Rubbish
The problem with religious rubbish is that unless there is some compelling reason, no one is really interested in obscure eschatology. Something must really be over-the-top in an outrageous way before anyone will develop any interest whatsoever in it. There are two main factors involved with the value of religion, according to Dr. Stanley Schmidt in Analog Magazine: The eschatology belief system itself--which he pretty much disregards--and the impact it has on society.
In the Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine, Dr. Stanley Schmidt wrote an editorial, "Useful Illusions & Deadly Faith" in which he argued that religions consist of two parts: Cosmology and Morals; and that the two can be separated--that a religion can be wrong about the cosmology of how the Universe was created, but still have effective morals which are useful to society.
But, he adds:
"The idea that dogmatic and more or less incorrect belief can have real individual and/or social benefits may be hard for a very rational person who cares about facts to understand and accept. About as hard, for example, as for a conventionally religious person to accept that a strong moral code can exist independently of belief in a supreme being. To many readers of this magazine, I suspect, it's clear that it can and often does. To them, the notion that people can't behave decently without being afraid of punishment by somebody bigger and stronger implies that all people are, in effect, perpetual children. But children are expected to grow up and do right things because they are right, not just because of fear of what somebody else will do if they don't. Maybe species should be subject to the same expectation. It's quite possible to develop moral principles--even some that most people can agree to enforce--by rational consideration of what's good for individuals and society."
He posits this idea later:
"...The only qualification I can make is that while I may hold the opinion that someone else's belief is harmful to him or her, it is not my business to try to change it if it is harmful only to him or her. People are entitled to make their own mistakes, and it may be that I am the one who is wrong.
"But by the same token, when someone else tries to impose his or her beliefs on me, or to hurt me or my property because of those beliefs, that becomes very much my business...."
Dr. Schmidt concludes:
"... A reader sent me an editorial from The Philadelphia Trumpet (a magazine apparently dedicated to exposing modern science as "a false messiah--about to destroy us all!") quite blatantly envisioning a future ruled entirely by Christians, not "hampered [author's own emphasis] by multiculturalism and diversity."
"This kind of stuff is scary, no matter who spouts it. Depth and sincerity of belief, and the courage of conviction to act on if even at great personal risk, can indeed be a real and admirable virtue--sometimes even if the belief itself is not entirely accurate. But when that belief leads to persecution of others who don't share it, it is no way to be admired--or even tolerated!"
Useful Illusions & Deadly Faith Editorial [Analog Science Fiction and Fact], by Stanley Schmidt. Montreal: Dell Magazines, February 2003, Vol. CXXIII No. 2. Pages 4-7.
The question is whether or not a religion contributes to the moral fiber of society to strengthen it or not, in order to determine its usefulness.
Cultpsycho has one perspective on this subject: If it doesn't work, it isn't true; if it isn't true, it isn't useful--it is stupid, useless and probably destructive. Distorted perceptions are like this: They lead people down the primrose path to all sorts of problems. The distorted perceptions might look right and might sound right, but they are clear, neat, logical and wrong, leading to abuse of hapless victims without remedy. Gerald Flurry referenced above by Dr. Stanley Schmidt is one such promoter of pernicious poisonous propositions, Wade Cox is another. In the end, such belief systems are a harm to society in general and destructive to both the participants and those affected by the practice of beliefs. It might be so bad that a religion might actually cause devastation and destruction of thousands of people, as witnessed by terrorist attacks on the United States. Sometimes religions only differ in the scope and execution of their faulty belief system.
Nevertheless, it does not seem to matter how extreme eye-popping jaw-dropping a belief system is these days. The media has reduced it to infotainment where it is just one more thing which may or may not invite a sound bite. It just depends.
Some idiocy is impossible to resist, particularly when it is silly, has no social redeeming value and is just plain wrong. Such an example of this is Paper 28, Fire from Heaven written by Wade Cox and published on the Christian Church of God website.
Here's the premise: Wade Cox and the Christian Churches of God are the one and only Work of God today on this earth preparing for the return of Jesus Christ before the year 2027. God is lighting a fire from south to north which will proceed to consume all flesh in its path. Wade's claim comes from Ezekiel 21:3-5. He claims that the Scripture is about him because he comes from Australia. He claims that the fire of the Lord comes from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and will proceed to consume North America and Europe, among other places. If we can stop laughing long enough over this preposterous proposition, we will point out that a quick check with e-Sword in the King James Bible Red Letter Edition, shows that the precise phrase "south to north" appears nowhere in the Bible at all. The phrase "south to the north" does appear in Ezekiel 21:4 where it does not mention fire at all. It talks about the sword going forth from the south to the north. Where the fire came from was other Scriptures not related to "south to the north".
It's just ridiculously preposterous. Ezekiel had no vision of there even being a Southern Hemisphere. Not only that, the Bible doesn't talk about the "fire" of God going from the "south to north" anywhere. One wonders how members of the CCG can read this and not see that Wade is making this all up: He starts with a flimsy premise built on a foundation of sand and builds an entire complex structure upon it, supported by taking quotes out of context and combining them. It's rather strange, because this is the type of brain activity described in the book by Dr. Robert Hare.
The premises in the Paper 28 are also based upon the discredited idea of British Israelism and the Paper also goes on to assure us that the heavens will be shut up beginning in 2012, during which fire will fall from heaven against all false worship. Wade Cox wades in with quotations from the occult and mysticism in other papers to establish the 2012 date and claims that it is coincidental with the next Seventh Year Sabbath Rest and Reading of the Law. Some observe he is a year off from the Seventh Year cycle, but that doesn't really matter does it? It's up there with Scientology.
At one point, Wade Cox insisted upon tying the 300 papers on the CCG website to the story of Sampson catching 300 foxes in Judges 15:4-5:
(4) So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches; and he turned them tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. (5) And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.
In this strange analogy, Sampson caught 300 foxes and lit a fire with them, just as Wade Cox has taken his 300 papers and lit a fire from the south to the north to spread the gospel according to Wade Cox. The associations become ever so more dizzying the more they are explored. One would suppose that when Paper 301 is written, it will blow the prophecy entirely and the analogy won't work any more, at which point, he can use the tried and true methodology of his predecessors, and blame it all on God. And he calls us Philistines.
Scripture declares that the Spirit of God is a spirit of love and the power of a sound mind. This represents something else entirely, for which there are no words sufficient to describe. It is a wonder that otherwise intelligent people can buy into this nonsense.
The whole thing is a chaotic mess, although the ending does *not* disappoint as a work of comedic fiction. What is added to the misquote and utter misuse of Scripture is the concept that the fires will be started in the fields of the south.
We know how the fire starts. Someone drops a match on all the CCG papers.
It's silly. It's preposterous. It's ridiculous. It's downright funny.
A piece of advice: If you have a field in Australia, be sure to keep your crop insurance up to date.
Fires that happen in Australia stay in Australia.
As for the rest: It's rubbish.
