The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

By JohnO

In the press this morning, Saturday 08/03/02, the reporters were still talking about the last Thursday’s horrific ordeal that the two Lancaster, CA, girls had to endure from the hands of an allegedly drunk American Indian/Mexican rapist. For those interested, and those with children, the “Amber Plan” which help locate these girls, and execute that raping bastard is on website: http://www.klaaskids.org/pg-amberplan.htm. Marc Klaas, who is very much involved in such kidnappings (he’s established a foundation. Please see his website: http://www.klaaskids.org/ ) after his daughter, Polly, was kidnapped and murdered. Referring to this above mentioned kidnapper, Marc said: “They shot and killed him?  Good work. That’ll save the state any money for a trial.” No doubt, the bleeding-heart and perpetually whining, ACLU will disagree.

However what amazed me here was the press reporting. Although the reporting paper is a rather rinky-dink one (below is the website and article location at the following address http://www.avpress.com/n/sasty2.hts  It’s official now that the two girls were physically abused, tied up with duct tape, beaten, forced into the back seat of the Ford Bronco, and raped by this gorilla. Still, what was amazing was the comment of one of the girls who was abducted and abused.  Here’s her statement, with the emphasis being mine.

“Thank you everyone for all your prayers,” Jacqueline Marris said in a broadcast interview Friday. “They helped us. They helped us. GOD WAS LISTENING.”

Huh??? If God was so busy listening to their prayers, then how come He didn’t immediately disintegrate this kidnapping bastard? How come he didn’t come down and pull out His 9mm automatic and blow this criminal into pieces, as did the two sheriffs?  Thank God (if we may use that expression) the rescue was not from any “God,” but from two gutsy sheriffs. Those girls were rescued while God slept.

If any haven’t read the ongoing page: ACTS OF GOD, then this might be a good time to refer to it. The stuff that’s going on now, all across the world only adds to that article. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and God slept while the planet Earth crumbled. In recent days, God snoozed while those two girls were raped. And these girls both came from your typical brainwashed “God fearing, religious backgrounds.” Does any of this change some folks perception of an all-loving “God?”

In numerous articles on this site, so many have referred to God as not caring. That’s true. I’ve personally called “God” something akin to original energy and original thought. If this life force lives “as” us, then this would explain God’s personal absence during people’s dire emergencies – such as the case mentioned above. But man has always molded and fashioned such a God into man’s own image, and therefore this God has taken on human characteristics, and as such, religious man fashions God into an anthropomorphic being. It’s no wonder that people think that they can pray and beg God for something or other. Most still believe that this “God” is just a big, spirit man with all the characteristics of man’s vulnerability, susceptibility to persuasion, stupidity, indifference, and anger. If God’s happy with you, many believe, He’ll bless you. If you don’t, they think, then you’re gonna get shafted.

The reality of the above paragraph is evident in the statement of the rescued abductee, Jacqueline Marris’, when she said and believed that: “ . . . God was listening.” Yeah! Right! When did He start to listen? After the sheriff’s deputies shot that scumbag? Was it those shots that finally aroused the Almighty to listen?

This “God listens and cares” attitude is so prevalent in religions today. We were inundated with it in the Worldwide Church of God cult, and no doubt, it’s also extant with all of Worldwide’s obnoxious offspring. The theme that we always got from the pulpit in such matters was always the same. “If you get what you ask for, then God is blessing you. If you DON’T get what you ask for, then it ALL YOUR FAULT.” At no time was blame ever impugned to God. If such a scenario was honestly questioned, then people might have asked some intelligent questions about such a God. And they might have doubted the sloppy, ignorant, and clap-trap Biblical excuses for “God’s love and concern for all mankind.” If the subject were honestly addressed, the Worldwide cult membership would have probably investigated the deeper nature of the power and energy that we came to know as “The Holy Spirit.”

But, in pointing to God as a “spirit man,” then it’s a very easy step to point to “a little lower than the angels” humanoid – and then point with reverence at that incestuous, infantile, ignorant little bully. Therefore, cultmasters can now brainwash the congregations that this aberration is really God’s Apostle. How much difference is there between Herbie’s undenied incest and the rape of kidnapped children? Are not such violations of human behaviour on the same, identical, disgusting, low-life wavelength?

Again, let’s show another example of how people are religiously brainwashed into the “Thank God” ONLY syndrome. Last week, 07/28/02, a Church of the Nazarene in CA burnt to the ground under unknown circumstances. The below link, from the same above mentioned newspaper, gives the whole story, but there’s one additional quote that I’d personally like to make. The link is: http://www.avpress.com/n/susty1.hts And the quote I want to make was from one of the church members as she viewed their church building that laid in ashes. Emphasis is mine. “It’s devastating, but we’ve had several miracles – GOD SHOWING US THAT HE WAS HERE. He had us in mind,” she said.

Whaaaaaaaaat?  Did God supposedly have these people in mind as He watched their church burn to the ground? What are people thinking? Have these people ransomed their intelligence for the rancid emotion of religiosity?  A church building burns to the ground, causing loss of money, waste of time, heartache, and inconvenience, and still people thank God and think that He was “here.” If God was indeed there, then He must have burned down the building.

Remember our “training” in the Worldwide cult. If everything worked well with God and His Apostle, then we were supporting the “Greeeeeeaaaaaaat work as God intended,” and nothing ever went wrong.  However, if for some reason, there was a setback (usually financial), then if was “ALL OUR FAULT,” and to get right with God again, we had to renew our commitment to God and His government. That, of course, involved sending in more money, and more money, and more money, and more money, et al. . . . etc.

Do we remember the lame excuse that Herbie made when Jesus didn’t return in 1975? The church (namely us), we were told, was just NOT ready. We: “. . . just didn’t get it,” Apostle Herbie said. So, most certainly, additional money was needed once more. Again, it was all OUR fault. Wasn’t God listening to the voluminous avalanche of prayers that were sincerely offered up and cried out by the church people? However much we prayed, it looks like Jesus was simply fast asleep, as He sure missed His second coming. Apparently He snored just as loudly as His dad.

As tragic as they are, all the kidnappings recently have been publicized by the press by saying that concerned people themselves, ministers, and friends are all “praying” for the safe return of the victims. Granted, this IS a comfort to those who still hope for the safe return of the kidnapped ones, but what happens when all this praying doesn’t work? Some examples are: Rilyah Jackson, Elizabeth Smart, Danielle Van Damm, and Samantha Runnion. Whose fault is it? Was God listening? Was it the parents or children that were at fault? Did they not yell to God loud enough? Or does the fault solely lie at the feet of a perverted, murdering, twisted and deranged kidnapper? In which case, does not this criminal derive his life, breath, and mental thinking from the same energy source that we do? One school of thinking is that a criminal’s genes are structured differently, and so, that gives him these criminal leanings. There’s much work being done on this now by genetic scientists.  The link (if it’s still available) is: http://www .msnbc.com/news/788618.asp?0dm=C17KH If this is the case, then this would indicate that there’s increasing evidence to show that these above problems are indeed God’s fault, and by extension, it probably must be His fault that we’re all so screwed up. The jury’s still out on this one. Also, if prayers are not answered, is it OUR fault? Or is this wacky belief the fault of mindless brainwashing from our ex-Worldwide cult and the other vomitorious religions of the world? Again, this is not to condemn anyone who is doing a decent job for his fellow man, and many are. But the main cultic cesspools of spiritual and physical perversion all preach the same thing in this regard. They all drop a big guilt trip on us if we don’t get our prayers answered. “God is listening,” they’ll tell us, “so why is He not granting your requests? It’s sin,” they continue, “that lies at the door.” But it’s NEVER God’s fault.

The psychology behind these lies is simple. IF these hookers of religion were to ever blame God because He’s not listening (or does NOT exist in the exact manner that they preach), then people – especially in the Worldwide+ cults – would start to look with suspicion at God’s government. Since these money hookers and cultmasters can’t afford this type of scrutiny, they must therefore point the finger of blame elsewhere. They must muddy the waters. They then blame the membership, or Satan, and everyone else except their own fiscal mismanagement and wanton, self-indulgent spending.

They quote the fact that: Most assuredly, God always listens, and this Worldwide cultism and others will try to convince us with that error. If we ever get what we want, then God is pleased with our loyalty and He is happy to give blessings. If we do not get what we ask for, then it’s all our fault, but NEVER because God is not listening. Heaven forbid! God, in the view of their distorted teaching, always listens. But the cruelest one of all, in my opinion, is when a person, and especially a child, dies. Some vacuum-brain of a pastor then gets up and says, that despite the deluge of prayers that were said, that person died after all, because: “It was God’s will.”

If prayer really mattered, as the Worldwide cult + offspring would have us believe, then God (that is depicted in the image of most religious propaganda) would either be deaf, or dead. So, at NO time could it ever be logically said that: “God is listening.”

I remember years ago when one lifetime hireling got up at services and preached about God’s listening to prayer. He had three idiotic conclusions that covered all bases. “God,” he said, “hears all our prayers. And God will say one of three things to our requests. He will say – ‘Yes’, or ‘No’, or ‘Wait’.” This bilge is what is commonly known as whitewashing the situation, or glossing over the unanswerable points. Religion, and that includes the Worldwide + cults, won’t accept the logical and provable facts.

God, observably, is simply NOT an entity as they define IT, and IT, being (as near as we can define IT) can possibly be regarded, in general, as some type of original thot, cosmic energy, formularized life, and then expressed manifestation. We can all add our own descriptive variations. But such a complexity of abstract, mathematical formularization obviously cannot hear humans that plead for anything.

There ain’t no one listening. And their never was. (Pardon the double negative, but yo’all get the idea). That’s why prayer is never answered. If you get lucky, then good for you. But the stats show, if you talk to people, that most prayers go unheeded, and that is because there’s no one to hear or process those requests.

There’s another cop-out saying that goes way back to sometime or other. “God helps those who help themselves.” So who needs God to answer our prayers? Since God doesn’t hear, answer, or come to us in times of need, then who needs God other than for our life support?

This energy needs us, and our resultant experiences in order to grow. We need IT in order to stay alive, and thus, we feed back to IT all our data on living as individual humans. IT needs us as much as we need IT. It’s an abstract, reciprocal relationship. And IT neither hears, listens, or answers. Try telling that to “religious” folks. IT appears to be only an Infinite, cosmic life force, and not some dominant type of anthropomorphic being as organized religion would have us believe. That’s why IT cannot hear. While we don’t fear the cosmic laws of the universe (as we’ll all meld WITH them anyway), we can certainly be hoodwinked – as in the Worldwide cult – to believing that “God” is an out-of-control “spiritual” human. And so, if we believe that line of BS, then religion really has us hooked. They can therefore control our minds, money, and our lives . . . and eventually destroy us completely.

This saying was quoted in a previous article, but it’s worthwhile quoting here in relation to some God that supposedly hears us. It’s from ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach, Page 83. It talks of God as the “Is.” “The Is doesn’t even know about our illusions and games. It only knows Itself, and us in its likeness, perfect and finished.”

IT simply doesn’t care. IT can’t. IT is energy, and as such, It just ain’t listening.