Mythunderstanding

 

 

A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing
Baaaah…

 

 

Armstrongists aren’t very bright.

But they would like you to believe they are.

It’s so amazing that the world of the intelligent laugh at them as being stupid fools and they can’t see it: They assume that the ones who don’t adopt their religious beliefs are “unconverted” without “understanding”. The Armstrongists actually mock people who are educated, scientifically brilliant and knowledgeable. It is a tragic mistake for them to do so — to treat those who could help them out of their superstition with such contempt. It is a defense mechanism.

 

 

A moron has an IQ of 50 to 70.

An imbecile has an IQ of 25 to 50.

An idiot has an IQ under 25: Mental age of 3 (or less).

A fool can have any IQ.

The Armstrongists mock the intelligent as a defense mechanism — defense against truth, reality and sanity.

Consider the fact that Herbert Armstrong, born in the 19th Century, barely made it past eighth grade, but became the profound guru filled with all spiritual understanding and knowledge. Just how does that happen? In a word: Advertising.

Create your myth cobbled together from unreliable sources like Ellen G. White and John H. Allen, not to mention William Miller, flesh out the eschatology with impressive sounding credentials including Biblical proof texting, put up your shingle, be patient to wait awhile and the money will come rolling in. Be sure to sell, sell, sell your idea with tenuous connections to current news filtered through hyperbole based prophecy and it is sure to make you a success — especially if you make empty promises of supernatural rescue in false prophet style “the end is coming” prognostication.

Establish a religion. Send out booklets. Put up a Magazine. Clutter the airwaves with your claptrap. Make sermons. Get a social group together to support each other in their stupidity. Make it sound reasonable and attractive and you can sell any kind of kooky crap to the weak minded careless fools. Make it so they will agree with some of your major points without reservation and then they will swallow the rest, hook, line and sinker. Then prepare to live in a mansion, eat the best, wear the best, associate with the best and travel the world. It hardly matters that the religion makes no sense at all and can be readily proved objectively with science. Make empty promises and they will come with money in hand, ready to pay for the privilege of being duped and abused.

Just be prepared to dumb yourself down to their level.

Anyone who is suspicious about all this may want to examine the evidence provided by Ronald Weinland who represents all of Armstrongism in a microcosm. His prophecies about the end of the world were proven false. Moreover, he is now a convicted felon. Yet, a widow in his church provided $300,000 out of the collateral of her home to insure his freedom for four months when it has been amply demonstrated that his trustworthiness is less than stellar. His Evangelist dupes are still supporting him without one shred of any evidence that they have two active brain cells left to rub together to support a spark of intelligence. His infantile followers lap up his swill with abandon.

Take note that Ronald Weinland is very little different from the original Herbert Armstrong who did much the same things — using income of the church as his own personal cash machine to use as he saw fit for his own personal lust fulfilment. Gold, diamond rings, travel, staying at posh hotels, taking vacations, spending money on his wife and children: Except for the name on the door, you can’t tell whether we are talking about Herbert Armstrong, Ronald Weinland or any of the other host of 700+ cults of Armstrongism. They are all pretty much the same. For example, United spends 80% or so on minister’s salaries, retirement and other maintenance and some of the percentage left is used for evangelism. The UCG doesn’t have local church buildings for the greater percentage of their congregations and renting halls hardly inspires confidence in the abstract notion of stable churches. In fact, they have had split after split after split over who knows what — mostly “governance”. This, in turn, seems to be reduced to the concept that only the money is important, but that may not be fair: Egos also must be considered.

Given that British Israelism as the core belief of Armstrongism and their Key to Prophecy has been disproved and that their church history has been shown to be a fraud, it is a wonder that anyone with half a brain is left hanging on to the dying proposition of false prophecies and false hopes of a world which will never come. It would be better if they all grew up, left and got a life. Alas, that does not seem to be happening because it appears that people get some sort of enjoyment in being terminally stupid: This is not an issue of faith, it’s an issue of intelligence.

Armstrongists can be fat, dumb and happy, believing that they are rich and increased in goods (but are, blind, naked, poor and going bankrupt supporting their cultmeister in the lifestyle to which he wants to become accustomed) as long as they don’t look at the environment around them and see reality.

Consider the realities of SIGMA, for example. Arlan Andrews, Senior presents the article, “SIGMA: Summing up Speculation,” in the September 2012 Analog Science Fiction and Fact, with the subheading:

In a fast changing world, who’s best qualified to anticipate future problems–and solutions?

Certainly, not the Armstrongists who have a dismal record of such things — failed on all accounts.

Dr. Andrews writes:

As a science fiction writer speaking to U.S. government authorities at meetings in 2008 and 2009, I had said that dictatorships would fall when people had cell phones and texting and other communications devices: “Think of the revolutionary social changes, spreading around the world at the speed of light.” I used the term “flash mobs” back in those ancient days.

As founder of the science fiction thhink tank SIGMA, making such forecasts is one of the things I am privileged to do. My forty SIGMA colleagues, science fiction writers all, do the same thing.

Armstrongists are having their own experiences of having their dictatorships undermined by modern technology.

Dr. Andrews continues:

I wanted to provide this new service to government bureaucrats who never had the opportunity or the mindset to appreciate science fictional ways of thinking. Too busy worrying about their funding and the political aspects of their decisions, they seldom ventured far from the straight and narrow. Never did I hear any of them discuss disruptive technologies, destructive political events, or widespread natural calamities. Linear thinkers, all.

Not unlike the Armstrongist leaders with their “linear thinking”. They may talk about disruption, destruction, doom and death, but they offer not one whit of thought to preventing it or dealing with it in a productive way — other than making money off of it.

The original SIGMA team started by Arlen Andrews included, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Doug Beason, Dr. Charles Sheffield, Dr. David Brin, Dr. Geoff Landis, Dr. Robert Forward, NASA astrophysicicist Dr. Yoji Kondo (“Eric Kotani”), Dr. Stanley Schmidt of Analog and Dr. Gregory Benford.

Some may wonder what these and other highly qualified luminaries did for the United States since the establishment of SIGMA?

Over the intervening years, though not acting as a group, individual SIGMA members were called upon to participate in government projects, some brainstorming for DARPA on new technologies for education; other members maintained paid consulting arrangement with other agencies. I even lobbied unofficially for the Air Force’s DC-X Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) project in the White House, bringing in Air Force officers to brief the new Administration on it, and continued that effort for several more years. While at OSTP, I also wrote the first White House endorsement of molecular nanotechnology, published in The President’s Report to Congress on Science and Technology in April 1993….

…We made other suggestions to DHS (Department of Homeland Security), many along low-tech lines, items that would help first responders in emergencies, ideas for border security, comments about how the chemical/biological detectors in cell phones that DHS was proposing should be utilized. The ideas and comments were technical, social, cultural, and political….

…Other government agencies, some that prefer not to be named or even mentioned, have called on SIGMA to brainstorm on future developments in communications, computer applications, politics, sociology, demographics, and culture.

These forward thinking futurists were the first to introduce NATO planners to the concepts and importance of social networking and texting. They also predicted the potential for drastic overnight, overwhelming social change, facilitated by handheld devices in the hands of disatisfied or revolutionary “flash mobs”. Further, the influence on government has been to affect the thinking patters of those SIGMA has worked with to think realistically about the future and has produced tangible benefits.

Contrast this with the “stick in the mud” thinking of Armstrongism: A vision of the dark ages unleashed upon the people with a tightly controlled government preceded by anarchy and followed by a static rigid society making no social progress whatsoever. It isn’t just the false prophecies of Armstrongism based on their “Mythunderstanding” using the Key to Prophecy, the thoroughly discredited British Israelism and their insistence upon deceiving people with their fraudulent church history, it’s the ugly missteps of people like Roderick Merdith writing such stupid crap as The Shocking Truth About Queer Men and claiming that Hitler is still alive, ready to usher in the Fourth Reich. All of Armstrongism is centered on fears, uncertainties and doubts with an eye to building empires with lots of money and power for those at the top — certainly not as a public service to do what can be done to make the world a better place today. In place of futurists like SIGMA helping build the future and find solutions, Armstrongism is a degenerate cancer undermining the very fabric of society, causing it ultimately to deteriorate wherever it goes. The 700+ splinters should have taught us that.

Armstrongism has also brought us something else for which we need to find a new term: Herbert Armstrong was one to take advantage of those at the bottom of the social pyramid to put himself near the top. Ronald Weinland has followed in his footsteps along with his peers, such as, but certainly not restricted to David Pack, Gerald Flurry, Roderick Meredith, John Rittenbaugh, Don Haney. People have been searching for the words to describe these reprehensible people and we now have our suggestion from the Urban Dictionary.

Bottom Feeder:

1) leech, or in other words a total lack of responsibility to provide for oneself. Relies heavily upon friends, neighbors or anyone really for sustenance. a slacker through and through.

2) a loser who profits from the fortunes of others. A low or despicable person.

5) The absolute lowest and filthiest form of life, that is so much of a scumball that every living and non-living piece of matter would benefit from it’s/their death.

8) One of higher social standing, attractiveness, or intelligence level whom chooses to prey on those whom are poor, weak, or vulnerable.

British Israel Propaganda And Deceit. Part II

Forward: In Part One I wrote about spiritual communism and the useful idiots that support the idea of a one world government. This theocratic “New World Order” is represented by the “Churches of God” and are to be ruled by a king that descends from the heavens above.

 

Part Two

Armstrong-ism. A Parasitic Leech.

Mark Armstrong, the grandson of Herbert Armstrong, wrote an article entitled The Misappropriation of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Name.” In this article he laments the constant misuse of his grandfathers name for the benefit of not so few in the ministry. Mark writes “News came to me this week that is sickening. That is, that one of those claiming to have inherited “the authority of Herbert W. Armstrong” has told his congregation that they should liquidate any holdings and send in their money.”

How many abuses will be committed in the name of my deceased Grandfather? And how long will some poor abused people remain in a state of deception, or worse, mind control?”

Mark tells it like it is. I have lost count as to how many of the “Churches of God” have proclaimed the authority of Herbert W. Armstrong as if he handed them personally the keys to his “thiefdom.”

(Mark, have your eyes been closed and ears plugged as to the abuses of these self proclaimed apostles and prophets?) These parasites have been using your Granddad’s legacy and family name to impoverish people, and undermining their financial security for decades! They are just following the successful corporate model that Herbert Armstrong implemented.

A Marxist is a Parasitic Leech.

 

While the communist is busy beating his people to death and they are dying of hunger…”

It was communists who a century ago came up with the idea of Income Tax… it was intended to fleece the rich of their wealth and to level everyone to the ground.” Likewise, the “Churches of God” have been successful in using the resources of the “people” in order to build and support their theocratic New World Order. The tax was a tithe, or two, and in some years, three. The squeezing (extorting) money from the membership kept committed and submissive sheeple in line. Like in a communist society, rebelling meant sure death. Now the Armstrong churches might not shoot you in the head, but they claim the authority of God almighty to have you thrown into the lake of fire! It is this alone that kept you and I in line and submissive to their authority. The end game was about money and power. As one article in particular pointed out on the Painful Truth, the organization existed for itself alone. There was no love, mercy or compassion, only contempt!

Earth-bound.

Within the closed totalitarian society of Armstrong-ism lies the seeds of its own destruction. Unable to grow exponentially and unchecked, the information age has decreased the survivability factor a thousand fold. Potential members who never heard of Herbert Armstrong will find umpteen web-sites and articles that offer information on the man and the organization he administrated. Few web-sites are supportive of his efforts and rightfully so.

The unscathed mind will articulate the deception with a click of the mouse! With incredible ease one can decipher this insane notion that America and Britain are the decedents of some lost tribes of ancient Israel. The belief that modern Israel is the result of a promise made to Abraham, and that prophecy cannot be understood without this knowledge, is the Achilles heel that will bring down the movement. It is just unbelievable how many hoops one has to jump through to come to the conclusion that America and the Brits are heir to the promise made to Abraham. The necessary twisting of the scriptures alone is enough to drive the discerning mind far from the grasping hands of the COG gurus!

The “Churches of God” just stunt their growth with all their nutty ideas. They undercut their ability to grow and prosper, to change and move forward. They bash communism, and at the same time express their love for free market capitalism. If they were capitalist they would allow the free expression of the membership in choosing the next generation of leaders. But that is not how they work. Free expression is the enemy of the totalitarian gurus. It is the deathblow to the organization and the power of the upper-class who rule over the regime. If there is to be change it must come from free-thinking individuals who are committed to the free expression of ideas within the confines of their church. The problem is, just how do you open minds in a heavy handed religious regime without being sacrificed on the alter of dissent?

More on the next blog entry.

Inside North Korea. Cultism and the guru.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4

British Israel Propaganda And Deceit

“The goal of “Communism” is identical to that of British Israel and they emanate from the same source and serve the same masters. Capitalism finances Communism and Russian Communism is state capitalism. Communism promises a perfect society and British Israel promises a paradise on earth. Are they the same?”

The Union Jack”
-Published ca. 1970


 

Today a friend sent me a link to an article entitled “British Israel Propaganda And Deceit.” In this article we read the following:

“Americans who believe that Christ’s kingdom is of this world are ushering in world government. They have a sickness called Communism of the heart or spiritual Communism. Spiritual Communism is a political religion. It is a religion dedicated to a world government kingdom in which national states vanish under the central authority of the political theocracy.”

Although the Painful Truth does not necessarily endorse the conspiratorial views of the above article, there are a few points I would like to make.

British Israelism.

In mind control, cults teach that you are powerless, and can never achieve enlightened without their group and that torment and destruction awaits you if you leave the group. The power of sin is not death, it is control over your mind. Why do people need a minister to come between them and God? The answer is that the ministry exploits a basic human need. A need for understanding about life after death. A need of purpose. A need for a thousand philosophical answers.  Needless to say, tens of thousands have left the Armstrong religion after figuring the scam out.

British Israelism is used as a form of mind control along with other cult doctrines and rituals for the expressed purpose of having the group stand out from mainstream groups.  The purpose of this chosen method is to coax the true believer into believing that the cult and the members are special. Words spoken from the pulpit enforce this view onto the true believer. “You are Gods chosen people.” “We are the true church.” “We have the correct doctrines revealed by God.”

Is British Israelism a biblical re-educational process that is leading people away from their national identity and merging them into a world government through religion? The Armstrong sects teach that a Kingdom of God is coming soon, but is it? Or are they just “useful idiots” that are propelling their followers to support unknowingly a one world government?

The term “useful idiot” comes from the cold war era in which the Russian KGB used teacherspreachers, social workers, students,  environmentalists and others to unwittingly support a malign cause through their ‘naive’ attempts to be a force for good, furthering the cause of expansive Soviet communism. When the goal is reached, the useful idiots are executed. This is the understanding of control through subversion. If you can get someone to believe a certain way, half the battle is over.

To understand why British Israelism is expounded endlessly, you must first understand those who put forth the heresy.

Part One

The Armstrong Religion.

The Armstrong religion is nothing less than Phariseeism, in that it observes a strict and hypocritical interpretation of the  “letter of the law.” The aspect of true piety, the spiritual experience, is subverted through useless doctrines such as British Israelism.

The promised Golden Age in which there is no war or poverty, human misery is alleviated under this Christian world government. Herbert Armstrong at his pseudo bible college, preached that all nations will be destroyed at the time of the “Great Tribulation” so all things can be made new and that perfect peace can begin. That day has yet to arrive after the endless setting of dates.

His followers deny biblical grace by centering their attention and hope on a future religious political system which promises a material, glorified earthly paradise. A paradise which will never materialize anymore than it did when the Pharisees thought Christ was to be a political king ruling the world from Jerusalem.

The promotion of a material earthly kingdom is taught not just by the Armstrong cults but also by some mainstream religions. Without this kingdom we are told, there shall never be peace on earth. But Christ is quoted as saying that his kingdom is not of this world. So I ask you, just what do you mean by the Kingdom of God? Is it the new world order?

The Armstrong religion builds a society within a society. They don’t vote or participate in mainstream society and often quote the bible passage “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
2 Corinthians 6:17. You see, they claim not to be of this world but are up to their necks in it. All of life is in vain because they are sure that Christ is coming back to set up His world government and to “rule with a rod of iron.”

However, the true believers participation in basic Christian tenets are lacking. We have yet to see the corporate Armstrong churches set up charities that feed the poor, cloth the needy or contribute to the general welfare of society. Once upon a time, people lived their religion. It was a way of life. Families spent their time in service to others regardless of religion or race. They served the more unfortunate ones in society. They contributed a useful purpose that edified the country, promoted good values both at work and at home. They set the example for their children as to what good works are. In the churches of God, few go out of their way to make a difference, the whole movement lacks the motivation and willingness to contribute something positive.

If you need proof dear true believer, go look at any of the Armstrong church websites. Do any of them have a link to assist those in Japan who have been slammed by earthquakes, then a tsunami and now a near reactor meltdown? If the churches of God are not contributing to society, just what is the purpose of their existence? What is their real motivation for preaching Christ crucified? It makes you wondering about who is really behind that religious info-commercial you may have seen Sunday morning and why they want me to send for that glossy magazine.

 


The horrifying fruits of Armstrong-ism can be seen in this video.
Former Armstrong student and AC attendee, Lyn Benedetto.


More on the next blog.