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Sunday 25 February 2007

Dennis Decodes the Decalogue


If you haven't found it in the comments section yet, here's Dennis Diehl's take on the Ten Commandments/Decalogue.

The Big Ten are responsible for more carnage in the lives of real people at the hands of the righteous as any document could ever be. Everyone is just sure they know their eternal and universal truth. Most don't consider the cultic and polytheistic culture they spring from.

1. No other god before ME. There were many other gods literally believed in and obeyed. This Israelite cultic God is a jealous God and wants no competition from Israel. This God does not say there are no other gods, he just says don't mess with them or you and your kids will be punished for three or maybe four generations into the future. This God is unaware of his onlyness. The religion of Abraham is hardly monotheistic, but evolves. God is EL, derived from previous Cannanite concepts and now expanded.

2. No graven images. Not much obeyed in any Hebrew or Christian culture. The Temple was full of them. Moses made bronze ones and Aaron made gold ones. No fear of El here obviously. Megiddo was littered with Israelite graven images when I was there.

3. No name in vain. Not so much cussing as respect, and this God of the Mountains had better not hear the name of Baal, Astarte, Her, Him, Molech or Osiris. Remember, I am a jealous god. Not being held "guiltless" was not a good indication of one's longevity and you fall outside of the rule that we don't murder around here. Please, no nuances of meaning between kill and murder! The weak are always murdered by the powerful who define it as killing. Some people need killing is their motto. Our killing still obeys not murdering... uh huh.

4. Keep the Sabbath because I literally made all life in six days and had to rest myself, so you will too. Of course, this is not literally true so one has to decide if mythology can be a good reason to enforce a literal behavior. It's certainly no way to categorize people as the chosen or unchosen.

Like Paul who enforces the woman's role in church based on the mythology of a literal sin of a woman named Eve, and the "fact" that "for men don't come from women, but women from men."

Don't get me wrong. I always enjoyed sabbath. Who wouldn't. I enjoyed Sunday as a Presbyterian growing up. But as a tool to judge someone's obedience and spiritual worth to the jealous God, not so much. The implications of enforcing literal behaviors based on mythological events is staggering to an open mind.

5. Honor mom and dad. Pretty universal admonition here in all cultures. Certainly not invented by the one true God as if others could not come up with this. How this is interpreted in the OT is interesting as not doing so means, "then kill the kid and mom has to not cry about it." It's a command in Israel with a big "or else" attached. Well they all are.

6. No murder, killing etc. This in practical fact meant "each other." Everyone else is fair game if they get in the way of God's chosen people. It also meant nothing to the kings of Israel or Moses, who when bringing the Big Ten down the Mountain to begin with, got pissed at the crowd's thinking, after 40 days missing in action, ordered "every man to slay his neighbor and in that day about 3000 perished." What a guy! "Here, let me put these tablets down and murder a few thousand more of you."

7. No adultery. Mostly for women and Kings that God told if he had only asked, God would have given him more women and stuff. Women were property, that's why you didn't covet them. Adultery might cast doubt on paternity and inheritances. No adultery in this culture was not a love thing, it was a legal thing so the wrong kid did not get the wrong daddy's stuff. It was birth control with a kick... death for the woman and no mention of the guy for the most part. Even in the NT, the woman was caught in adultery, not the man so much.

8. No stealing. Well ok, you can plunder stuff and the young chicks and their booty of those you have been asked to slaughter in my name, amen. Good thing this was not in place when you guys plundered Egypt on the way out. How much stuff can you drag in to the waste howling wilderness (and you'd think we could find some of it strewn along the sands of time).

9 No lying. Unless you are Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, David, all the prophets and the priests. Other than that, don't do it. In the NT, Peter "kills" Ananias and Sapphira for saying one thing and doing another. This, the man who said one thing to Jesus (I will never deny you) and did another (fled). Of course, Luke was telling that story in Acts to make fun of Peter who was not on Paul's list of potential church leaders for his denials. No, two church members were killed and buried by the church. "Hey Pastor Peter, my parents didn't come home from church, what gives?"

All this to say, the Big Ten were written for a cultic society and translated as meaningful for ours and all humans, which for the most part they are. They weren't born in a vaccum however and we get so used to reading them as moderns, we fail to identify their cultic origins. Besides, the Bible can't agree on whether there were Ten given that day or many many more. Depends on which book you read and what "is" is... :)

10 No coveting wives, oxen, asses (the animal) or stuff. Good way to live too but throwing women in the mix is cultic and patriarchal to the max. For women, this is a control issue by men. Some women wish they were coveted and cherished by these guys.

In reality, humans love to break the rules. The more rules, the more breakage. Evangelical Christians have the highest rates of divorce, adultery, stealing, lying and eating out on the sabbath :) The Baptist church has the highest rate of minister turn over, due to breakage of the big ten. Pentecostals tend to have the highest rates for adultery and sexual deviance due the emotional nature of those that are Pentecostals. I guess if death was the penalty, we'd have more compliance, but "obey me or I'll kill you," seems rude.

88 comments:

Anonymous said...

I struggle with something positive to say about Dennis, this posting and his dedication to what he is trying to do, but I am not quite sure what it is.

May I suggest counseling for your addiction to whatever you would call this behaviour. Please consider it and get yourself "free".

You are imprisoning yourself in this madness. It simply isnt healthy. Let go -- go on a vacation and move onto the next chapter of your life. We love you and care about you and I think many of us see the signs of someone who needs some help.

Anonymous said...

PERVERTS HATE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The people who don't like the Ten Commandments all turn out to be people who don't obey them. They take God's name in vain, slander, steal, fornicate, covet, want others to work for them 24/7/365, etc. They are not good people to be around. When not doing evil to others or flying into satanic fits, they can sometimes put on a clever show of calmness, but don't be fooled by it.

Anonymous said...

To the previous poster: It's easy to say that stuff when you're hiding behind an "anonymous". Dennis doesn't, and you've got to respect that. His points are uncomfortably relevant, and from what little I know, in tune with what is actually known about the Israelite faith before the second temple. Wishful thinking won't put the fundamentalist genie back in the bottle.

To all the anonymous types, hey look, it's so easy to sign your comments with a pen name at least. Just click on "other" and type one in! This avalanche of scaredy-cat anonymous clones is getting very confusing. Your anonymity will be preserved just as well with a pen name, like, ahhhh...

Moshe

And we'll all be able to make sense of the threads.

Anonymous said...

Nah, my experience is that "perverts" LOVE the ten commandments. They quote 'em and beat other people over the head with 'em. But they find good reasons not to do 'em themselves.

Take serial adulterer Garner Ted Armstrong as an example. Co-eds, airline stewardesses... woo hoo! Or incestuous alcoholic Herbert W. Armstrong. Boy, these guys LOVED the ten commandments, PREACHED the ten commandments, ENFORCED the ten commandments. Perverts get off on the ten commandments - as long as they're beating their gums about somebody else, somebody less important than themselves.

Call THEM to account and the next sermon is on the evils of gossip, LOL.

Being a moral personal, kind, loving and generous, has NOTHING to do with being a legalist Levitical Nazi.

Seeing Moshe has set the example, I think I'd better sign off as myself.

Ned

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, Dennis has actually studied where the canon came from.

Have you?

I always found it strange that the WCG could claim the Catholic Church was the right hand of Satan but producing the canon was the one thing it (or rather its forebearers) did that was ok.

Shortly before I departed the world of cogs, I asked the only two ministers I trusted what they knew about the canon. Neither of them knew anything about how it was derived -- one of the ministers even went so far as to unequivocally state "I don't know". And he is a prolific writer for UCG's magainze The Good News.

I don't agree with all of Dennis's conclusions, but he makes enough valid points through sound research that proves the Bible is anything but the literal word of God.

For any beginners or new viewers to this blog, I also highly recommend Gavin Rumney's paper on the origins of the canon -- a simple google search should provide the link.

Anonymous said...

"They take God's name in vain, slander, steal, fornicate, covet, want others to work for them 24/7/365, etc. They are not good people to be around. When not doing evil to others or flying into satanic fits, they can sometimes put on a clever show of calmness, but don't be fooled by it."

With the above comment, most all the commandment breaking sins- of Herbert the incestuous pervert have now been revealed! In fact, I hardly tried to keep a one of them, including the Sabbath! Only YOU, the brain dead members - did!

Get horizontal someday and and join me in the WCG graveyard for some Dom Perignon and caviar. I shall look forward to the occasion. Until then,
Goodbye, friends!

HWA
Graveyard Church of God

Anonymous said...

Gavin's article on the canon is at
http://otagosh.tripod.com/canon.pdf

Anonymous said...

Amazingly, Dennis has come to many of the same conclusions which I have.

As a COG member, I must say I was very conflicted, because there were any number of questions or problems which Armstrongism failed miserably to resolve or address. Of course, you simply could not discuss these with any RCG/WCG minister, or you would be on your way out the door. So, it is shocking to realize 30 years after the fact that some of the ministers were also conflicted about the doctrines which they regularly taught. It is surprising to be told by one of them that he often discussed problematic concepts amongst his trusted colleagues in the ministry.

We really were not given in depth information on the numerous occasions when large numbers of ministers left the church. Basically we were told that they had fallen into the bonds of Satan, and beyond that there was a wall of silence. Kind of like what happened in Russia during Stalin's purges. It might have been interesting to hear what these ministers had to say. These days, they just start another splinter, keeping the basic doctrinal package, but making one or two modifications, and always carefully preserving the tithing doctrine!

Very few have done a complete deconstruction of Armstrongism, attempting to find truth, and completely rebuilding their belief systems. There is just so much embedded programming which acts as an obstacle to this. We have proof in the posts above that people still believe that the minute you leave "God's True Church" (any one of the 500 or so splinters), you immediately break all of the ten commandments (even though many are embodied in secular law), and become a pervert.
So many simple minds, atrophied from years of Armstrongism!

I guess I should close by citing the thoughts of a deacon's wife who, upon realizing that one of my siblings was leaving the church, asked him, "Why don't you just go gay? You seem to want to do all of the things that make you feel good, and I bet that would feel real good!"

Anonymous said...

For any beginners or new viewers to this blog, I also highly recommend Gavin Rumney's paper on the origins of the canon -- a simple google search should provide the link.

So the conclusion is: We better be Agnostics? We don't know what we don't know?

This is a good way to extricate oneself from any responsibility. Without God's word - or being unsure which - I can just kill all of the commadnment-haters here and I can't be accused of murder, since "murder" would have no meaning. No reason to be good to other also, because "good" would likewise have no meaning.

Or are we de-evolving back into lower form of animals?

Anonymous said...

"The people who don't like the Ten Commandments all turn out to be people who don't obey them."

Exactly whom does that exclude?

Steve said...

Anonymous wrote: "I suggest that we go back to the "tutor" discussion, which is instructive but which had been misunderstood by some posters here. What was the role of the "tutor"?

MY COMMENT: I will discuss this subject no further. A Sabbatarian will justify his stance with a barrage of prooftexts until he has himself convinced that he is right, while trying to convince others that he is right. For those who are truly interested and want "the rest of the story", I suggest that you read the work by Robert Brinsmead in its entirety..."Sabbatarianism Reexamined".

Steve K

Steve said...

Anonymous said...
PERVERTS HATE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The people who don't like the Ten Commandments all turn out to be people who don't obey them. They take God's name in vain, slander, steal, fornicate, covet, want others to work for them 24/7/365, etc. They are not good people to be around. When not doing evil to others or flying into satanic fits, they can sometimes put on a clever show of calmness, but don't be fooled by it.

MY COMMENT: Get real! I was in Herbie's "commandment lovers" church for over 40 years. We took God's name in vain, stole, lied gossiped, slandered, backbited, worshipped idols, fornicated, committed adultery, coveted, wanted the lay members to work for us on the sabbath, dishonered each other, dishonered our parents by not providing for them while we made damn sure that the "ministers" were well heeled financially, stepped all over each other trying to climb that butt-kissing ladder, played favorites, hated the world and "satanic" churches, whew!...did I miss anything? All the while playing the hypocrite by going to "church" on Saturday and keeping the good ole "holydays". Don't be fooled by commandment keepers.

Steve K

Anonymous said...

Wow, Steve K, it sounds like you were NOT a commandment keeper! Obviously, you need to shape up. GTA's behavior really needed to improve too.

Anonymous said...

This is a good way to extricate oneself from any responsibility. Without God's word - or being unsure which - I can just kill all of the commadnment-haters here and I can't be accused of murder, since "murder" would have no meaning. No reason to be good to other also, because "good" would likewise have no meaning.

Haha. You make me chuckle. Just like HWA, you are attempting to use a logical fallacy (straw man? can't remember which category this kind of statement falls into - I'm sure others on this forum can provide the correct term) to prove that we couldn't survive without the "truth" of the Bible.

"Murder" had meaning long before the ten commandments. In fact, "murder" was quite clearly defined in such "heathen" places like China and India long before Western man ever invented the notion of a 7-day creation. You don't have to have the Bible, or any derivatives, to have laws which define murder as a crime.

Go visit Japan sometime. Or Taiwan. Both of those countries have far less violent crime than the U.S. or Western Europe, yet both of these same countries derive their laws and traditions from anywhere BUT the bible.

Steve said...

Anonymous said...
Wow, Steve K, it sounds like you were NOT a commandment keeper! Obviously, you need to shape up. GTA's behavior really needed to

MY COMMENT: Went right over your head, didn't it? The stone-throwing, finger-pointing Sabbatarians don't really keep the commandments. It seems like those who boast the more about keeping them are the ones who REALLY hate them. "I have kept them all from my youth. What do I lack?"

Steve K

Anonymous said...

Steve K, the point is that all people do need to start to REALLY obey the Ten Commandments, for their own good and the good of others.

Many people in the WCG, including HWA, GTA, and JWT, Sr. & Jr., sinned in various ways. God's laws show how they could have done things right.

camfinch said...

Keep in mind the major division of the commandments: the first four toward Yawheh, the latter six toward one's fellow humans. The first four are really the ones that set the 10C apart from moral/ethical precepts adhered to through much of human history. A number of posters have made this observation, and shown how in various "heathen" regions of the world, the crime rate is much lower. Does one HAVE to accept by faith the god of the first four commandments, and obey those first four, in order to live happily and peacefully and honorably in human society? The first four are based on faith in an invisible deity, the perspective about whom was a slow evolution over a thousand years or more. The latter six are, at least in their essence, fairly practical principles to live by, although Dennis points out the hyocritical, inconsistent, and patriarchal approach to them taken by the ancient Israelites.

The fundamentalist deification of the 10C's is what might be seen as frightening.

Thomas Munson said...

It appears that all the annonymous critics of Dennis and the valid points he makes fail to address his points, but instead choose to attack his integrity and character.

My experience in life regarding the 10 demandments is far different than the self righteous rhetoric of the religious fanatics.

The religious fanatics need the counseling and are the ones who think nothing at all about slandering and hating and coveting, etc. Why? because they can do it, and then repent and think they are forgiven. Yet never undoing the harm they do to others and their lives.

The non religious may not keep a sabbath or worship a god, but live life trying their best to get along with all people, and obeying the universal truths that predate anything a bible god could come up with. They are the victims of religious intolerance all the while trying to tolerate those of all religions.

Having been both religious and non religious I can say with certainty that I personally prefer to be non religoius and around those who are also non religious. My life is so much more peaceful now.

Looking back on history you see the religious committing hundreds of millions of murders against the unbelievers and fellow believers. Crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, etc. Convert or die is how Europe became christianized. Shame on christianity for its sordid past.

Once they ran out of unbelievers to kill, they just turned on each other. Faction killing faction without guilt or remorse because god was on their side. And they could be forgiven if they were sinning.

Has anyone ever heard of an army of people who believe in reincarnation inavding some other country and trying to convert them by the sword? Didn't think so. Just bible believing religions do that ****!!! Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots back to Abraham and his god.

Imagine how peaceful the world would be right now if that man and the religions he spawned never existed. For all we really know Abraham may never have existed except in the fantasies of the bible writers.

Dennis, I respect you and what you have to write. You seem to have many valid points which your critics always fail to logically rebut. My 20 years in WCG and its daughter churches has been a time in my life that I am now glad to have in my past. We cannot undo the past but at least we can learn from it. Having read a lot of your posts it seems to me that you have learned a great deal, and I am glad that you take the time to share some of what you have learned with others. I feel I have benefited at times from what you write.

Anonymous said...

Yea, Dennis! Boooo, anonymous.

I especially liked the 10th commandment. That the neighbor's wife is the neighbor's property just like his house, slaves and animals is so obvious.

Other than the first four and the last one - the big ten are just pretty much common sense, of course that only leaves five of the ten.

The first four are just some silly nonsense about a goatherder god over in the land of Canaan. But, that 10th one - wow! How do you suppose the Jews enforced that one? Maybe those priests were mindreaders?

And that god, wow! Look how much he loved those chosen people! He made 'em all wander in the desert for forty years just because the few spys lied about the land.

From then on it was just one big slaughter after another until they were finally driven from the land.

So remember, if god loves you, stay out of the land of Canaan. Even the Jews refuse to go home and prefer to stay in Egypt, Babylon or anywhere but Canaan. I can't say as I blame 'em.

Anonymous said...

What an asshole!

Anonymous said...

Please, tone down your rhetoric. This is a family blog. You should know by now that when describing that particular orifice, it's good manners to disguise it a bit, ie "A$$hole", in case sensitive readers are tuned in.

BTW, who were you calling that? You didn't name names. Were you looking in the mirror?

BB

Anonymous said...

Thomas Munson,

Understand that any killing of others for religious reasons that was done by Catholics or Muslims was done by people who hate and reject the commandments of the God of the Bible.

Also, do not get carried away by untrue myths about how peaceful remote savages are who have never heard of the Bible.

Do not let the fact that you had a bad experience with DCP of the RCG turn you against everything.

Paul said...

Mr. "Perverts Hate The Ten Commandments" Anonymous:

Do you need the Ten Commandments to remind you that murdering a person is wrong and you shouldn't do it? You need to be reminded that stealing is a bad thing, too? In the absence of the Ten Commandments, would you think it okay to sleep with the neighbors wife? If so, who is the pervert?

Paul

kscribe said...

On another note, you may be amused by the following statement found on a website by one "Minister Xavier."
quote: Greeting friends, I am Minister Xavier, a psychic medium who began channeling the spirit of Herbert W. Armstrong exactly 19 years after his mortal body were taken up aboard the glorious Mothership. HWA wanted to share the world of the Gospel OF Christ with you in these End Times!

http://www.youtube.com/
profile?user=WorldwideChurchOfGod

Enjoy,
Kscribe

Anonymous said...

Reality Bites...

"We humans are pressure cookers- we need release.
Religious people don't like hearing this.
They want to hold up some unrealistic ideal
to strive for." Dennis Praeger

___"Born-again" Christians are more likely to go through a marital split than are non-Christians, according to a new study by the Barna Research Group.
___Using statistics drawn from a nationwide survey of nearly 4,000 adults, the Barna data show 11 percent of the adult population currently is divorced but that 25 percent of all adults have experienced at least one divorce.
___Among "born-again" Christians, 27 percent currently are divorced or previously have been divorced, compared with 24 percent among adults who are not "born again."
___Surprisingly, the Barna report said, the Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists. The only group to surpass Baptists were Christians associated with non-denominational Protestant churches.
___This research underscores the need for church-based marriage and family enrichment ministries, according to Mike Lundy, family ministry associate with the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.
___"What the figures reveal is that Baptist families are experiencing the same stresses as those in society at large," he said.
___And Baptists and other evangelical Christians are responding to those stresses in the same way as the larger culture, he added. "We've created a climate for divorce in our society, and Baptists seem to be reflecting the values of society."


Pollster, George Barna reported: "Born-again Christians have a higher rate of divorce than non-believers; fundamentalists top them all. And 87% divorced after accepting Christ, presumably aware of the biblical teaching on divorce."

Over the last decade the divorce rate has increased to the point where over half of the divorces in the church occur within the first five years of marriage. Even atheists and agnostics, according to the Barna Report 2000, have a lower divorce rate than Full Gospel, Spirit-filled, Fundamental or Evangelical Christians. It should come as no surprise that more couples are choosing co-habitation as an alternative to marriage.

The signs were there but no one paid attention to them. In the late seventies and the mid-eighties, two Christian surveys reported that less than five percent of all Christian marriages were experiencing joy and happiness in their relationships. Increasingly, many couples began choosing to have children out of wedlock rather than face an unhappy home environment. This trend continues with the divorce rate 50% higher when couples live together before they marry."


"The "covenant community" provides neither covenant nor community.

· The divorce rate among fundamentalist "Christians" now exceeds the nation as a whole by 4%.

· The divorce rate among pastors now equals the national rate.

· 70% of pastors admit they have no friends.

· 73% of evangelicals claim its getting hard to make friends compared to only 58% of the nation at large. The more "religion," the less "relationship." Shocking!

· 52,000 people per week are leaving the back doors of America's churches.

Rules are great...Becoming perfect as one's heavenly Father is perfect is unrealistic...Religion does work near as neatly or well as some would have you believe if you just "trust and obey for there is not other way to be happy in Jesus...but to trust and obey..."

Anonymous said...

Rules are great...Becoming perfect as one's heavenly Father is perfect is unrealistic...Religion DOESN'T work near as neatly or well as some would have you believe if you just "trust and obey for there is not other way to be happy in Jesus...but to trust and obey..."

Steve said...

Anonymous said...
What an asshole!

MY COMMENT: Is this a Christian? How can you love someone and call him this?

Steve K

Anonymous said...

Go visit Japan sometime. Or Taiwan. Both of hthose countries have far less violent crime than the U.S. or Western Europe, yet both of these same countries derive their laws and traditions from anywhere BUT the bible.

So you mean the Japanese are saying thst murder is better than our fellows. And since Japan and Taiwan has less violent crime, this proves that the 10 commendments are a collection of trash?

Uh, okay I got your intelligent point?

Anonymous said...


MY COMMENT: I will discuss this subject no further. A Sabbatarian will justify his stance with a barrage of prooftexts until he has himself convinced that he is right, while trying to convince others that he is right. For those who are truly interested and want "the rest of the story", I suggest that you read the work by Robert Brinsmead in its entirety..."Sabbatarianism Reexamined".


Read Brinsmead's "Sabbatarianism Reexamined". Seen his reasoning full of gaps. Useless to comment any further.

Anonymous said...

We in the Antipodes prefer to use the word "aerosol" to describe the ventus terminales,or should that be ERROR-SOLE,especially when applied to HWA.As Byker Bob has said, this is a family blog,so let's keep the party proper.

The ten troublers are subject to huge interpretation.GTA took them lying down,literally.He was one of Nature's GENITALMEN.

Here's a long-term project for Gavin.Everyone else has written profusely on the Decalogue,so why not our blog editor.?

Comments, please Gavin.

A Nonny Mouse

1:59 PM

Anonymous said...


Keep in mind the major division of the commandments: the first four toward Yawheh, the latter six toward one's fellow humans. The first four are really the ones that set the 10C apart from moral/ethical precepts adhered to through much of human houistory. A number of posters have made this observation, and shown how in various "heathen" regions of the world, the crime rate is much lower.


You mean, crime in Sudan, Rwanda, Sadam-ruled Iraq, etc. lower than in Christian nations?

If crime is higher in Christian nations, what does that prove -- that the ten commandment is the cause of crime?

Good logic?

Anonymous said...

Go visit Japan sometime. Or Taiwan. Both of hthose countries have far less violent crime than the U.S. or Western Europe, yet both of these same countries derive their laws and traditions from anywhere BUT the bible.

So you mean the Japanese are saying that being easier on murder is better than our prohibiting it. And since Japan and Taiwan has less violent crime, this proves that the 10 commendments are a collection of trash?

Uh, okay I got your intelligent point?

kscribe said...

Nations marked by high levels of organic atheism – such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and France -- are among the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, and most free societies on earth.

Atheism and Societal Health

Indeed, countries containing high percentages of non-believers are among the most healthy and wealthy nations on earth (Paul, 2004). Of course, we must always distinguish between those nations where non-belief has been forced upon the society by dictators (“coercive atheism”) from those societies wherein non-belief has emerged on its own without governmental coercion (“organic atheism”)
Try this link>
http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

Anonymous said...

The anger expressed by the happy Sabbathkeepers responding to this blog is quite amazing. If I had to choose to live in a neighborhood populated by Sabbathkeepers or a neighborhood populated by nonSabbathkeeping "perverts" (to quote the kindhearted 2nd Anonymous) based on the comments I've read here, I'd pick the nonSabbathkeepers.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Anonymous,

You said:

................
Understand that any killing of others for religious reasons that was done by Catholics or Muslims was done by people who hate and reject the commandments of the God of the Bible.
.................

Have you not read the Bible? Have I read it wrongly? As far as I could tell, the God of the Israelites was behind them, even commanding them to commit genocide.

Flaco-Pete

Anonymous said...

Let's become atheists then. Case closed.

Anonymous said...

THE focus shouldn’t be on what I say, what you say, or HWA.

The only thing of significance and that has substance is what the word of God has to say.

Even though JESUS said that we are to LIVE by every WORD OF GOD,
I have only listed scriptures from the New Testament.

Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He, (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, (Jesus) and without Him, (Jesus) nothing was made that was made. so, he JESUS CHRIST created Adam & Eve, created The Ten Commandments, He,(Jesus) caused manna to come down from Heaven He,(Jesus) was in the burnning bush, etc...

The Word Becomes Flesh
John 1:14 And the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His(Jesus) glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

SO THESE THREE SCRIPTURES TELLS US THAT CHRIST WAS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Luke 6:5
Then HE(Jesus) said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

Luke 4:16
HE(Jesus) went to Nazareth, where HE(Jesus) had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day HE(Jesus) went into the synagogue, as was His(Jesus) custom. And HE(Jesus) stood up to read.

Mark 2:27
Then HE said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. HE(Jesus) SAID MAN, NOT JEW!

The Bible says, When Christ returns the whole world will keep the sabbath.

Isaiah 66:23
From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD(Jesus).

1 Peter 2:21
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

1 Corinthians 11:1
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Matthew 19:17
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.

Matt 5: 17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven

Christ says, in Matt 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ but I tell you it’s even stricter than that HE(Jesus) says 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause[b] shall be in danger of the judgment

Adultery in the Heart
Matt 5:27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old,[c] ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[d] 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Marriage Is Sacred and Binding
Matt 5:31 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality[e] causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

Luke 10:27
He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' "
Does this sound like that the commandments are done away with?
The first 4 shows love toward God the last 6 shows love towards thy neighbor

James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

1 John 3:4
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.

Luke 1:6
Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly.

Revelation 12:17
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Revelation 14:12
This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1:10
[ Sectarianism Is Sin ] Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
If The Bible says CHRIST lived HIS life as an example and that we are to follow in HIS steps.
If the deciples followed HIS example.
If HE was the GOD who created everything, including the TEN COMMANDMENTS, AND the whole world will have to keep the SABBATH When CHRIST returns why would HE not want you keep the sabbath NOW?

Anonymous said...

Dear friends:

Just because we all fall short more often than not does that mean God's laws are wrong?

Romans 3:3-4:

"What if some of them were unfaithful? Will their lack of fidelity cancel God's fidelity? That would be absurd. God will always be true even though everyone proves to be false."

We are all sinners, verse 10:

"As scripture says: There is not a good man left, no, not one; there is not one who understands, nor one who looks for God. All have turned aside, tainted all alike; there is not one good man left, not a single one. Their throats are yawning graves; their tongues are full of deceit. Vipers' venom is on their lips, bitter curses fill their mouths. Their feet are swift when blood is to be shed, wherever they go there is havoc and ruin. They know nothing of the way of peace, there is no fear of God before their eyes."

Does this mean that we should all "throw in the towel" and give up? No my friends, as long as there's life in us we should never give up. Don't fall away from God's grace, but strive, strive, STRIVE!

Anonymous said...

Flaco-Pete said:

Have you not read the Bible? Have I read it wrongly? As far as I could tell, the God of the Israelites was behind them, even commanding them to commit genocide.


So you are saying God is the problem?

Anonymous said...

First it was HWA to blame. It would seem that HWA was (is?) so powerful that until now (20 years after his death) he is still responsible for people's misery. Whose misery -- the people who left COG's or the people who stayed in it? It is only those who got out who seem to allege misery.

But now we see God being pointed out as the reason for the evil.
It really looks like HWA was just a convenient excuse. The real issue is with God Himself and His commandments.

Anonymous said...

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Anonymous said...

I would imagine that the HWA is responsible for much suffering, even so many years after his death.
Have you heard about the latest murders/suicide?

Frank

Steve said...

Anonymous said...
The anger expressed by the happy Sabbathkeepers responding to this blog is quite amazing. If I had to choose to live in a neighborhood populated by Sabbathkeepers or a neighborhood populated by nonSabbathkeeping "perverts" (to quote the kindhearted 2nd Anonymous) based on the comments I've read here, I'd pick the nonSabbathkeepers.

MY COMMENT: Can you imagine an entire neighborhood full of sabbathkeepers!? They would be running to the "minister" everyday telling on each other over the slightest infraction. "The Jones's went out to eat on the sabbath."; "The Green's went to the grocery store and bought some bacon. They didn't get home until after sundown on Friday."; "Little Sally and little Johnny wer playing together. It's just awful!"; "I'm sure little Billy is taking drugs. He always seems so tired and dragged out."; "Oh, my kids? No, they would never do THAT!"; "I saw Mrs. Green smoking a cigarette when I looked into her window."; "The Browns always have a full liquor cabinet. They are sure to be alcoholics!"; "Mr. Clark was with Mrs. White the other evening. It seems kind of suspicious to MEEEE!"; "I thionk Mr. Black works on Saturday morniong before he goes to church on Saturday afternoon. He always leaves early."

The finger-pointing would never end. There would be ostracizing, then shunning, and if allowed to go on, out and out stoning. Kinda like the COG communities, huh?

Steve K

camfinch said...

Anonymous 2:05 wrote,
"You mean, crime in Sudan, Rwanda, Sadam-ruled Iraq, etc. lower than in Christian nations?

If crime is higher in Christian nations, what does that prove -- that the ten commandment is the cause of crime?

Good logic?"

That's the frustration of commenting on blogspots: someone seems always to fail to see the actual meaning that posters seek to get across. No, Anonymous, it does not mean that "bad" nations of the world are necessarily better than "Christian" nations, whatever that means, simply because "Christian" nations observe those big bad 10C's. The point I was making is that the six (or at least five, if we set aside the tenth one with its problematic aspects) commandments dealing with relating to fellow humans are general principles upon which much of civilzed society has been based since ancient times. But I was asking if the first four, referring to one's obligations to the Israelite deity Yahweh, have any direct connection to living in a safe, civilized society. Japan, Taiwan, etc., have no history of relating to Yahweh, and yet are safer, less crime-ridden countries than is the United States, generally speaking. But there are other parts of the world that are, frankly, unenlightened in terms of civilzed culture. (I would question your specific mention of Saddam-ruled Iraq: it is arguably no safer, no less crime-ridden, now than under the hands of the dictator.) My point is that there are universal principles of civilized living that have no apparent connection to a supernatural deity, and that it is these principles that allow for relatively peaceful relations between humans. Another poster had mentioned that certain nations that exhibited strong degrees of "organic atheism" were among those with the highest quality of life in the world. Certainly Britain, which I visit about once a year, with its very low (ten percent or less) number of churchgoers, is considerably safer overall than here in the U.S.--again, relatively speaking. Sweden and Norway are safer than Britain.

Isn't it a commitment to harmony in society (that would be the general Asian view), or the classical liberal belief in freedom to each individual, that really creates desirable "civilization"?

Steve said...

More from the sabbathkeepers neighborhood:

"The Browns don't keep the holydays at the same time we do. WE keep the sacred Hebrew calendar."; "I heard Mr. Green take God's name in vain yesterday when he hit his finger with a hammer."; "The police stopped at the Whites house today. I just knew there was something wrong with them."; I know the Blacks aren't tithing because they just bought a new car."; Ad nauseum.

Steve K ;-)

Steve said...

Oh! I forgot to add the most obnoxious piece of gossip from the sabbathkeepers neighborhood:

"Everything seems to be going wrong for the Smiths. Mr. Smith lost his job, and Mrs. Smith came over and asked if we could give them some food. Naturally, I declined. I'm sure that they are not obeying God!"

Steve K

Anonymous said...


Certainly Britain, which I visit about once a year, with its very low (ten percent or less) number of churchgoers, is considerably safer overall than here in the U.S.


My history book tells me that the US became a nation in search of freedom from the restrictive Britain.

Is religion the underlying cause of increasing crime in the America?
Or is it the increasing drift into secularism?

Anonymous said...


Oh! I forgot to add the most obnoxious piece of gossip from the sabbathkeepers neighborhood:


And Sabbath is the reason why people are gossipers and evil in general?

God's laws must be evil because people are so bad?

The fact is, it only confirms what Paul said: that the carnal mind is enmity against God and that it is not subject to the law.

Anonymous said...

""Anonymous said...
Thomas Munson,

Understand that any killing of others for religious reasons that was done by Catholics or Muslims was done by people who hate and reject the commandments of the God of the Bible.

Also, do not get carried away by untrue myths about how peaceful remote savages are who have never heard of the Bible.

Do not let the fact that you had a bad experience with DCP of the RCG turn you against everything.""


Mr. or Mrs. annonymous, the killing done for religious seasons by Christians-not just catholic christians, jews and muslims are killings done because they love their god and they think they are right and the others are wrong and god is on their side. Just read about all the god commanded genocides and slaughters in the bible. Jesus will revert to his old testament bad attitude and will slaughter millions when he returns. That is after the billions he slaughters before he returns. That is one sick deity to worship, it is no longer worthy of my worship.

I do not recall ever mentioning peaceful remote savages, much less getting caried away with it. So that comment is pointless.

True, I had bad experiences with David Pack and his Restored Church of God. I also had bad experiences while in Global cog, Philadelphia cog, and Worldwide cog. None of those things turned me against everything, whatever you mean by everything. I think the record speaks for itself that the majority of people ensnared in armstrongism were true believers who were abused by the system. Ministers were also as much victims as lay members.

Those experiences awakened my mind to question. First I started to question things while staying in the box of a true believer. Eventually I thought outside the box. I could no longer ignore the hundreds of contradictions in the bible or the scientific inaccuracies or the downright evil nature of the god depicted in the bible. Logic and free thinking set me free.

Anonymous said...

America, as "anonymous" said got its freedom from repressive Britain. Britain is still restrictive. It controls media. American on the other hand is too liberal. Too much freedom and the elimination of the Bible and God from schools That is more like the reason why crime is higher in the US. School children in the US today are not even taught right conduct.

Britain's greater control over the what it consider corruptive information and greater strictness, is more like the reason why it has less crime. Same thing with China and other nations which exercise greater control over its people. It has less crime.

I guess that is why Christ will have to use a "rod of iron" when He comes.

Anonymous said...

Dennis:

While your Decalogue raises a flood of issues, I will respond to just one issue to illustrate what I believe is incorrect in principle with the entirety.

Let us look at the first commandment. You took the language used by God in the context of communicating with ancient Hebrews, found some ambiguous syntax, when viewed from the modern perspective, and used that to found a belief. In the process you missed the meaning of what is expressed in the Decalogue.

In fact you did not decode anything, but like a good fundamentalist, tripped over literalism.

This is a species of the error that HWA and his minions made when they failed to recognize that God used anthropomorphic language to talk with humans. They also failed to recognize the poetic or literary cast to some of the passages in the Bible.

So your conclusion that God was "unaware of his onlyness" is similar go HWA concluding that God has a face because God said somewhere to someone "I will turn my face against you."

You need to inform your conclusions by taking the Bible in its entirety into consideration, rather than focusing exclusively on a patch of time relevant, culture relevant language. Because you did not do this, you have postulated a pantheon in clear contravention to the monotheistic thrust of the Old Testament.

Armstrongism is reborn in many different guises. Ex-Armstrongites can flee a lion and run into a bear. (The local WCG congregation where I live gave birth to recycled Armstrongism a few years ago.) This also applies to exegesis. Parsing Hebrew finely while regarding the big picture is like the Armstrongite penchant for "majoring in the minors".

-- Neo

Anonymous said...

"Same thing with China and other nations which exercise greater control over its people. It has less crime."

I also understand North Korea has a low crime rate.

Anonymous said...

must be because they don't allow any worship other than the dear leader

camfinch said...

About Britain: it is true that the early colonists came to America partly because of repression in the Britain of the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries (they also came because of opportunities to be prosperous in a raw new land). The repression was of the religious type. Calvinist Puritans were on the "outs" with the ruling class by the 1620s or 1630s (having been "in" in the decades before), and of course, separatist Puritans (perhaps similar to European Anabaptists in some ways) were always on the "outs" no matter who was in charge in Britain. So they came to America, but especially in Puritan New England, as well as Puritan-leaning Anglican Virginia, they tended not to share their freedom of belief and practice with those of different persuasion. Note the Puritan rejection of the Quakers, who eventually had to establish their own colony further south.

But here is the point: we're talking about the modern day, and Britain tends to restrict some things that are freer in America, but some things, especially socially, seem more restrictive here. Believe me, life in Britain, despite closed-circuit cameras on the streets these days, etc., does not feel restrictive. Frankly, it feels much like here in the U.S. in many ways.

"Liberal"? Well, I'll take the open air of "liberalism", however you define it, over narrow religious pressure. And schools? Well, the nation, as was amply noted by Jefferson, Paine, and Madison, was supposedly founded as a secular entity, to give no preference toward any religion, and not to allow any religion to be forced on an individual. For too long, that ideal wall of separation was often breached, including making kids do Christian prayers in public (taxpayer-funded) schools. But that separation, once fully achieved, probably resulted in the open diversity of religious practice in this country.

Where religion emphasizes harmony and goodwill between humans, it benefits society. Where it emphasizes dogma, guilt and punishment, it serves as a burden. Yes, humans should know their limits. But somtimes religion so focuses on the limits (as represented, say, by hard-core Calvinism or, for that matter, Armstrongism) and on practices that lack "spirituality", that it can literally push individuals down. As evidence: the southern United States up until recent decades, which for various reasons, but certainly including the heavy Bible Belt culture, remained (and still remains in many areas) among the poorest and most uneducated regions of the nation.

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe that you people are even considering the complete ignorance of this guy, dennis. The Ten Commandments in question? C'mon people! Tom Munson, I knew you, I went to church with you, I knew your convictions and passion for God, His laws, and His Church. What happened to you? And for those of you (NED)who are quick to point out Garner Teds sins , we are all sinners, and as the old saying goes, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." As far as your ignorant accusations go against Herbert W. Armstrong that you read in a book that has no credibility and the author was just bitter, I say to you: PROOVE IT!

Anonymous said...

We'll have to admit that Mr. Armstrong as well as other leaders had been overbearing on members in some (or say, many) occasions. But that is hardly a case against the wisdom of God's commandments. I think it is easy to figure that if only all people obeyed the 10 commandments, things will a lot more peaceful and a lot different.

The wrong that we observe in C.OG's only shows that we are still carnal and COG members are no exeption. Some [including ministers] can be more carnal than others That is true even in the early New Testament Church as we can glean from the apostles writings.

The problem with some of us in the past [and still is today] is the "Pharisaical" tendency and the tendency to apply God's commands on others instead of living it ourselves and showing more mercy and understanding on others.

Christ had made a great deal of effort to correct misconceptions about the law as was given through Moses.

But the fact is we all are still carnal. And the sad commentary is that many leaders have appropriated on themselves an excess of power over others that were not intended in the first place. If you still believed God, you know that the culprits will have their just reward or retribution.

If those abuses had caused you to doubt everything including God Himself, I'm sure God understand your circumstance. The thing here is, it is wiser not to let emotion dictate what we'll do next after a negative experience.

My 2 cents worth.

Anonymous said...

james said

"The problem with some of us in the past [and still is today] is the "Pharisaical" tendency and the tendency to apply God's commands on others instead of living it ourselves and showing more mercy and understanding on others."

Well said james - well said indeed. It is unfortunate that so few of us understand or practice this.

Anonymous said...

Now it can be told (shades of Ripley?)

The New Zealand branch of Worldwide, isolated though it was,showed its humanity,or lack thereof on thousands of occasions during the 70s and 80s.

Self-righteousness abounded: the in-group,inheritors of the Kingdom,deigned to tolerate the peasants,only because the Bible said so,not because of any natural empathy they had for their "lesser"
brethren.And we had an active tale-telling brigade who ran to the ministry with real and perceived grievances and reports of SIN.The ministry had their network of spies.

You couldn't even leave town,hardly, without first seeking the minister's prior approval.It was all about CONTROL.They said the truth was making us free.We were free to have our decisions made by someone else.Graemme Marshall even expressed the opinion the ministers were descended from the Levites,which of course gave them permission to demand and take tithes.

It's all a bad dream now.May God have mercy on their deceived souls.

A Nonny Mouse

kscribe said...

steve k ~ too said...

Herbie created more atheists than Christian. I started out as a Christian in the wcg. When I discovered the degree of corruption, there was NO WAY that God had anything to do with the corporation! Everything was control or lies. So I flushed it, along with everything I was taught as a young boy in catholic school.

So if you want to be a Christian in or out of herbism, go right ahead. But try to be respectful of others opinions. Otherwise we may think of you as intolerant!
Kscribe.

Anonymous said...

kscribe said
You Chose your own path,

"So I flushed it, along with everything I was taught as a young boy in catholic school."

As far as me being intolerant, I have to ask a great big HUH???
I'm not the one putting Gods Commandment in question, the very Commandments that govern the entire universe. But, even after this comment, if you want to think of me as intolerant, then go ahead, because I have no respect for anyone who runs God into the ground.

Notice I said "GOD" and not "H.W.A."

Anonymous said...

We need to repent of our evil ways, and acknowledge Herbert W. Armstrong as the Apostle of God, the Elijah to come. He turned the hearts of the fathers to the sons as prophesied in Malachi's message.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The carnal mind is an emnity against God.

But, this gospel of the kingdom - God's work of witnessing and warning to this earth - shall be preached in ALL the world, and then shall the end come.

Send money to the building fund, only after you have paid your 1st tithe and offerings (and, 3rd tithe if applicable).

Some of you just don't get it! You didn't get it then, and you still don't get it now.

Anonymous said...

An Anonymous person wrote, "And since Japan and Taiwan has less violent crime, this proves that the 10 commendments are a collection of trash?"

I suspect that you misjudge what you were reacting to.
Personally, I don't see modern people as required to use the 10 C's as laws they are under. I do view the 10 C's in their historical context, and do not view them as a "collection of trash".

Also, I do not view the Bible as the inspired word of God. But I don't view it as "trash", either.
I see it as a literary work with a historical context.

Sadly, it's not unusual for true believers to read the worst into the viewpoints and motives of those whose aren't in alignment with theirs. I'd be a fool not to expect that, even "often", in a group like the folks here that has a background in the church that HWA built.

~Mel

Anonymous said...

WHY GOD KILLED THE PERVERTS

Atheism is not the answer to world peace. Communist leaders of the USSR and China did not believe in the God of the Bible, and yet they killed millions of people. Atheism does not lead to decency either. The atheists at The Painful Truth website have basically degenerated into writing about how they cannot see how there could be anything wrong with sticking their dinks up each other’s butts now that they have rejected God.

As for all the killing in the Bible, with more prophesied to come in the future, take it as a warning of what could happen to YOU if YOU do not behave. The problem was not with God but with the people becoming UTTERLY CORRUPT. For example, the proud people of Sodom got burned up because they just could not keep their dinks out of other people’s butts. Passages like Leviticus 18:20-30 explain why God drove out the nations in the promised land and gave it to the Israelites instead. The people sacrificed their children in the fire to Molech, committed adultery, had homosexual sex, had sex with animals, etc. Notice that this is clearly the direction that the US and Britain are heading in today.

Though the times might seem to be encouraging it, this is still NOT a good time to become a complete pervert like the people who got killed by God in biblical times, or to talk stupidly about how God was the bad guy back then.

Anonymous said...

Also, I do not view the Bible as the inspired word of God. But I don't view it as "trash", either.
I see it as a literary work with a historical context.


If the Bible is just an ordinary writing then we have no "absolutes" to speak of. Your opinion is as good as mine and everyone else. Nobody can tell us killing and stealing and copulating with everyonee is wrong. That to me, is the inevitable result of dismissing the Bible as an ordinary writing.

Anonymous said...

Steve mentions Brimsmead verses proof texts.

The Bible itself is the proof text and the only proof text that proves the Sabbath to be kept.

Additionally, the venom of the 'law keepers' who keep speaking up is a wee bit too vile.

Please, pray for those who despitefully use and persecute. Please.

Anonymous said...

When we use the phrase "proof texting" we are referring to the practice of deliberately searching for quotations which support one of our beliefs, and failing to quote passages often in the previous or next paragraph, which plainly disprove that belief. Proof texters also often completely yank their quotations out of context. A synonymous phrase might be "cherry picking", or only looking for the favorable.

This is a really deceptive and dishonest form of research. Fortunately, real scholars have "caught" the WCG scholars, and have pointed out the most flagrant examples of this. disingenuousness. Unfortunately, whom do you think the brethren choose to believe? Hint: the person they believe never graduated from High School.

The correct way to prove or disprove a premise is to collect evidence, and allow the entire body of evidence to confirm or refute the premise. Proof texting was extensively used by the Armstrongs and their lackeys in producing their "True History of the True Church". It was also the basis for much of the material contained in Dr. Hoeh's Compendium of World History.

I got the impression that some of our bloggers think proof texts are the texts which prove a doctrine. The reality is a bit more sinister.

BB

Anonymous said...

Missing the point of -- and never even attempting a reply to -- my earlier post, the anonymous poster with the capital headlines has confirmed the deeper cautions of scripture by revealing the "categories" of sins in his/her mind.

Like the old saying about being pregnant, you either sin or you don't. An understanding of where that leaves all of us, regardless of where our dinks may be, leads to clarity of thought.

Once one begins to contemplate the notion that he/she might be less of a sinner that the next person, out goes the bathwater, baby and all. And we end up with lectures that produce nothing but hot air, hate and confusion.

Anonymous said...

It's all probably moot anyway. Last evening, our local news was just filled with the announcement that the ossuary of Jesus Christ was discovered and identified. His wife, Mary Magdalene's ossuary was close by, as was that of their son Judah. Interesting times for Christianity!

Gammer

Anonymous said...

dennis, it's (ten commandment's) not for shoving down someone else's throat, they are there for regulating, do you think for a second that God didn't know that man would try to do his fellow man wrong? Example and Point: Who posted a picture of "the Ten Commandments movie" next to your topic? Did you or they or whoever have permission from Paramount Picture to display the cover from that movie? Laws are put into place to regulate mankind, nature, universe, everything that exists.

Anonymous said...

Dennis:

I admit I have never read any of Karen Armstrong's works. But I have a feeling that she follows the same tact that other scholars in this field follow.

They develop an evolutionary model for the Hebrew concept of God that asserts that El of the Hebrews was the lineal descendant of El of the Canaanites. According to Wikipedia:
"The word El appears in other northwest Semitic languages such as Phoenician and Aramaic."

So with a leap of presumption, Karen Armstrong suddenly has a complete etiology of God. She presumes that a linguistic nexus equates to a conceptual nexus. She can now tell you that the Hebrews adopted their God from the Canaanites and that he was a part of the Canaanite pantheon. In doing this, she errs greatly.

Just because the New Ager in the office next door and I both use the term "god", it does not mean that we are remotely referring to the same thing. An archeaologist from the year 3000 AD would be running down a rabbit trail if he tried to some how develop a theory that my concept of God was derived from the New Ager's concept of God or vice versa. Those of us here and now know that the concepts are almost mutally disjoint.

The only thing that the New Ager and I have in common is that we use the same language. We decidedly do not have the same God -- just the same word for God.

I like this statement. This is a note about one of her books from a favorable webpage: "According to (Karen) Armstrong, the biblical evidence suggests that the leader Moses convinced his people El and Yahweh were one and the same." That is a really odd way of stating it. Of course, Moses believed and taught they were one and the same. It is Karen Armstrong who assumes they were different. By making her arguments to be "truth", she manages to characterize Moses as religious con artist. Under the covers this is just our old friend "Begging the Question." The argument goes:

1) Karen is right.
2) Therefore, Moses is wrong.
3) Therefore, Karen is right.

-- Neo

ken said...

I perceive "a root of bitterness" in these comments. You should be ashamed and repent before God for putting down His holy words.

Anonymous said...

Gavin,

In your comment #10 header,you quoted that there was to be no coveting of asses( animal).

Pray,tell me,how could you covet a human ass,a stupid person in other words.?

Could you please amplify and expound on this part of the header.

A Nonny Mouse

jorgheinz said...

When a minister or a church openly violates the laws of God and refuses to change,then is the time to get out.We are told not to welcome a stranger who preaches contrary to the Bible,across our threshhold,lest we partake of his sins.There is the implication of a curse within the above quoted verses.

Regardless of what spin the church offers in defence of its errings,the principle of not associating with them applies.

Each situation is different and a decision made according to the circumstances,however,having said the above.

We should have cleared out of Worldwide when HWA launched his spin to"explain" the failure of his prophecy for Jan/Feb 1972.He nominated a year and it did not occur.This should have told us something.Instead,we fell for the lie.

Vee is too soon old und too late schmart.

Jorgheinz

Anonymous said...

Regarding Proof Texting: "A synonymous phrase might be "cherry picking", or only looking for the favorable."

All there is about the Sabbath is favorable. Nothing against it.

Most of you, I presume, believe that Jesus was the God of the OT correct or not? I mean, even trinitarians would believe that, would they not? Since God is one, etc....?

So, why would Jesus, kill off the Jews and Israelites for Sabbath breaking, when he would come and say, okay, now all that killing was useless, no need to keep the day that you broke along with the other commandments.

I mean, he died for their sins did he not?

What was sin? the transgression of the law. That is not cherry picking, that is scripture.

kscribe said...

Anonymous said...
WHY GOD KILLED THE PERVERTS
You wrote>>>The atheists at The Painful Truth website have basically degenerated into writing about how they cannot see how there could be anything wrong with sticking their dinks up each other’s butts <<<<

Ya, I know who you are. You ran that website Plain Truth. Well you were an intolerant Christian asshole back then and still are an intolerant Christian asshole now!

Never once has anyone talked about homosexual desires toward one another on the Painful Truth Forum. However, for all the years of rhetoric that trumps out your mouth about homosexuals, I suspect you might be fighting that battle. You see, it is basic psychology. One condemns a person, a race, or sexual identity constantly in the effort to reason out to THEMSELVES that they are not as the one condemned.

You also wrote> As for all the killing in the Bible, with more prophesied to come in the future....
I will reply as such: “Fairy Tales sometimes come true with fairy dust and pixie glue, then all YOUR dreams can come true... “Your dreams of hatred and death by the hands of some guy who lives up in the sky!

So go ahead and call people “perverts”, for it is YOU who are the twisted one. Your prayers go no higher than the ceiling in the room you pray in.

Kscribe.

kscribe said...

Steve K
Otherwise we MAY think of you as intolerant!
I did not say you are intolerant!
Please.......

kscribe said...

>>>Anonymous said...
Also, I do not view the Bible as the inspired word of God. But I don't view it as "trash", either.
I see it as a literary work with a historical context.

If the Bible is just an ordinary writing then we have no "absolutes" to speak of. Your opinion is as good as mine and everyone else. Nobody can tell us killing and stealing and copulating ...
Copulating, there we go again....something sexual!
Just go for it Homes, you keep talking about it!

Anonymous said...

There you go again, kscribble, flying into satanic fits and foaming away at the mouth, like usual.

P.S. How did you get the position of Satan's scribe? It might be an interesting story.

Gavin said...

Liebe "Nonny Mouse"

Re covetting of members of equine species: the header is Dennis', to him be the glory.

Re your pronounciation of "aerosol", there is an obvious difference in dialect between Eastern Aucklanders and those of us closer to the Waikato heartland. I suspect this is because of the influx of South Africans and Mandarin speakers in your area. I can only observe that those of us South of the Bombay Hill, untainted by these pernicious influences, pronounce this term with a hard vowel and Southern rrrrrrrrrr - ahrrrsss-hole. The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary provides a non-horsey spelling (arsehole), the self-same spelling used by Her Gracious Majesty when referring to Tony Blair. I've often
wondered why our North American cousins transmute this bit of rude Old English into something else... but hey, we're talking about a culture where they think it's more polite to call a toilet a bathroom.

Obviously though, in the World Tomorrow, when a pure language is restored, New Zealand English will be ENFORCED, spades will be shovels, toilets will be toilets and arses will be arses. God speed that day...

:-)

kscribe said...

>>>Anonymous said...
There you go again, kscribble, flying into satanic fits and foaming away at the mouth, like usual.<<<

Something out of the Exorcist movie huh? Turn off your TV and open up the good book sinner!

I just knew it was you! "kscribble"
scribble like a child the way you "de"scribe me! Now I never foam at the mouth, I have had my shots! However, the doctor did let me keep the syringe as a souvenir! And as to your statement "like usual" perhaps you could give a example of such writings? After all, I am a "SCRIBE!"
In Jesus name,
Kscribe.

Anonymous said...

kscribe, have you ever thought of finding a good exorcist and getting yourself cured? Perhaps a compassionate exorcist might even take pity on you and give you a quantity discount.

Anonymous said...

What's up with all of the ad hominem attacks? Can't people of diverse beliefs be civil with one another?

Gammer

kscribe said...

>>>Anonymous said...
kscribe, have you ever thought of finding a good exorcist and getting yourself cured? Perhaps a compassionate exorcist might even take pity on you and give you a quantity discount.<<<

Yes,I found a most excellent exorcist at Wal Mart! $10.95 and she will throw in a free haircut on the deal!
Go find yourself a boyfriend Plain Truth webaster and set yourself free......
Kscribe.

Anonymous said...

AMBASSADOR WATCH is unhealthy, I thought this site was something totally different, but now it's apparent to me what it truly is.
I am flushing ambassador watch down the proverbial toilet where all the other S*** belongs.

jorgheinz said...

Thank you, Gavin,for your expository on the alternative meanings of "ass".

Had you not placed "animal" in parenthesis I would have read the header for what it said.

Life is full of surprises.

Jorgheinz

jorgheinz said...

Steve K,

May I suggest you get to grips with the real world.

Here in New Zealand, in the 1970s,ministerial announcements used to mention Randy Dick, an American Worldwide minister.

One of the congregation approached the local minister and pointed out to him what Randy Dick meant in this country...is this too sensitive for your delicate psyche?..."randy" means sexually promiscuous and "dick" means penis.

Never again was he called "Randy Dick".And yes, that church MEMBER, if you pardon the entendre,knew what those two words meant,as did many other church members.And yes,there were smirks along the way.

What does the O.T.say,"he that pisseth against the wall", or should we be PC and write , "he that expresses a stream of nitrogenous excretions against the wall".


I suggest you go and blue-line your Bible..you won't have much left.

Jorgheinz

Anonymous said...

Now that L. McCulluough and C. Kilouh were seen looking at land in Dallas to buy for a new headquarters and college for the United Church, their members in Texas will likely be excited to have the United HQ in their state.

Anonymous said...

HEY, THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ARE GREAT IF EVERYONE KEPT THEM. OH, BY THE WAY WHO HAS KEPT THEM? LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU FIND ONE. I AM REALLY GETTING SICK OF RELIGION GETTING IN THE WAY OF GOD.