Do the people still believe that God speaks to Church Authorities?

Question

In the Dark Ages when the plague swept Europe, the church blamed the "witches" and not only killed them, but their cats as well. We know now that the plague was spread by the rats, so by killing the cats of witches, the church actually helped the plague spread!
Then during the Little Ice Age, when the grain crops failed, a great famine occured. Once the potatoe was introduced and found to thrive in the climate change conditions, the church labeled it an "evil" food and warned people NOT to eat them. Thousands died a slow painful death for listening to the church.
Others ate the potatoes and lived!
So considering what we know from history, why do people still believe what the church tells them to believe?
Do they really believe that God told the church to do these things?

Answer 1

Aloha Luci,

Well Jerry Falwell did say:

"I feel most ministers who claim they've heard God's voice are eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night, and it's really an intestinal disorder, not a revelation.”

Of course, he also said these idiocies:

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters."

"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

Other examples of Christian tolerance...

They came with a Bible and their religion, stole our land, crushed our spirit, and now tell us we should be thankful to the Lord for being saved.
— Chief Pontiac

What shall we do with ... the Jews? ...set fire to their synagogues and schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.
— Martin Luther (1483-1546)

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
— Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
— Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

You can safely say that you have made God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
— Reverend Robert Cromey

The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God.
— Andrew Dickson White

For more examples of what you are talking about... http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/murderers.htm

We've got just enough religion to hate each other, but not enough religion to love each other.
— Jonathan Swift

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up old ones.
— Ruth Hurmence Green, (1915-1981)

To answer your question, people believe what their church/bible/god tell them because they have been indoctrinated from a young age to believe and not to question.

"Among the more irritating consequences of our flagrantly religious society is the special dispensation that mainstream religions receive. We all may talk about religion as a powerful social force, but unlike other similarly powerful institutions, religion is not to be questioned, criticized or mocked."
— Natalie Angier,

"The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them."
— Thomas Edison, (1847-1931)

Give me child until the age of six and I will give you a Nazi for life.
— Adolph Hitler

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
— Clarence Darrow

It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.
— Ernestine Rose

Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.
— Robert Owen

I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion.... If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?
— Ruth Hurmence Green

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side.... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out.
— Margaret Knight

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
— Isaac Asimov

Answer 2

Religions vary widely in how much authority they claim for their continuing revelations. The pope, for example, is said to be infallible when speaking on matters of faith or morals--but there's also some fine print about having his bishops agree with him, not being a heretic, and some other stuff that might invalidate it. The Mormons say that a living prophet (e.g. current church leaders) trumps a dead prophet, but that just means future leaders can always change decisions later.

Most religions accept that ordinary people can receive personal revelations, but get nervous when these touch upon areas of temporal or clerical authority. (After all, if just ANYBODY could announce that they had a message from God, where would this leave the pope?)

Of course, in modern societies the effect of divine revelations are muted by the fact that there are so many claimants, and that the option of rejecting all of them in favor of an entirely secular worldview is now well understood.

Answer 3

Well, in order for the church to gain power over the masses fear had to be instilled in them. And one of the great lies was that no one could speak to God except through the church. Even their Priests back then WERE Diviners. Good powers. And killing over 9 million innocent folks (herbalists, midwifes, healers, diviners, etc.) kind of struck that fear into all hearts. And so the fear flows down through the ages and still, with the fear of death, torture and eternal hell looming over head many have choosen to believe rather than fall prey to the other choices the church gave them. Ironic how many of the church rituals come from the ancient Pagan rituals. And if those same folks believed more in their God than the church, they wouldn't need the church at all. Nor would they need to keep trying to prove their religion is right! Blessed Be

Answer 4

God speaks to everybody.

Too bad not enough of us are listening at any given point in time.

The church isn't perfect. It is often run by people who got into positions of power, who are more interested in power than in people's souls.

People are ignorant and easy to scare. When "the church authorities" killed innocent women for being witches, it was awful, it was a mistake, it wasn't God's will but it happened anyway. When they starved thousands of people for purely political/selfish reasons, it was awful and a mistake, etc.

But the church is still Christ's body here on earth. It's as fallible and weak and deluded as we all are individually, but God keeps healing and healing and blessing us anyway.

God didn't tell the church to do those things, and it's NOT telling Pat Robertson and that a**hole Fred Phelps to persecute gay people today.

But if enough of us sane people (in contrast to Robertson and Phelps etc) were listening to what God is speaking to us, maybe the nutcases wouldn't be doing so much harm now.

Answer 5

"A member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle" + I was always told that non-Latter-day Saints could not enter the Tabernacle or Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and non-LDS parents of people marrying Latter-day Saints could not even attend the wedding. If this is true then why was a Catholic permitted to speak? + Why is the name of the "member of the Roman Catholic Church" or the date of the "conversation" never mentioned? I am sure if he was an ordained minister of the Church then his title would have been used. "A member" could have been any of over one billion people in the world. With love in Christ.

Answer 6

church is a lobby, for those who are willing to pay for only getting doubtful theories.
i would go so far to say its 'Astrology deLuxe'.

was there ever anything positive if people turned into mindless followers.
thanks that we live in times where we can choose in what we believe.
How can there be a God's will if there's no evidence for a god, except for a doubtful book based on hearsay.

Answer 7

Looks like it.
I found some interesting texts regarding church and priesthood. It is a letter of Saint Peter to the Christians in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia:

Answer 8

if there is a god (and i am not willing to debate that at this time) then i believe he would listen and talk to anyone who was willing to hear him...not just church officials.
that was just the way the church controlled people. god talked to them and anyone else who dared say that was a witch.

Answer 9

Anyone who's ever read the Bible KNOWS that God would NEVER speak to a "church authority"!
He reveals Himself only to the humble and meek.

Answer 10

Yeah, God talks to people all the time but the person either doesn't realize it or just doesn't tell anybody because they think they will be put in a loony bin.