OK so all this talk of “the holy spirit” has me digging back through the old lit and re-examining exactly what I thought about “the holy spirit”, why it’s so different from what fundamentalist Christian believers say “the holy spirit” is, and just generally re-evaluating where I stand on the matter.

First, a quote from “Just What Do You Mean….Born Again?”

God (Hebrews Elohim—a name, plural in form, meaning more than one person, forming the one God) said,  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” We were made of material flesh, but in the form and shape of God, and with minds on a totally different plane than animal brain. The human family was made so  that we might be able to receive God’s Spirit, and become His children. Animals were not so made.

This is what we actively believed. This is what I actively believed. After exiting, it became a matter of this world is all there is, there isn’t any “holy spirit”. And I still believe that. Barring physical, reproducible, scientific evidence that the spark of human consciousness is somehow extrinsic to human physiology, instead of being intrinsic to the three layers of cerebral matter that we have evolved down through the millennia, I do not “believe” in “the holy spirit”.

Ex-Armstrongists either take the tack that “the holy spirit” is not only extrinsic to “man”, it is its own entity unto itself. This seems like balderdash on the face of it, but how much of that is my general atheist leanings, and how much is the church programming, I’ve yet to determine.

The holy spirit was a breath, a wind, a force, a generative power. Such the church taught us. It was lifted directly from Armstrong’s Holiness Quaker upbringing, adapted slightly to fit the church’s semi-Arian binitarian beliefs, but pretty much whole-cloth verbatim otherwise.

That we as humans have a spark of consciousness that sets us apart from the animal kingdom is incontrovertible; I would not be typing this and you would not be reading it, if we did not. We would all still be living back in the times of Clan of the Cave Bear. But here we sit, and I type, and you read, and we are each formulating thoughts as we do so.

Are these thoughts “divine” or from an external source? I am inclined to say no. Believers in the spiritual practice system (the religious ones at least) I have taken to engaging in lately, would disagree with me. That’s fine. There are also those who feel as I do, and they seem to get along with each other in a quasi-harmonious manner, with only a few exceptions.

The thing is, we all do have an inherent self-sufficiency, that we either drift away from, or forget, or don’t pay attention to, throughout the vagaries of our day-to-day lives. Where the fundamentalists and the religious believers trip themselves (and everybody else) up is by literalizing this potential into a hard-and-fast set of rules (legalism) that MUST be obeyed, or else it’s “No salvation for you!”

Add to that, the only ones who do get salvation (in their minds) are the ones who toe the party line and agree with exactly what their theology is.

Armstrongism was no exception to this. We were the chosen ones, the special elect of god, we were the ones who would be the old testament overlords of them all, in 1975 or 1996 or “three to five to ten years” or “in this generation”. We, alone, were the righteous ones. (Self-righteous is more like it.)

The “holy spirit” in Armstrongism was conferred only by baptism. 2nd-generation members had the holy spirit working with them, but not in them, as per the Youth Bible Lessons. This led to a denial of the intrinsic humanity of children, and is likely what led to much of the abuses that were perpetrated upon 2nd-generation church members, down through the years.

Every single human being on the planet has the spark of human consciousness. That is undeiniable. And yet, we have humans classifying themselves and others as not all belonging to the same race of humanity.

I would contend that those who do not truly grasp that all of us are the same on the inside (whether you want to call it “the spark of the divine” or just plain human consciousness), do NOT have any kind of spirit, holy or otherwise, about them. They have forgotten what it was to be a small child, before all the preconceived notions of right and wrong and either-or thinking and separating people into categories has taken hold.

Some fundy-preachin’ atheists too, have forgotten this, in their zeal to belittle and berate and otherwise demean the “true believers”. As I said in the comments on “I deny the holy spirit” the divide between emotionalism and intellectualism is really the only divide between fundamentalist atheists and fundamentalists believers (of any religion). Atheists have emotions too, and are human beings too, however much the religious believers would like to deny that. Or otherwise insist that we are pale shadow-selves, in comparison to their “holy” inheritance…….

We are all human, and we all have the spark of consciousness that makes us human. All of us. We need to remember that, no matter who we are dealing with. Even ourselves.

One scripture that the WCG and other demoninations (that was a typo but I think I’m keeping it, that’s hwo “herbvert” started too) agreed on was the one about denying the holy spirit. The bible says that’s the only unpardonable sin.

Now I don’t believe in the Bible, by any means. I think best case it’s just a bunch of stories stuck together, and worst case, along with the Qu’ran, it’s one of the most dangerous books ever compiled.

But even if I did I would never think that that scripture means what most seem to think it means. One thing that the Jesus figure was very adamant about was that words really don’t mean things all by themselves – it’s the meaning behind them. You can deny the holy spirit till you’re blue in the face, but until it actually comes upon you and starts doing whatever it is holy spirits do, and you say “no thanks”, that’s the only time that the “sin” would be unforgivable.

I deny the holy spirit. I mean it, and I say it without reservation and coercion. But so what? That means absolutely nothing. Yet I probably just offended a large group of sniveling busybodies who seem to think that my salvation is their business. Guess what? It isn’t, and it never has been. It’s just words. And the God that I would follow does not give one flying shit about what you say – only about what you do, what’s in your heart, and what naturally comes out of that.

It means exactly as much as “Jesus, I accept you into my heart”. Still nothing. Because if not followed by intent and deed, it’s worthless.

In fact, you know what? I think if you claim there’s a “holy spirit” working in your life, yet you behave like an utter asshole in the name of your God, you’ve blasphemed against it a whole hell of a lot more than I have.

Suck on that, morons.

I have two topics to write about today. One being who is really to blame for the plight of second-gens, and the second being that of fear.

Last week I had an interesting… revelation, shall we say. I won’t go into too many details, but suffice it to say I made significant headway on realizing what is at the core of the problems I have been fighting for years. And here’s the surprising thing: It ain’t the church.

See, when you come down to it, the church didn’t force me into a car, the church didn’t drive me to services, the church didn’t force me to stay till the end, the church didn’t spank me when I made my parents look bad. The church didn’t keep me away from childhood friends, the church wasn’t a deeply conflicted closet gay who spent almost all of its time trying to hide that fact. The church didn’t seek a divorce when I was 9, the church didn’t threaten to send me to my grandmother’s house – who was a staunch catholic. The church didn’t tell me that it was wrong to celebrate birthdays, the church didn’t make me fast on the day of atonement, and the church didn’t try to turn me against my mother.

The church did none of those things. My parents, however, did. The fact that the church told them to is really not material. The church never held a gun to their head, the church used nothing but words and the threat of being kicked out of an organization (and a few lies about going to the lake of fire). That’s all.

The blame does not lie with the church. The church was not responsible for my well-being. It does, however, lie with my parents. And whether or not the church told them to do it or not, it was ultimately their choice. And they made the wrong one.

They are the ones I should be angry with. Not the church. The church only deserves anger for what they said – the lying, the hypocrisy, and the fraud. Not for what happened to me. Because I know for a fact that if I had been given a choice, I would not have gone. My parents forced me. And because of that, they deserve all of the blame, all of the anger, all of the scorn, and all of the consequences. No one else. Not HWA, not the minister, not the other members. No one. Just them. Because they would be nobodies begging on a street corner if it were not for people like my parents.

The other topic I wanted to speak on is that of fear. When I left the WCG and its theology, I rejected all of the stuff they taught. I rejected conservatism, I started identifying more with the democratic party, but I was more of a libertarian. However, now, as I grow up, I am starting to realize that the democratic party is just as much of a fearmonger as the republican party. The only difference being – the republicans are afraid of things outside of the country, and the democrats of things inside the country.

And they scared the crap out of me for a while. The country is going to hell, they said, here comes fascism, they said. In fact, one of them the other day predicted declaration of martial law on the 1st of October.

And those things have an effect on me. Because I was raised to be watchful, and I was raised to always think the worst, and I guess a part of me still doesn’t expect to live for more than a few more years. In fact, a part of me is kind of resigned to it. And what kind of life is that?

Politics – no worse than the WCG in some ways – always stretching and twisting truths in order to make things appear worse than they are – because that’s how you control people. Peddling fear and doom, setting yourself up as the savior from that fear and doom – they’ll follow you anywhere. The WCG knew it, all major political parties know it, and it’s starting to disgust me.

However, I know for a fact that if it weren’t for what I was taught… it wouldn’t affect me nearly as bad. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

If things are scaring you right now, I suggest you think back as to why, and think also on a day with thick fog. You can’t see things from far away and they always appear threatening and dangerous. But as you come closer, you will see fog, you will see objects, and they will become clearer and clearer. And while there may be some dangerous things that are revealed, they are not nearly as bad as they seemed to be from the distance – and you should never listen to people who are whispering in your ear about the dangers to be seen in the fog and how you shouldn’t move until the fog clears.

The fog will never clear.

The dangers will never completely abate.

But they are not, and never will be, nearly as bad as those with an agenda would like you to believe.

I had a passing thought the other day, and when I realized exactly what it was I was thinking, I almost couldn’t believe it. But it’s a sign, a good sign, that some of the ingrained cult programming may be getting sloughed off.

I thought briefly (ever-so-briefly) ahead twenty-five years in my own personal future.

Do you understand that? Twenty-five years. Maybe I’m making too much of it in retrospect. But that has to be some kind of watershed moment.

Now that said, it was a passing thought, and I didn’t have a clear-cut glimpse or vision of what or where or how I would like to be, in twenty-five years’ time….but I actually considered that there will BE a twenty-five years’ time, twenty-five years from now. The moment (when I caught myself thinking it) was astonishing, gratifying, and mystifying all at the same time.

I have never been able to visualize, conceptualize, or even comprehend, anymore than one (or at most two) years at a time. I dreaded, absolutely loathed, the “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” question in job interviews. How can I answer that truthfully?

“I don’t.” That definitely wouldn’t get me the job. No I’ve never answered the question honestly. I’ve always said what I would like to be doing, or what my plans at the moment are. But I always felt like I was lying when I answered that question, because I really, honestly, absolutely could not see myself in five years’ time.

Even long after the promise of the kingdom that never came dissolved like the mirage it actually was, I still found myself incapable of projecting ahead to five or ten years, never mind fifteen or twenty! But twenty-five?! That would have been unthinkable, even as recently as last year.

It wasn’t even about “waiting for the kingdom” anymore, at least not after I exited. It was all I had ever known, this psychological limbo of living moment-to-moment, day-by-day. If you were really tuned out from the cognitive dissonance, you might be able to get away with thinking a year ahead in time. But think ahead any more than three years, and that was cause for immediate thought-termination!

Because the only “truth” that had to be “held fast to” was that there wasn’t going to BE any three or five or ten or fifteen years ahead. If you thought past that, well either you had to dream gently of the kingdom in which you were going to be an old testament overlord, or you had to withstand a pretty serious test of faith.

The same was true for looking backwards. You couldn’t think about the past after a certain age, because that was over the “three to five to ten to fifteen” year mark, and that way lay cognitive dissonance.

We lived in limbo, and since limbo was all I had ever known, I never questioned it, nor thought any differently, even after we dropped the church, and gave all outward appearances of being “normal”.

After we exited, the future (for me) had changed, irrevocably. I could no longer look ahead to some bright and shining future with no more pain and fear and subjugation in the present that I was supposed to “welcome” because it was “character-building”. The future was a nebulous thing, and thanks to my either-or mindset, it was EITHER prophecy OR no future at all.

I wasn’t afraid of the future-that-wasn’t-a-future-without-the-kingdom, I just couldn’t conceive of anything mentally to take its place. Probably why I clung to science fiction as much as I did. Because no matter how horrifying the futures I read about or watched were, at least they were possible futures. Of which I had none, to call my own.

I have been living for the past twelve years in that same limbo. I grabbed the world and hung on, just trying to get through a daily life I was ill-equipped for, in a world that I made more hostile than it may actually have been. It was a very “Matrix” kind of time looking back on it. I went about my day-to-day grind, just trying to get through another day, before…..

Before what? There wasn’t anything to look forward to anymore, because it was no longer possible to look forward at all. That way lay madness, because it would have meant not only facing up to the true uncertainty of “the future”, but also having to face the fact that the future I had looked forward to all of my life was completely, inutterably false. And it was gone forever.

But now I have gotten a glimpse out of the limbo, a look far enough ahead into something that could be, might be, might not be, or even won’t be or couldn’t be…….At least it will BE. There will BE a “twenty-five years from now”, even if I am not alive to see it. (I hope I am though!)

I may be making too much out of what is essentially nothing. But I feel, in a way I have never felt before, grounded somewhere, somehow. Instead of being “me” just floating through my life, watching it all pass me by, I feel suddenly as though I am someONE, someWHERE, travelling towards someTHING. In a concrete, real, solid way, that I was never able to grasp before.

I don’t want to fall asleep again.

Crackergate Part Deux indicates the ritualistic religious ministurds are pretty much a case of “you can dress ‘em up pretty but they’re still pastards all the way through”. But check out THIS GUY:

Also close your eyes and play point-n-click roulette over at the Rick Ross website. Do I need to even bother linking to the myriad of media items on the televangelists/”prosperity gospel” preachers?

Doesn’t matter the title, doesn’t matter the doctrine, doesn’t matter the church. The minute these men “set themselves apart” from the rest of the poor lowly sheeple, it all starts going downhill.The ONLY thing “ministry” is about is hierarchy, and power, and getting a leg up on the rest of the poor slobs to “get in with gawd”.

Given the exchange in the comments on a recent post, it appears that the following points may need repeating.

I know it’s already been dealt with, but for anyone just new to the discussion here, I recommend you read our About page and the post Why swear?

As for those of you who would say to us, “Oh well maybe you get such a bad reaction from people because you swear,” that is 100% typical of the judgmental attitude we had to endure when we were in the church.

But it goes beyond even that, because we are swearing here with terms that are considered “obscene” by the standards of the majority of the English-speaking world in North America. If we were to start using all the “curse” words that were banned when we were in the church, the blog would start sounding like an episode of Pleasantville!

Don’t believe me? Oh what short memories you have. Obviously you have never had to sit through the interminable sermonettes on “the dictionary meaning of the word for understanding of carnal knowledge”, or the endless lists of “substitutionary” words that were not to be used either.

Some examples: Updated, thanks to our fine commenters below!

• Never ever ever say “God bless you” to someone who sneezes. Why? Because this is the English translation of the German word “Gesundheit”. So not only were you not supposed to say the German word, you weren’t supposed to “curse” its English translation either. (That’s a peculiar social tic I have never quite been able to completely rid myself of, unfortunately.)
• “For understanding of carnal knowledge” is what F-U-C-K really means, as per the dictionary. But because “the world” (yes THAT “world”) uses it as an obscenity, we are to “be not conformed to the world”, and to not even consider using “that word” if we want to prove ourselves as “godly” and “truly-converted”.
• “Crap” is unacceptable because it is a substitution for a harsher word that refers to human excrement. And don’t even consider using “the harsher word”!! That’s grounds for immediate disfellowshipment!
• The corresponding word for urine is also unacceptable because the world uses it as an obscenity, therefore we are to separate ourselves from the world, etc., etc. (Second verse same as the first.)
• “Gee whiz” is a substitution for Jesus, thus it is “taking the lord’s name in vain”, don’t break that one of the Top Ten, or it’s No Kingdom For You!
• “Sheesh” uses the same rationale as above. Saying “cheese” is unacceptable as well.
• “Oh my god” is taking the lord’s name in vain. No Kingdom for you!
• “Gosh” is a substition for “God”, cf. “taking the lord’s name in vain”. (I think one of them also tried to connect it to Goshen, but I may be misremembering that.) Thus, “oh my gosh” is out too.
• “Oh my goodness” for the same rational as above.
• “Oh my heavens” is a protestantism. ‘Nuff said?
• “Oh my Lord” taking the lord’s name in vain.
• “Oh my Word” usually deserved an entire sermonette to itself, to do with TEH WOOOOOORD of GAWD. Needless to say, the expression was unacceptable.
• “Golly” is a substitution word (I forget the rationale they used with that one — Dennis?? Anyone??) Just don’t do it.
• “Holy cow” refers to idol-worship because of the Hindus and their beliefs. “Thou shalt not bow down before graven images”, the parable of the golden calf, etcetera.
• Dang, darn, doggone it, were all substitutes for “damn”.
• Heck was a substitute for hell.
• “Jiminy Cricket” because it used the initials J.C., which were cognate for “Jesus Christ”, therefore “the lord’s name in vain” yadda yadda yadda rinse lather repeat.

That’s all I’ve got so far. I’m sure some of the other regulars here can come up with more.

Needless to say, the lists went on and on (and on and on and on and on and on) and did not even come close to addressing actual swearing, as practiced by/in “the world”. Because we were not to consider ourselves part of the world. We were separate, we were special, we were the chosen elect of gawd, and “let the dead bury the dead”. We did not believe that we were equal members of the human race, nor were we to believe that we, and all the people surrounding us, all belonged to the same species, on the same planet, lost in the vastness of the same cosmos.

So why do we swear, you ask?

You tell me.

Aggie’s images over on the right there are food for thought.

Spokesman’s Club has always invoked images to me of a bunch of losers trying to learn how to more effectively convince others to be losers.

“More effective speakers”. Fine. But it conveniently ignores that fact that the first step to being an effective speaker is actually have something worthwhile to talk about. Going to Spokesman’s Club to learn how to more effectively speak about WCG doctrine is kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.

And there’s no fucking way the ministers didn’t realize this.

One thing that the church and my parents drilled into me is that lying is evil.  I tend to, on principle, agree with this, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have lied unintentionally (and realized it), and on maybe one finger (guess which one) the number of times I have lied intentionally.

This is not something that I have considered to necessarily be a bad thing.  After all, lying really does cause more problems than it solves, and in most cases it’s really trading a some quick convenience for some long term grief.  I’ve always preferred to just take my lumps right away rather than have to deal with the compounded interest of having lied about it sometime down the road.

This would be all fine and good if it weren’t for the fact that my parents, the church, and everyone I hung around with were consummate liars.

After all, services were all about lying, right? You walk in and immediately you’re someone else. You have no problems, you’re a happy family, you like everyone, you’re helpful and friendly and just the greatest church person who ever lived! You love what the minister had to say, and you go home all edified.

And you believed it.

And it was a fucking lie.

There are two kinds of lies that the church actively advocated. Lying to others was wrong. But lying to yourself was not. And acting was not. Somehow acting was different than lying, wasn’t it?

Somehow.

But only when it came to the church.

There’s enough of a cognitive dissonance hole in that bullshit to drive a fucking truck through, isn’t there?

I write about this not because of the church, actually, although it is good to know where this comes from. Most of my anger towards the church has dissipated. That doesn’t mean that I’m not sitting here trying to figure out how to push forward, when everything I ever knew was so utterly fucked up that it’s only right now that I’m equipped enough to even start asking the questions. I’m writing this because I am starting to realize that my aversion to lying – or at least my aversion to acting – is probably causing me a great deal of social damage. And I’m starting to wonder if the cost is worth it.

So what do you think? Is it worth it to act like someone you are not to get ahead? As long as you deal with the issues behind closed doors? Or is being true to yourself the most important thing, no matter what?

Well if this isn’t proof that you can dress the ministurds up in silly robes and funny hats, but the attitude problem is endemic, I don’t know what is.

So here’s the video:

Where’s the beef you’re asking yourself?

OK the two guys at the front in dresses are both ministers. You want to look at the 2nd guy (on the right hand side). He’s higher up in the pecking order than the guy on the right, he’s the “bishop”. (Can’t see the rook anywhere, but I guess the sheeple lining up are the pawns—sorry where was I? Oh yeah.)

Watch as a woman in a white skirt and black sweater walks up to ministurd #2 (it’s obscured by the people lining up to get their crackers from the guy in the dress on the left). Watch closely, and you’ll see her skirt kind of poof out when she kneels down. That’s all you’ll see, and then you’ll see the videographer kind of jostle around, and then keep your eyes on the guy on the left, you’ll see him talking to the woman who stays kneeling, with her hands pressed together like she’s begging. Finally, she gets up, gets her cracker, and goes on her way.

The Crackergate part of it? She wanted to kneel down to eat her cracker, and the ministurd said she had to stand up. She continued to stay kneeling, so he wouldn’t give her the cracker until she stood up. The “full story” is allegedly detailed in the video description.

One commenter on the YouTube thread was prophetic however:

“i advice to remove the video because people against the Church could use it against the Church, thank you.”

(Don’t even get me started on that “the church The Church THE Church” madness — any wonder the RCC was demonized so much, they were Herbie’s main competition!)

Um yeah, do you think maybe people would do that because it shows that YOUR church (not THE church kthxbai) is absolutely fucking insane?!?!

But here’s the thing: Is the ministurd in the wrong for insisting it’s his way or the highway (may not be wrong but at least it’s typical), or is the woman who wants to kneel down to eat her cracker wrong?

Clearly the woman is misguided for thinking that eating a cracker is going to get her in with god in the first place, let alone for believing that there is only One True Way to eat said cracker. If she was born and raised in that church (just as we were born and raised in “the” church), then she may not be entirely at fault, for believing in the one true way to eat her one true cracker.

OK so the fact that they’re fighting over whether or not it’s right/wrong for them to kneel down to eat their crackers is nutty. The fact that the ministurd in question believes it’s wrong for the sheeple to kneel, and they have to stand up to eat the cracker is no less nutty.

The question I have is, why are people surprised that he’s insisting they have to stand up? He’s the minister! Actually he’s their bishop. I’m thinking that means his word really is THE word if yannowhatimean. Hello! If you don’t want to be ordered around by somebody who claims themselves as “an apawstle of gawd”, why are you in a church again?

It’s a fucking cracker!!

Wow, I guess I have a lot of things to say, because I’m going to write another post here.

The WCG and my parents taught me that there is one way to look at life.  There is the way you are supposed to be, and there is the way you are not supposed to be  Everyone in the Church was to aspire to be that which they were supposed to be, and everyone not there was by definition not that which they were supposed to be.

I think that 10 or 15 years out of the church, this is the lesson that has stuck with me the most, and it is also the lesson that has caused me perhaps the most damage ongoing.  Because when you leave a cult like that, one thing that it is really easy to take with you is the judgementalism.  I left the cult and decided to take an attitude of “live and let live” – that people can do as they like and I have no business trying to stop them.  Such as it is, that’s a great attitude to have – in that at least the external judging no longer happens, and you can at least get along with people.

But getting along with people is not exactly the same as respecting people, and getting along with people is not exactly the same as liking people, and having an attitude of judging people, even if internally, really has very little in common with actually, uh, not being lonely.

Over the past years since I left, I have been spectacularly unsuccessful with dating, with meeting people, or with making friends.  This is, in part, because although I have succeeded in not being a jerk, I have not succeeded in not judging people.  If people do something I don’t like or don’t approve of, I don’t tell them not to do it or that they’re going to hell.. I just don’t have anything to do with them.  Does wonders for not pissing people off, but at some point… is not pissing people off enough?

And it also has to do with accepting yourself as well.  The church taught you that you were rotten and evil and not perfect and always needing to improve yourself.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with improving yourself.  But at some point you have to stand back, look at yourself, and think “you know, I am who I am, and that’s just how it’s going to have to be”.  That is something the WCG would never have condoned.

There are certain things about this society that I don’t like.  I don’t like them not for religious reasons, but because they’re stupid.  I don’t like sleeping around, I don’t like rap music, I like the idea of finding one person and devoting everything to them, and vice versa.  It may not be what some others are looking for, and that’s fine, but it’s what I’m looking for.  And there’s nothing wrong with finding out what you want and looking for it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this:  The WCG was a cult.  There are certain aspects of cultism in *everything* though.  Look inside yourself, find out who you are and who you want to be, and don’t let anyone – especially a two bit cult leader who gets off on controlling a group of people – tell you that you are wrong for it.  As long as you have a heart and as long as you follow it, it will turn out for the best.

The WCG didn’t want you to be happy.  Too fucking bad.  Be happy.  Because if you can figure out how to do that, they lost.  HWA will be spinning in his fucking grave.  Good.