[sword-devel] Omega DigiBible

Fri Nov 2 11:21:54 MST 2018

The book selection in the app comes pre installed with KJV, ESV and the
1905 Tagalog. It offers downloads that appear to match English and
philippine languages hosted only on the main Crosswire site, but I can't be
sure if anything else is present.

Re: cult status.

As far as I know the COGI isn't what I would call a 'cult'. If you dig into
the statement of beliefs they appear to be Christian. Pretty much any
protestant organization that isn't well-funded from abroad gets labelled
'cult' in the philippines. They are denegrated in the Philippines by the
prominent religion, catholocism, as opposing Catholocism, and being
popular.  Statements about non-trinitarianism are at best distortions. They
believe in the trinity, or a more western view of the trinity than many
philippine "protestant" organizations.

Specifically, the Philippines has a strong tradition of female domination,
especially in the southern half and far north. A particularly cultish view
in the Philippines is the assignment of a father, mother, and child to the
parts of the trinity.  In the Philippines this genderific/generationalistic
view by its nature sets an order that the holy spirit has priority over the
other members, and the child in the trinity must always show respect to the
other members. And there are biblical verses to support this view ...
Statements by Jesus about the unpardonable sin, statements in revelation
NOT to worship Jesus but god, statement post resurrection that real power
comes later.

Even with verbiage about a co-equal trinity, if there is a female gender
member and a generation gap, co-equal has a very specific pecking order.
And in the Philippines, this idea that the trinity is a sideways triangle
with the F at the top the M pointing to the side, and the m pointing down
is strong. So much so, the word "trinity" has connotations of this
iconography without any explanation. And in the Philippines, this "Trinity
with gender" is regarded a Christian view, or at least it doesn't exclude
Christianity by itself.

If you read the teachings of the COGI closely, the rejections are against a
non coequal trinity of gender.  They support the idea behind the trinity
being inseparably one with three faces, not the idea of a trinity of three
separate beings in a family.  The words in western English seem to not say
this, but when you read it with eastern eyes... they are arguing for a
focus on unity, not the traditional philippine family view.

However, It is a central figure dominated organization. Those seem to be
everywhere and hard to avoid these days.

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 12:08 PM Peter Von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> wrote:

>
> Thanks Michael,
>
> I had hoped you would pick this up as I think you speak Tagalog? Anyway.
> That is a great start. All support requests so far are in bad English or -
> the last one - in Tagalog.
>
> There are a number of "minor" Android Apps which are built on CW stuff -
> the most public one is of course BibleTime Mobile  but I have seen others.
> "Pocket Bible" appears to be based on Sword and seems to use the IBT
> repository - but not the rest(?). I have seen others, but can't find them
> in a rush.
>
> Peter
> *Gesendet:* Freitag, 02. November 2018 um 16:20 Uhr
> *Von:* "Michael H" <cmahte at gmail.com>
> *An:* "SWORD Developers' Collaboration Forum" <sword-devel at crosswire.org>
> *Betreff:* Re: [sword-devel] Omega DigiBible
> (3rd attempt: no images this time)
>
> The developer on Google play is listed as VSIONTEQ.  They aren't related
> to the church. They have only a few items on the play store, so this is
> either an obfuscation layer of a larger outfit or a small org.  But.. they
> are likely the ones who can fix the contact inside the android app.
>
> http://vsionteq.com/support.php
> I googled this, but the address listed at the bottom of this page here is
> the same that appears on the play store listing.
>
> They are using the sword repo, and giving credit in the app. I don't
> recognize the app itself, which is only saying it's not obviously based on
> AndBible.  I haven't played with anything but AndBible or Bishop in
> forever. if someone has a suggestion what it might be I can compare.
>
> The app doesn't appear to have any 'contact crosswire for support' link...
> but it does have a confusing pointer to a non-existent support link
> followed immediately by a credit line to crosswire....
>
> The credit line to Crosswire appears below a confusing statement how to
> contact support, however, theres no 'support' link on the webpage that
> links, so reading the line again, the next place to click is on the
> crosswire acknowledgement below that. (link for the word support goes to
> the TLD http://www.omegadigibible.com ) For non-english speakers, it's
> not clear what that line about emailing support says, and it could be read
> to contact crosswire for limited English speakers.
>
> The facebook link above the support link goes here: (
> https://www.facebook.com/OmegaDigiBible/ )
>
> Related images:
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TZTNRXVvMC3Rhtn5007RfxVF_g8kxkYp
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 10:00 AM refdoc at crosswire.org <refdoc at crosswire.org>
> wrote:
>
>> We are receiving on the CrossWire support channel more and more requests
>> for assistance regarding a product which is not ours Omega DigiBible.
>>
>> I looked at the download site and could not discern from screenshots
>> whether this is anything from us or not. But if they share our support
>> email it is likely something or other ripped from us rather than a homebrew
>> using our libraries.
>>
>> What I did discern is that a large probably somewhat cultic Filipino
>> church is behind it.
>>
>> I do not want to install it on my phone as I am not sure what kind of
>> spyware it drags along, but would be grateful if anyone here on the list
>> has a running Android simulator or has a disposable  testing phone without
>> anything valuable datawise on it if they could install it and come back
>> with some info.
>>
>> Useful info would be - what is the underlying ripped off app (if it is
>> ripped off),  where does it share our email as support email and is there
>> any info regarding who the actual developers are (rather than the church at
>> large).
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Peter
>> Sent from my Huawei Mobile
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