The painful truth about Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Arrmstrong and the Worldwide Church of God

 

 

The Painful Truth
10th Anniversary 1997 - 2007


Painful Observations

by Viking

 

For me, the value of this Painful Truth forum has been the VALIDATION that it brings ---

It really happened!

I don’t see anyone from the church anymore, with minor exceptions --- the existence of this forum reminds me that there are real people that really experienced this, although of course the experiences are not 100% percent the same.

Now that I am “free” of WWCoG, I have determined that I will decide the course of own life, no man/woman will do it for me. We can discuss beliefs, and throw ideas around, but ultimately I have to decide.

This “freedom”, is also relative, depending in what part of the world you live in. I also think that we can make decisions independent of “god”, for there is very little evidence that there is a plan, or will, or a specific path that one must follow. I believe that a ROOT CAUSE of many problems is the belief that there is a “will” or a path that you must take --- in the WWCoG, this caused a lot of frustration, because when things did not work out, one assumed that it must not be god’s will. After a few years of noticing how nothing seems to be god’s will, one could end up a mental case --- if things go wrong in your life, you assume you must be out of synch with god, and this causes a great spiral of self-doubt ---

--- of course, such concepts as the true church, god’s work, god’s commission, god’s government and so on all re-inforce the idea of “god’s will”.

Much later, I realized that if these concepts were wrong in the first place, then the INTERPRETATION of god’s will becomes a personal delusion. Later, I realized that many of my problems stemmed from bad ideas, advice and doctrine of the church.

Which brings me to next subject:   NEGLECT

There is this idea that Christians must be martyrs, to the point of unreasonable sacrifice. After much reflection, I realized that this sacrifice resulted in major neglect.

There are a FEW things that one can do in modern life to have a reasonable existence:

1) get educated

2) use the education to get a job

3) use the income of the job to invest

4) use the income to buy a house

5) use the income to have a RELIABLE motor vehicle

6) continue to educate with extra courses (part time?) to re-enforce the career cycle

7) the rest will pretty much follow

Looking back, I believe that one’s education and career experience pretty much causes one’s life to unfold; depending on where the job takes you, you will make friends and have other experiences.

One can then BUILD on other options, one should save a portion of one’s income every month, and should add other long-term savings such as retirement annuities, and one could also start a business on the side.

I think the above is quite a simple outline, BUT note how religion COULD DEMOLISH such a simple outline!!!

·         Tithes could kill this outline.

·         Refusing to be educated could kill this outline (worldly knowledge etc)

·         Giving up jobs and careers could kill this outline.

·         Never investing in a house could kill this outline.

·         Never making friends or networking could kill this outline.

You get the idea.

Basically, the church KILLED normal life by influencing its members to NEGLECT their responsibility to themselves. And I haven’t mentioned the responsibility to be healthy; many members SUFFERED the consequences of not seeing a doctor at CRITICAL points in their lives; some have therefore suffered the consequences for the rest of their lives; some are in wheel chairs, some have mental problems.

I know a woman who suffered a stroke at 28; she had been in the prime of her life. Still today, I don’t know the whole story, but her father was bitter about church involvement in some medical decision. Recently, she had one of her legs amputated by her condition --- my question is --- where are the benefits of faith? Where is god? Does god give her some consolation --- even if some decisions were dumb --- does god honor that “worship”?

No, there is very little evidence that god gives a stuff. I have NEVER seen any intervention by god. That contradicts what’s in the new testament at least --- where are the miracles? Where is god’s power?

Whatever I have witnessed is not the power of any god. If there is a god, he’s gone into hiding.

 

--9/01/2007

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