Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00482)

Hi Steve,

Yes, couldn't agree more.

Just this morning the paper reported a local minister who in the last
three years transfered church welfare funds totalling $120,000 into his
personal account. He gets five years probation, plus has to payback the
money, but will be free to find another sucker congregation. Amazing!

Larry

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002 08:40:50 -0800 (PST) Steve Stubbs
<stevestubbs@yahoo.com> writes:
> Hi, Larry:
> 
> Yes, there are lots of professional religious who do
> not believe in and could not care less about the
> dogmas of their churches. They look at it as a job
> which pays better than selling flowers on a street
> corner. One prominent example of that used to live in
> Dallas. (Texas, that is. Not TenBroek.
> 
> He went to divinity school to avoid military service
> during WWII. That exemption only applied to WORKING
> priests, and not to aspirants, so the Selective
> Service eventually called him up anyway. He then used
> an old trick in which you take a cigarette, slit it
> open with a razor, crush an aspirin, allow the
> particles to fall on the tobacco, and then close the
> thing and smoke it to do what diviity school could
> not.
> 
> For 48 hours X rays will show spots on your lungs. He
> was exempted from service, then finished divinity
> school just in case and became an Episcopal priest.
> 
> While spouting dogma publicly, he was secretly
> collecting members for a Rosicrucian study group, and
> was instrumental in eventially starting a Rosicrucian
> lodge in Dallas. The congregation knew nothing about
> it, but he thought it wise to keep his staff and
> bishop informed. One day they brought in a new
> associate pastor and he wanted to find some way to get
> the Rosicrucian out of the way so he could have the
> top job. He therefore saw to it that the whole
> congregation knew all about the Rosicrucians and that
> was the end of the mahatma priest.
> 
> Now out of a job, his wife divorced him forthwith and
> he found to his amazement that other congregations
> were uninterested in hiring an impostor. That amazes
> me, too. I guess they prefer one who has not been
> exposed as such yet. He started his own "church" of
> sorts in which he spouted Rosicrucian ideas openly
> while doing the Episcopal ritual thing, but it was a
> small operation compared to the business he got kicked
> out of. He had, however, made some wealthy friends
> while a priest, and one of them created a Montessori
> school and named him the president. In due course his
> impossible personality got him kicked out of that as
> well. Nonetheless, he had some interesting
> adventures, including being the officiating priest at
> the wedding of Willy Nelson. He finally died in 1992
> or thereabouts at the age of 82.
> 
> He said one time publicly that he knew a number of
> Catholic priests and Protestant preachers who were
> secretly Rosicrucians or Theosophists, and who spouted
> their church's party line the same way a vegetarian
> might work in a hamburger joint or a pacifist might
> man a machine gun. Or for that matter a Baptist might
> dance professionally or a Jehovah's Witness draw blood
> for the Red Cross. Or if we get right down to it, a
> Muslim work in a pig slaughterhouse or a Ba'hai lawyer
> defend companies against sexual discrimination
> lawsuits. You get the idea.
> 
> HYPOCRISY LIVES!
> 
> May it live long and reign.
> 
> I was also told by a local Theosophist leader, also
> long since deceased, that he had been secretly
> contacted by numerous preachers, etc., who were
> secretly Theosophists. They do not believe their
> denomination's B.S., but they teach it the same way a
> Mormon High Priest might work in a soft drink plant,
> or ... well, you know what I mean, being a Mormon High
> Priest and all. Truth be told, half those guys
> probably work for Pepsi and the other half for Coke. 
> The Theosophical leader told me these guys were all
> afraid their congregations would find out the truth
> about them and they would end up on the unemployment
> line faster than a Muslim bartender or a Church of
> Christ referee in a swearing contest.
> 
> The ones that are not hypocrites are most of them
> criminals. Quite a few preachers locally have been
> exposed as murderers, rapists, and embezzlers. There
> was a statistic published in the local paper a few
> years ago that one in eight are exposed every year. 
> That is an astonishing fatality rate for any
> profession. It tries the faith of a man of faith, let
> me tell you.
> 
> During the middle ages the religious calling was the
> only way a man born low could get educated and move up
> in the world. Cardinal Richelieu was a peasant when
> he entered the priesthood. In due course he was de
> facto viceroy of France. That kind of social mobility
> was available nowhere else but through the church. A
> Catholic woman told me several years ago that the
> priesthood was a hideout for homosexuals, and that now
> that they no longer feel any need for a hideout the
> seminaries are empty. Now that priests are all coming
> out of the closet, her assertion seems to be supported
> by fact. What motivation will the church come up with
> next? It doesn't pay anything.
> 
> As for "the divinity of Christ" that you mention, that
> strikes me as a moot point since Christ himself never
> claimed to be divine. The earliest documents describe
> him as a channeler who claimed to go into trances and
> become a mouthpiece for the Logos. He claimed that
> the Logos was divine, but not that he himself was
> divine. This was made explicitly clear by several
> ancient writers, especially Origen. Whether the claim
> is correct or not or whether anyone today believes him
> is an independent issue from the fact that he did
> historically claim this. Celsus and other ancient
> writers say this channeling stuff was a very common
> practice back then. The notion that he personally was
> divine gradually evolved as his followers dumped their
> original democratic structure and established a
> hierarchy. If the priest is better than you and the
> bishop is better than the priest and the pope is
> better than the bishop, the theory went, then Christ
> must be WAY up there, since he had to be better than
> the pope. The more layers of hierarchy they laid on,
> the more elevated had to be the claims made for
> Christ. The idea that he was a divine being is
> believed to date no further back than the fourth
> century in its modern form.
> 
> As for people who yearn for dogma, I suspect their
> mind set can be understood by the following syllogism:
> 
> Some certain set of dogmatic beliefs is infallible.
> I profess that infallible set of dogmatic beliefs.
> Therefore I personally am infallible and you are not.
> 
> Ultimately, being a True Believer would appear to be
> an ego trip instead of a quest for truth, whereas
> being a philosopher is like a traveller trying to get
> to the horizon. He has some interesting adventures on
> the way, but the horizon keeps receding into the
> distance. Does the fact that the journey in search of
> truth never ends mean it is not worth taking?
> 
> Without being dogmatic about it I would say no.
> 
> Steve

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