Hey, it’s Russ again. I guess Aggie wants a break, and who can blame him/her? So, I’ll be minding the store. Expect no new posts until he/she’s ready to post again. I’ll be moderating comments and keeping the lights on, but expect no new posts for the near future.
So, I guess I’ll take this time to ask just one question of the readers of this site. I am considering removing my posts from the past (not Aggie’s), or at least making them unavailable. It’s a tricky proposition, it’s not about hiding the past at all, but it’s not where I am anymore and while I’m sure it serves a purpose, I’m not sure I want to keep them there. So what do you all think? Value, or not worth it? Or would it make more sense to just compress them up somewhere and make them available to those who really need it?
Saturday, 1. August 2009
While the old posts are not where you’re at right now, they show where you were. They may have value to someone, you just might not realize it or even know when it will happen.
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Saturday, 1. August 2009
You created the site so it if is of value for you to take them down, go for it. This site was very useful for me to vent and get some of my anger at the treatment I got as a child at the hands of armstrong off my chest.
It was also useful for me to walk away from the angry place once I’d vented.
Those bastards don’t deserve to keep impacting us. So, do what you need to and keep walking.
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Saturday, 1. August 2009
Hmmm. I wonder if anyone reads those old posts?. I know that I don’t ever bother to read the old posts on any of the blogs I visit.
No old posts on any blogs are where those same folks are today, unless they are godlike and never change and I somehow doubt that.
You and Aggie could delete everything and start over as far as I’m concerned.
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Sunday, 2. August 2009
I read through the old posts, believe it or not. As a reminder to myself, and to reinforce where I’ve been and where I’m going.
Also, a lot of your posts and mine are responses, or give-and-take with each other, so to delete yours and leave mine, would leave continuity gaps and holes. IMO.
That said, part of the reason I vote for leaving this site up as is, is the same reason why I found absolutely nothing of value on the Painful Truth site in 1996 — but I spent the better part of several evenings absorbing everything I could from the site, when I was ready to read it.
Not that I place ISA in the same ranks as PT or AW, of course, but still. The other thing is, we are the only other openly ex-WCG atheist blog on the ‘Net, besides Corky and Robert. And Robert understandably doesn’t talk much about WCG, leaving that for the ex-WCG Non-Believers testimonials page.
Sure, we’ve moved on, or are trying to. But don’t you want to leave this message in a bottle for some future ex-member atheist who’s stranded at sea?
Just my thoughts.
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Sunday, 2. August 2009
‘J’ got rid of a lot of his posts on his old site. There were a few things that would have been useful to reference later, and apparently he himself wished he hadn’t done so after the event.
In general I am not in favour of deletion – it can ‘remove evidence’. I am not saying that’s so in this case. It’s your posts, so you have every right to remove them.
Maybe your suggestion of compressing them up somewhere, so they could be available? You could note on them that you have moved on from where you were when the posts were written.
As Corky said, most people do not read old posts. I think that is true in general, unless there is some special reason to read them. But there is a part of me that sort of likes to feel these things are still available if they were needed.
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Monday, 3. August 2009
Hi Russ,
I think you should keep the old posts up for two reasons:
1. I still find them very valuable as part of my own therapy. I reference them with some degree of frequency. I’ve actually been using them to put together a path that will hopefully help me come to terms with my own childhood.
2. They are a stark, powerful, and articulate warning to anyone thinking about converting to Armstrongism. They also are an accurate and authentic window into the origins of the COG cults today — many of which have tried to “whitewash” their beliefs and their history to some extent.
For instance, although UCG tries to minimally advertise its belief that we will “be god as god is god”, and also its belief of a coming united Europe (ha!) that will terrorize America, etc., many of its leaders helped craft and implement those beliefs way back when. Those same people, the ones running the show today, still believe those awful things, even if they aren’t the #1 thing talked about in sermons anymore. Your posts about your childhood provide a true history of the beliefs that today’s COG leaders still believe — and the terrible legacy those fear-based beliefs left on victims of the cult.
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Monday, 10. August 2009
On the PT no content (except names of victims due to information collection by employers googling names) is deleted.
It is the pain and agony of humans stored in electronic form that should stand as a memorial to such. If you have moved on or even changed your mind about the contents you wrote, that should still stand.
PT-Editor,
James
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AggieAtheist Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Yes. This. James said it much more eloquently than I ever could have.
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Wednesday, 12. August 2009
I’m new to your blog… but if I learned one thing about the wwc… that is one thing to do (wich they didn’t do)… is to stick up to what I say. So I’d say don’t delete them… we all have to face our acts… so don’t be like them. Stick up to what you say and do
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Friday, 14. August 2009
I vote for leaving the posts intact as well. I recently joined a social networking site, and after a current Armstrongist tried to friend me, I followed a trail of connections from that person through dozens of current Armstrongists that I remember from various congregations from 15 or more years ago. They’re still debating whether they can use lotions with animal products, what constitutes taking “God’s name in vain”, etc. It’s like stumbling upon a civilization still stuck in the dark ages.
This site needs to remain available to people like that when they finally pull their heads out of the sand and decide to live in the real world. If it weren’t for the Painful Truth, and this site, I never would have known what to make of the bizarre cult in which I was raised, and never would have been able to contextualize my experiences. Ex-Armstrongites need pioneers like Russ & Aggie.
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AggieAtheist Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 3:02 am
“I vote for leaving the posts intact as well. I recently joined a social networking site, and after a current Armstrongist tried to friend me, I followed a trail of connections from that person through dozens of current Armstrongists that I remember from various congregations from 15 or more years ago.”
See, this is why I think Facebook is a fucking scourge on the face of the earth. The government here is after it, for privacy violations, and I hope they take the site (and the power-brokering information thieves who own it/have sucked people in to it) down and burn it with fucking fire.
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Sunday, 16. August 2009
I decided to delete the ones that are nothing but angry rants, and moved the substantial ones over to my other blog. I don’t like “revising history” like that, but I also have to be mindful of the fact that these posts CAN be found by people who are not going to understand, and I have to adjust accordingly, particularly if they’re not where I am anymore.
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AggieAtheist Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Yup. Plus, they might be where you or I have been; that’s the important thing. That’s certainly what I have found of value, from the old posts on the PT, as James has said.
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Wednesday, 30. December 2009
hey. Found your blog interesting, so I was buzzing around reading some of the entries, which I assume is a compilation from multiple authors.
In truth, I had to look up Armstrongism, simply because I didn’t recognize it, until i realized “oh, wait, this is that Worldwide Church of God thing.” because I didn’t read the tagline at the top of the page. I don’t tend to do that, because then I’d have to care, which I don’t. Blogs are blogs, and every idiot and their mother has a blog proving that even the lonely and the sociopaths, can have 15 minutes of fame, in the world of cyberspace. Well whatever, at least it keeps them off the streets, and the crime rate has dropped accordingly (yes there are statistics to prove that).
My parents were caught up in the Church for awhile, back in the 80’s and pretty damn judgmental (the church, not my parents), and as I have studied theology as well as histrionics, I use to really like to play with them, to see if i could rattle their cages; which I did regularly.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with faith at all on any level. But faith, without joy or happiness, which is inundated with fear of the end of the world, and looking behind every tree “for a demon” so to speak, or waiting for the next major conspiracy, just cracks me up.
So obviously I have to screw with it… and lets face it. It isn’t like there is anything on TV.
Anyway, one night, one of the elders, or deacons, or whatever he liked to call himself in order to elevate his piety; came over for dinner. I was just in my teens. So, me being me, started asking him questions to hear his interpretations. But worse then that, I brought out a hebrew/greek interlinear bible, 5 concordances and dictionary’s and said, “prove it.”
I like to do that. People shouldn’t talk about shit they know nothing about and then get upset when no one believes them, or worse, not be able to back it up.
I don’t attend any denominational church, of any particular discipline and this is for one reason, and one reason only.
People are ignorant. They know nothing of history, archeology, science, metaphysics, physics, and histrionics. In my opinion, if anyone has a belief, or a viewpoint without due diligence, then they’re a mindless drone, and a sheep who deserves the results they end up with in life.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed much of what I’ve read here, even if I haven’t agreed with most of it, but then as I said further up this comment. I don’t understand believing in a God of any kind, and being paranoid and miserable, afraid of everything.
That last statement isn’t a statement upon the authors here, but rather a commentary about all religions. Freedom with rules cannot exist. A celebration of birth, isn’t a reason to flog oneself, so any religion, or faith system, or belief, which requires a: judging everyone else, being relentlessly somber and unhappy, or worse, declaring their the only one’s who “know the truth” without any effort to research to test themselves.
Is
An
Idiot.
anyway, nice reading this
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