The COG hates today and engages in the blatant hypocrisy of decrying Valentine’s as a pagan holiday while ignoring the heathen influences that touch virtually all religious beliefs in some form or another.
Valentine’s is a corporate, commercialized card-and-chocolates festival far divorced from its Catholic and Bacchanalian roots. It’s a time for lovers to mate and the Forever Alone to lock themselves in their rooms or buy one of these. And then there’s all that romance stuff and all the things on this list.
Basically though, it’s just supposed to be fun.
But teens and young adults in the COG are typically alone during this banned holiday because the cults are only getting smaller, and dating prospects are ever thin in churches that ban relationships with those vile outsiders “in the world.”
Dating outside the COG has become more common though, exactly because of the sparse dating pool. Young people in UCG have especially been infamous for finding outside SO’s in recent years, often beneath the notice of their parents and the greater congregation. This is a violation of commands passed down from the ministry during camps, Sabbath School and other youth retreats where these bundles of raging hormones are brought to be educated and warned about those “unhealthy” and “dangerous” relationships with unbelievers, where sex is decried as a blasphemous disease factory meant only for procreation and the only real sex-ed comes from the distribution of “The Missing Dimension in Sex” by Herbert W. Armstrong.
There are few things worse than being “unequally yoked” in the COG, since a house divided means the cult doesn’t have the full attention and monetary resources of its victims. Members who are married to non-members think they’re being tolerated, but only in the most strained sense of the word. These “mixed marriages” are usually the subject of much gossip and badmouthing among the COG’s pious, self-righteous “future kinds and priests.” Bad things that happen to these families are blamed on the non-believing spouse’s lack of faith, as a punishment from their “loving God.”
Those who actually follow COG beliefs and refuse to date or marry outside the church tend to become warped and lonely, and sometimes resort to stalking and sexual harassment of fellow members.
So even if you’re alone this Valentine’s Day, know that your situation could be a lot worse if you’ve managed to escape the COG.
Silence
