Douglas Becker – Page 37 – The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

June 13, 2015

Judas Asparagus

The Children’s Bible in a Nutshell

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one’, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did.

Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden…..Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it.

He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast.

Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people.

These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don’t lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbour’s stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humour thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines.

My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then got barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn.

(I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’)

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums.

The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

We’re pretty sure this kid is going to be on the next committee to translate the Bible.

Actually, he grew up and worked on the Systematic Theology Project.

June 5, 2015

Caste System

And so it begins: We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers!

You lost your job; you’re struggling to exist? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

You desperately need transportation to get to work? You need new clothes because you are threadbare? You need health care you can’t afford? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

You face retirement and don’t have enough? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund — we have our own retirement to worry about.

Any problem you face, from having mentally ill teenagers, to having a teen pregnant out of wedlock, to having to live in a poor neighborhood threatened by crime? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

The ministers live a life of power and privilege not accorded to the average person in the congregation. The ministers never have to pay more than one tithe: Their feasts are paid for by you, the Prole at the bottom; their homes are paid for by you, the peasant; their fleet autos are paid for by you, the untouchable. You are lower than the low. You are worth nothing. You deserve nothing. You only exist to provide for those in the lofty castes above you. Know your place: You are nothing like the ministers who are so far superior to you in every way, led from the top by the all glorious grand leader of your cult religion.

We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers!

You need to care about us! It is your destiny! Make every sacrifice so we don’t have to make any sacrifice.

An anonymous commenter at Banned! says:

In the early 1980s, when I was attending Worldwide in Pasadena, I was hit with a stomach virus and couldn’t seem to shake it after a pretty rough couple of days. I regained enough strength to make a trip to the store for some Pepto, juice, etc. and decided to stop at the Hall of Administration to be anointed. It was a Friday afternoon.

I entered the local church office and was face to face with one of the pastors who now chairs the council of elders of one of the splinters. He was dressed casually and was sitting on the corner of a desk in the lobby, talking to someone in a side office. I knew him, said hello, told him I’d been ill and asked to be anointed. I was shocked at his response. He said they were getting ready to leave for a department camping trip that afternoon and that he was too busy, and referred me to the Church Administration office upstairs. I stared at him for a moment with, I’m sure, a look of disbelief on my face. He just looked back at me. I thought, we’re supposed to call on the elders of the church, and that’s what I’m doing, so there’s no way he could be saying no, is there? So I asked again if he could just take a minute to do this for me. He reiterated that he was too busy but that someone upstairs would be able to help. He was doing nothing, just sitting there shooting the breeze with someone else in the office. Even the look on his face let me know that he couldn’t be bothered with my request. I was stunned. I turned around slowly and left.

I very nearly walked out of the building and out of the church. Instead I went upstairs to the Church Administration office, and was able to be anointed. But the attitude of that Pasadena “pastor” was not lost on me. It was, from my experience, consistent with the attitudes of so many pastors and Pasadena department heads who regularly lorded over people with a lofty view of their titles and offices.

Over the years I began to realize that it was not possible to separate such attitudes from the doctrines and practices taught by HWA and Co. The hierarchy, the control, the capriciousness, and the downright shoddy scholarship had everything to do with what was taught and why. It appears that it continues today, which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise. Personally, I moved on 20 years ago. It’s sad to see that people remain under the grip of such controlling tactics in the various COG organizations.

Don’t bother us — we’re busy! We are so important that you need to drop everything for what we need and want because nothing you do has any importance in the scheme of things at all.

Certainly one of the most illustrative examples of the hubris of the elite is contained in The Failed Experiment as illustrated by the treatment of 1-W Conscientious Objectors on the Ambassador College Big Sandy Campus. The stomach turning disgusting behavior of oppressing the helpless by the members of the higher class and their teen children represent some of the worst examples of humanity.

All of Armstrongism is a failed experiment: The caste system is unChristian, artificially promoting stratification of social classes where the elite does not care because it does not have to.

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.