Douglas Becker – Page 27 – The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

May 26, 2015

Slaver App

To be read in all churches this Sabbath.

Effective immediately, all members of the church are to install the Slaver App on their cell phones, smart phones, tablets and personal computers. This App will track all activities and accounts of all members in real time and will send the data to our servers to be analyzed by an artificial intelligence. All members will be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. GPS coordinates will be analyzed to determine location and determine the speed of the vehicle driven by the member. This information will be gathered and stored permanently.

We are taking these measures because as your leaders we have a responsibility to insure that all things are done decently and in order because God is not the Author of confusion. We do this also because we have the power of God and you are our servants in the unpaid employ of our church corporate. As our employees, you have absolutely no rights — as Gerald Flurry wisely disclosed in a sermon at Quincy, Washington when he was a minister of the Worldwide Church of God: “No one has any rights”. Residents of the United States need to be reprised that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to them as de facto employees of the cult because our Kingdom is out of this world. As a separate political entity, you live under our Law, not the law of the land. You must obey us as God and not obey men. You are all living sacrifices and we own you. You only have the freedom to do what we tell you to do.

The Slaver App will track all your accounts to determine your income and the amount you give to our cult as a percentage of your income. We are tapped into your employer’s servers and so we will know what your gross income is. If we find that you are not giving enough to our Work, we will automatically transfer money from your accounts to our own through our automated system. Furthermore, if we determine that you have not given enough money for offerings at Holyday services, your money will be automatically be transferred to us in the proper amount. All services, conventions, studies and gatherings will be monitored through GPS and attendance will be mandatory. If you do not attend, we will determine where you are instead and money will be transferred to our accounts in response to your non responsiveness. When there is a crisis in the Work, such as a need for the wife of the leader to buy underwear from Victoria’s Secret, a need to buy BMWs for family members of the leader or to pay for a luxury cruise, to travel to Las Vegas or Hawaii for recreation, money will automatically transferred from your accounts to pay for whatever the leader wants or desires. For those with smart watches monitoring vitals, the heart rate will be monitored to determine if there is a cessation of a heartbeat for 6 minutes, at which time ALL your money will be transferred to the Work. Since you will be dead, waiting for the resurrection where you will be under our thumb for all eternity, there will be no need for you to worry about such things as funeral expenses. Let the dead bury their dead. Some how your body will be taken care of. We don’t worry about such piddling physical things.

On the Sabbath, we will track your activities to determine whether or not you have gone out to eat at a restaurant. If our sect allows eating out at a restaurant on the Sabbath and we determine that you have passed up the opportunity to get together with other members at a restaurant, we will transfer money out of your accounts immediately after the Sabbath. If we do NOT allow eating out at restaurants on the Sabbath and your GPS indicates you are, money will be transferred out of your accounts, and, in particular, we will max out your credit cards so you can’t possibly pay for the meal, so if you do the wrong thing, be prepared with enough cash in hand to pay for your ill gotten food and drink.

Our App will also transfer itself to other smart phones around you by cloning itself. It is undetectable and embeds itself in the firmware of the hardware, so it is impossible to remove as a rootkit by even the most advanced CIA level anti spyware. It does this in order to track potential members of our church by determining what their likes and interests are so we can carry on a social media campaign to appeal to their particular desires. We will also send emails to appeal to them. The emails are generated in such a way that they will escape detection by any and all spam filters. Eventually, we will win out and triumph over any resistance by prospective members, enabling our cult to grow exponentially. It is also the case that we will track your GPS in conjunction with those infected with our malware so that if you associate with those we deem undesirables, you will be warned and penalized appropriately by a transfer of your funds to our own. Do not worry about installing the App if you have received any emails from the church: It installs itself as soon as you open any of our emails.

If you rebel against us and attempt to leave us, you will find that you are permanently tethered to us for we will continue to tap into your funds whether you are with us or not. You will also find that upon being disfellowshipped, the App will automatically mark you by sending emails to members warning that they are not to have contact with you. If they do have contact with you, the App will track that and disfellowship them. We strictly enforce the non contact rule even if involves family members or even your own spouse. Even though you may expect to ‘repent’ and be accepted back, you will not because you have broken our trust and we just can never bring ourselves to associate with you again.

Some of you now work for nursing homes. You are to stop doing this immediately because demons infest old people in nursing homes. You must stop working for the facilities even if you cannot support yourself any other way. Rules are rules. If you violate our arbitrary rules, the GPS will be tracked and we will know. If you do not quit soon enough, GPS will track this along with your financial accounts and you will be disfellowshipped.

We can also determine what stores and outlets you frequent. If we determine that you have been buying too much from certain stores which are associated with entertainment, we will penalize you and even get your credit cards cancelled. You are to give yourself entirely to our social group and not to entertain or enjoy yourself.

We are also tapped into your health records. We know what’s wrong with you. We expect you to come to us for anointing for any maladies you have and not rely on doctors. We will know if you are taking prescription medicines and we will put a stop to it immediately. Your accounts will also be charged. Any operation you have will indicate that you do not have the true faith and you will be disfellowshipped. If you depend upon the kindness of other members to help you pursue medical treatment forget it. None of them are really your friends: They are merely other employees of our church corporate and once you are shunned they will betray and abandon you. We have complete control of your life.

Beware. If you work for a military contractor, our App will catch you. You are not to work for any business which provides for the military even if it’s a cafeteria service, nor are you to work for any business which does business with a business that does business with the military. You will be sorry. We will demand you quit. It’s better to obey our arbitrary rules than to be able to feed yourself.

Speaking of military, we remind you that none of you may join the Armed Forces. All males aged 18 to 25 in the United States must register with the Selective Service. Those who do must declare themselves as conscientious objectors. We will track you with the GPS in your smart phone to insure that you do not visit a military recruiter. You must remain a non combative conscientious objector at all costs, even if you may have to do alternative service in a low paying public service job. Of course, all our ministers are automatically exempted from military service. By virtue of the fact that you are not willing to fight for your country, our church views you as unpatriotic and, as such, we look down on you: You will be sanctioned for being unpatriotic and will be treated as traitors — you are considered the lowest of the low among church members and if you ever serve alternative service with us, you will be treated as abject slaves, doing scut work long hours for less than minimum wage. While you are in this alternative service with us, you will not be able to date any coeds of our college where you serve and will be a pariah at socials. You must live in a separate compound by yourself and will not reside in any church related housing. You will not be allowed to potlucks and church socials. You are damaged goods, unpatriotic traitors, and you will be marked for the rest of your life. If you raise any objections concerning your treatment, you will be fired and sent to prison as deserters.

We track everything you do. The App surreptitiously turns your smart phone camera without any indication to watch and listen to what you are doing, even in the bedroom. We advise you to only use the two cult approved positions. Some of our technology is based on Stingray surveillance devices. A previous version of Slaver App Tracking 24 by 7 has been use by business employers to track employee activities even when they were not ‘on the job’. It is very effective.

We expect you to believe everything we tell you exactly. If you think that we seem to violate reality it is just an illusion and you would be wrong to question us in any way. Our App will follow all of your research. It records your Google searches. It analyzes the books you read online and what books you order from Amazon.com. We know when you read pages from anti Armstrongist blogs and websites. Any breach of our proscriptions will be met with immediate penalties. You get the truth from us and no one else.

We monitor all your conversations and our artificial intelligence on our servers analyze all of them for appropriateness.

The latest feature has been added to the App: The dating module. This module connects young single maidens to old bachelors for purposes of dating so the bachelors can select the one that appeals to him the most for marriage. No young woman will be permitted to refuse any advances.

Be warned that no one is exempt from the Slaver App except for the leader.

May 23, 2015

What Jesus is Like

Based on the example of Armstrongist leaders.

The New Testament claims that Christ lives within Christians. The Apostle Paul said to follow him as he followed Christ. We are to be like Christ. It is with this in mind that we choose to examine the character, behavior and personalities of the leaders in the Armstrongist community to find out what Jesus was really like.

First we examine Roderick Meredith. He sprang from Worldwide and formed the Global Church of God. He committed to abide by the decisions of his council of elders. He became miffed with them, left Global, bankrupting it in the process and defying the council, lying and breaking his word. Add to this that he has been a false prophet for at least 60 years and we have a more or less complete picture of Jesus based on the example of Roderick Meredith.

By this we can infer that Jesus is a vain arrogant liar who doesn’t keep his promises and does not work well with others. By this token, it would also be established that Jesus was a false prophet as ‘that prophet’ which we take to mean ‘that darn prophet’ or, if we were to believe Deuteronomy 18, ‘that damned prophet’.

Which brings us to today’s ‘that prophet’ Gerald Flurry. He claims to be Christ walking around in the flesh. What better place to learn what Jesus was really like than to actually follow the behavior of Gerald Flurry? Based on his being a false prophet, being rather toxic by his ‘no contact rule’ of people who don’t sit well with him, we can assume that Jesus, if not a beer bibber, was at least a wine bibber, a false prophet (there it is again), making claims to be something he can never be and treating people like worthless crap. We also would find Jesus something of a spend thrift, using other people’s money for self-aggrandizement in a building program not well funded with very little to show for it. Jesus said he would rebuild the Temple in three days. Gosh, it’s taken Flurry a lot longer than that and it seems to have cost a lot more. Will the loan be paid off for Ambassador Auditorium in our life time. If Jesus were like Gerald Flurry, he wouldn’t much care because it’s not his money, even though Flurry claims that tithes are God’s money that is to be given to Flurry — and a lot more besides. By that measure, Jesus is greedy. Flurry also claims to have ‘won’ the court case for the copyrights of the Worldwide Church of God when, in fact, he paid millions to get possession. So Jesus violates copyright laws, takes intellectual property without proper attribution, is near criminal but has bragging rights to literature he never wrote. I’m not liking this Jesus much up to this point based on the bad example of the Armstrongist leaders, but we have two more to go, so things may get better and straighten themselves out.

Straighten things out. Straighten things out. This brings us to Ronald Weinland. He is now serving a prison sentence for felony tax evasion and things will be straightened out in less than a year from now when he gets out of prison. How time flies. Ronald Weinland angered the Jury with his arrogance at trial. He thought he could spend tithe money any which way he wanted for his Luxury Fund. He bought three BMWs for his and his family’s personal use. He went on cruises during a financial crisis for his cult. He has a track record of being an insane lying false prophet psychopath. Gee, I’m liking this Jesus even less now — avaricious, prodigal, false prophet (again!), a man who angers people who want the truth, unjust and a criminal. If we were to assume that Ronald Weinland represents Christ then Jesus is definitely a felon. Several times over. Well, at least Jesus doesn’t have a penchant for Steuben Crystal.

David Pack represents Jesus. We know this because Pack told us so. He is the only one who has the truth. We know this because he told us so. David Pack also told us a while back that on a certain date, 3 leaders of prominent Armstrongist cult sects would die and all the members of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia would migrate en masse to David Pack’s compound, the Restored Church of God. He was rather nasty about it and supremely confident. It didn’t happen, of course, making him not just a false prophet, but making him a delusional false prophet. David Pack is also quite Draconian to his membership and those working for them. They provide him money and adulation — anything else, he doesn’t care about them — and he doesn’t particularly care if they are collateral damage in his little kingdom compound. He also considers himself as the greatest man who has ever lived. Many believe that he doesn’t take hot showers for fear he’ll steam up the mirror. He is extremely harsh and dismissive. Given all this, we should expect that Jesus practically hates his followers (as well as the rest of the world). Jesus doesn’t really care about others: Jesus is all about Jesus. We can ascertain that Jesus is also a delusional false prophet (that about nails it!) and we can’t possibly trust one thing he says. Jesus sees himself as the best and is totally devoid of any shred of humility.

We should not be at all surprised. Herbert Armstrong represented Christ. After all, he signed his letters “In Jesus’ Name” even if the letter was all about a prophecy that proved false later on (and sometimes false at the time the letter was written). Herbert Armstrong was vain, arrogant, had a nasty temper. Think of the example that sets in relationship to representing Jesus. Moreover, Herbert Armstrong committed incest with his daughter for 10 years as he began his ministry. This means that he did not know right from wrong. Even isolated societies across millennia never permitted such things, let alone celebrate someone who did such things as a guru, prophet or shaman. Herbert Armstrong could not even approach the morals, ethics and mores of society because he was totally warped and twisted. His evil caused a role reversal where his daughter became his ‘wife’ and his wife became the child. This is so perverse as to be beyond words to convey. Based on this terrible example, we would expect Jesus to be a vile pervert who could not be trusted even with his own family. He would be expected to betray people, especially his followers who trusted and relied on them. He would be expected to promote role reversals where the minister became the served and the members became the minister to serve him instead of the other way around. Herbert Armstrong was also an alcoholic boozer. He didn’t follow the rules he imposed on others, having eaten a donut and consumed a cup of coffee on the Day of Atonement ‘to keep up his strength’. He had armed body guards to protect him as he left his limo to go to the lectern at the Feast. He lived in luxury at the expense of others giving him blood money. With this, we expect Jesus to be a warped toxic demigod, subsumed with lusts and desires for nice things at the expense of others, addicted to alcohol, expecting to be served by his followers, above it all, violating all the rules at a whim, being quite arbitrary and totally unconcerned for his own family he saw only as a narcissistic source.

Somewhere in all this, that Jesus is about Redemption through his sacrifice to bring people to God the Father through self-sacrifice for eternal life has been lost. Also something about “Thou Shalt Not Take My Name In Vain” has lost momentum.

You must admit though, that as a talisman, Jesus has provided Armstrongist cult leaders with a heck of a good living at the expense of others.

May 19, 2015

Smug

Herbert Armstrong was smug. He had an explanation for everything. He believed that God personally revealed everything really important to him. He was a gnostic. He wrote booklets: Does God Exist, Seven Proofs God Exists, The Proof of the Bible. He was cock sure. At the same time he was so arrogant that he claimed that everybody who did not agree with him was wrong. He left the Church of God Seventh Day because he thought he was so much more brilliant and smart than they were because he had absorbed and knew all the secret knowledge of Greenbury George Rupurt and they didn’t. That made him superior to them. He considered himself a qualified teacher. He claimed he was the first one in over 1900 years to bring the really really true gospel to the world. Everybody else was a failure. He claimed that science didn’t have the answers. He did. There are just a few little things wrong with his world view:

He claimed that British Israelism was the Key to Prophecy but it has been disproved scientifically by DNA evidence and made him a spectacularly failed false prophet as a result;
He claimed to have reestablished the true church from an unbroken line from the time of the original apostles but it has been proved that his church history was histrionics and total fantasy which not even the Church of God Seventh Day supports;
He prophesied over the radio on the World Tomorrow Broadcast during World War II that the United States and Britain would lose the war to the Germans (this caused the United States Government some heartburn and his broadcast was suspended for a time);
He predicted that the Great Tribulation would begin in 1972 and his church would be taken to a place of safety;
He predicted that Christ would return in 1975;
His claim that he brought the true gospel to the world has proven problematic;
His Proof of the Bible uses prophecies of the Old Testament to prove the entire Bible true, even though some of the referenced prophecies have failed;
His Seven Proofs God Exists claims that the existence of God can be proved because He is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

Let’s examine that last point for a moment. Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end. The new theory works better than the current Big Bang Theory — it solves a lot of problems and the Math is better. If this model is true, then God did not create the universe and He certainly doesn’t sustain it, because it has no beginning or end. What this would do to the idea of the existence of God is unclear. What role would He have? Was He a product of the universe at some point? Could God be an Emergent Property? Is He an advanced Being with highly advanced technology humanity would never be able to understand? Did He create life? Or did He sort of shepherd circumstances to make life appear? Is He really The Designer He was claimed to be in the Booklet? Is God The Lawgiver or are the laws of physics eternal, making God a sort of glorified Hall Monitor? The other problem with this is that the Bible may be terribly unreliable, since many of the books in it seem to be forged. There are at least 40 gospels floating around — it’s a little difficult to claim that you are bringing the one and only true gospel since there are so many of them. How could it really be a reliable guide to exactly who and what God is? And did Jesus actually exist? Historians of the time don’t seem to have mentioned him.

Not to worry.

Armstrongists are assured in their own minds that Herbert Armstrong had all the answers. They claim that they have the answers because they believe what Herbert Armstrong said. They have special revelation from God through Herbert Armstrong.

On the other hand, they point out that Science doesn’t have all the answers. Therefore, they conclude, science is worthless and people should listen to them, particularly when their views don’t agree with the scientists because the Armstrongists claim special knowledge from God and scientists have doubt. Certainly, atheists who depend upon science are just plain wrong. The Armstrongists are supremely confident that they are right. They are smug.

Here is an example from Banned by HWA!:

Anonymous said…

What another load of garbage you keep posting. You cant be serious! You keep thinking the GOG people are in a “cult”, thats just a word people like yourselves throw around to degrade others in the hope of achieving something sinister. That would make any person who goes to any church or part of a political system or sports team for that matter, part of a cult, how simple minded are you.

The real reason you keep this rubbish up is because you once understood the truth, you had the sword the sheild the breastplate and the belt, but you couldnt continue the fight, why? I’ll tell you why; because you have a big yellow streak running down your backs thats why!

To know the truth and then throw your talent away instead of building on it is as cowardly as you can get! You are not the type of people anyone would want in any army. You would throw your arms up in the air and say, “oh this is too hard, I want to get back into the lust of the world it’s a lot easier there”, and then complain about those who fight on.

To justify yourselves you complain about and try to bring down COG people who are out there continuing the fight to defeat satans lies and deceptions by preaching the gospel of the coming kingdom.

When will you get over the fact that we dont follow any man but Christ. All you do is twist the truth like satan himself. Why dont you complain about the apostle Paul how he persecuted the church prior to his conversion, could you imagine if all you perfect souls that comment on this site were around then, what Paul would have to deal with on top of his other persecutions.

Why dont you offer any other solutions if you think your so right. You dont because you dont have any thats why. Its a lot easier pointing the finger at others instead.

You people hound others because they believe in the truth while justifying yourselves because you are spiritually yellow right the way through! It’s hard enough to know the truth but to ridicule it the way you do after you once believed is the biggest act of cowardice!

What you need to do is stop thinking your helping people and wake up! Yes it’s easier not to tithe or develop or grow in grace and knowledge but we choose to and nothing you or your regular scoffers can say or do will ever stop this powerful work from going from strength to strength.

Thats what you’re so sore about isnt it, really, knowing more people are hearing the truth and applying it to their lives while you wander around aimlessly. You dont like being a minority. If you think you know the truth then lets hear it so we can check up on you, but you wont do that because you dont have anything but whining and complaining to offer. Like i said before, the color I see is yellow all over this site.

May 16, 2015 at 12:43 AM

Apparently Armstrongists know everything except how to use apostrophes. And maybe capitals.

Perhaps we can put things into perspective with a quote from Tony Reno over at Quora:

First, I know other people are going to correct the OP and point out that atheists don’t need to believe in science, but for the sake of my answer, since I’m an atheists who does, let me take it from my point of view.

Imagine my car is stalling on the highway, and I don’t know why. I take my car into the local mechanic. He’s got a small shop, but he’s my friend. He’s fixed several of my cars in the past and I trust him. I ask him to find the problem.

He starts working on it, takes the engine apart, runs diagnostics. About this time the local pastor comes in to visit. My mechanic comes out and says, “It’s not the spark plugs, not the wiring.”

I ask? “Do you know what it is yet?”

Mechanic: Not yet.

Pastor: I know what it is.

Mechanic, rolls his eyes.

Me: Really. What is it?

Pastor: God doesn’t want your car to run.

Me: I think I’ll let the mechanic work on it a bit longer.

Mechanic comes back after a while: Well it’s not the fuel line. The coil seems ok too.

Pastor: I told you what it was already. I don’t know why you keep working on it.

Me: Pastor, are you going to fix my car?

Pastor: Well no. I’m just letting you know that God doesn’t want it to run.

Me: Pastor, if you are not going to fix my car, would you please shut up and let the mechanic do his job.

You see, religious people don’t care if I learn what I need to. To them, “God did it,” is all they care about.

Me, I actually want to know the answer. I care about it. I might not need that particular car to run, but I still care about the answer.

When the pastor says he knows the answer he’s totally discounting the work the mechanic has already done. The pastor doesn’t care that the mechanic has done tests and knows things. The pastor is only trying to look smug and important, pretending he has that secret knowledge that the mechanic didn’t have.

But did the pastor know that the spark plugs were fine? Did the pastor know that the wiring was fine? Did he know the coil was fine? No, the pastor didn’t know any of those things.

The pastor is sitting up there with his clean hands and his smug answers and is making a mockery of the years of study and the dirty hard exacting work that the mechanic is doing to find things out.

Do you think the mechanic deserves that kind of treatment?

Pastor: Oh, I know you’ve looked really hard. But you didn’t find the answer. That’s because I already know the answer. No, I didn’t look at the engine. No I didn’t study the instruments. No I didn’t get my hands dirty. No I didn’t run any tests. But none of that matters. I know the answer. God doesn’t want the car to run. That’s your answer.

And you wonder why mechanics might be angry with you? You wonder why car owners might be angry?

Not every atheist is angry, because, as I’m sure people have pointed out, not every atheist cares. But those of us who do care about the car, those of us who appreciate the years of study that went into the mechanic’s discipline, those of us who appreciate the fact that the mechanic is willing to get his hands dirty, take the engine apart, check the instruments out, those who appreciate that these jobs aren’t easy, we wish …

I know it’s a lot to ask …

But we wish you’d quit acting so smug and sure of yourself.

We wish you’d realize that you aren’t fixing the cars.

We wish you’d realize that you aren’t even looking at the engine, much less rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty.

We wish you’d appreciate the hard work that is happening.

We wish you’d realize that even though you don’t really care about the right answers, some of us do.

We wish you’d get out of the way and let the mechanic do his job.

Does that not make any sense as to why the smug behavior of claiming that you know what’s wrong with the car when you are not even offering something that will fix the car, just making a pronouncement, doesn’t go over well? You don’t care what’s wrong with the car. You just want to seem smarter than the mechanic, but unlike the mechanic, you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty and look at the engine.

And in case you are thinking that there are no broken cars involved, you don’t know how science works. Many modern medical instruments come from studies in physics, from detector technology used in studying stars. Science actually gets somewhere. A pastor sitting back and saying, “God doesn’t want your car to work,” is just getting in the way.

It is clear it’s even worse with doctors.