen and a minuscule fraction of helium, amounting to less than 5 percent of the whole, and the first thing the creator knew, some of that gas had condensed into clusters of little sparkly things, many of which came to be surrounded by dusty specks. Whether the creator cared about these side effects we cannot know. It is also not certain that he/she/it even knew that at least one of the cooler specks got contaminated with a biotic scum. If that is the case, it matters not at all that the individual organisms that constitute that scum churn into existence and then wink out almost at once, to be replaced by different organisms made of the same materials.
Now Larry, I’m sure you don’t believe that story. Neither do I. But you have to admit it’s just as rational as the one you like.
Hi Bob,
Just to be sure, are you saying that the "...two or three atheists or deists who have recently, via revisionist history, gotten way too much credit as founding fathers.",
are
"Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin." ?
Just hoping I've got this right from you. And, it's late and bed-time for me, so I'll be looking into it further later during the weekend.
Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding you.
Thanks, BB.
BTW, I've done a little reading recently as to the definitions of who are "founding fathers", and "framers", and the surprisingly late dates that those terms were attributed to them.
Interesting stuff.
Lake of Fire Church of God said...
I wonder how many ex-WCG people still hold on to the "soul sleep" doctrine.
Richard
In my experience there seems to be 3 groups.
1) The atheist/agnostic, who reject the "sky god" of religion. I am never quite sure its the whole idea of God they reject or the idea of a God somewhere "up there" they reject. I've seen both views from them.
2) Those who assimilate into Catholicism or other mainstream group, largely trinitarian beliefs.
Some are more tolerant than others.
3) Those like me who have had experiences they cannot account for by scientific explanation.
Near Death Experiences have become quite common with modern medicine, simply because they can resuscitate people at a later stage than they could in decades past. People now live to tell the tale of what they saw or encountered.
My NDE was not the textbook kind I read about, although there was that tunnel of light, and just this overwhelming sense of love and saftey and concern. There's also a sense that your mind no longer ends at the sides of your skull - kind of like photons - non-locality, everywhere at once.
There's an amazing clarity of mind. I still had a bodily self image that was human in form. I was somewhere and it wasn't my hospital bed. I was extremely alert (I had been out cold for two weeks) and it wasn't the wacky slurred dreams you get from sedation either, my mind was so clear and focused, I wish I had that focus now!
I can't say I saw God. There was a voice, I understood it be God. I don't know why I knew it was God, but I just knew. It told me somethings I could not comprehend, they seemed mutually exclusive at the time. I wondered if I was being tricked by Satan, those old WCG tapes still spin sometimes - even in me. It told me to do something that I felt completely incapable of doing as a human. In my frustration I just said "my life is your hands, do with it what you will". I couldn't go forward, I couldn't go back, so I surrendered.
The next thing I know I am in the hospital bed, bright lights in my eyes, and nurses are scrambling as my movements set the monitors off. I reached for my throat and I found I had been trached, and was still on a respirator. I couldn't talk, this particular trach didn't have a Passey-Muir valve in it, so there was no air pressure for my vocal cords.
I just started laughing. I kept thinking "nobody is every going to believe this in a million years!"
I knew I would heal. I didn't know why I got sent back, I have gone to so many funerals of friends and relatives in recent years, what did I do to get a 2nd chance? I knew that if there was a reason, I had to heal first before I could do what ever it is I got the 2nd chance at life for. Its probably just as simple as my little girl needs her daddy. I healed very rapidly. When I got out of the hospital 6 weeks later I couldn't walk to the end of the street. Now I walk two miles a day.
It dawned on me after a while I was given a riddle or puzzle to solve, which is a good way to cause me to remember something. I guess it knew me well! The riddle bothered me for weeks later because I could not figure out what it meant.
A friend from AC who lives in a foreign country cracked the riddle for me, and it made perfect sense. I was afraid to tell many people because it was so bizarre and so different than anything I had ever pondered before. I am still trying to wrap my head around the meaning.
It was a message for me personally, about what I had yet to understand about God. If it was meant for everyone, I am sure it would have told me that too. Its enough that I wrestle with it.
It has changed my view of God. And its also changed my views about people who don't agree with me. God's dealing with them too. We're all different, and we go through what we need to go through to learn.
larry said...
>>The current world crisis in leadership certainly illustrates that we drastically NEED leaders who put principles ahead of self-interest, and who adhere to ideas of mercy, justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation. (we don't have them now)<<
I am pleased that you have finally arrived at this realisation. So the next post we receive from you should be announcing your departure from GCI: unless, of course, you are willing to follow a leader that doesn't have the qualities you outlined?
Thank you, Leonardo, for your thoughtful, rational responses to the true believers in this forum. It is interesting to continually see their failed attempts (or no attempts) to answer you. Keep up the good work.
larry said:
"Belief is a powerful thing. You should try it sometime."
I can't speak for my friend Corky but it is odd to see you make the assumption I haven't tried theistic belief. I indeed did try it for 25 years in the WCG. I lived it, I taught it, I sacrificed for it.
In the end I found it was a giant soap bubble all pretty with colorful reflections but filled with only air. It burst!
This is an explanation for those near death experiences - DRUGS!
Drugs also explain the god experiences of a lot of other people too.
Of course, schizophrenia is also a factor sometimes.
However, these experiences aren't limited to the Christian God. People of other religions have those experiences too.
The reason? God on the brain. The God idea has been hammered into their brain from the day they could walk and talk by their parents and other people.
The most hilarious experiences of all is someone having visions of the virgin Mary and she looks just like the little statues of her that was invented by Catholic sculptors.
To Bill F.
Thank you for your post on your NDE - very interesting. I wish you the best, Bill.
Byker Bob wrote:
"As with any other topic, I suppose individuals are going to simply believe what they choose to believe, and it's not my job to convince anyone of anything. But, if someone wants to do some honest research rather than latching on to their side's particular clichés, there are going to be some surprises."
In essence, what we have here is yet another evasive cop-out by one of the servants of the Lord. Man, you'd think the Creator of the universe could just once inspire at least ONE of His servants who blog here on this site, so they could soundly refute or seriously answer the challenges that are put to them continually in the course of blogging.
Bob, when fundamentalists just throw Bible verses out in the attempt to answer serious questions put to them, would you not consider this tactic "latching on to their side's particular clichés"? Come on, be bone honest with yourself here: some of the oldest and most worn-out clichés of all time are Bible verses.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that people should indeed do some HONEST research, which involves seriously reading from ALL the major perspectives on any given topic, and not just the ones that happen to agree with what they already believe and want to be reinforced in – which you and I know is what most believers do. But wide and serious inquiry requires a great deal of courage and honesty - more, I'm afraid, than most believers can apparently muster, at least the ones who frequent this website.
As I've mentioned before many times, I've come to my current views AGAINST what I wanted to believe. I deeply desired the basic teachings of the COG's to be true: they are simple, easy to understand, I had believed them for over three decades beginning in my teen years, I was comfortable and familiar with them, many of the best years of my professional life was spent promoting them as a WCG employee, and in many cases they paint a very appealing vision of a hopeful future (the world of tomorrow, etc.) - they inspire a great many people. (There are, of course, dark real-world implications for many other COG doctrines, but I set these aside for the present discussion.)
But when I began to seriously look into the underlying premises and foundations of them, I found nothing but the shifting sand of human opinion, ancient superstition, circular reasoning and wishful thinking - yet virtually nothing of real substance. This indeed brought some surprises to my mind, stunning the living daylights out of the glib metaphysical “certainties” I had learned and absorbed from the Church. And on top of all this, it was very depressing for me as well. The conclusions this intellectual honesty lead me to were extremely painful for me to confront, and even more difficult to accept, both intellectually and emotionally.
So please don't insult me by carelessly implying that I am merely parroting the clichés of a given worldview, and fighting against plain, demonstrable facts or the principles of clear thinking and sound reasoning. It seems to me it’s the religious believers who are actually the ones who are guilty of doing this, not those who have had the guts and willingness to seriously research and question their dearest-held assumptions. I think this is quite obvious by the way they habitually sweep aside almost all the serious inquiries that are put to them by snidely insulting those who ask such questions.
I wish folks like you could at least acknowledge the difficulty of such an endeavor, rather than spouting the typically glib remarks whose obvious sole purpose is to attempt to sweep aside the hard questions they simply have no legitimate answers for, or are unwilling to seriously look into for themselves.
None of us here have all the answers. We’re all searching in one way or another – that’s how many of us originally got involved in the WCG to begin with. But my standards for evidence and clear reasoning are much higher and more discerning than they were back in the mid ‘70’s when I first began the journey.
Leonardo wrote: "OK, Bear Track, I am really looking forward to your providing me the steps in this reasoning process."
The question under consideration is whether or not there is a god who is creator. Whether that is the Christian God or not is another issue. I will be brief because this is not the topic of
this thread.
1) The first issue is the failure of evolution to explain the geologic record. For example, T. Rex is present in the geologic record. But evolutionary
gradualism would require that the recored be replete with precursors to T. Rex and we generally do not
find this for any organism. There is one candidate precursor for T. Rex I have read about and it may
well be an unrelated dinosaur.
I believe there was genetic manipulation of prehistoric species but the engine of mutation and natural selection is not robust enough to explain
the prolific speciation that has occurred on this planet during past epochs. Not enough time and
not enough of an effect.
2) The evolutonist/atheist version of the Anthropic Principle cannot be verified. The Anthropic principle originally stated, in brief, that the Universe is fine
tuned for man. This is demonstrable science. Atheists
did not know what to do with these findings. Atheists have always tried to cloak themselves with the mantle of science. So they developed a new form of the
Anthropic Principle. It essentially asserts that there are an infinite number of universes and the one we live in just happens to have the fine tuning necessary for man's existence. That is why we exist to observe it.
This reformulation of the Anthropic Principle is
interesting in the debate because it admits that fine tuning exists and is scientifically recognizable. But the counterpoint to this is unverifiable. There is no scientific evidence that other universes exist. At this point atheism becomes a faith. The unverifiable belief in multiple universes is the "substance of things hoped for and the evidence ofthings not seen." Atheism, of
course, is not a god centered religion but it is a religion of some sort.
3) Behe and Dawkins extensively debated evolution at the micro level. They examined the evolution of flagella to nobody's satisfaction. So let us assume that Behe is wrong and Dawkins is right. There is no special
creation and no special creator. We are just seeing natural processes in operation. Chemistry and physics and no God. Atheists have always wanted a test tube
verification of the existence of god. The sword cuts both directions and we might request a test tube verification of Dawkin's views. If these are simply
natural process, nothing supernatural required, why
isn't life being routinely created in the laboratory. The implication of Dawkin's assertions is that our
society should now be teeming with biobots of all sorts and types created by molecular biologists.
In truth we run into lots of trouble with the theory of evolution if we are to explain how life arose. At one time, we are to believe, the planet was covered
with oceans that were a soup of first atoms and then molecules. What conditions might exist that would cause one molecule to be selected over another? How does
the surivival of the fittest occur among atoms and molecules that would result in progress towards
useful complexity?
The Bear
Bill Ferguson said, "My NDE was not the textbook kind I read about, although there was that tunnel of light, and just this overwhelming sense of love and saftey and concern. There's also a sense that your mind no longer ends at the sides of your skull - kind of like photons - non-locality, everywhere at once.
There's an amazing clarity of mind. I still had a bodily self image that was human in form. I was somewhere and it wasn't my hospital bed. I was extremely alert (I had been out cold for two weeks) and it wasn't the wacky slurred dreams you get from sedation either, my mind was so clear and focused, I wish I had that focus now!"
MY COMMENT - Bill, I would recommend that you get your hands on the aforementioned book. You would be shocked about how your experience is similar to others that are case chronicled. The "tunnel of light" is described by others in the book.
By the way, I no longer believe in the lake of fire.
Richard
Mel,
That is correct information, as far as I know it.
The reliability of David Barton always comes up whenever we have a discussion on this topic. But, it's only fair to treat Barton with the same critical thinking skills with which we'd treat anyone else. There have been other researchers who have found fault with some of Barton's "facts", or statements. But, he has provided so many quotes from the memoires and papers of the majority of the framers of the constitution and other key figures, that even if we throw out the bad or questionable quotes, we are still left with an overwhelming collection of evidence that the majority of our founding fathers were Christian, and based our system of law on their understanding of God's law. You'd need to go to an awful lot of work to expunge the name of God from our governing documents, the memoires of the founders, and importantly, the many, many public buildings in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and all of the early seats of government. The US was founded based on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
BB
To Mark, and Bill F. Amen, brothers! And, I wish all here could join in with us in saying that, but all good things in time.
As far as Leonardo goes, Leo, old buddy, it looks as if we are simply traveling in opposite directions. I was an agnostic or atheist for about thirty years, largely as a direct result of my experiences in having been brought into WCG about halfway through my childhood. I did the AC and employee bit for about a decade, too, and then threw the baby out with the bathwater when Jesus failed to keep the schedule HWA had loudly set for Him.
I studied many different philosophies and read widely during my agnostic/atheist years, and found nothing totally convincing or fulfilling. Then about two years ago I went through a kind of a road to Damascas experience. I don't know whether this was because someone had prayed their arses off for me, or it was just my time, but I went from being totally hostile to the very idea of God, to daily and deep prayer and Bible Study almost overnight. For the first time in my life, I have the faith and peace that only Father God can provide. I've watched many of the messes in my life become transformed and straightened out.
But, I realize that despite our pure motives in sharing, personal experiences do not have the same impact on the people with whom they are shared. In fact, there will always be people who for one reason or other will take a gigantic crap all over our blessings and miracles. But, that's alright. I've learned that God does all things in His own time, and it's generally right on time.
BTW, when have you known me to machine gun scriptures at our little group here? That's something that I know did not work on me, so I tend to be very restrained in my sharing of scripture references, or cliches like "let the dead bury the dead", or "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever", or "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked". I also hated people referencing judgement day, hell, or the Lake of Fire, and won't resort to that type of failed manipulation, either.
BB
bear_track said...
The Anthropic principle originally stated, in brief, that the Universe is fine
tuned for man. This is demonstrable science. Atheists
did not know what to do with these findings..
This is NOT "demonstrable science". It's the opposite. Instead of the earth being fine tuned for the life on it, it is the life on the earth that is fine tuned to the environment on earth by the process of evolution.
You post is just a bunch of misinformation that you have read in creationist literature somewhere.
Even if evolution could be disproved, which it won't be, that wouldn't mean a God exists. In other words, evolution's default position is not "God-did-it".
I don't know why creationists still bring up Behe, his theory was disproved several years ago. Creationists should actually be embarrassed to bring up disproved theories at all. And, it they were honest, they wouldn't do it.
BykerBob said...
The US was founded based on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion..
Wrong again the US was founded on freedom from abuses by the king of Great Britain against the people.
Read the Declaration of Independence - it's online, no excuses.
I believe amendment IX of the bill of rights covers our freedom from religion because I haven't heard of the people giving up that right.
That's online too, Bob.
"This is an explanation for those near death experiences - DRUGS!"
Good drugs explains the inspiration of the Book of Revelation
"Drugs also explain the god experiences of a lot of other people too."
Temporal Lobe epilepsy also explains Paul's Damascus road experience.
Anonymous wrote:
BTW, when have you known me to machine gun scriptures at our little group here? That's something that I know did not work on me, so I tend to be very restrained in my sharing of scripture references, or cliches like "let the dead bury the dead", or "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever", or "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked".
I also hated people referencing judgement day, hell, or the Lake of Fire, and won't resort to that type of failed manipulation, either.
BB
Good on you! I tried to be a good evangelical, but it didn't work out for me. Not only couldn't they answer my questions, they didn't even understand the questions themselves.
But I am not going to bash them either, if it works for them.
In my opionion the scripture "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" is the single most abused scripture in fundamentalism. Its used to stop people from using their own God-given intellect and common sense.
People need to stop looking at such passages as "God given facts" and start seeing it for what it is - the author's frustration about what humans do to one another. Didn't their moms say "why do you always do that?" Same kind of thing.
God must just shake his anthropomorphic head in disbelief at what is done in His name.
Sorry Leonardo,
I really do try hard to read your posts. But, they always seem to come down to one idea, “I want proof.” Well, I understand this. And, of course, the sought-for “proof” has not been forthcoming. I haven’t given it to you, and neither has anyone else, as far as I know.
In your opinion, this makes those of us who choose to believe, without “proof”, naïve, ignorant, or intellectually dishonest. I can understand your thinking here, too. How often I have wished that things could be far more concrete. But, they simply are not. You, quite rationally, take the approach that…..if it cannot be proven, then you will not believe in it. Fine. Suit yourself. You are not being dishonest. You do, however, tend to criticize those who don’t try to refute your arguments. I don’t attempt to refute them, because I cannot. But, that doesn’t make you right. It just means that you will not accept “metaphysical” arguments, which is all I have.
All that being said, my reasoning is quite rational too. I believe that there may be very valid reasons that God has not offered to the world at this time the type of “proof” that would be acceptable to you. (if you are interested, I might share later on why I think that) Furthermore, as I have said before, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
One thing that is historical fact: Christianity was started by a small group of believers who were sincere, vocal, extremely dedicated, viciously persecuted, and martyred. Something that has always been true of human beings is that they just don’t allow themselves to be killed for something that they know is a lie. They just don’t.
I am not sure exactly what “proof” you would personally accept as sufficient, but I imagine that seeing someone return from the dead would do it. Well, apparently, that did it for the earliest members of the Church. They were willing to suffer martyrdom, rather than recant their testimony. This does not constitute a metaphysical argument.
Byker Bob,
I've looked up a bit, so far, about pseudohistorian David Barton.
Personally, I don't know why one would look to him for truth when it's clear that his shoddy work is chock full of misrepresentations and lies.
You mentioned "Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin" , as "...two or three atheists or deists who have recently, via revisionist history, gotten way too much credit as founding fathers."
Actually, all of those you mentioned espoused Deism (with possible exception of Adams who was a Unitarian and used deistic terminology), and none you mentioned were atheists. You can also add George Washington, Ethan Allen, and James Monroe as Deists.
It concerns me that pseudohistorian David Barton is using so many outright lies in what he presents within his political and religious lobbying.
It just seems odd at best, to use the work of Barton, a pseudohistorian and liar who is actively engaged in his brand of historical revisionism, to support your claim of there being a "revisionist history" which gives Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin and others "too much credit as founding fathers"
Click here for a series of videos answering some of Barton's many lies.
You wrote, "The US was founded based on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
Where the heck did you get that one?! Sounds to me like a propagandist's straw man argument.
And who the heck is claiming that the USA is supposed to be free of religion?!
Will look into it more later, thanks. An interesting subject!
PS: I certainly hope you don't think that when "In God we trust" was printed on the dollar bill, that they really meant to print, "Jesus is our Lord and Saviour!"
Just teasing.
"the Laws of Nature and of NATURE'S GOD entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR"
No freedom from your CREATOR there, Corky.
"The US was founded based on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion..
Wrong again the US was founded on freedom from abuses by the king of Great Britain against the people."
Then just why did the Puritans come here, Corky?
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
(a) Findings: The Congress finds that--
(1) the framers of the Constitution, recognizing free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution;
(2) laws 'neutral' toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise;
(3) governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification
"In your opinion, this makes those of us who choose to believe, without “proof”, naïve, ignorant, or intellectually dishonest."
Believing without proof only makes you naive. You only become ignorant (and foolish) when you take it further and try to defend your un-supported belief in the face of any evidence. Intellectual dishonesty comes into play when believers scoff and ridicule rational human beings who demand proof- when you elevate belief without evidence as some sort of virtue, a mark of the "true" rational intellectual.
"They were willing to suffer martyrdom, rather than recant their testimony. This does not constitute a metaphysical argument."
So are Islamic fundamentalists, even now. Using your logic, there must be some shred of truth to that whole Allah thing. Are you willing to give Allah the benefit of the doubt? Isn't this proof that Allah exists?
The Apostate Paul
To quote larry:
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
The brilliant atheist, Victor Stenger has more accurately restated this as "Absence of evidence for God is, indeed, evidence of absence where the evidence should be there and is not."
Also, larry said:
"Something that has always been true of human beings is that they don't allow themselves to be killed for something that they know is a lie."
You are assuming they *knew*. They didn't *know* anymore than you do. No, they *believed* just as you do.
Again, belief and knowledge are simply not the same. This one of the facts most ignored by the theists.
Anonymous said...
"The US was founded based on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion..
Is that like freedom of disease not freedom from disease?
Wrong again the US was founded on freedom from abuses by the king of Great Britain against the people."
Partly true. The central issue is actually similar to what is happening today. The issue of economic outsourcing to a foriegn land.
The American colonies were upset that they were not allowed to manufacture goods, and had to import all manufactured goods, including textiles from England. Adding insult to injury, the crown taxed needed imports making them even more expensive. It was win-win for England, and exploitation time for the colonies.
The Boston Tea party was not a protest against American leaders, it was essentially a protest against being a banana republic to England, being exploited as a consumer society with no hope for good paying jobs, and then being taxed on those imports with no say in how they were governed. Taxation without representation.
Today OPEC does that to us. We buy their product, protect their lands, and they finance terrorists to drive the price of oil up. The taxation is hidden in the price, kind of like interest in a bond.
Then just why did the Puritans come here, Corky?
The Puritans came here because Oliver Cromwell and his merry bands of Puritan fanatics took over the English government, beheaded the King, and made the fatal error of closing down the English pubs - where every God fearing Puritan knows Satan dwells.
After 20 years without warm beer, the Brits turned on the Puritans, and they fled for their lives to the new world. Moral: never take away a man's beer!
Your heroes were theocratic crackpots! They still are!
1700s politics in a nutshell.
Ex-Android said,
"Absence of evidence for God is, indeed, evidence of absence where the evidence should be there and is not."
The "evidence should be there"? Who says? And what kind of evidence would that be?
And, I am pretty sure that people in those days knew when someone was dead. In fact, they were more familiar with death than we are. They were exposed to it rather often, if not daily.
And to the Apostate Paul, bringing up the "Islamic fundamentalists", that is just pitiful. But, you are correct in one respect, they don't kill themselves for something that they KNOW is a lie.
Wow, we’ve really strayed off-topic here on this particular thread – going from the original subject of Gerald Flurry’s magazine distribution to apologetics, the Founding Fathers of America, near death experiences, evolution/creation, etc!
To this I plead “Guilty!”
But I guess this shows what topics we actually are most interested in.
Anyway, just a few comments:
Ex-android, thanks for your kind comment. Yes, I’ve noticed the same thing repeatedly on this site: someone takes the time and thought to carefully articulate a view or question, only to have the “true believers” just ignore such precise inquiries and issues with an arrogant flick of the wrist. However, I think it’s quite plain to insight readers that such antics are merely cheap substitutes done in desperation to cover-up for their lack of real answers. It appears that supernatural believers have become so used to preaching to one another, that they’ve lost the capacity to make any kind of sense in the modern, scientific world to those who don’t share their dogmatic, unproven and often nutty metaphysical assumptions. My take is that they’re going to retain their wacky beliefs, no matter how much they fly in the face of reason, facts, evidence, life experience, legitimate science and history, etc.
To Bill Fergusen: Bill, I sincerely take at face value your near death experience, and would never try to suggest it didn’t happen. It must have been a truly profound experience in your life. But I wonder if you’ve ever read much about the subject from a scientific perspective, rather than the popular view that interprets NDE’s as “evidence” of life after death. There have been some fascinating experiments done in this area, and it may be worth your while to search them out on the Internet and read about them. There are some extremely simple physiological explanations that make a great deal of sense, assuming you’re willing to hear what physicians and scientists who have studied this phenomenon have to say about it.
To bear_track: your comments attempting to answer my request for evidence to back up your claim that with some effort and reason you could demonstrate the literal existence of a deity who created reality…well, it pretty much falls flat on it’s face. It’s essentially creationist claptrap that has been refuted time and again through the years. For you to claim that “the engine of mutation and natural selection is not robust enough to explain the prolific speciation that has occurred on this planet” may impress your creationist friends or those who are scientifically illiterate, but it reveals a profound ignorance on your part of both the actual fossil record, as well as the dynamics of mutation. How can you make such a ridiculous statement when the evidence for mutation and natural selection is mounting by the week, both in field observations and laboratory experiments? Are you even remotely aware of such evidence? Have you ever seriously read about it? You use the standard creationist tactic of zeroing in on a species wherein the fossil record is indeed scanty or lacking, such as your example of T. Rex, while completely ignoring the scores of others wherein the fossil record abundantly and indisputably demonstrates the gradual transition of animals, like horses and whales, to cite but two examples. I’ve talked to Michael Behe in person, for instance, and what I think a lot of religious folks don’t realize is that he accepts the overall fossil record that CLEARLY demonstrates speciation taking place over long (and often rather short) epochs of time. Because of their extremely short life spans, many generations of common fruit flies can be observed in the laboratory to speciate well within the lifetime of a human being. The mechanism: mutations caused by radiation. I could go on at great length here, but I don’t think it would do any good. But just one more thing: for you to claim that the Anthropic principle is “demonstrable science” is sheer nonsense. This is like claiming that the fact that gifts show up under Christmas trees every December 25th amply demonstrates the literal existence of Santa Claus, and then actually stating this reasoning to be “demonstrable science.” It is neither demonstrable nor science. There exists other and more reasonable explanations. And the standard creationist observation that atheism is a “religion” that requires “faith” is, of course, absolutely erroneous. There are plenty of well-written articles (out on the Internet) and even books on this subject that easily refute such an assertion. Please, at least be willing to expose yourself to just a few of them, that way you could at least post some comments that are not so obsolete and embarrassing.
And Anonymous 2:43, Jefferson’s mention of “Nature’s God and “Creator” in America’s Declaration of Independence is clearly a deistic reference, understood by many historians of the period as such, and was understood so during Colonial times. Please read the available literature on this subject. If he meant the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ he would have said it plainly. But neither the Declaration nor the Constitution mention either. So much for America being founded specifically as a Christian nation upon the Christian religion. Again, do some reading about the historical context that the Declaration was written within, and how Deism was quite popular among French intellectuals, and how Jefferson clearly was writing the Declaration, at least in part, to appeal to the French because he knew the infant nation would need outside assistance for the revolution to be successful. It’s an astounding and incredibly inspiring story. And Byker Bob, this is not my attempt at revisionist history – it’s plainly in the literature if you want to read it.
And to my friend, Larry: I appreciate your willingness to read my posts, even though we seem to be on completely different wavelengths. Others have answered some of the specific points you made, such as that old standard, the classic martyrdom explanation. But I will address one thing you mentioned: you have not offered any “metaphysical arguments,” to use your words, at all. Instead, you offer metaphysical ASSERTIONS. An argument is something that at least has some kind of demonstrable evidence logically arranged and offered for it’s validity. An assertion is merely, well, an assertion, having nothing to back it up other than “This is what I believe.” For instance, you say “I believe that there may be very valid reasons that God has not offered to the world at this time the type of “proof” that would be acceptable to you.” Well, I seriously doubt you could provide such valid reasons, Larry – instead all you probably would offer is more unproven assertions, that to your mind at least actually constitutes legitimate evidence, but all based upon your neatly little packaged metaphysical assumptions and within the context of your supernatural worldview.
Hey Mel, thanks for the link to that website "Liars for Jesus" – I had never heard of it before, though I am quite familiar with this frequent tactic of Christian apologetics, it being nothing new, starting in the historical record, as far as I can tell, with the early Christian writers Eusebius (also referred to by some historians as “The Ecclesiastical Liar”) and Lactantius.
Do we dare hope that some of the more ardent fundamentalists who frequent this site with their anemic comments will actually be willing to look into the material provided there?
(Sorry, Byker Bob, but it was YOU, after all, who started this whole thing by bringing up the urban legend of America being founded as a Christian nation, or at least implying such. Those of us who are fairly well read on this particular topic, and familiar with the actual historical records of the Colonial Period, automatically thought of the Christian zealot and hokey “historian” David Barton (actually, I believe he’s a lawyer by training), since he and his organization, WallBuilders, is a major source of this erroneous idea. In fact, Barton is almost a god to the evangelical religious right in America, as they are always on the lookout for something – anything – true or not – that can be used, at least until uncovered by more serious and objective researchers, to prop up their supernatural ideology and by extension its derivative political beliefs. And the uneducated true believers, who are their primary audience, lap it up by the gallon, prancing around offering such “proof” as evidence that America really was founded by believers in talking donkeys, snakes and voices thundering down from the sky above.)
To all who have commented on Barton:
I don't consider him as anything more than a compiler of, or alerter to primary sources. Good historical research is generally based on what can be learned from primary sources. A discerning reader can generally discriminate between documented historical fact and blatant apologetics. As I said before, even if you throw out all of the questionable items in David Barton's research or apologetics, there is still adequate information to substantiate his major premise.
BB
"And to the Apostate Paul, bringing up the "Islamic fundamentalists", that is just pitiful. "
Why? It's your argument, you know. If believers of religion X suffer martyrdom, then this lends credence to their belief in their particular god. Do I have it right? Isn't that what you were implying? Why aren't you willing to put Christian martyrs on the same level with Islamic martyrs? Why is Christian martyrdom evidence, but not Islamic martyrdom?
Typical religious hypocrite. This mirrors your own take on "evidence." "Evidence" is fine and dandy, even necessary- but not when it comes to your god. Then it must be cast aside. The same with your martyr argument. It's all well and good when applied to your religion, but not when it comes to other religions. Then it must be cast aside.
Larry, you're a Weasel for Jesus!
The Apostate Paul.
David Barton is not a lawyer, but just a lying history-revising huckster.
He reminds me a bit of the huckster Ron Wyatt.
They've both found people who will lap up their fabricated garbage.
Jesus should stone them both with wet matzoh balls!
Larry opined:
"I am pretty sure that people in those days knew when someone was dead. In fact, they were more familiar with death than we are. They were exposed to it rather often, if not daily."
Uh, Larry, archeologists inform us that a number of folks in those days were actually laid to rest alive, as horrendous as this was. These findings hardly supports your assertion that “people in those days knew when someone was dead.” Evidence of this tragedy is plain even as late as 19th century America, where no doubt it was done unintentionally due to ignorance.
The idea that first century folks somehow “knew” more about physical death than 21st century man does, and that therefore they “knew” when a dead body was resurrected from the dead, and therefore that resurrection from death is thus proven, and thus Christianity is proven to be the one true religion…well, you see where such nonsense leads.
For historical evidence of the naïveté and gullibility of first century people and some of the wacky beliefs they could arrive at, do yourself a favor and google an article titled “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels.” So-called eye-witness testimony of these folks is primarily what the NT is based upon, especially the synoptic Gospels.
The gullible mindset of those who persist in believing, for instance, that Elvis Presley is still alive – 32 years after his death – is nothing new to history. In fact, the above article shows that it was even more widespread in those days than now in modern times.
Byker Bob, I know what your assertion is, regarding what David Barton has "proven", but I believe he has failed, even if you remove the lies and misrepresentations from his "evidence"
Hey, I realize that Christians are often "chomping at the bit" to convince others of the importance and validity of aspects of their agenda, but I think that many such Christians are are too starry-eyed to notice how shoddy[to use a generous term] some of the "proofs" are, which they hold up to try and further their cause.
People like Barton, Wyatt, and Hovind(and so many others!) exploit those negative proclivities and give Christianity a bad name.
Larry, here is more PROOF(to agree with your postulate) that people in ancient times knew better than we do about when someone was indeed dead:
When Hitler was dead as a doornail, HWA said he was ALIVE in South America eating a taco and would shortly be coming to sink his meat hooks into us... but NOT ONE PERSON in ancient times ever claimed that Hitler was alive.
Feel free to use this proof of your postulate in a future sermonette.
However, be aware that as the future progresses(according to your reasoning), you will be less sure if those in your Gracie congregation are dead or alive, and you may start to see them as zombies.
Mel wrote:
"David Barton is not a lawyer, but just a lying history-revising huckster."
OK Mel, I stand corrected then. I thought someone once told me he was an attorney by profession, but after reading your comment I did some googling, and found out instead that he has a degree in Religious Education from Oral Roberts University, and his current profession is listed as best-selling author, minister and political activist. He has no academic qualifications whatsoever in the field of history.
And yes, I agree with you that Barton's background and work sounds much like the late Ron Wyatt's. Last spring some Church members I knew qouted at length Ron Wyatt's "amazing discoveries" - but they were so illiterate in the subject matter that they were completely unaware that Wyatt's "scholarship" was exposed decades ago as fraudulent and fabricated in order to convince people that "proof" exists that the Bible is true in it's historical accounts.
Amazing what depths Christians will sink to in order to convince other's their ideology is true.
Byker Bob wrote:
"To all who have commented on Barton: I don't consider him as anything more than a compiler of, or alerter to primary sources. Good historical research is generally based on what can be learned from primary sources."
Backtracking a little bit here, uh, Bob? Sorry, but I can't let you off the hook that easily.
Barton is not merely a "compiler of...primary sources." Rather, he is a known and proven "editor" of primary sources, who carefully sifts through and selects certain writings, while ignoring a host of others - many taken out of the original context in which they were written - and even has been known to re-arrange their wording in order to make the Founding Fathers say what he WANTS them to say in order to prop up the Christian belief system.
The sad part is that he actually gets away with it with his undiscriminating primary audience – Christian fundamentalists – because he knows such folks rarely if ever actually crack open legitimate books on the subject to substantiate his claims. He knows his typical audience is merely looking for their unproven religious faith to be propped up.
I don’t think Barton is intentionally lying. In my view his zany research can be attributed to the fact that he is a Christian zealot – and zealots will do or say whatever they have to do or say in order to “win people to Christ.” The history of the modern creationist movement demonstrates this beyond question.
As you correctly point out, learning from primary sources is indeed a legitimate form of scholarship. But carefully selecting and editing them to conform to a pre-arranged ideological end result is nothing more than pseudoscholarship, pure and simple. And the thing is, it’s so easily detected and uncovered by those willing to do their homework.
I'm not at all implying that there weren't any believing Christians among the Founders of America - to argue this would be utter nonsense. But Barton tries to make it appear as if almost ALL the Founders were Bible-thumping Evangelical Christians who essentially intended America to be a theocracy, of the kind that are currently heavily involved in American politics nowadays. And this is just not the case at all.
The American Senator from Pennsylvania Arlen Specter has written about Barton's work in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy:
"Probably the best refutation of Barton's argument simply is to quote his own exegesis of the First Amendment: "Today," Barton says, "we would best understand the actual context of the First Amendment by saying, 'Congress shall make no law establishing one Christian denomination as the national denomination.' " In keeping with Barton's restated First Amendment, Congress could presumably make a law establishing all Christian denominations as the national religion, and each state could pass a law establishing a particular Christian church as its official religion. All of this pseudoscholarship would hardly be worth discussing, let alone disproving, were it not for the fact that it is taken so very seriously by so many people."
People such as yourself bring subjects like this up in the attempt to back up your nutty metaphysical claims, confidently quoting such unqualified bozo's like Barton for no other reason than that they happen to agree with your supernatural leanings, and then complain when others call you on it.
This is the real world, Bob - it's no longer a place where your unproven truth claims can be granted a “free pass” without substantiated proof and evidence merely because it’s a system of thought based on blind faith. Not if you intend your comments to be taken seriously by others than your fellow fundamentalists.
Mel,
I forgot to mention that while we will often label a pro-believer site as "an apologetics site", there are also agnostic/atheist/non-believer "apologetics" websites. I believe you linked an example of such through your "Lying for Jesus" site. Such sites usually deal in both flamboyant issues and the self-obvious, and are generally lacking in depth.
Basically, one of my goals on our forums is to help assist people through the suppression or repression of God stage of their Armstrong recovery. As I recall, my own personal bottoming out, or lowest point was the point at which I had succeeded in convincing myself that God and Jesus were simply literary characters, and never actually existed. I think it's just awesome when people such as Bill F. share their personal experiences with us. That not only requires considerable courage, but also demonstrates why Jesus never intended that His carefully targetted command to "Let the dead bury the dead" be an all purpose paradigm.
BB
"...at which I had succeeded in convincing myself that God and Jesus were simply literary characters, and never actually existed..."
You had to convince yourself? How does that work? Regarding your disbelief in the existence of leprechauns; do you have to convince yourself that they don't exist, or do you accept it as a logical conclusion based on a total lack of evidence?
The Apostate Paul
Leonardo,
We are definitely on different wave-lengths. I keep throwing you softballs and you keep taking big swings and missing spectacularly! Assertions. Arguments. Assertions?Arguments? It is a matter of semantics. An assertion is a declaration. An argument is an effort to convince.
All of your “arguments” always eventually boil down to: “I want evidence.” “I want proof.” “I want an explanation.” You want to be convinced on a concrete level. Well, remember the immortal words of Mary Poppins, “I never explain anything.”
The story of Job should be most enlightening for you. And it was recorded for OUR benefit. Here was a guy who was put through all kinds of hell for no good reason. If any human ever deserved an explanation from God for his suffering and ordeal, it was Job. What was God’s response to Job’s inquiries? Zilch.
It came down to this: God said, “I am God and you are not, and I don’t have to explain anything.”
My guess is that you don’t like that response. There is a part of me that finds that somewhat annoying, too. However,…….I am human. I am not God. God can do as He pleases and He doesn’t need or want my permission. I am (and neither are you) just not that important. So, if you really wish to know what is going on, humble yourself before God, and pray for wisdom rather than proof or explanation. And, God just might give you both.
In the grand scheme of things involving the history and future of the universe, the conflict between good and evil, and the resolution of the wrangling over the relative philosophical success of selflessness versus selfishness, our individual lives and struggles are not of paramount importance.
This can be a difficult thing for us to personally accept. We have to trust God that He is looking out for us. He says that He is, and that, although our lives are ephemeral, they are not futile.
Byker Bob wrote:
"I believe you linked an example of such through your "Lying for Jesus" site. Such sites usually deal in both flamboyant issues and the self-obvious, and are generally lacking in depth."
Bob, did you take the opportunity to carefully view the videos posted there? Please do so, and then tell us who is "flamboyant" and "lacking in depth" - Barton, or the author speaking on the videos who refutes his many unhistorical claims.
Great, Leonardo! Keep them on the defensive.
BB has been slipping since he went over to the dark side. Now his spokesman is one who claims to have come back from the dead. (Robert Riply, please take note.)
And larry is still working on his rebuttal, weak though it promises to be.
I took a nice drive up into VT today all the time warmed by the late summer sun and your wonderful open challenges to the true believers I read before my departure.
Hire a private investigator to snoop on Tkach Jr?
Haven't done that yet. Certainly something to consider. Shall we take up a special offering brethren?
Send out anonymous spies to various WCG local churches looking for any kind of dirt?
Next best thing. Email the pastor of your local congregation. Play the 'lost sheep wandering home' card. Pretend never to have heard of the ex-CoG movement/websites. Very enlightening that. 'The church' on the ground is a very different kind of animal than the papal leadership would like you believe (or would like to believe themselves) that it is.
Case in point: Look for the video on YouTube from Stephen Smith's congregation, the first time he tried to get the members to practice a Christian Communion ritual. Literally bizarre. Most of the poor sheeple looked absolutely uncomfortable, if not outright horrified. The pastor's wife even kept rolling her eyes, and treated the matzoh for exactly what it was. A piece of matzoh.
What about their efforts on the web...are you going to find fault there as well?
How long have you been reading the blogs anon? Quite a few good pieces on WCG/GCI's lunacy and coverups on the Internet, on Ambassador Watch, I Survived Armstrongism, and other blogs.
"I wonder how many ex-WCG people still hold on to the "soul sleep" doctrine."
I certainly don't hold on to it. As a from-the-cradle church baby I still have a warped perspective on death though. Calloused almost. And there's nothing really I can do about it even as family members around me die. Death means nothing to me because it never has. I no longer believe there is anything afterwards. But I just can't seem to work up the same horror and emotion about death that normal people can. Even for close deaths in my family. Some days it makes me feel not quite human.
I fully blame the church for that.
"There have been some fascinating experiments done in this area, and it may be worth your while to search them out on the Internet and read about them."
I would also recommend Passage by Connie Willis to Bill F.
"As I recall, my own personal bottoming out, or lowest point was the point at which I had succeeded in convincing myself that God and Jesus were simply literary characters, and never actually existed."
Funny how people are different like that. When I came to that realization, it actually let me begin to read the bible (and the sacred texts of other religions) without fear, and to get some spiritual benefit from them, for the first time in my life.
BB, I also tend to not frequent sites that "deal in both flamboyant issues and the self-obvious, and are generally lacking in depth" but I did not find the Liars for Jesus site to be that type of site.
From what I saw and read there, Chris Rodda does an excellent in-depth job of refuting Barton's many lies and misrepresentations. Such an in-depth refutation is needed, and helpful.
Larry, all I can say is why don’t you let OTHERS be the judge of who is “missing spectacularly” here in this thread.
In your mind you see yourself as lobbing softballs, when in reality all you do is constantly dance away from the specific issues I bring up by bobbing and weaving around them, throwing in the occasional snide remark, and then finishing off with logical masterpieces such as:
“All of your “arguments” always eventually boil down to: “I want evidence.” “I want proof.” “I want an explanation.” You want to be convinced on a concrete level.
And to this I plead “GUILTY!” in the first degree. Larry, what in the world is wrong with simply requiring evidence and proof for the many extraordinary claims supernatural religion makes? How can you fault the request for intelligible explanations, especially for the assertions you continually make that have no rational backing whatsoever. Just go back and read the many vacuous comments you’ve made thus far on this particular thread. It’s quite clear that you have not provided any answers whatsoever. The fact that you persist in not even remotely coming close to even superficially addressing my challenges is the most eloquent proof of all that you have no answers.
And then this gem of intellectual brilliance:
““Well, remember the immortal words of Mary Poppins, “I never explain anything.”
Wow, some real “heavy hitters” have now been cited in support of the supernaturalists, such as Christian zealot and pseudohistorian extraordinaire David Barton, and now, even the fictional Walt Disney character Mary Poppins!
And then you accuse ME of “missing spectacularly”?
Come on, Larry, it’s plain for any insightful reader that you and your ilk are the ones who are constantly avoiding answering the real foundational issues by dancing around and ridiculing those who demand at least some intelligible evidence for the many extraordinary claims your belief system demands and rests upon.
I’ll give this much to Byker Bob, at least he knows when to bow out when he can no longer keep up with the discussion, or adequately defend his assertions. But you just keep plowing on ahead, making a fool of yourself in the process, and STILL have not really addressed the real issues involved.
Amazing!
Oh, and you also said this:
“It came down to this: God said, “I am God and you are not, and I don’t have to explain anything.”
Well, Larry, as you acknowledged, YOU are NOT God, and so you DO need to explain yourself if you want to be taken seriously here on this blogsite and with real people who have functioning minds.
You further wrote:
“My guess is that you don’t like that response.”
You’re right, but I’m not sure whether I’d dignify your words by actually calling them a “response.” Instead, essentially they are saying “The book of Job says that I don’t have to give you ANY evidence, so na, na, na, na, naaaa!”
Well, this approach might work on the schoolyard playground among six-year-olds, but it has no place in serious adult discussions.
You further wrote:
“…if you really wish to know what is going on, humble yourself before God, and pray for wisdom rather than proof or explanation. And, God just might give you both.”
You mean like He has given YOU? Oh, OK, Larry, you mean God will give me the same quality of wisdom that you so frequently display in your many comments here on this site – wow, now that’s really something to look forward to! I can hardly wait!!
Keep up the great work, Larry, it’s plain to see that you’re digging yourself into an intellectual hole faster than you’ll ever be able to dig yourself out.
Larry wrote:
"In the grand scheme of things involving the history and future of the universe...our individual lives and struggles are not of paramount importance.
Yet another example of our radically divergent perspectives. From my viewpoint, your above statement is the exact worldview that allows and sanctions individual lives to be sacrificed and destroyed in the service of "the greater good" - whether it's ultimate nature be religious (as in the case of a Priesthood) or secular (as in the case of a brutal political dictator).
Larry, there are very meaningful real-world implications when this idea is applied in everyday life: historical evidence of the death and destruction it eventually leads to is abundant from the Dark Ages, from Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Marxist China, as well as numerous other more ancient examples. It’s an indisputable fact that they ALL were/are founded upon the same irrational bedrock principle as expressed in what you said above: in the grand scheme of things the individual is not important, and the all-too-frequently-occurring real-world result of this perspective: therefore they are expendable in the service of the elite.
Whereas western democracies, especially America, on the other hand, were founded on the concept that the individual IS important, as is that individual's personal destiny and happiness in this world. And hence the resulting blessing of individual rights, and all the many other blessings derived therefrom.
Think it through, Larry: every statement you make (and therefore promote) has real-world consequences, as innocent and as well-intended as such statements may be.
Thanks for the kudos, Leonardo. (I still miss Clyde Crashcup!)
I bow out of discussions for many reasons, not all of which relate to the defensability of my positions. Sometimes, I get just plain bored because threads wind down to the point of who gets in the last word. In other cases, I eventually realize that discussion of disinformation is futile. Usually, I'll retreat from such discussions without insulting the purveyor or purveyors of the disinformation. Stil other times, something a poster says makes me want to indulge in further research, so I retreat to accomplish that.
To me, faith must be solid enough to survive scrutiny, and it must also make logical sense. There is a lot of hooey out there, like young earth theory, and British Israelism, and as we know, there are people with fake credentials. It's fairly obvious that some like to stereotype believers based on the obviously ridiculous, as opposed to seeing each believer and his/her beliefs as individual or on their own merits as opposed to being identified with a group. That way these people don't need to confront any of the possibly valid issues in depth. It's easier to neutralize something by classifying it as religious superstition, and being done with it. That may ring solid with some, but to me, a hollow victory is no victory at all.
The reason that I don't have as much of a problem with David Barton as some others might is that I've been around long enough to have seen certain changes which indicate that the USA is migrating away from the faith of our founding fathers. Back in the '50s when I grew up, virtually everyone went to church. The town drunk's kids might not, or those of some local disreputable divorcee, but everyone else did. Then, in the latter part of the 1960s some people quit taking baths, grew long hair, did a lot of dope, and set about to reinventing and redefining America. I know my mom also had some very definite generationally related opinions about when everything went down hill during her lifetime! She saw a difference before and after World War II. She felt that America had been a much more Godly nation prior to the war. So, personally witnessing the latest portion of the slide, I can easily extrapolate backwards. Plus, I have historically established facts not dependent upon David Barton to support this. Details about the Massachusetts Bay colony, Jamestown, William Penn, the Quakers and Puritans, et al. Nobody even questioned all of this history until a few militant atheists began stamping it all out, starting with the removal of prayer from the public school system which was initially started by Christians.
BB
I'm just wondering where the god-defender, Jared Olar is in this very interesting exchange where the the True Believers are having such a a bad time of it from the atheists. He has posted here from time to time.
Maybe he had such a lashing at the hands of the atheists on other sites he's had enough.
Yes, this is a blatant desire to expand the discussion as long as our long-suffering host will permit.
In another thread we are told GCI wants us to believe that:
"The Triune God created all people to participate through the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ in the love relationship enjoyed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
Ewwww. A threesome? If we all participate, is that a sex orgy?
Evangelicals want us all to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And then Larry reminds us that our individual lives are just not that important to the Christian God.
So, which is it?
A love relationship with the triune god?
A personal relationship with Jesus?
Or, "you just really aren't that important to God."
AnnMarie95
Leonardo said,
"Larry, what in the world is wrong with simply requiring evidence and proof for the many extraordinary claims supernatural religion makes?"
Answer: nothing at all
But Leo, old boy, I don't make the rules. I understand both sides of the issue, whereas you only see your side. The Book of Job was written for our (and especially yours) instruction to show where we stand in this great cosmic debate that is occurring. We are simultaneously pawns in a game, and at the same time important actors in a very serious drama.
Our individual lives are simultaneously insignificant and incredibly consequential.
For all this to play out, so that all posterity can benefit from the suffering that we've been through, so that the billions who have gone before will not have died in vain, God CANNOT give you what you want AT THIS TIME. For this "morality play" to have permanent influence and authority, mankind must have complete free will.
The kind of proof that you desire would upset that! GOD MUST NOT INTERFERE by providing what you ask, otherwise this demonstration would have to be repeated at some future time. No one, including you, wants that!
There should be some satisfaction to you and others that no matter what you have to go through, no matter how difficult, arduous, or painful, you only have to do it ONCE!
So, please try not to be angry, disgusted, irritated, depressed, or frustrated. It is hard, but doable.
Larry opined:
"I am pretty sure that people in those days knew when someone was dead. In fact, they were more familiar with death than we are. They were exposed to it rather often, if not daily."
Reminds me of the lawyers that had a auto accident out in farm country. A few days later when the authorities came looking for them and found their vehicle, they interviewed the farmer. He told the Sheriff that they were all dead so he buried them. The Sheriff asked if he was sure they were dead. The farmer said that "yes, I was sure, a couple of them tried to deny it, but you know how lawyers lie."
larry hollered:
"GOD MUST NOT INTERFERE..."
There is no difference between that outcry and there being no gods to interfere.
BykerBob is complaining that atheists removed prayer from schools, which is an old lie retold.
Prayer hasn't been removed from public schools - it is teacher led prayer and bible study that is intended. Prayer is still allowed by students who wish to pray.
They can even study the bible when not in class if they want to do it.
It was initiated by the American Atheist Association but it was taken to federal court by the ACLU who were also representing certain Christians in the action.
So, why don't the fundies stop making up these lies and tell the truth once in a while?
Teacher led prayers in public schools was ruled unconstitutional.
What is it about UNconstitutional that the fundies can't understand?
Larry, thank you for your predictably condescending spiritual advice.
First, you once again avoid dealing with the specific issues I raise - then, once that foundational responsibility is cowardly evaded, you start spouting your sage wisdom on the great cosmic drama taking place here below, as if you actually possess some kind of special “insider” knowledge about it above and beyond the rest of us.
This overall pattern happens with almost every other believer I've ever had this general discussion with: sweep aside the difficult task of establishing the validity of your premises with any kind of clarity, precision or intelligibility, then proceed to dispense nuggets of your ethereal “wisdom from above” based on such unproven assumptions.
However, as can be easily noted, the primary question STILL REMAINS to be dealt with, no matter how desperately you try to avoid answering it: HOW do you actually KNOW about the cosmic matters you speak so glibly of, and with such certainty, and so freely dispense advice upon, when you've REPEATEDLY shown yourself on this blogsite of being utterly INCAPABLE of demonstrating the truth or existence of the many blind assumptions your "explanations" rest upon?
Intellectually-speaking, let's learn how to crawl first before we attempt to start sprinting with the big boys. You've not even shown us that you can do the former, yet you try to vainly push yourself up to the starting blocks at the Olympic Games, AS IF YOU’VE ALREADY clearly demonstrated the validity of your major premises.
In past blogs, as others can witness to, you’ve bragged that your possess a PhD degree from a world-class university (though you’ve repeatedly avoided telling us exactly what field of expertise your degree is in, and from what specific university it was earned from) so clearly you must have the mental prowess to understand this elementary prerequisite.
Sorry Larry, but it’s just not that simple. Your archaic worldview demands unquestioning assent, and I (along with millions of others) refuse to give you a free pass regarding your religious assertions. (And please don’t try to argue that it’s not YOUR worldview I disagree with, that it’s GOD’S worldview – like you’ve done many times before. This is circular reasoning at it’s worst.)
You’ve got to earn your way into any SERIOUS discussion about these issues just like anybody else. But you refuse to do the hard preliminary work required – and that’s why your comments come across, with astounding regularity, both to me and many others, as so glib, insipid and unpersuasive.
You ending by saying: "So, please try not to be angry, disgusted, irritated, depressed, or frustrated. It is hard, but doable."
I try, Larry, but it indeed is very difficult to carry on a MEANINGFUL dialog with you because you refuse to dialog - instead, like a politician, or a clergyman, you prefer to monologue. You refuse to clearly answer the specific questions put to you, which is what a dialog requires. Instead, you skip right over them so you can get to spouting your tired old "sound bite" clichés so common in the wacky world of irrational fundamentalism.
I’m always willing to engage in some good old-fashioned verbal give and take in order to arrive at greater clarity regarding whatever important issue is being debated. But you supernaturalists tend not to be taken seriously in the real-world public forum of ideas and intellectual exchange because, among other things, you refuse to 1) demonstrate your dogmatic assertions with any semblance of logic or clarity, and 2) avoid the inevitable moralizing believers are given to, that really would only be acceptable once you’ve FIRST demonstrated the validity of the assumptions such moralizing is based in. But you refuse to do either, and so we never really can get anywhere in the discussion.
Therefore, good-bye until next time.
Byker Bob – Clyde Crashcup, now there’s a cartoon character I haven’t thought about in years! I used to watch him on black and white TV – he and his short, bald, spectacle-wearing, whispering laboratory assistant, Leonardo. Ha! They really were entertaining for the age group they were aimed at. I’ll bet his cartoons are out there somewhere on YouTube.
Anyway, I appreciated your response.
Yeah, I understand about the various reasons for bowing out of a particular blog thread, or not even getting involved in the first place. Sometimes I’ll even go months without commenting. I typically don’t get involved in some of the more lighter topics that sometimes arise (Ron Weinland’s nutty antics, the continuing saga of UCG’s Council of Elders, etc.), preferring to stick with what I consider to be the real “trunk of the tree” issues - foundational topics that many folks find so burdensome. But so many of our ideas and views are ultimately grounded in these most important areas.
I’ve noticed that many here seem to get weary of discussions about such things, but I view seeking the nature of ultimate truth to be a most worthy and profitable purpose in life. And contrary to how I used to believe when I was in the WCG, I haven’t “arrived” - and have a long, long way to go.
And I’ve found every once in a while someone (including yourself) on this blogsite to make a comment, perhaps even just a marginal side-comment, that has really got me thinking and triggered off a worthy avenue of research.
It’s just that such stimulating comments come so infrequently from the supernaturals. And when I use that term, I simple mean folks who demand to be taken seriously because they merely have a subjective opinion, and yet who cannot establish or intelligently argue for their assertions very well at all. They refuse to do the necessary preliminary homework. I think that’s why religion is so popular – it doesn’t require much serious thought at all, just rote belief. I know that doesn’t characterize ALL religious believers, but in my experience it characterizes by far the vast majority of them.
You wrote: “To me, faith must be solid enough to survive scrutiny, and it must also make logical sense.”
I can agree with that. What continually disappoints me is how most folks don’t see religious faith in this way. And contrary to what our friend Larry thinks as expressed in our many exchanges, I’m NOT a militant atheist who stubbornly closes his mind to issues that he would consider to be spiritual in nature. After all, I was a diehard “believer of believers” for over thirty years when I was in the WCG, so I’m quite familiar with fundamentalistic belief systems, the Bible, etc. But I draw the line at the place someone just expects me to unquestioningly believe without any intelligible reason to do so.
Byker Bob, you also wrote: “It's fairly obvious that some like to stereotype believers based on the obviously ridiculous…”
That’s true, but BOTH general sides of the discussion are guilty of this, don't you think?
Further, I would argue that religionist often do this to themselves by their constant PATTERN of evasions and continual unwillingness to avoid dealing with the hard underlying issues their faith rests upon.
So the "obviously ridiculous" is often all that's on offer by believers for skeptics to have to deal with.
It’s interesting because this website, of course, is not the only blogsite where this kind of discussion is occurring – although I tend to respond considerably more here, perhaps mainly because I feel more of a bond with bloggers on this site due to our mutually shared experiences within the WCG.
But I monitor other discussions occurring on the Internet wherein believers and atheists/agnostics do verbal battle with their various views and opinions. And it’s always interesting to see precisely HOW such people reason.
Anyway, here’s just several comments, not taken out of context at all, just actual comments taken randomly to provide a general sampling that is extremely common, and which demonstrate how shallow the reasoning power of most believers truly is. (Believer’s comments appear within quote marks, my responses in brackets underneath:)
“He will be found of you if you seek Him with all your heart!”
[No evidence whatsoever offered, just the assumption that a deity does indeed exist and will respond to such seeking. “He” is never defined, “His” existence is never established, but we’re told to just believe and seek.]
"Prove God doesn't exist. I'm waiting..... "
[One form or another of this lame argument is more common than most can possibly imagine among believers. But, other than the fact that you can’t prove a negative – such as the utter impossibility of DISproving the existence of leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus – folks who attempt to make this kind of assertion just cannot seem to understand that the burden of proof is on those who dogmatically claim the literal existence of an invisible deity, not on those who DENY the existence of such. When you initiate a truth claim, then it’s up to YOU to establish it’s validity. For example, scientists claim creatures on earth gradually developed over long periods of time, and then they provide powerful evidence that backs up this view, along with exposing their claims to further rigorous scientific scrutiny in order to either refute, correct or further refine their claims. Pretty easy and reasonable to understand, but you’d be surprised how often this basic pathetic non-argument is attempted by believers.]
“There is no lack of evidence that the Judeo-Christian God exists."
[Here again, an assertion is dogmatically made, but nothing more specific or precise is ever offered. You’d think if such powerful evidence is not lacking, that believers could, at least once in while for the benefit of us skeptics, cite just SOME of it, be able to extrapolate upon it, and demonstrate exactly HOW this “proves” the existence of their God. But don’t hold your breath, because it’s extremely rare that a believer can think this conceptually or with such precision.]
And a couple more:
“There is only one God, the one that created you.”
[Wow, now there’s a real argument few could withstand! You see what I mean when I constantly point out the difference between a dogmatically stated ASSERTION that just arrogantly demands assent, and the carefully marshalling and arranging of evidence in the form of an ARGUMENT that clearly demonstrates or supports a particular viewpoint?]
One blog moderator challenged a believer by asking: “If you have evidence [that God exists] and have not yet presented it please do so here and now so we can end this discussion." To which a believer of obvious intellectual gifts responded:
“That is easy. You are part of the evidence. If you were an accident, you would not ask. You wouldn't know or understand the concept, but you do.”
[And that was it. In this believer’s mind, such a statement was easy and provided the inquirer with overwhelming evidence for the existence of a god. Wow, I’m glad he answered the question with such clarity once and for all - now we can all move on to more important topics….NOT!]
But you get my point. The kinds of evasive, amazingly imprecise, circular non-responses by bloggers who regularly comment here, such known and loved luminaries as Larry, Tom Mahon, Byker Bob, and the many others who sign their predictably limp comments as “Anonymous” – they are extremely typical of believers worldwide who frequent other websites that wrestle with the kinds of issues we discuss here on Ambassador Watch. To hear one, is to hear most of them all.
I long for some intelligent, thoughtful comments from the supernaturalist community, but mostly am disappointed by what they usually have to say.
""You wrote: “To me, faith must be solid enough to survive scrutiny, and it must also make logical sense.”
I can agree with that."
I don't, because "faith" (translation- faith in the god of the Bible) is not beholden to scrutiny, and can never make logical sense. I also don't agree with Bob because he has shown, time and time again, that he is in no way different from Larry. Bob has always shirked from scrutinizing his faith, and shielded his faith from the scrutiny of others on this forum. He has never attempted to make logical sense of his faith, except to claim that his faith and the existence of god are exempt from the scrutiny and the rigor of logic. Bob is being very hypocritical here.
Larry sez:
"Answer: nothing at all
But Leo, old boy, I don't make the rules. I understand both sides of the issue, whereas you only see your side."
Are you implying that there is a celestially derived rule governing the investigation into the existence of supernatural beings, and this rule forbids the inclusion of evidence?? What the frak are you smoking, Starbuck?
Larry, if you saw Leo's side, then you would admit that you have not a shred of evidence for the existence of god and you can fully understand why Leo may not accept the existence of god since he is given no evidence.
The Apostate Paul
Byker Bobster, this one's for you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsV_1ThIThA&feature=related
Paul and Leo,
I do understand your position completely. And I don't reject it. In fact, I admire it because you are at least thinking, unlike most folks on this planet. But, in the race, you are so far behind that you think you are ahead. You have been lapped.
The "supernaturalists" as you call us, have figured out that your position also lacks "evidence". (By the way, everything I have said about my background and education is true.)
But, let's talk about something we can both agree on, the future. There will be one. Time will go on. There will be a time when the present is ancient history. That future matters. The issue of the relative merits of good or evil as philosophies of living must be resolved. The only fair way to resolve it is a demonstration where each is given a chance to show what they can do.
This demands that humans have complete free will. If you were to receive "proof" of God's existence, you would no longer have true free will. If you were able to see the angels who guard you daily and converse with them, your actions and beliefs would be altered by the knowledge that you were under continuous scrutiny, which, as it happens, you are.
But, if you were concretely aware of this, your free will would be gone. As it turns out, your free will is actually an illusion anyway. Many on this board think that they escaped a prison when they left the Church. The truth is that they just left a cell block, and now they are lost in a bigger prison. But, at least it was a cell block where people knew that there is a universe outside the prison walls. Most regular people are just blissfully unaware.
For the sake of all those who will live in the future, this issue of good and evil, must be resolved once and for all and forever. There is just way too much at stake.
So, there is the logical answer to your question. It won't satisfy you. And, I am sure you will counter with another lengthy diatribe. But this makes sense. It also correlates with what God has told us about Himself. As you mentioned, the individual is important, but the principle is more important right now!
Larry wrote:
"So, there is the logical answer to your question. It won't satisfy you. And, I am sure you will counter with another lengthy diatribe. But this makes sense.
Your "answer" was LOGICAL, and it makes sense?!
OK, whatever you say, Larry.
And no, I won't "counter with another lengthy diatribe" because there is absolutely nothing of substance in your comment to counter. This is blatantly (and painfully) plain.
But I DO have a question on another issue: Why are you so secretive about your alleged doctorate from a world-class university? If I had a PhD in astrophysics from Harvard, for instance, I would see no reason whatsoever to hide the fact. That way people who question my claim could easily go on-line or call Harvard University and verify whether it's true or not.
Any intelligible answer you can offer here, Larry – or is God in His good wisdom hiding this piece of crucial cosmic information from my darkened mind as well?
Larry wrote:
"So, there is the logical answer to your question. It won't satisfy you. And, I am sure you will counter with another lengthy diatribe. But this makes sense.
Your "answer" was LOGICAL, and it makes sense?!
OK, whatever you say, Larry.
And no, I won't "counter with another lengthy diatribe" because there is absolutely nothing of substance in your comment to counter. This is blatantly (and painfully) plain.
But I DO have a question on another issue: Why are you so secretive about your alleged doctorate from a world-class university? If I had a PhD in astrophysics from Harvard, for instance, I would see no reason whatsoever to hide the fact. That way people who question my claim could easily go on-line or call Harvard University and verify whether it's true or not.
Any intelligible answer you can offer here, Larry – or is God in His good wisdom hiding this piece of crucial cosmic information from my darkened mind as well?
Hey Paul, what would you consider the 30 years I spent as an agnostic or atheist? During my first 7 years on the WCG related internet sites, I made perfect sense to all of you atheists, and even got your kudos for the reponses which I made to posts by believers. Now I've come to some deep realizations, and have apparently stopped making any sense to certain very partisan types here.
BB
Some people just decide one day to give up and become a believer. After all, it's easier and it's more respectable and you get along better in a country of 80% Christians.
It's a cowards way but a lot of pagans did the same thing back in the fourth century. It beats getting tortured and burned etc.
Never mind the facts, just bleeve.
Well, Corky, I'd respect that opinion if I thought it had been inspired by the Holy Spirit. Atheists often make fine contributions on select topics, but are blinded to the spiritual. Accepting Jesus Christ, and making him Lord over your life is by no means "the easy way out". At the very least, it messes up one's sex life!
BB
Byker Bob wrote:
"Atheists often make fine contributions on select topics, but are blinded to the spiritual."
Oh, come on, Bob - who are you trying to kid here?
Who can you honestly and with a straight face point to on this site who has recently made any kind of intelligible "fine contributions" in spiritual areas? Our friend Larry? - who obviously cowers away from and evades answering every serious challenge put to him that his "spiritual messages" invite?
You confuse the delusional, subjective workings of the fundamentalist mind-set with "spiritual" - that way you avoid having to grapple with the tough issues their many assertions provoke.
It's odd that BB who claims a past connection with atheism (same as agnosticism) just simply doesn't point out the failings of the observations of the atheists.
Articulate atheistic spokesmen (Dawkins, Hitchins, Harris) have been so successful that well-known theists and those of lesser credentials have admitted there is no proof of any gods. Even our own larry has admitted that.
Gee, do we see trend here? One can only hope for it to continue.
Ex-android, my sentiments (and hopes) exactly.
You know, in my everyday life, you’d probably be surprised at how mild-mannered a kind of guy I actually am. And I don't have a problem with simple-minded folks who want to, in their own private little world, believe the nuttiest things imaginable.
But I draw the line when they claim to have logic, facts, evidence, proof and science BEHIND their many claims, and start demanding “equal time” in educational institutions and other areas of influence for their patently false and clearly indemonstrable views.
Actually, and what many creationists and Intelligent Design proponents seem totally unaware of, is that the Bible itself makes a very revealing statement, in the famous faith chapter of Hebrews 11 we always used to go to back in my days with the WCG:
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is…”
To me this is pretty clear biblical statement that you can’t in any way prove or demonstrate the single most foundational supernatural belief all the others are built upon – it simply says that “…he who comes to God must BELIEVE that He is…”
Don’t prove, question, study, think things through, carefully weigh opposing explanations…just BELIEVE. And that’s why fundamentalists are so incredibly inarticulate as they assert their belief systems, not only here, but on other websites as well.
The so-called “new atheists” (and extremely articulate spokesmen for rationality) you mention (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, etc.) have every right to be frightened that fundamentalism, if allowed to subtly infiltrate into institutions of political and legal power unchallenged, could set back scientific progress for centuries to come. We have clear and undeniable historical records of this happening before in other times and cultures, and so it could very well happen again.
That’s why I spend so much time carefully responding to the fundamentalists like Larry and the many cowards who post as “Anonymous” on this site – because, ultimately in the long run, the stakes are indeed quite high.
This site is not just a place for (as some pro-COGer’s claim) ex-members to beat the dead horse of Armstrongism with their unrelenting attitudes of anger and bitterness because they don’t “have a life.”
Well, I do HAVE a life, and thus far a very wonderful one, and if I allow these fundamentalist bozos to take over by default, then I, at least in some ways, will bear some responsibly for the horror and bloodbaths that will surely follow.
It’s fairly clear here, to any insightful and careful reader who follows the blogs on a regular basis, that the fundamentalists have patently FAILED in their weak attempts to defend their supernatural assertions.
And I know you and I are not the only ones who have taken note of this. Larry is just one pathetic example of how fundamentalist beliefs can erode one’s reasoning power, no matter how much formal education he CLAIMS to have, and the ability to communicate one’s ideas in intelligible ways that can actually persuade others. There are many others.
So we keep on keeping on!
Leonardo-
I remember after exiting the WCG and the start of reading to understand what had happened to me. I recall I had an intense desire to know why I had thrown away 25 years of my life in that nutty atmosphere called Armstrongism.
One of the first writers I spent some time with was Bertrand Russell. He had written, "I don't recall anyone in the Bible being praised for his intellect." That was it! I went into the cult as one in near total ignorance as to how one should live one's life. I was naivete personified. The cult only taught me to trust it's Biblical interpretations and don't question any foundations. Remember the old AC dictum: He who thinks, stinks?
While in my recovery I learned a new word: misology; hatred of argument, learning, or enlightenment.
George Smith in his book, "Atheism: The case Against God" spent a whole chapter contrasting misology and faith. His insights have stood me in good stead over the years in clashes with those living by faith.
Anyways, the difference now between me in 1967 foolishly entering the cult and the me after 18 years of atheism is simply one of education. The more intelligent I became the further I distanced myself from faith.
This is the weakness I find in engaging the True Belivers here on this blog. They are not at all familiar with the reasoning that lies behind one's choice of atheism over faith. First off, they don't even have a rudimentary understanding of what defines atheism.
I have a friend who is still a pastor in the WCG/GCI. I see him a couple of times a year for dinner. I note that he simply has no interest in anything outside his little religious world. I've been there but I got free. He still wants captivity.
Happily there are other unbelievers and skeptics here. May that tribe increase.
Ex-android, I very much appreciate the many insightful observations made in your latest comment. As we’ve noted previously, it seems we have trodden down similar philosophical paths in life. I suppose many here on this blogsite could say the same.
As an older, more experienced person than myself once commented to me, “Nobody gets it right the first time around” – referring to the younger years of our lives. How true it is.
Yes indeed, rank ignorance, along with a dash of exuberant youthful idealism, and probably most of all, unfamiliarity with even the most basic of critical thinking skills, lead many of us to get sucked into the bizarre vortex of Armstrongism.
But we learned one heck of a lot of lessons along the way, though, didn’t we? At least some of us did! Lessons perhaps unique to that particular journey only. And lessons that I consider to be priceless – dearly paid for by hard experience, but priceless nonetheless.
I still have a friend who I attended AC together with back in the late ‘70’s. He totally disagrees with the new WCG teachings, adhering right down the line with the traditional doctrines of the classic WCG under Herbert Armstrong’s regime. But he still believes “God’s Government” to be in the hands of Joe Jr., and so my friend stays there, and still sends in his hard-earned tithes there. He is completely incapable of explaining to any of his old college friends, in any intelligible kind of way, WHY he’s come to this conclusion, but, I’m afraid, most likely, he’s NEVER going to budge. His personal temperament (very aristocratic and arrogant in nature) just won’t allow him to admit he made some errors early in life. In the years since the doctrinal cyclone swept through the WCG, he’s stubbornly painted himself into a contradictory and confusing philosophical corner that he’s just too arrogant to amend at this point.
You know, I just got back from a two-mile walk out under the stars, and I was thinking about a number of the very points you brought up in your post. I never actually heard the dictum “He who thinks, stinks” – but I definitely witnessed and experienced the principle in action at AC.
Bertrand Russell made some tremendous points in his well-known book “Why I Am Not a Christian” – a copy of which I still have on my bookshelf. I think a modern day equivalent to him is a guy named Dan Barker, though the two came from completely different backgrounds. I’m currently reading Barker’s excellent account entitled “Godless – How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists.” I would recommend it to anybody, especially those who have gone through and somehow intellectually survived the weird journey through Armstongism. Many, many parallels will be noted between his journey through religious fundamentalism and the particular version we experienced.
I’m going to have to pull out my copy of Smith’s book, and read the chapter on misology again.
Yes, education is indeed the primary key that liberates ones from the shackles of fundamentalism, as willing ignorance keeps many trapped within it. In fact, if any Church member would ever ask me (yeah, right!), I would recommend that the best way to preserve one’s faith in supernatural certainties is to never, under any circumstances, read anything that in any way counters the official party line of the various COG’s. Never even remotely entertain the idea that the church just might be wrong in some or even most of its conclusions. The flickering flame of rationality must be extinguished as much as possible to maintain faith.
I think your comments about the true believers are very accurate. As HWA used to say, they “just don’t know, that they don’t know!” – and that’s exactly what keeps them in the stranglehold of fundamentalism. I really think some of the folks here who try to defend their nutty beliefs really probably have very elementary educations, in some cases probably not even making it to the high school level. This is painfully apparent in some of their rants and ravings. How tragic. But to a great degree this is the primary pool of folks religions appeal to. Studies have shown this to be the case repeatedly.
You wrote:
“I have a friend who is still a pastor in the WCG/GCI. I see him a couple of times a year for dinner. I note that he simply has no interest in anything outside his little religious world. I've been there but I got free. He still wants captivity.”
Ultimately, that’s the best explanation. They’ve just invested too much to even remotely consider the possibility that they may be just as deceived as they presume the rest of the unbelieving world to be.
You know, Ex-android, in contrast to your minister friend, I know for a fact that there are a number of COG pastors who have begun reading outside their religiously restrictive fields of reference, and they know a LOT of what they are teaching is pure bovine excrement. But in many cases, let’s face it, the financial security of an easy paycheck and possible pension payouts is just too tempting to give into as they face old age. I understand this.
But some have had the guts and integrity to walk away from it, facing an uncertain financial future. One is a very close friend of mine who was a pastor in the WCG for 18 years, and has written a book about his experiences called “God and Evolution? – The Implications of Darwin’s Theory for Fundamentalism, the Bible and the Meaning of Life” by Daniel J. Samson. I also recommend this book to ex-WCGer’s because it’s written by someone who was there, and a genuine zealot if there ever was one. Back during our AC days, Dan and I used to memorize key Scriptures by the hundreds – as we were preparing to witness to “God’s Truth” during the fast-approaching and soon to occur Great Tribulation. That was back in 1979, thirty years ago now! Ha!
You just gotta find the humor in all of this, don’t you?!
Leonardo-
Thanks for the suggestion on the Samson book; I'll check it out.
There certainly are many books on the subject of freethought and atheism. George Smith also wrote a very helpful book entitled, "Why Atheism" in 2000.
He discusses one reason why the True Believer can dismiss the arguments of the atheist. Atheism is simply not credible to the True Believer. Smith writes:
"Without credibility a proposition will simply pass through our consciousness without stopping long enough to be examined."
He uses his own reaction to the proposition that the landing on the Moon being a hoax to keep funding for NASA. The idea isn't credible. Why waste the time investigating? The hardline theist reacts the same.
"If most Christians dismiss atheism outright this is not because they have examined the arguments for atheism and found them wanting, but because they do not take atheism seiously enough to examine its arguments in detail. Atheism, in their view, lacks credibility, so they have no motive to explore it further."
Smith's book is concerned more with the credibility of atheism rather than it's justification. The theist should read it simply to allay any doubts of belief and feel more emboldened to defend the faith if he can refute the atheist argument.
I first came in contact with Dan Barker in the book, "Leaving the Fold," edited by Edward Babinski. The book deals with the personal testimony of former fundamentalists. Barker is listed as one of eight persons turning to atheism and why. If a theist has a modicum of intellectual curiosity he would be rewarded to read this book.
"He who thinks, stinks."
I first heard this from my former pastor, Dan Rogers who is now chief of the WCG/GCI ministry. He and I went through the "The Great Rebellion" in the mid-70s. He was referring to the defectors who were reading certain books. One he mentioned to me was "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer. This book was very helpful to my own understanding of my exit, recovery
and deconversion.
Ex-android,
I had not heard of Smith’s more recent book “Why Atheism” – I’d like to check it out as well. It sounds like something I’d be interested in reading.
That’s an interesting explanation, regarding credibility and all that. I’m sure that ties in with my own explanation, which begins with the simple observation that people seem to have differing standards of proof for differing ideas. Some concepts and propositions they seem to accept into their minds as absolutely proven with very little actual evidence to support them, and sometimes even none at all. A willingness to accept extremely shallow explanations seems to be the most salient characteristic of the fundamentalist mind.
But with other ideas, especially those which threaten their sense of stability, security and certainty, they can violently reject with the greatest of ease, even in the face of vast amounts of proof that can be shown to support such ideas.
In my experience with fundamentalists, I find, for example, that very few actually disagree with the compelling evidences in support of biological evolution. To disagree would imply that they actually understand the evidences to begin with, and then take exception to them. Instead, they just simply are, in the vast majority of cases I’ve encountered, completely, utterly and ignorantly UNAWARE of them, having bought into the creationist’s cartoon-like caricature of the concept instead of what scientists who study this issue actually say.
I know this is what happened to me. I just ignorantly accepted at face value GTA’s cartoonish and incredibly inaccurate version of evolution via those magazine-style booklets like “A Theory For The Birds” “A Whale of a Tale” etc. I used to raise tropical fish as a teenager, and I even went out and bought an Archer Fish after reading the article “The Archer Fish Shoots Down Evolution!” But with all this literature, as impressive as it may have seemed to us at the time, it was a blatant straw man that was being constructed in the battleground of our minds, and then easily torn down and refuted, thus giving the WCG an appearance of credibility.
But it was virtually all smoke, mirrors and appearances - and little of real substance.
And then I know of more intelligent believers, who just don’t want to have to confront evidence and arguments disconfirming of their metaphysical certainties, simply because they know there is the possibility that such information may be true, and that would require them to have to start all over again, intellectually-speaking, and this idea can seem very depressing, especially as one gets older.
I remember reading Hoffer’s excellent analysis – “The True Believer” - when I was in my junior year at AC. But somehow, much of it just went “in one ear and out the other” – as I saw it as applying to OTHERS, but not, of course, in any way to me and the absolutely wacky beliefs I held at that time. But some of the ideas in the book did act as seeds that furrowed in my mind and sprouted up at a much later time. Then I was able to read passages from it, and had the courage to admit “Hey, that’s exactly the way I thought when I was in the WCG!”
As far as intellectual curiosity goes – yes, some folks seem to have it in great abundance, others possess virtually none of it. It appears to me that this trait perhaps represents the major characteristic between those of us who have left the fold of fundamentalism, and those who still cling to it like a frightened child to a security blanket.
But you know, contrary to what many of the more militant true believers on this site often carelessly assume about the dark and evil Leonardo, I would not label myself an atheist, at least in the way they typically define that word. Of course, from their extremely myopic and limited perspective, for all practical purposes, I could be considered one. But I think labels such as this are a cheap and lazy way to avoid discovering the subtle nuances of what a person actually does believe, aren’t they? – and thus one the fundamentalist mindset just naturally gravitates toward and employs with abandon. Once someone is labeled in such a way, they can then be easily dismissed, having no further credibility, as Smith points out.
Without question, I openly deny the existence of the many zany gods mankind has dreamed up through history (and this includes the maniacal God portrayed of the pages of the Bible).
However, I think it wise to at least remain open-minded to the eventual possibility that some kind of Cosmic Intelligence (for lack of a better word) may one day be shown to exist. But I envision such a possibility to be so far from the religionist’s traditional concept of “God” that there would be no comparison, as different as the night from the day.
I won’t here get into the specific reasons as to why I think this MIGHT be true, but it’s interesting to observe that so many scientific discoveries, found in the last century (or even the past several centuries), which we now just carelessly take for granted, would have been virtually unimaginable by extremely intelligent naturalists existing in previous times and epochs. Many more such mind-blowing discoveries lay out in the future, and no doubt at least some of them, way beyond the current capacity of us to conceive, awaiting examination by objective scientists who haven’t even been born yet.
In this connection I’m reminded of an interesting discussion that took place several years ago now between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins, originally published in Time Magazine (11/5/2006) under the heading “God vs. Science.” It reflects much of where I’m currently at with respect to things metaphysical.
The very final paragraph of the article ends with a comment by Dawkins to Collins…
“DAWKINS: My mind is not closed, as you have occasionally suggested, Francis. My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.”
That final sentence represents, in very broad strokes, my present state of thought on the subject.
Does this just merely represent some mental left-overs from my time spend in the fundamentalist world of the WCG?
Might it perhaps be just another form of wishful thinking?
Or is it truly a worthy possibility, “a worthy idea” to contemplate upon, as Dawkins suggested?
Currently, I don’t really know. But I sometimes wonder about it. I often wish I didn’t have to work for a living, that way I could spend much more time reading, studying, attending seminars and lectures, and just reflecting upon such things.
You know, Ex-android, I’ve often mentioned on this site that, in spite of the obvious lunacy so much part and parcel of the classic WCG, I still learned a lot of lessons and gained a lot of insights from my three-decades-long connection with it. I openly admit this.
One such insight, though obviously not unique to WCG teaching alone, is how so much of this present society of commercialism we live in (referring to the western industrial democracies, in our case) encourages us to waste so much time and effort and money on what ultimately amounts to meaningless pursuits. Yes, perhaps such distracting endeavors serve somewhat of a “respectable” purpose in that they divert people away from a lot of cosmic angst resulting to some degree from our curious and inquisitive human minds. At least temporarily.
That’s why I say that the Bible (along with other ancient texts traditionally labeled “religious” in nature) can serve as good thought-provoking literature in certain contexts, if not viewed as the literal “Word of God” and used to support all kinds of blatantly ridiculous beliefs and actions.
I seem to remember your former pastor, Dan Rogers, one time making an absolute fool of himself once up on the stage of the Auditorium, some time around 1995 or so, shortly before I left Pasadena and moved to Colorado, dramatically acting as if he were kicking “Satan’s behind,” flailing his legs around like a complete buffoon. So I can definitely envision him as being a zealous advocate of the “He who thinks, stinks” ideology!
Oh, brother!
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