A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
Dude, that's profound. I'm gonna have to remember that one, the next time I start contemplating the sheer dystopia that the inevitable Bachmann presidency will bring or something like that, lol.
I too fell for their "we're only human, so we'll make mistakes, but we're chosen by the Almighty himself to lead his people through these dark last days, so you'd better listen to us" spiel. But, after a while it gets to be too much for any thinking person to take. "It's better to die than to take a blood transfusion" (but we might change our mind on this one somewhere down the road). "Don't even plan for college, you young folks living in the year 1969". (oops, lets just bury that one - the light gets brighter, ya know?). "No true christian can accept Alternative Service in lieu of serving in the military" (Hey, we'll sorta vaguely admit in a coded way that that was what we used to teach when we totally reverse position on the issue a few decades down the road. But hey, you men that went to jail back in the day because your Bible Watchtower-trained conscience was telling you this was the only acceptable course - don't you dare murmur or grumble about it. The FDS has received Nu Lite on this issue, case closed). "Shun your kid that everybody knew was gay but got baptized when he was 13 only to come out of the closet a few years later" (years from now the hardcore shunning such as is practiced today may get a serious revision. But, until then, keep up the cruel shunning).