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texelations — Yesterday at 9:42 PM
Anyway, the cult I was in is called Branhamism by cult experts, the believers call it The Message
Ever hear of that?
Verse — Yesterday at 9:46 PM
I have not
I just tried googling it and it was kinda vague
theopedia was very vague
texelations — Yesterday at 9:46 PM
Really? Interesting
Verse — Yesterday at 9:46 PM
Is it large enough they can fight to keep the wikipedia page clean?
texelations — Yesterday at 9:47 PM
Yeah
This site is very ugly but this is the best author for this
https://william-branham.org/
William Branham: Historical Research
Historical research data concerning William Branham and his "Message". Areas of research include his association with high-ranking members of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, Latter Rain, and New Apostolic Reformation
If you click on Research it's a multi-part, well-researched bio
John Collins is the grandson of the pastor of the original church
(The prophet figure was not the pastor of the church, because he considered himself an evangelist)
It's ... a lot of info, on there
You can also see a refuting website at http://believethesign.com/
It started out as a research project to prove to the world at large that the prophecies WMB made were all true
The people who ran the site ended up leaving and switching the focus of the site to getting people out
Verse — Yesterday at 9:51 PM
Wow
how did you get out?
texelations — Yesterday at 9:51 PM
Well, I had been wondering about some of the prophecies for a while
There was still room for certain things to come true but they all kind of come with an expiration date
Verse — Yesterday at 9:52 PM
(I just straight up fell out of christianity when I saw how it was used and misused)
texelations — Yesterday at 9:52 PM
Because he predicted his son "wouldn't be an old man before" California sunk into the ocean
guess who was an old man by 2013
(At the time I was still in some kind of denial, like "60 isn't that old")
But anyway
One of the prophecies he'd made was before people took the mark of the beast there would be an american pope
and we had a papal election happening
Verse — Yesterday at 9:53 PM
Yeah given papal politics that was a bad bet
texelations — Yesterday at 9:53 PM
You're familiar with the concept of setting out a fleece before god?
I decided to make the papal election my fleece
Verse — Yesterday at 9:54 PM
no.
texelations — Yesterday at 9:54 PM
So it ended up since he wasn't voted in American, I left
Verse — Yesterday at 9:54 PM
Forgive me I'm not terribly conversant in christian doctrine since I quietly peaced out
texelations — Yesterday at 9:54 PM
Oh, okay
It's based on the story of Gideon
Gideon didn't want to be a Judge (the leaders of the nation of Israel at that time)
So he set out a fleece and said if the fleece is wet with dew in the morning but the ground is dry, that means I should go ahead and be a Judge
That's what happened
But he said, "welllll....that's an easy thing to have happen. This time if I set the fleece out and it's dry in the morning, but the ground is dewy, that means I should be a Judge"
And that's what happened
So he eventually stopped prevaricating and went up to be one
Anyway, that was how I tested the prophecies because I wasn't an atheist yet
Another thing that had been on my mind, though, was LGBTQ issues
It didn't make sense to me there would be two strict genders when there's intersex and polychromosomal people (XXY and that kind of thing)
And that had been really heavily bothering me for round about a year
Anyway honestly it was harder to start wearing pants and cut my hair than it actually ended up being to leave
Verse — Yesterday at 9:59 PM
That makes sense.