The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God – Page 469 – Understanding the psychology of religious seduction and spiritual abuse.

July 7, 2011February 7, 2016

THE FUNDAMENTALIST PLAGUE

By Allen C. Dexter

I just read a very good article that precipitated a great deal of thought. I had to conclude that this insightful article was “right on.” You can find and peruse the same article right here.

This mind infection or meme doesn’t just afflict Christianity. It has afflicted the world ever since the first tribal seer, seeress, shaman, etc. concocted the first fantastic tale to explain worldly happenstances and their causes and why existence existed, thus inventing the first gods and/or goddesses and setting himself or herself up as an authority. Over time, set theologies, “holy” books and religious systems developed.

I wish I could say it’s been uphill from there,

It hasn’t.

Christian orthodoxy and fundamentalism is just another in a long line of orthodoxies and fundamentalist phenomena that can be traced back through history. There is really nothing that is truly new.

Once a priestly and governmental aristocracy comes on the scene, it has to find some way to keep the subservient masses under control. The officials of the ruling religion and/or government can’t be everywhere at all times. But – all seeing, all knowing gods can!

Like mythical Santa Claus, they see you when you’re sleeping and see you when you’re awake, or so you are authoritatively assured. There is literally nowhere to hide. You either get in line or you’re toast – usually for all of a terrifyingly fictitious eternity.

Works beautifully on ornery little Johnny in the weeks before Christmas. Works rather well on big John too.

Just like the author of the article above, I was at one time a fundamentalist – a super-fundamentalist. When you’re adhering to the seventh-day sabbath and Bible holy days, clean and unclean meats, etc., I can’t label it anything but super-fundamentalism.

This statement resonated loudly with me: “As a fundamentalist you close your mind to anything but what ancient texts say. You only listen to certain things and filter everything through the lens of your chosen religion.”

I couldn’t state what happened to me in any clearer terms. I went from a skeptical teen-ager to a true believer basically overnight. It was like suddenly coming down with a virus. One moment healthy and vibrant, the next moment sick all over and feeling worse by the minute. I went from healthy skepticism to blatant unthinking fanaticism so fast that it took everyone, including me, by surprise.

This was no run of the mill virus I or people around me had developed defenses against. It was a new mutation! Cataclysmic viruses result when common viruses mutate and develop something new, like suddenly becoming pneumonic. British-Israelism, holy days, divine healing versus doctors and medicine, clean and unclean meats, etc., etc. I learned I shouldn’t even celebrate my birthday. It came upon me and overwhelmed me before I had a chance to really think.

Herbert Armstrong was a master at mutating the virus. He was also a master at keeping the old psychosis of fear dangling over our heads. He did away with the old “hell” and substituted an all consuming lake of fire that would probably vaporize even our ashes. He took away the hope of going to heaven and substituted becoming a literal son of God ruling over a coming perfect world. With a rod of iron, yet — not some little twiggy switch! That got the old adrenalin and testosterone flowing! Real macho message for really macho guys and gals who never before felt they had any real power! They could become GOD! That meant they could “call the shots” — for EVERYBODY!

Awesome! Or, as a particularly ridiculous verbal-ism that infected the group put it, “ghastly.” I have no idea where it originated, but I heard it first from the mouth of David Jon Hill when we went to see him off on the Queen Mary while we were stationed in New York. That was in 1961. Everything he saw that impressed him was labeled “ghastly,” which he pronounced somewhat British-like as “gawstly.”

Another statement I identify with states: “there is a certain thrill in suddenly ‘waking up’ and realizing you’ve been deluding yourself for many years.”

The thrill didn’t come on overnight. There was a period of confusion and bewilderment. It took a while to figure out just how deluded I had been. How deluded the whole damn world was! Despite there being obvious degrees of delusion, delusion is still delusion. Recovery involves a subtle, slow process, sort of like recovering from a serious infection. It takes a while.

How and why did this mind infection last so long – over twenty years in my case before I began to recover? Another statement gives a clue: “You slowly begin to grasp that the fundamentalist rituals you are using are designed solely to keep those delusions fresh and ever present in your mind so that you will quickly fall into line if you have doubts.”

We repulsed contrary thoughts by cliches and slogans we constantly heard and repeated. We were “in the truth,” contrary things were “abominations,” demons and demonic forces were everywhere and oh so powerful, questioning anything meant you were in “a bad attitude” or, horror of horrors, “unconverted.” The “world” was “Satan’s world” and we had to live in it but not be a part of it. The list could go on and on. We had a self-righteous, all-knowing answer for anything and everything. We walked around with that superior attitude and haughtiness I’ve since learned to recognize and abhor in other cultic and fundamentalist people.

This was reinforced by a constant round of listening to the World Tomorrow broadcast, reading the literature, compulsory attendance at weekly services and holy day observances where basically the same messages were hammered home and reinforced time after time. Every holy day, Herbert would ask the same question – “Brethren, why are we here?” and give the same answers, replicating and reinforcing the infection. We were constantly made to feel inadequate because there was no way to adhere to Herb’s formula of studying our Bibles an hour, meditating an hour and praying an hour. We were confident he did even though, if we had honestly thought about it, how in the world could he?

An aura surrounded Herbert Armstrong. An aura carefully created and nurtured by him and those worshipful sycophants who surrounded him. He was god-like in all our eyes. We all aspired to be as perfect and wise as he. That aura persists in thousands of spiritually diseased minds to this very day, in spite of all the salacious revelations that should have dispelled it long ago. The virus clouds their minds and doesn’t allow them to see what is so apparent.

How much of the original infection still remains is a good question. I’d like to believe that it has been totally eradicated. The disquieting thing is that the old virus is still back there sitting dormant in my mind and every once in a while, the old virus tape tries to play again. I have to bring myself up short and realize that I’ve thoroughly disproved all that nonsense.

It’s time to move forward.

June 26, 2011

"The Call"

I don’t think about my childhood much. It’s not that it was particularly awful or that I suffered irreparable damage it’s just that it feels unimportant. Almost as if it happened to another person or it was a movie I saw once but can’t quite remember the details. It somehow does not connect to me anymore, does not inhabit my soul the way childhood does in others.

But I do reflect now and then, dredging up distant memories like faded photographs blurred and distorted with time and age but still recognizable if you look closely enough. If you squint just right, adjust the light the image will begin to make sense and you will find yourself saying, “Ah, yes, I remember now. I had forgotten.”

Upon recent reflection into the question of spirituality and what that means to me I found myself looking at some of those distant memories. I can see myself as a young girl, hair brushed and held securely with a barrette, my nicest dress ironed and immaculate, my white socks and patent leather shoes, everything in its proper place nothing allowed to be out of order. I was sitting in a hard metal folding chair with my notebook and bible waiting for our weekly pilgrimage to “God’s House” to get underway. Two hours of religious instruction in “the way” about to begin. The ritual of prayer, hymns, and dutiful note taking that was a part of my weekly duties as a good daughter. This weekly preparation to save my soul from the sinful and dangerous environment in which I lived known to me as “the world” as if it was a separate state or distant and foreign land was somehow going to keep me safe from the devil “having his way with me” as my mother said making it sound so salacious and almost sexually exciting to a newly hormonal young lady.

I was a good student. I accepted this teaching because it was expected and it was all there was. One way~one God. However it never moved me, never swept me up into a feeling of grace, never inspired or delivered me from heartache. I was told the answers before I was ever allowed to ask the questions. In fact even the questions were picked for me and those that didn’t fit into the churches dogma were quickly discarded forbidden to further discussion. I did what I did, believed what I believed out of fear. Fear of punishment, fear of abandonment, and fear of not pleasing this God that was a jealous and demanding God somehow displeased with the human nature he supposedly created in his infinite and infallible wisdom. Forever paying the price for the sin of the first man and woman, a debt that Jesus paid but somehow I still carried on my account. The sin of individual choice, thought, and desire. It didn’t add up (perhaps why I have always hated mathematics) but I went with it all out of fear.

Until in my seventeenth year of life having been freed from the church going experience since the age of thirteen when I left my mother and moved in with my father I stumbled on a book in the library about the history of witches and paganism. Being the bad ex-Christian I was at the time I stole this book, which later I lost never to be recovered–my first lesson in karma. For the first time in my life the words I read caused a physical and emotional response that had no trace of fear. There was only a feeling of peace as if lost in a foreign land I had suddenly stumbled on a map I could read and understand. There was in fact a spiritual world that seemed to fit me. Although I liked the idea of this particular spiritual path I didn’t start to seek any real training or learning until my mid twenties. I found myself surrounded by other young people who were drawn to Wicca and paganism as I was, but I felt out of place. These young people dressed in costume flirted with witchcraft but didn’t take it seriously. They were like children playing dress up, reveling in shocking and disturbing the status quo with their outlandish and heathen behavior. They were emotionally unstable, personally unreliable, and some even dangerously intrigued by the idea of wielding magic to gain power over others, involved in practices I found to be morally questionable. I walked away from these people and their playacting disillusioned and disgusted. If this was Wicca I wanted no part of it.

Don’t get me wrong I still considered myself a Pagan. I wouldn’t be running back into the arms of Christianity any time soon, but finding no community in which to grow, learn, and practice with that I could trust or even consider real I simply stuck to the central guidelines and forgot about pursuing any deeper commitment to the craft. I rarely performed any type of ritual, I did not continue my studies, and I avoided most so called witches like the plague being completely disinterested in any drama or Hollywood type practices. Most of the people I came into contact with became interested in magic because of a movie they’d seen expecting to find a magical outlet that would gift them with some sort of power they could wield over others. Hogwash. There is no power to be had over another only the power to enrich and expand oneself. Those who seek to control, influence, or even “help” others without their consent are in my mind very dangerous and misguided individuals.

For the next ten plus years I existed in spiritual limbo. I battled (mostly unsuccessfully) my chronic depression, wore my anger and cynicism like a suit of armor, used my humor and indifference as my weapons of choice, and generally just drifted through my life without really ever showing up to the event. I was deeply sad as if in a state of constant mourning. I felt completely disconnected from others and myself. In the distance beyond the fog and shadows in my brain I heard a faint call. So faint I decided it must surely be my imagination.

Imagine my surprise when the call began to get stronger, louder, and more insistent. It was the same voice that spoke to me all those years ago at the tender age of seventeen. The same invitation to leave my state of spiritual limbo and show up to life alive, in color, and present. An invitation to come home only this time my Goddess sent me true guides in the shape of friends. And so now approaching my fortieth year on this earth I resume a journey long ago abandoned, I exchange my armor of anger and cynicism for a warm cloak big enough to share with fellow travelers. I keep my humor but turn in my indifference and select instead an open heart in which to house my many souvenirs, and set out to join the dance of life with childlike abandon and wonder, trusting that this time faith will sustain and inspire me instead of chain and punish me. And I know I am truly blessed to have this time to continue my journey.

June 13, 2011

Them Darned False Prophets!

Religious Prophets.

Family Radio’s Harold Camping, famous for his failed May 21, 2011 prediction, has been rushed to the hospital following a stroke. The Oakland Tribune wrote:

ALAMEDA — Harold Camping, the Doomsday radio preacher who sparked international media attention by predicting the end of the world last month, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke at his Alameda home Thursday night.

The 89-year-old radio evangelist and president of the Oakland nonprofit Family Radio was taken by ambulance from his house Thursday night, a neighbor said, but his well-known, gravelly voice that led many believers to donate millions of dollars to his cause may never be the same.

Well, if we could have only got lucky enough for old Herbie to have been silenced when the first date he set failed to come to fruition! But as we know, the old goat was not the first heretic when it came to religious charlatans. From some recent headlines we learn of other profit$ of doom.

Taiwanese ‘prophet’ may be sued over doomsday rumors.

Nantou County police, in central Taiwan, Thursday (May 12) moved to question ‘Teacher Wang’ who recently made a doomsday forecast on charges of spreading rumours that incited people to panic.

Teacher Wang, whose real name is Wang Chao-hung and a resident of Nantou County, foretold that a magnitude 14 quake and massive tsunami would devastate Taiwan on May 11, at 10:42:37am.

To prepare for the looming disaster, some of Wang’s followers rented vacant lots in Puli Township of the county and filled them with nearly 200 containers that were converted into shelters. They stockpiled daily necessities for emergency use.

The doomsday gossip, which was circulated online, has caused some people to panic. But it proved the doomsday prophecy was groundless, and nothing happened on May 11.

The police said that Wang may be detained for a maximum of three days or fined NT$30,000(US$1,000) for violating the Social Order Maintaining Act by spreading groundless doomsday rumours.

There are others.

Ex-doomsday followers fight for money back.

One of two civil claims brought against religious group Agape Ministries may be settled out of court. That plaintiff and another former church member, Martin Penney, are suing pastor Rocco Leo and two of his associates, Joe Venziano and Mari-Antionette Veneziano.

They want their money back, claiming they handed over more than $400,000 and $1 million respectively to the church based on lies about a doomsday scenario.

Jack Van Impe.

I know less than nothing about this character but he does call into account some of the glum doomsayers and false prophets: Jack Van Impe on false prophets. (Right click and open in new tab, watch for one minute or so.)

Jack call this time of the end a “Happy Time” not a time of destruction and judgment that the Armstrong brand of prophets and apostles declare. So what is with this doom and coming gloom? Well it has always been with mankind since the times they could write on bone or bamboo. It persists to this day using electronic media in the form of TV or DVD and of course, the Internet.

All this bad news is now put forth by only religious nuts either. Secular sources put forth their dribble as to dooms day. It’s a magnet and is amazing how susceptible people are to believing this doom and gloom crap.

Secular Prophetic Scum.

“The Population Bomb”

Paul R. Ehrlich, author of the above title, 1968. Ehrlich argued that birthrates were out of control and would cause a worldwide crisis. He came to this conclusion not through Divine Revelation but through Divine Equation, the liberal scripture of pseudo-science. Ehrlich ‘calculated’ using the equation I = P x A x T. This means that Human Impact (I) on environment equals the product of Population, Affluence and Technology. The conclusion was that in the decades of the 1970’s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death. Did it happen? Was he called on it? Read more HERE. Ehrlich later stated he was kind of right. Read the link I gave. You’ll learn something of value as to understanding his thought process.

Kenneth Watt, ecologist, said there wouldn’t be any crude oil left by 2000.
Harrison Brown, at the National Academy of Sciences, said the world would be out of lead, zinc, copper, tin, gold and silver by this time.
Michael Oppenheimer, author of “Dead Heat” in the mid 90’s, predicted global warming in 20 years. Opphenheimer predicted that “1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers.” Despite the fact that “data from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation-rain and snow-has increased slightly over the century,” Oppenheimer has further said: “On the whole I would stand by these predictions-not predictions, scenarios-as having at least in a general way actually come true.” Just like Harold Camping and Herbert Armstrong!

But Wait, There’s More!

Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at England’s climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, said in 2000 that because of global warming, within just a few years “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is and flurries will be a very rare and exciting event.”

In the 70’s you could read in TIME or LIFE magazine that there would be no United States by the year 2000.

In the endgame there is nothing scientific about these predictions of failure for the human race. These “authorities” just make it up as they go along on their path of deceit and destruction.

To the current Armstrong member, you can ignore this current blog entry. Honesty and objective thinking is lost on you.

To those who have left the gulag of Armstrong-ism, let me ask you “why do you embrace the religion of scientific and/or political whores that puke forth heresies that entice you further down the road of another pseudo slavery?

Just who is it that you follow so blindly?