oddbird1963 Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 So I go to a fundie "non-denominational" church last night for a Wed night service (that lasted for 1 hr 42 minutes, btw!!!! ). My son plays bass for their praise band and I wanted to see him do his thing, cause I am proud of him and such. The "Senior Pastor" gets up front after the music portion of the service and begins to talk about a "word from Gawww-uddd" he received. He's big into numerology and drawing connections between random numbers and scripture. Since there was a 5.8 earthquake in VA recently, he thought he'd look up "5:8" passages to see if "God has anything to say about 5.8." So, he started flipping through Chapter 5 verse 8 of the various books of the Bible until he got to Ecclesiastes 5:8. 8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. (NIV) So he sees the word "district" in that verse and thinks, "Hmmm the earthquake hit Washington D.C. and the "D" in D.C. stands for district. WOW! God is saying to us that he's in control!" Then he turns to the congregation and shouts, 'Isn't that AWESOME?' God is working through the 5.8 earthquake to tell us in Eccl. 5:8 - don't worry about things. Just like every official in the district has a higher official over them, I [God] am in control of the highest of the high!" The congregation was enthusiastic. I was insulted that he would think I would fall for such a stupid trick. He almost sounded like a guy who'd been smoking weed all day and coming up with random musings that seem profound under the THC laden stupor. The sad thing is that the crowd thought their pastor had such a keen insight - like he was a diviner of hidden meanings from a magic spell book. The rest of the "lesson" wasn't much better. But the guy lost credibility with me from the start on that one. I guess it's anything to keep the crowd on your side. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted August 25, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted August 25, 2011 The pastor isn't insulting the intelligence of his flock. That would be impossible. I hope your son gets away from the influence of toxic, mind numbing religion. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxy Methoxy Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 "The pastor isn't insulting the intelligence of his flock. That would be impossible." Quote of the year! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phanta Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 I have a lot of friends who are into horoscopes. This seems like the same kind of thing... They come up with some crazy connection in their heads, and then say it is out there. I don't know why people need to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostman42 Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 That pastor sounds like an airhead. Even when I was in the cult I would have thought that was ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaiser01 Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 That pastor sounds like an airhead. Even when I was in the cult I would have thought that was ridiculous. i agree, when i was in fundy land i would somtimes face palm when i heard stuff like this. thanks gawwd for giving me the inteligence to see through your bull shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Many of these fundys think that God created the Bible just as it appears in their hands - with the chapter and verse divisions as we have them now (and Scofield reference notes for proper interpretation). Its like the book just fell out of the sky that way - .. Bear in mind that there is NO church history taught in any of these kind of churches. If there were - that might give the evil Roman Catholic Church some kind of legitimacy. If God created the numbered chapter and verse divisions then it stands to reason for them that these numbers would have a significance. Ignoramuses. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 I feel your pain. I've been fighting with retarded fundies all week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex05 Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 It seems the pastor forgets that the Bible also says not to look for omens: Don't sacrifice your children in the fires on your alters> and don't let your people practice divination or look for omens or use spells or charms. and don't let them consult the spirits of the dead. The Lord your God hates people who these disgusting things. Be completely faithful to the Lord (Deutronomy 18.10-13) Another example of hypocrisy at its highest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScifiChick Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 I guess it would have been pointless to tell him that the 5.8 was the initial estimate and it was later upgraded to 5.9... or that the earthquake was in Mineral, VA and not Washington D.C.? I echo the sentiment of hope that your son gets out of this nonsense very soon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
older Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Hold on, folks. Five point eight isn't the end of it. If this guy is going to go for the Bible, the Whole Bible and Nothing But the Bible, then he's got a lot of work yet to do. He missed many other connections. What about five plus eight, which equals 13 (an unlucky number)? And what about five times eight? What about five to the eighth power? Five divided by eight? Five over eight as a fraction? Five to eight is also the Golden Mean. What about that? And he also skipped the inverse relationships. What about the square root of five over the square root of eight? What about five times eight squared? Five times eight divided by pi is 12.73 which is almost 13. What about THAT! A message from the Devil! This guy missed HUNDREDS of *valuable* significant associations. He's a total slacker! Just as an example, let's take the first missed association, five plus eight, or 13. Open your Bible to page 13. SEE! What did I tell you! Now go to page 40. AH HA! Concrete Proof! [scarcasm mode off] 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 It seems the pastor forgets that the Bible also says not to look for omens: Don't sacrifice your children in the fires on your alters> and don't let your people practice divination or look for omens or use spells or charms. and don't let them consult the spirits of the dead. The Lord your God hates people who these disgusting things. Be completely faithful to the Lord (Deutronomy 18.10-13) Another example of hypocrisy at its highest. Don't feel like I am picking on you because I'm not, I just want to point something out here: The text of 'don't sacrifice your children in the fires on your alters,' is not in the OT. What the text said, before Christians changed it to suit their perverted doctrines, was 'There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,...' The ceremony was not a sacrifice but a baptism by fire but because xtians only believe they are saved by a baptism of water, they interpreted the scriptures to mean a sacrifice--because it includes fire and children and sounds much more demonic than if they were to say 'don't baptize your children in the fire of your alters.' The baptism by fire was for the god Molach(?) (I'm guessing the god's name because it's been so long since I've studied this but I think that was his name.) In the ceremony the priest waved the child above the fires or passed them quickly through the flames and that was supposed to bless the child and make them strong, or protect them from harm. Something like that. This is why I bitch out christians who want to quote scripture from bibles that have been rewritten by interpretation according to their church doctrine and not by translation from one language to another. After all, isn't god's word perfect enough the first time it was given? Why should anyone have to keep rewriting it year after year, except to make more money off the new translation? Anyway, back to the OP! I've also known xtians who are into a type of numerology when it comes to picking out coincidences in the bible that suits their twisted view of the world, especially sevens, and threes, because they had some sort of power because god rested on the seventh day and the trinity. I knew a guy that was so paranoid of 666 that he would ask me to scratch off the pin number of his calling card so he wouldn't feel bad if there were 666 in the pin number. His car license plate was all sevens. I've met really weird xtians in my lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Just read recently that the average credit score nationwide is 666. Holy Sh!t its the number of the beast! I wonder what crazy things they could come up with from that? Link to article: http://money.msn.com/credit-rating/4-things-to-know-about-credit-scores-forbes.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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