Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Behold, It's Really Not a Mystery: Using Prophetic Speculation to Deny Reality

“It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.”
Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before


Sam Harris on Death
2:43

Have the Splits, Splinters and Slivers Ever Noticed:

Herbert W. Armstrong
Dead
Garner Ted Armstrong
Dead
Roderick C Meredith
Dead
Dean Blackwell
Dead 
Leslie McCollough
Dead
A personal philosophical photo shoot in downtown Greenville, SC

Dr Hoeh
Dead
Clint Zimmerman
Dead
Chuck Zimmerman
Dead
Carlton Smith 
Dead
Ian Boyne
Dead
Burk McNair
Dead
Marion  McNair
Dead
Art Mokarow
Dead
Ron Dart
Dead
Bob League
Dead
John Halford
Dead
Bernie Schnippert 
Dead
Leroy Neff
Dead
Dennis Luker
Dead
Charles Hunting
Dead
Dibar Apartian
Dead
Raymond McNair
Dead
David Jon Hill
Dead
Howard Clark
Dead
Ernest Martin 
Dead

...and so on and on and on.

The All Too Painful Truth


...and too

"Behold the day will come..."

Dave Pack
In Bankruptcy

Gerald Flurry
Any Minute

Ron Weinland
Clutching his gold and diamonds in the bathtub with the Prophetess

Gerald Weston
Of Boredom

Bob Thiel
Of a swollen head

James Malm
Of Legalitis

Joe Tkach Jr
Drown swimming with too many Rolex Watches on at one time.

Myself
Being in Therapeutic Massage I probably will get rubbed out
:)

Don't let the True Fragment Churches of  God Steal Your Actual Life and Time on the Planet
Live-Laugh-Love
...and hurry  :)






29 comments:

Tonto said...

Meditate or Masturbate...its all the same to me!

Byker Bob said...

What is more significant to me is the number of rock stars who have died, because truly, Ronnie Van Zant and Stevie Ray Vaughan had much more positive influence on my life and attitudes than did the Armstrongs and their lackeys. Jim Morrison, who was also quite famous, but whom I did not particularly like, is reputed to have said that nobody gets out of life alive. Others used their fame to promote greater social consciousness, and to make the world a better place. I've left many comments on Youtube (also as BB) over the years.

In rock n roll, there is something which has come to be known as the "27 Club". It is a phenomenon in which numerous rock stars died at age 27. Their flames burned brightly, and then were snuffed out. Why is this significant to someone growing up in the WCG? Until the great disappointment, I was taught, and actually believed that I would only live to age 27! It seemed so devastatingly unfair. That was the age which I would reach in 1975.

In a classic pyramid scheme, it is the early joiners who make the money and get out, having won. Those who come along later end up being ripped off, and actually losing. The list of dead ministers which Dennis compiled are the earlier winners. They may not all have been rich, but they did enjoy incredible status, unlike anything they would ever have attained in the real world. So, you might say that they have won, and now they are dead. Many members ended up either being losers, or needing to make extreme repairs just to enjoy somewhat normal or occasionally exceptional lives. It doesn't seem right, and in fact, that is why so many of us are here, providing a post-mortem review of the whole experience. Will people listen? Will there ever come a day when everyone knows about the damage that cults can do, and so avoids them? One can only hope.

BB

Anonymous said...

BB 8:26 AM said:

"What is more significant... Others used their fame to promote greater social consciousness, and to make the world a better place."


Glad to see the comment on these musical artists, advocating 'the way of love.' Actual love.

Worth reflecting on the comment, as people following this blog try to comprehend "the damage that cults can do."

Ronco said...

He's dead, Jim!

Anonymous said...

Tonto, you are vulgar.

Anonymous said...

Intellectual juveniles reveal their mindset by fixations on sex and rock.

Anonymous said...

The Truth ... dead.

We live in a post-truth society. Too much BS to get to the truth of anything.

Anonymous said...

"when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy." -- Proverbs 11:10 I believe.

Anonymous said...

Lots of rockers are using Illuminati symbolism. Others are promoting Satanism as the cool thing to do. Whether or not Satan is real, this is a disturbing trend.


Anonymous said...

I think an even more disturbing trend is Armstrongites fixated on the Illuminati, demons and all kinds of other stupid things. Why is this even posted here? It has nothing to do with the original post.

Anonymous said...

The dead Armstrongites in the original list were pretty much all terminally uncool. That would be their common denominator. So are their apologists and followers who have made the usual negative judgmental comments. How do some of you people even live? Sucks to be you.

Al Dexter said...

Death is steadily claiming all those with whom I was once so close. We shared the same fanaticism and many of them never shook it. Whether that was out of fear and cowardice or just plain stupidity, greed and avarice I'm not able to judge. My old co-worker in LAD, David Hunsberger is recovering from a serious auto accident. I think he's going to make a few more years. Many others are already gone. Soon, that whole farce will be no more significant than the phenomenon of the Shakers. Even blogs like this have a limited shelf life because the reason for them is rapidly fading into insignificance. When my generation is gone, they will steadily disappear.

Anonymous said...

Jim Morrison, who was also quite famous, but whom I did not particularly like, is reputed to have said that nobody gets out of life alive.

Jim Morrison's father was a Navy admiral, involved in the misrepresentation of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to trump up U.S. escalation of the Vietnam War. Early in his career, before the Doors became a smash-hit money spigot, he received suspiciously large sums of money to fuel a lifestyle he could not yet afford by his own labor. Some have suggested that he was, knowingly or unknowingly, part of a government psyop meant to turn young anti-war Americans into passive drugged-out zombies instead of the vigorous political zealots Russia and China wanted them to become.

Anonymous said...

I like John Trudell's last words. He was a Native American writer and activist. I doubt that any of you a familiar with him. He died of cancer in 2015. His last words were posted to his facebook page just after he died:

"My ride showed up. Celebrate Love. Celebrate Life."

Byker Bob said...

Some of the reasons I did not like Morrison (in addition to some of the lyrical content of their songs) was that he got to the point where he was totally out of control and was actually inciting riots at the Doors concerts. By about 1968-69, because of Morrison’s behavior, the Doors were banned to the point that nobody would even book them any more. This was according to Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and co-writer of many of the songs. So, if the government had been using him in psyops, they made a very bad choice. Owsley “Bear” Stanley was already doing enough damage with his chemicals up in hippie mecca (San Francisco). Also, many of our troops in Vietnam were becoming zombies because drug use was rampant over there. I believe that everything in the youth movement of those times was way beyond the government’s control, although it is actually well-documented that the FBI killed the Black Power movement. Read “Soul on Ice” for the details.

By the way, if anyone wants to laugh to the point of deep stomach ache, Google Ted Nugent, and his story about how he avoided Vietnam! He says he made it all up these days, but ???

BB

Anonymous said...


It is not always easy to, “Hold on to what you have, so that no man will take your crown.

Apostates like Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. and his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. threw out of the Worldwide Church of God in January 1995 almost everything that Herbert W. Armstrong had taught up to the time of his death in January 1986. The WCG went from Sabbath keeping to Sunday keeping. Who would have expected such a complete doctrinal change within one decade?

Many people had thought in the past that the coming Laodicea era of the church really would be rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. They thought that the Worldwide Church of God would grow even larger and more prosperous but would somehow become a bit lackadaisical. In his old age Herbert W. Armstrong had made it appear to be so easy to grow the church that many other people thought that they could do it too, and even better than he had done. Nobody ever expected that the Worldwide Church of God would explode into many tiny little groups that really would be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

The more the apostate Tkaches talked about how wise, and thrifty, and spiritual they were, and about what an uneducated, incompetent, unspiritual, old fool Herbert W. Armstrong had been, the more the Worldwide Church of God stopped growing and started to decline. Then, the Tkaches' Great Apostasy of January 1995 blew up the WCG into many tiny little splinters and slivers.

Roderick C. Meredith started his Global Church splinter group a couple years before the WCG blew up, and then later his Living Church splinter group, with some of HWA's former followers from the WCG. RCM tried to make it sound like almost nobody had ever heard of HWA or the WCG, but that his own little groups with less than 10% of HWA's former followers were going to “shake the nations.” Rod should have given his head a shake. Instead, he came up with silly and sinful “doctrinal upgrades” to try to compete with HWA.

Most ministers who still appeared to believe something formed what they called the “United” Church “of God” a few months after the Tkaches' Great Apostasy of January 1995. They needed to continue to collect a paycheck after the WCG layoffs. Holding on to some of HWA's teachings, but trying never to use his name, they had high hopes for rapid growth. But, after getting less than 20% of HWA's former WCG members, they got basically diddly for new people. Every group wants to get brand new people who had never heard of HWA or the WCG. The problem is that the demons who send the occasional new weirdo their way have heard of HWA.

Around 2010, the UCG split with a bunch of the ministers forming COGWA. The former Tkach goon Victor Kubik got to lead the UCG, and Jim Franks got to lead COGWA. COGWA took the UCG's new “Winter Family X-mass Weekend” custom with it when it split, just like the Protestants took Sunday keeping with them when they split with the Roman Catholic Church.

To make matters even worse, the same Devil behind the Tkaches' Great Apostasy of January 1995 also sent his own false prophets Gerald Flurry and David Pack to raise up the PCG and RCG imposter cults to attract Herbert W. Armstrong's followers by claiming to be faithfully holding on to everything that he had taught. They then went on to pervert in the most satanic ways Herbert W. Armstrong's major teachings. These guys really did come only to lie, steal, destroy, and kill.

Those who do not want the scorched earth policies of the major false prophets like Flurry and Pack can choose minor false prophets like Ronald Weinland and Bob Thiel to tell them ridiculous lies and waste their time.

Silly little rebels like Norman Edwards, James Malm, and others sprouted up like weeds to spread division and confusion to HWA's former followers.

There are not really hundreds of true Churches of God, but there might be hundreds of false ones.

Byker Bob said...

I loved John Trudell’s work. The disc jockey character he created in Smoke Signals was awesome. Also, there was a short-lived TV program in which Robert Urich had restored an old Harley Shovelhead, and he and his son were touring the USA on it. In one episode they met John Trudell who was riding a VW Trike conversion. I forget the names of their characters, but John Trudell’s character taught Robert Urich’s son how to catch fish from a stream without any fishing gear, “tickling” it out of the water.

Actually, I became fascinated with Native American films starting with the Billy Jack movies, and Wind Walker. I like Wes Studi’s films, the Longmire TV series, and will watch just about any movie or TV program that Zahn McClarnon is in. My favorite Native actress is Tantoo Cardinal. In fact, if you Google Tantoo, there is a 26 minute interview with her that comes up on Youtube, and I had actually contributed to the interview’s comment section about 7 months ago. It’s nice to know that if Tantoo happened to read those comments, she knows a dude who goes by the handle BB is one of her fans.

BB

Anonymous said...

Tonto said: “Meditate or Masturbate...its all the same to me!”

Lol! Like Tyler Durden put it: “Self-improvement is masturbation.”

And as Benji Frankin said: “There’s only 2 certainties in life... death and taxes!” ;-)

Anonymous said...

yes, we shall not all sleep.....some will be alive to see the return of Christ...

maybe next year, maybe in 2 or 3 more generations, who knows?

Anonymous said...

A reminder that you can't take your money with you.

Tonto said...

Byker Bob:

Tonto likes Tantoo too!

(Say that 5 times fast- I dare ya!)

Byker Bob said...

Cool, Tonto. Actually, this is a timely subdiscussion. I am working in Navajo Nation today, as we speak. I have customers both on the Navajo and Apache tribal lands. It is always refreshing whenever I get to travel here.

BB

Anonymous said...

Let's ponder the DEEP meaning and great intellect of modern music.

"Someone's knocking on the door, somebody's ringing the bell. Do me a favor, let him in".

It's too deep for mortals to grasp the true meaning. The symbolism is a mystery. Surely, the work of a philosophical mystic religious genius. His fans rightly worship him. Rock is for brilliant minds and paragons of virtue. Only a UFO Indian guru on drugs could grasp this message from the gods.

Anonymous said...

Most of the land by me was purchased from the Indians. Nobody died there. Well, not quite. They were killing each other like flies, until they sold the land.

Al Dexter said...

"yes, we shall not all sleep.....some will be alive to see the return of Christ...

maybe next year, maybe in 2 or 3 more generations, who knows?"

It didn't happen as supposedly promised. It's never going to happen. I'm amazed at how this baseless hope can go on and on and on......

Anonymous said...


Some modern music, when played backward, supposedly says something like, “Worship Satan.”

Of course, when you play it forward, it basically says something like, “Worship Satan.”

Anonymous said...

4:55: You drank the Kool Aid!

nck said...

re 2:26

"Most of the land by me was purchased from the Indians. Nobody died there. Well, not quite. They were killing each other like flies, until they sold the land."

This fool is probably related to some of the Scottish Folk that were evicted from their Celtic ancestral lands because some British Lord deemed marginal increase from sheep easier to handle than the rowdy natives and their "life water."

nck

Byker Bob said...

The Linkhorn syndrome?

BB