The Painful Truth About The Worldwide Church of God
We Sold Our Education
By JohnO

Most people in professions usually continue their education within that profession in order to keep up with all the advances.  Others will study something else on the side if they wish to change their careers.  But in both cases, their education is ongoing, and it can cover a large scope of ideas, theories, and practical applications.  However, the education need always be ongoing as there is an infinity to learn.

This is a major problem with a cult.  We allowed ourselves to be lied to by an ignorant, perverse, foul-tempered, little bully.  I’ve often wondered if Herbie ever had the chance to do what L. Ron Hubbard did.  Hubbard, toward the end of his life, had a swarm of dedicated loyalists actually sign a statement of unswerving loyalty to him for the rest of eternity.  This happening was related by an ex-Scientologist.

Would Herbie have demanded such written statements of loyalty?  It’s not the first time such similar things happened in Worldwide.  However, if anyone did that, the first thing they’d throw away would be their free will to choose their own thinking.  If anyone does this, then they’d throw away their natural mental progression, they’d stop thinking “outside the envelope,” their education would cease, and their intellect would bury itself deep within the nearest sewer.

Most people are willing to continue their education in one form or another.  Even if a person’s retired, they can still read to keep their brains active.  My late father read and pieced together all sorts of things all of his life, and he never stopped learning.  Although his body was having its woes, his mind was active, and he finally died at 90.

When people are in a cult, the blinders go on.  We’re locked into our professions and generally keep updated with the latest in only those areas, but how many of us actually went on to further our OUTSIDE education?  How many of us who had (let’s say) a Bachelor’s degree went on to do a Master’s degree once we were in the Worldwide Cult?

According to the mostly ignorant cultmasters, there was no need to learn anymore, because supposedly Jesus was coming soon, and He’d tell us all we’d need to know.  It was often spoken about in the upper cult circles that the three individuals that would sit beside Jesus in “The Kingdom of Heaven,” would be Moses, Elijah, and Apostle Herbie.  Naturally, Herbie would be in charge of furthering our education.  Can anyone imagine such a debacle?

If Herbie was an ignoramus, a bully, a pervert, and a power mad person while he was alive, then why should anything change now that he’s dead?  The low frequency energy that propelled this little twit while he was alive hasn’t changed.  And now – he’s a DISEMBODIED ignoramus, bully, pervert, and a power mad blob of energy banging his goo around somewhere.  The driving force behind evil will stay even if the body dies.  Energy doesn’t change unless something dramatic happens to change it.  In a time/space setting, it will take a long time to change the closed minds of dead cultmasters, and if they chose their own ignorance while they were alive, then they’re still ignorant.  However, that’s their own problem.

But, where this becomes our problem, is that we let this ignorance get to us.  If we simply keep up with our job skills, and not continue our education, what good does it do?  Most of us learned our skills in a classroom, but if we haven’t improved on those skills, then what’s the point?  We were given something, but we took it and passed it on without any amplification.  That was one of the biggest problems with the Ambassador “experience.”  There was no growth.

This reminds me of the Biblical parable (also paralleled in other cultures), where one guy is given 10 talents, another 5, and another 1.  Each of the first two multiplied what they were given, but the last nerd simply buried his.  He was given a gift for which he didn’t work, and expected to do something with it.  But he just took the gift and wasted it by burying it.

This is what most (repeat MOST) of the cultmasters and hirelings did that were spewed out of Ambassador, just like Herbie clones.  If any questioned a teaching, or wished to learn more, then that was forbidden by the system.  “You’ve been told what you need to know,” was the attitude, “now pass on THAT information alone.  Add nothing.”  And that’s not all.  Most congregations were stifled in any further pursuit of the truth, lest they might really FIND that truth.

And so, we were all muzzled by the glass ceiling of plagiarized, theological stupidity that came down from centuries old writers to Ellen G. White, to CG7, to Herbie, and then to us.  Since we thot it all true, we never sought that mind-boggling universe of truth and  wonder which lay above that glass ceiling.  “God revealed all this information to me,” Herbie once yelled.  “And where did you all get it from?  You got it from ME.”  Herbie made the glass ceiling, and we had to look no further.  And so, many of our minds stagnated.

If we’re given a gift, we must grow with it.  Worldwide forbad that sort of behavior.  Like the jerk who buried his one talent, we were given something that started us thinking in a “God” direction, but we were commanded to bury it and take it no further.  That was the big problem with the “Law of Moses.”  You weren’t allowed to think for yourselves, or even question things.  Just: “Shut up” people were told, “and do what the law says.”  That’s the way of any cult.

For example, when we first go to school, we learn that 1+1=2.  That’s a given, but we’ve added nothing to this original information.  So, if we go through the rest of our lives chanting 1+1=2, then we’ve buried our talents.  Those who will insist on building with that given talent, then they will then do their own research, become their own teacher, and find out that 2+2=4, and 3+3=6, etc.  This is not to say that people can’t ask others who can help them.  But they’re still searching  . . . and that’s the key.  For those who continue to press on, the world opens up.  New understand comes to that person, and now they’ve developed that original talent they were once given.  And one day, that 1+1=2 can eventually become E=MC(squared).

While in Worlwide’s cult, most of us feared to question anything that didn’t come from the pulpit.  But now that we’re free, we can look around anywhere all we damned well please.  We can check the Internet, we can explore the libraries, we can ask all sorts of questions, and we can be free to agree or disagree.  Being contentious is another matter, but I’m simply talking about the freedom that we now have to explore all things and question anything.

I was once told that a proper teacher will give the students a base on which to work.  He/she will try and make the subject exciting enough that those students will be mentally stimulated enough to study further.  But if all students do is to repeat the information given, then what’s the sense in taking notes, exams, or going through life with an indelibly etched set of formulas on their psyches?

We’re free now to seek, explore, learn more, enlarge on the original input, devise more provable theories, and grow.  Such a scenario is a threat to any cult, e.g. Worldwide.  With this freedom, there is NO mind control, and anyone can research to their limit.  Also, there’s another big advantage to educational freedom.  It promotes new discovery.  The student can always take the time to prove it or not, but from a base (or given talent) a universe of understanding can flow.

Invariably, I was in trouble from cultmasters in Worldwide because I’d ask questions of the congregation that had not been addressed by Apostle Herbie.  He hadn’t gone past 1+1=2, since he stole all his ideas from someone else.  He used those given facts, buried them, and expected his followers to be the same lazy, non-thinker that he was.  He didn’t have the drive, the diligence, or the willingness to go any further than a pile of religious stupidity that made him lots of money, extended his power base, and inflated his ego.  Many of the CG7 old timers told me, in years gone by, that “Herbert was a lazy man.”  Apparently it extended to his thinking also, and he resented anyone that might question him, because that might make them equal – or better – intellectually than he ever could be.  If he were ever mentally challenged on anything, he’d invariably throw a tantrum.  His intellect couldn’t handle a mental duel.

And so, mainly out of fear of “God’s wrath,” we sold our education, and stopped multiplying our talents –and gave our mentality, common sense, and reason – giving it all into the hands of a willfully ignorant salesman.  And I’m just as guilty of this stupidity as we all were.

As I said above, I used to ask questions to the congregation in my later CG7 years that I hoped would spark enough interest for those who were willing to investigate.  Many did, and came up with great answers.  Many came up with new and exciting questions, and so we’d all discuss them.  Unfortunately, many couldn’t be bothered, simply because “we’ve never thought that way before.”  And to them, the matter was closed.

Now, with your permission, I have a couple or two questions that anyone can research if they want.  The answers have all been given on the PT Site in the past.

Question:  Did “God” have a beginning?  If so, how did it happen?  If not, then why?

Wanna chat?  The new email is:  Enlytenlife@sbcglobal.net

 


If you have anything you would like to
submit to this site, or any comments,
email me at:

Email The Painful Truth


Copyright
The content of this site, including but not limited to the text and images herein and their arrangement, are copyright © 1997-2003 by The Painful Truth. All rights reserved.

Do not duplicate, copy or redistribute in any form without prior written consent.

Disclaimer