He Was Right!

Punxsutawney Phil
Punxsutawney Phil

 From where I’ve been sitting – with cool breezes, sunny blue skies and mountain greenery – I’d say Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction for an early spring in 2016 was correct. Now I don’t live in western Pennsylvania, so your call may be different.

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Even so, Phil’s accuracy rating is given as 39%. (Several websites quote this figure; for example, see Livescience.com). Speaking as a one-day wonder has-been in the WxChallenge (a weather forecasting competition) I’d say Phil’s score as a general forecaster is not very good. But, in his position as (to quote a character in Ground Hog Day) “seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators” he’s going well. Certainly Phil the Punxsutawney Prophet scores higher than the Des Moines Doomsayer, HWA.

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In the pages the Painful Truth, some 300 false prophecies of HWA and his minions are listed. And that doesn’t include those of prophecies of splinter leaders who followed in his wake. But – how many of his predictions actually have come to pass?

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In the words of HWA’s grandson, he was touted as an insightful prophetic wonder. From memory, I think he was credited with about three or four good calls. To begin with, the USA never had a direct military conflict with Russia. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and limit that to the now defunct USSR, and give him a point.

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Germany reunited. Well, the majority of it was, but if HWA’s WWII prophecies had come to pass, Germany wouldn’t have any need to reunite. But, give him another point.

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Trouble in the Middle East – ignoring his early claim that the modern nation of Israel wasn’t going to happen, give another point. And give him a bonus point for the “prophecy” of the Six-Day War, which he wasn’t expecting to happen in 1967. And let’s ignore the Radio Jerusalem contract.

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So we’ll give HWA four points for the accuracy of his undated predictions. Out of 300, that makes his accuracy rating less than 2%. Maybe he was better than that, but nowhere near Phil’s score.

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Of course, Phil makes specific weather predictions. In the standard repertoire of titles in the splinters, one may find a booklet, article or sermon with a title like God Controls the Weather. The tone used by different COGs varies from God using weather favors or disasters for specific reasons, to God micromanaging the climate down to every drop of rain that falls (whether a flower grows or not).

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The best splinter “predictions” for weather events – apart from generalized future events – have been in hindsight: why things occurred. So we are told Katrina hit New Orleans because it was a wicked city, drought in California was because legalizing same-sex marriage, and so on. And I’m not going near the different takes on Global Climate Change. They seem to forget that prophets such as Elijah warmed specifically what would happen before it happened.

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So perhaps God actually has Phil’s ear – he made a prediction that came to pass, and not an excuse for something that already happened.

Passover: The Feast of Pack and the Last Seder

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The Feast of Pack and the Last Seder

Once again we have been reminded the Passover is not on Nisan 15, the Crucifixion was not on Friday, the Resurrection was not on Sunday, Easter is Pagan, and so on. And Dave Pack claimed several times to have proved through genealogical research that his surname is derived from the word Passover.

English has a problem in that the word Easter is used for the “Sunday Passover” whereas in the “romance languages” the words are similar: in French, for example, Easter is Paques and Passover is Paque; in Spanish, both are Pascua. So if Dave’s ancestry was French, Spanish, or Italian, Pack may be an Anglicized form of Passover. Or Easter. If it was English or German, the etymology is different.

That ties in with Passover, because Dave mentioned in a sermon that the “fifth cup” in the Passover Seder is for Elijah, and he “proved” he is Elijah. And he thinks calling himself Elijah and ‘Pack’ being derived from Passover will impress the Jews when he goes to preach to the cities of Israel (here he means Eretz Israel, not BI.)

Back in December 2014, Bob Thiel posted portions of a Good News article by Dr Hoeh. The excerpt is an attempt to show that the 10 Commandments are valid, but laws related to the Temple Korban, aka “sacrifices” are out. It concludes with comments of dealing with the Last Supper (the Last Passover Seder). Here HH tells us that Jesus substituted unleavened bread and wine for the Passover lamb, and this was absolute proof that offerings were done away. Maybe Paul forgot that when he made a Nazarite vow to show he hadn’t gone native with the Gentiles.

The traditional Passover Seder involved the Passover Lamb (until the Temple was destroyed) with bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and five cups of wine. The wine and bread Dr Hoeh mentioned was almost certainly the fourth cup, which, he failed to notice would then be ‘fulfilled’. The ‘unfulfilled’ fifth cup is for Elijah.

There were two remarks ministers would make before Passover: “If in doubt, out!” and “It’s not the Feast of Unleavened Beer!” Checking Jewish kashrut guidelines, some differences in the WCG and the ‘Kosher for Passover’ lists are apparent. While WCG may have been close to correct with what “bread” was, they didn’t have the cultural and contextual understanding of “leaven” right. Beer that was made from fermented grain should have been on the WCG “out” list, and the chemical compound Sodium bicarbonate on the “in” list. However, the slogan “If in doubt, out!” is a good guideline to follow in assessing what a COG minister tells you.

False Foundation

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From my years of building bunkhouses, cookhouses, and outhouses, I say a building is no better than its foundation. If the lay of the foundation isn’t good, the building won’t be good.

And I could ramble on for hours about it, and how it applies to organizations, but I remember there’s a hymn we sing at church that makes that point. Now I don’t sing as good as pa, but here goes:

“The Church Has One Foundation”

Original lyrics by Samuel John Stone, music by Samuel Sebastian Wesley

The splinters’ false foundation

Is Herbert Dubya’s word,

With all his pilfered doctrines,

From painful to absurd!

He said that God revealed them,

And showed him from on high,

But if you search this website,

You’ll see that’s just a lie!

Back to one false foundation

It will never ever be

They’ll never be united:

COG leaders can’t agree.

With natural attrition

As members all grow old

There will be no fruition

And one by one they’ll fold!