Charity

Practicing mindfulness has helped me get through some challenging times. It's nice to hear that a word from your past is being applied in a way and among people that allows you to feel safe. I wonder if HQ patted themselves on the back for using "tough love" (my phrase) to successfully get the results they were demanding of everyone. The fact that twi is still pushing the law of believing makes it most likely they are putting the same pressure on their "volunteers" out on the field today to get such results as well.

I appreciate your point. Bart Ehrman's book Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End would obviously give more details about how Revelation is not about future events than he does in the podcast I watched with Dan McClellan "Ehrmageddon!" with Bart Ehrman. Many (if not most) Christians, however, do not believe in the preterist point of view. Will Brook's (known on GSC as OldSkool) book The Everlasting Gospel: The Little Book of Revelation Chapter 10 certainly does not. So the bloodiest war of them that is about to happen soon (according to end time "prophets") still lives in the minds of misled people. That is what I consider to be so sad. Even if one believes in Preterism, the historical events of the massacre in 70 AD is still tied directly to God as shown by Jesus' prophesying that it would happen. My point is that all religious wars and acts of violence (past, present and future) which are considered justified because of some god's (including Yahweh's) will and purpose are plain and simply evil.

My understanding and experience is that it does not. Do you think it is impossible to have mercy and empathy without a spiritual realm?

So the Preterist interpretation of the bible comes down to a horrible, horrible war between Rome and the Jews resulting in the destruction of the temple. The promised land, Canaan, was acquired through wars. The future events in Revelation are about the bloodiest war of all. War is always the idea of humans. And like The Iliad, gods are thrown into the mix to justify them. The bible is no different. So f...ing sad.

Does the Donate Page's "Irish Eyes" have anything to do with this song - great lyrics and good for an Irish jig. Irish Eyes

Then, there's also the Love Train

"Showing mercy" has been emphasized in the news in the past week and this recent video by Dan shines light on what it means biblically. Another option, humanism, also promotes showing mercy and having empathy. Either way, they are what the world needs now (along with love) .

I have just found this thread and am aware that it mentions another thread ("Another STFI split...an offshoot of an offshoot") as well as there being an earlier thread by this name as well. I look forward to reading up on this topic here on GSC. Thank you in advance to all who contributed.

I recently watched "'We Are The World' Documentary ‘The Greatest Night In Pop’" on Netflix which is about how this song came together in 1985 and how it helped to raise more than $60 million for African famine relief. This purpose was the thread that ran through the documentary. Every story of humanitarian aid can be an inspiration for others to do the same. Thanks for sharing the above in your post.

Good logical questions, Twinky. The idea of God being willing to punish people though is pretty established in the bible, so maybe that concept is why some Christian leaders feel justified in applying it to God for not sending rain during the LA fires (as posited in the video above). Examples of God's punishment in the bible would be the poisonous snakes that bit and killed many Israelites for complaining about God, and the 70,000 who died by plague because David conducted a census. And there are also examples of God causing destruction and death on whole groups of people at one time, including innocent children, like sin and death being passed on to all mankind because of one man's disobedience; like all those who died in Noah's flood, in Sodom and Gomorrah, and in Jericho; and all who suffered and died from the plagues of Egypt, etc.; and in Revelation, you have the events of the Great Tribulation happening to everyone who have not accepted Jesus. (It's interesting though that when it came to the fall of Lucifer and his gang of angels, God chose to let them hang around instead of wiping them all out at once.)

I agree! Does anyone know if GSC becomes permanently inactive whether the site with all its threads will still be available to read?

I envy you Nathan. I can't wait for the day that I am far enough removed emotionally from all this trash that I can relax and simply laugh at it all.

I am so sorry for the devastation and loss of life that is happening in Las Angeles. And no, I do not believe God has anything to do with it UNLIKE this video. Are the LA Wildfires God’s Judgment?

Let's see - in this monumental announcement, the word of God is mentioned five times and vpw mentioned once and Jesus Christ - not at all. (It reminds me of the long GSC's "Absent Christ" thread.) Plus, the existence of the rightly-divided word of God and the ROA are again directly connected to one source - twi's founder vpw. It all seemed just as described above when I was involved back in the 70's and 80's while beneath the surface, all kinds of doctrinal errors and ugly practices were being kept hidden. There has been no similar monumental announcement from the new twi where they acknowledged all their past wrongdoings, apologized for it, made amends where amends were due and disclosed specific changes to prevent them from ever going down that path again. I think such cowardice in not doing so negates all the "greatness" they claim to have.

3 things stuck out for me: 1. Hearing "the rightly divided word" used twice reminds me of the "us vs them" bias I held against other Christians. 2. "...expressed by our Founder, Victor Paul Wierwille..." shows how they are lying to their followers' faces about who this man actually was. How corrupt of an organization is that? 3. "Make your plans now and diligently prepare so that nothing hinders your participation in this splendid occasion. Believe big to overcome any obstacles." (Underlining is mine) This is not an invitation but an command wrapped up in sugar-coated propaganda. It makes me wonder what the pressure will be like by every leader on the field to get their people to attend.

On a more positive note, Happy New Years to everyone on GSC.

That's very magananimous of you Raf. The thought of magapies eating slimy magagots infested in a maganate's garbage has sent me looking for some Milk of Maganesia before I throw up. Sickening is what it all is!

Is that a typo or a political statement?

Below is a quote from the article linked below where McClellan is responding to a book written by Sam Harris titled "The End of Faith." Although I sincerely wonder whether I fit in with those McClellan speaks of in his two last sentences, he does seem to be saying that criticizing fundamentalist dogma (which is based on the inerrant accuracy of the bible) is making "much ado about nothing" since the concept itself is erroneous/illogical and therefore should not have to necessarily cause the end of someone's faith. "The irony of Harris’ claim is that he has to adopt a fundamentalist dogma in order to serve his own ideology (“Religion bad!”). This is a habit with a long and storied history in ideological bickering. It’s a lot easier to criticize religious traditions if you adopt the fragile and brittle worldviews of the most fundamentalist and uncritical groups within that tradition. Then the more reasonable and informed and complex perspectives can be dismissed before they complicate your arguments and make you think too hard. This is a tactic employed frequently by apologists of all kinds, including, evidently, the dogmatic and belligerent apologists from the New Atheist movement. Dogmas, whether religious or anti-religious, are a lot easier to proliferate when they’re black and white and reducible to small conceptual chunks that are easily digestible for young white males in trilbies who are infatuated with the transcendence of their own genius." Since McClellan believes the bible has no inherent authority or inherent meaning and that it is thoroughly inconsistent, what matters are the "more reasonable and informed and complex perspectives" concerning it. I'm assuming that through these perspectives, one is able to still believe in God and have a subjective, but authentic, relationship with him and Jesus Christ. This appears to be similar to perspectives shared by some posters on this forum. I still don't get the practical application of this, but I am continuing to find out more about McClellan's scholarly viewpoints on a variety of topics. On the Myth of Scriptural Literalism

My "test" link I just posted didn't work so I've edited out the whole post.

He gives a lot of info/data in this video and from the others that I've watched so far - it's all new to my ears and a lot to consider. I very much appreciate his response to people who see the suffering going on in the world today as joyful signs of the imminent rapture of the church (@ the 6:30 point).

It didn't get traction at the time, but the seed was planted in Raf's mind - thank you for that. I'm curious to know more about McClellan's faith as a believer given his scholarly positions on parts of the Old Testament. I'm searching now for some videos he's done on the New Testament.

I understand how you might remember him as being "refreshingly honest about his approach to the evidence he has." His premise concerning the study of the bible is "data over dogma." McClellan thinks it's normal that there should be actual contradictions in the bible and the problem with accepting this is because so many Christians are stuck on the mistaken concept of "univocality." This minute-long video is about his viewpoint on the book of Mormon. It's noteworthy since according to his "About Me" web page, he "worked as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City from 2013–2023 and have occasionally taught courses at Brigham Young University as an adjunct instructor." Is the Book of Mormon historical? - Dan McClellan On one of McClellan's podcast called "The Genesis of Genesis" with David Carr, they talk about the creation story in Genesis 2 being written before the one in Genesis 1. Each one was composed by a separate group of people (non-priestly and priestly respectively) who had their own perception of God. Possible explanation(s) for why both stories ended up being in the bible instead of one winning over the other is also given. Thanks for bringing up his name Raf.

BTW, here's McClellan's website: Daniel McClellan

The name is new to me. I've picked one of his podcasts to watch (Episode 6 of the Data Over Dogma Podcast, “God Breathed?”). Any specific evidence you'd like to bring up here?