Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
Brilliant, 3:39. You are extrapolating the knowledge, median intelligence, and average education prevalent in the wealthiest, most advanced civilization in the history of the world on to some of the most disavantaged, impoverished, ignorant third world countries on largely forgotten continents. Like they really have a choice. Go back to your ACOG, you cold hearted bastard! You deserve everything they dish out to you.
You are making a blanket statement that all single women who have kids do it regardless of their ability to feed them. The truth is there are many COG single moms who where once married that are divorced or widowed that are victims of financial abuse because of the abusive nature of the tithing doctrines of the COG's. These women may at one time been able to adequately take care of their kids but because of the lose of their mate and the large amounts of money that they pay out of their pockets to their greedy ministers they have trouble even feeding their kids.
One of the things I hate about religion is simple answers are used to explain complex problems.
In an Armstrong church, you get married to solve a sin problem. It makes exercising your natural drives legal and wholesome. When I got married for the first time, it was the late '60s, and we knew the Germans were coming in '72. So, that got factored into family planning. But then we found out that rubbers break, i.u.d.s come out, and creams, foams, and suppositories have a high failure rate. You weren't supposed to use the pill, or get sterilized. There was still a kind of Victorian attitude, and oral sex was considered to be savage, dirty, animalism. Anal sex was beyond perverted, and an abomination to even think of. It was what "the queers" did as their sex.
What we proved was that if you are regularly enjoying the pleasures of sexual activity, and are both normally fertile, you are probably going to end up having children, regardless of counter-measures.
It's not as if being poor gives you a special blessing of self-restraint, or low potency, either. And, the instabilities in todays world often make it so that even individuals who are well off and economically equipped for parenthood can suddenly lose it all. That happened a lot around 2008. It's why there was a dramatic uptick in the number of families on food stamps.
No, cliches like 3:39 spouted might provide a good sounding sound byte when a demagogue like an ACOG leader or Rush Limbaugh utters them, but when you carefully consider all the implications, the premise melts away, and the statement becomes quite ignorant. Plus, I believe 3:39 is our old buddy "Racist", and the fact that the portrait depicts a black child was tha catalyst for his cruelty.
The cult-ure of the COGs is one of such arrogance and pride that helping those is need was ridiculed as do-goodism. We in the COG, of course, didn't waste our tithes on such things. We had gurus to support, fine china to buy for them, and a private jet to help them spread the word! Feed a hungry child? That's for those silly Protestants and Catholics.
Yep, there are employers who want to force their religious views about contraception onto their employees. That's antithetical to any concept of "religious freedom" that I'm familiar with! What's particularly crazy is that it's those same religiously coercive types who are often active in politics so they can lessen aid for children living in poverty, and support policies and laws which broaden the gap between the haves and have-nots, while lobbying for more corporate welfare.
BB writes, "What we proved was that if you are regularly enjoying the pleasures of sexual activity, and are both normally fertile, you are probably going to end up having children, regardless of counter-measures."
Byker Bob says "probably", which is a greater than 50% chance.
Is that correct? Let's consider this, and look at the statistics:
First, let's define effectiveness-
'Completely effective' means that no couples will become pregnant while using that method. 'Very effective' means that between 1 and 2 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method. 'Effective' means that 2 to 12 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method. 'Moderately effective' means that 13 to 20 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method. 'Less effective' means that 21 to 40 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method. 'Not effective' means that more than 40 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
Now...Information on each method is provided below in each line- comprising 'Method of Birth Control', 'How Many Couples Using This Method Will Get Pregnant in a Year?', and 'How Well Does This Method Work in Preventing Pregnancy?'
Birth Control Patch ("The Patch"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Birth Control Pill ("The Pill"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Birth Control Ring ("The Ring"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Female Condom, 21 out of 100, Less effective
Male Condom, 18 out of 100, Moderately effective
Birth Control Shot, 3 out of 100, Effective
Diaphragm, 16 out of 100, Moderately effective
IUD, Fewer than 1 out of 100, Very effective
Fertility Awareness, 25 out of 100, Less effective
Spermicide, 29 out of 100, Less effective
Withdrawal ("Pulling Out"), 27 out of 100, Less effective
Not Using Any Birth Control, 85 out of 100, Not effective
But couples are fertile for longer than just one year.
If we were to assume that these figures are correct (they seem a little high to me, but whatever). If we were to simply take a sample of 100 married couples who did not want children for each of the first 8 of those types of birth control methods, and say that they used exclusively that one type of birth control every time, over the course of, say 20 years of fertility, and assume that they were fertile the entire time, and that abortion was not an option, how many children would these 800 couples have? 1660. That's just over one child for every adult. Due to mortality rates, that's almost, but not quite, population replacement. How many of these couples would not have a child? 120. That's just 15%. Those with the most children would be those using the female condom, having an average family size of over 4 children. That's a big family for a couple who didn't want kids.
I'm not sure what your point was supposed to be, and I'm not sure if those statistics are correct, but if so, the chances of a sexually active fertile woman having at least one child over the course of her lifetime would seem to be quite a bit more than 50%, even if she didn't want any children.
Everyone who isn't Jewish is regarded by the Jews as a "goy." And that includes all those white Anglo-Saxons in the COG churches who think they're the descended from the long-lost tribes of Israel (but aren't).
So what's your point in calling this child a "gentile"? Are you implying that all people who aren't Jewish are "professional mooches"?
What I want to know is how many times a night those statistics are based on? I have no idea how birth control methods relate to the general publlic, just how they worked for myself and my significant others. If a couple is only doing it maybe 20 times per month (starvation diet!), I can see your statistics making sense.
"If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up."
Good points.
Of course, no one knows for sure what the future will bring. HWA seemed to believe in having a sound financial base before getting married and starting a family. However, after HWA's supposedly great financial starts, his own family spent some time going hungry. In later years a WCG minister mentioned this "sound financial base" idea and said that he did not know of anyone who was doing it. He said that everyone he knew was getting married on a shoestring. If you have to be rich first before you do anything, where is the faith?
As for all those nasty comments by all those nasty people who did not like what you wrote, I wonder if any of them will ever actually send any of their own cash to try to help anyone anywhere, or if they are just trying to financially drain church people in whatever way they can to try to prevent them from supporting the church and its teachings.
Lol, let's see about this birth control effectiveness...
Let's use the span from a woman being 15 years old to her being 50 years old. That's a 35-year span.
The typical 1-year pregnancy rate using Norplant is 0.09%, so a woman would have a 3% chance of getting pregnant once during those 35 years if she were consistently sexually active. That's one in 33 women who would have one child in her lifetime.
On the other end of the spectrum, the typical 1-year pregnancy rate using no birth control method is 85%, so how many children would that be in 35 years for a consistently sexually active woman? I'm don't know, but I'm sure those Bible-inspired Duggars are working on it. (Next year they'll be saying, "And baby makes twenty!")
C'mon 12:57, You're just trying to get a reaction here, right? You can't really think that kid drives a Jaguar and has a closet full of Dinty Moore beef stew and Armani suits.
Going anonymous here myself, Anonymous 8:18 for obvious reasons, but, I am a regular poster here, an ex-member, and a current critic of the Armstrong movement. I have actually given thousands of dollars over the past 5-10 years so that African children can have shoes, clothing, medical supplies, and clean water. And, I'm not the only one. While I happen to be Christian, I also know of an ex member, an atheist who, with his wife, has started an orphanage in a third world country, and believe me, there are others who have contributed in a big way to try to make a difference for the less fortunate in the here and now.
Many years ago, while working for Ambassador College, even as a church member, I was apalled that we would print (exploit) the likenesses of starving African children on the covers of our magazines, but not lift a finger to assist them or to ease their suffering in any way. Often, in those same issues, there would be pictures of HWA and Stan Rader getting off the jet, and dining sumptuously with opulent and powerful world leaders.
I realized that this was terribly wrong, and unChristlike, yet as members of the WCG, we were "Orwelled" into somehow believing that our activities were the way God would have it. Unfortunately, I did not have the fortitude at that time to obey God, rather than the man (HWA). How many additional lives could I have saved, lives of people whom, if they only lived long enough, might have come to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Same with homeless people who, yes, might have bought a shortdog of wine if given a handout, but having gotten through one more cold, winter night, might have found Jesus the very next day, Who then completely turned their life around.
There is none so blind as one who will not see. Armstrongism is just plain institutionalized blindness.
Median statistics in general do not apply to people who live on the fringes, or whose habits lie in the extremes. Armstrongjism was a powerful modifier, one that often put its members "on the jazz".
This means that unless a wannabe "Charley Eppes" type writer or commentator is utilizing them to establish a norm against which to compare much of the flotsam and jetsam from the wake made by Armstrongism, the median simply does not apply to us.
Many of the behavioral extremes were directly attributable to the pressures caused by a vigorously taught bogus apocalypse. The words exacerbate and exaggerate certainly come to mind, as such a teaching will inevitably produce unusual reactions, often unconscious, or unrealized by the participant. Designed to replace all normal loyalties with loyalty to Armstrongism, for a certain percentage of participants, the teachings instead brought the law of unintended consequences into play. We are the statistical anomalies.
"Going anonymous here myself, Anonymous 8:18 for obvious reasons, but, I am a regular poster here, an ex-member, and a current critic of the Armstrong movement. I have actually given thousands of dollars over the past 5-10 years so that African children can have shoes, clothing, medical supplies, and clean water."
I appreciate your response. Allow me to explain another viewpoint. My understanding is that the Church of God teaching the laws of God does help people. For example, many people in Africa are currently dying of diseases like Ebola and AIDS as a direct result of eating unclean animals (such as monkeys, etc.) that the laws of God warn people for their own good not to eat, and as a direct result of engaging in sexual practices (such as fornication, adultery, homosexuality, etc.) that the laws of God warn people for their own good not to engage in. As long as people in Africa do not obey the laws of God, they will continue to catch and spread deadly diseases, and to fight and kill each other. We will also continue to receive those Nigerian letter scam e-mails unless people are taught not to covet and lie and steal. Teaching people the right way to live according to God so as to avoid the bad consequences of living the wrong way is an important part of truly helping them for the long term. Without this basic foundational knowledge from God, all your own efforts to try to help people might just be feeding and clothing and medicating child soldiers so they can eat monkeys, rape and kill and sodomize each other, and spread diseases like AIDS and Ebola.
Anonymous, it appears that we are headed towards a debate over New Covenant Christians and Old Covenant Christians, or Jewish Christians versus Gentile Christians. We're going to need to agree to disagree on that, because my understanding is completely different from your understanding. Certainly, I make sure that the organizations which I support teach the TGCOL, Jesus' two great commandments, the law behind Mosaic law so to speak.
I can certainly agree with you to the point that tribal, aboriginal people must be taught a better, more loving, way of life to go along with any financial assistance which is rendered. Basic health, good nourishment and not needing to worry constantly about survival puts people in a better, more receptive space in which they can understand and apply a more enlightened way of life and just, equitable governance. This is the basis for any modern, stable nation.
Also, when impoverished peoples receive a combination of aid for their physical needs and your time in the form of mentoring, they sense vested interest on the part of their mentors, and are more inclined to be receptive to the mentoring. If all you do is media blanketing of their continent with information about the sabbath, holy days, the ten commandments, and unclean meats, expecting that to create relief and prosperity, you are missing the most important part, the veritable key which unlocks the door. Obviously, the Holy Spirit needs to be involved in opening minds, as well as the succeeding process, but a Christian's best success comes from perceiving where the Spirit of God is working, and aligning his efforts with that.
Turning a deaf ear, and acting selfishly with one's financial resources works against the Holy Spirit.
The best way to destroy the human race is to keep feeding the poor until the are another 10 billion of them, breeding like rabbits and sinking the whole planet.
Hey goofs: I wrote the comment at 3:39 and I'm not an Armstrongite, so stop assuming that everything you don't like comes from an Armstrongite. It's really dumb.
And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it.
In the real world, when education and literacy go up, the birth rate goes down. But, if you prefer just letting them starve and die, that's your report card.
If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
July 31, 2014 at 3:39 PM Anonymous said...
Hey goofs: I wrote the comment at 3:39 and I'm not an Armstrongite, so stop assuming that everything you don't like comes from an Armstrongite. It's really dumb.
And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it.
August 2, 2014 at 4:12 PM
But...what if you could afford them at first, and after time goes on...>>LIFE HAPPENS<<...you lose your job, the father/mother dies(less income),economy worsens, health problems/expenses,someone in family disappears/is brutally murdered, all money goes toward finding them/the killer, someone steals your identity and all your money, the breadwinner of the family has a mental breakdown and ends up institutionalized... >DIVORCE<...ONE INCOME HOUSEHOLD/NO CHILD SUPPORT/>DUMB-ASS JUDGES<...MAJOR CAUSE OF HOMELESS/FOOD-LESS KIDS, minimum wage, "Obama Don't Care"(care-less), earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, wars, RAPE, being held as a sex slave and having the perverts kids (as in Jaycee Dugard), >VIAGRA<, Catholic Church, not handing out enough condoms in Africa, GIVING ALL YOUR MONEY TO SO CALLED >PROPHETS< AKA Gerald Flurry, and on and on and on.
I don't know where all the fertility/pregnancy rate stats come from. But no one asked me to be a part of these stats. I have been pregnant with most methods of birth control -- IUD, diaphrahm etc., and as far as my experience goes the only really reliable methods are the pill or sterilization and dare I say abortion. And I have known people who got pregnant on the pill and also after tubal ligation. My belief is that if we didn't have children so easily, in the past the human race might have died out. Of course now we have solved many disease and food problems we are overpopulated.
What right do we have to tell people in poor countries how many children to have either. When we in the 'civilized' world have decided not to have children any more, we'll need someone to continue the human race. And when many of your children die or starve before adulthood, you generally need to have a few extra ones. Meanwhile in the west our biggest problem is obesity.
anonymous of 12.11 presents 'another viewpoint', but one that sounds oh so familiar to me. Or is it a Joke? A formulaic resolution of all the problems in the world. Like a sex manual written by someone who has never had sex. Now really are the problems in Africa caused by people eating unclean meats and by unsavoury sexual practices such as fornication, adultery and homosexuality? Last I heard homosexuality was generally not accepted in Africa, and really isn't it a good solution to overpopulation by people who can't afford to feed their children? Oh but Africa is becoming underpopulated because of AIDS etc......another punishment for not following the sex manual. And what about the curse put on Ham and his descendents? Maybe they are damned anyway to be a slave race.
If you are wondering if following all those rules (laws of God?) will give you a wonderful life, just look at the WCG leaders. Yes a wonderful life for the top ones at least, and definitely plenty to eat and drink, and no lack of sexual experiences.
Kudos to whomever came up with the idea of what we've been calling the UCG or COGaWA Cows. The best way to get people away from eating monkey meat would be to fill the vacuum, give them something better. That right there might have been the most sensible, practical act of charity in the history of Armstongism.
Hey genius of 3:39, I'm the one who wrote the comment from 7/31/2014/11:43PM.
"So, in other words, you're saying, "Why aren't you extinct already?" Isn't this a eugenic attitude and perspective? Do you really expect the populations of entire nations to stop having families, just because of tough economic conditions? As Jeff Goldblum said, "Life finds a way." If humans didn't have a fighting spirit, none of us would be here."
I never suggested you were an Armstrongite. I DID, however, suggest that you were a proponent of EUGENICS (a.k.a. Social Darwinism, which, for the last 70 years has been viewed a HEINOUS and UNCIVILIZED idea) but which your latest 4:12 comment only confirms:
"And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it."
1) Your comments exhibit none of the compassion or empathy for your fellow man that is necessary to support a little thing called "civilization." 2) People you don't like are "animals." In this case, rabbits, and can be disposed of as such. Why not call them rats? Why not call them cockroaches? Why not call them "vermin"? 3) People you don't like are merely "problems" to be "solved." 4) You claim to be able to discern who should live, and who should be disposed of. 5) You think this is "the real world," but it's only an interpretation you are here to sell as "reality." That doesn't make it so. 6) You think GENOCIDE IS A GOOD IDEA. In this case the method is simply sloth, but what's going on inside your mind is no different than what has gone on inside the minds of so many mass-murders in recent memory.
Still, there have been many genocides in the last 70 years. I suppose you applaud the genocides in Darfur (03-present), Rwanda (94), Cambodia (74-79), and Nigeria (67-70), for for no other reason than it "solves" a few "problems" and rids the world of a few more "useless eaters" who you would prefer to see exterminated.
You apparently have an emotional deficit. You do not seem to experience the normal range of human emotions that the average person does, like how the character Dexter Morgan was presented in the eponymous Showtime series, a sociopath/psychopath/schizoid. I think you are a very dangerous person.
What convinces you that YOU ought to live, but that those born into less fortunate circumstances than you ought to be exterminated?
Contrary to the ideas of Thomas Malthus, who in the late 1790's figured that populations expand geometrically but agriculture can only expand arithmetically, thus the population will outstrip the food supply leading to a "Malthusian Crisis," such doomsday scenarios have not so far come to pass.
Why not? Because of innovation. Who is to say how many people this planet can support. People generally go hungry because of political and economic failures, not because of crop failures, or because of "hyper-populating." There's no evidence that anyone has ever faced, or is facing now, a "Malthusian Crisis."
This is the simplistic analysis of an ignorant fool, does not understand the complexities of global affairs, how they work, and how they break down. Try working for a summer with the U.N. World Food Programme. That would be an education.
If it is "cruel," "shortsighted," and "self-righteous" to want to outmaneuver these failures with humanitarian aid, to want to ease human suffering, and to hope with boots on the ground for a better future for all mankind, then what is the alternative?
Is this a dichotomy between cold-hearted neglect and "self-righteousness"? If so, I guess I'll choose the "self-righteousness" with no compunctions.
34 comments:
ROTFLMAO! That is so true! Greedy bastards"
If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
Brilliant, 3:39. You are extrapolating the knowledge, median intelligence, and average education prevalent in the wealthiest, most advanced civilization in the history of the world on to some of the most disavantaged, impoverished, ignorant third world countries on largely forgotten continents. Like they really have a choice. Go back to your ACOG, you cold hearted bastard! You deserve everything they dish out to you.
In response to anonymous 3:39.
You are making a blanket statement that all single women who have kids do it regardless of their ability to feed them. The truth is there are many COG single moms who where once married that are divorced or widowed that are victims of financial abuse because of the abusive nature of the tithing doctrines of the COG's. These women may at one time been able to adequately take care of their kids but because of the lose of their mate and the large amounts of money that they pay out of their pockets to their greedy ministers they have trouble even feeding their kids.
One of the things I hate about religion is simple answers are used to explain complex problems.
That is why armstrongism is so judgmental.
Hahaha, 3:39, that's the epitome of non-compassion.
Big Flurry, Little Flurry, Big Turgeon and Little Turgeon thank you. Pack, too.
Anonymous said...
If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
July 31, 2014 at 3:39 PM
Grow a brain dumb s---!
In an Armstrong church, you get married to solve a sin problem. It makes exercising your natural drives legal and wholesome. When I got married for the first time, it was the late '60s, and we knew the Germans were coming in '72. So, that got factored into family planning. But then we found out that rubbers break, i.u.d.s come out, and creams, foams, and suppositories have a high failure rate. You weren't supposed to use the pill, or get sterilized. There was still a kind of Victorian attitude, and oral sex was considered to be savage, dirty, animalism. Anal sex was beyond perverted, and an abomination to even think of. It was what "the queers" did as their sex.
What we proved was that if you are regularly enjoying the pleasures of sexual activity, and are both normally fertile, you are probably going to end up having children, regardless of counter-measures.
It's not as if being poor gives you a special blessing of self-restraint, or low potency, either. And, the instabilities in todays world often make it so that even individuals who are well off and economically equipped for parenthood can suddenly lose it all. That happened a lot around 2008. It's why there was a dramatic uptick in the number of families on food stamps.
No, cliches like 3:39 spouted might provide a good sounding sound byte when a demagogue like an ACOG leader or Rush Limbaugh utters them, but when you carefully consider all the implications, the premise melts away, and the statement becomes quite ignorant. Plus, I believe 3:39 is our old buddy "Racist", and the fact that the portrait depicts a black child was tha catalyst for his cruelty.
BB
"If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
Priceless, 3:39PM.
So, in other words, you're saying, "Why aren't you extinct already?" Isn't this a eugenic attitude and perspective?
Do you really expect the populations of entire nations to stop having families, just because of tough economic conditions?
As Jeff Goldblum said, "Life finds a way." If humans didn't have a fighting spirit, none of us would be here.
I put Anon 3:39 7/31/14 up because it exemplifies perfectly the mindset o of Armstrongism. The person totally missed the message in the picture.
The cult-ure of the COGs is one of such arrogance and pride that helping those is need was ridiculed as do-goodism. We in the COG, of course, didn't waste our tithes on such things. We had gurus to support, fine china to buy for them, and a private jet to help them spread the word! Feed a hungry child? That's for those silly Protestants and Catholics.
Yep, there are employers who want to force their religious views about contraception onto their employees.
That's antithetical to any concept of "religious freedom" that I'm familiar with!
What's particularly crazy is that it's those same religiously coercive types who are often active in politics so they can lessen aid for children living in poverty, and support policies and laws which broaden the gap between the haves and have-nots, while lobbying for more corporate welfare.
BB writes, "What we proved was that if you are regularly enjoying the pleasures of sexual activity, and are both normally fertile, you are probably going to end up having children, regardless of counter-measures."
Byker Bob says "probably", which is a greater than 50% chance.
Is that correct? Let's consider this, and look at the statistics:
First, let's define effectiveness-
'Completely effective' means that no couples will become pregnant while using that method.
'Very effective' means that between 1 and 2 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
'Effective' means that 2 to 12 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
'Moderately effective' means that 13 to 20 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
'Less effective' means that 21 to 40 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
'Not effective' means that more than 40 out of 100 couples become pregnant while using that method.
Now...Information on each method is provided below in each line-
comprising 'Method of Birth Control', 'How Many Couples Using This Method Will Get Pregnant in a Year?', and 'How Well Does This Method Work in Preventing Pregnancy?'
Birth Control Patch ("The Patch"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Birth Control Pill ("The Pill"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Birth Control Ring ("The Ring"), 8 out of 100, Effective
Female Condom, 21 out of 100, Less effective
Male Condom, 18 out of 100, Moderately effective
Birth Control Shot, 3 out of 100, Effective
Diaphragm, 16 out of 100, Moderately effective
IUD, Fewer than 1 out of 100, Very effective
Fertility Awareness, 25 out of 100, Less effective
Spermicide, 29 out of 100, Less effective
Withdrawal ("Pulling Out"), 27 out of 100, Less effective
Not Using Any Birth Control, 85 out of 100, Not effective
But couples are fertile for longer than just one year.
If we were to assume that these figures are correct (they seem a little high to me, but whatever). If we were to simply take a sample of 100 married couples who did not want children for each of the first 8 of those types of birth control methods, and say that they used exclusively that one type of birth control every time, over the course of, say 20 years of fertility, and assume that they were fertile the entire time, and that abortion was not an option, how many children would these 800 couples have? 1660. That's just over one child for every adult. Due to mortality rates, that's almost, but not quite, population replacement. How many of these couples would not have a child? 120. That's just 15%. Those with the most children would be those using the female condom, having an average family size of over 4 children. That's a big family for a couple who didn't want kids.
I'm not sure what your point was supposed to be, and I'm not sure if those statistics are correct, but if so, the chances of a sexually active fertile woman having at least one child over the course of her lifetime would seem to be quite a bit more than 50%, even if she didn't want any children.
The little fat gentile does not look like he is starving. Just another professional mooch.
Everyone who isn't Jewish is regarded by the Jews as a "goy." And that includes all those white Anglo-Saxons in the COG churches who think they're the descended from the long-lost tribes of Israel (but aren't).
So what's your point in calling this child a "gentile"? Are you implying that all people who aren't Jewish are "professional mooches"?
What I want to know is how many times a night those statistics are based on? I have no idea how birth control methods relate to the general publlic, just how they worked for myself and my significant others. If a couple is only doing it maybe 20 times per month (starvation diet!), I can see your statistics making sense.
BB
Anonymous said...
"If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up."
Good points.
Of course, no one knows for sure what the future will bring. HWA seemed to believe in having a sound financial base before getting married and starting a family. However, after HWA's supposedly great financial starts, his own family spent some time going hungry. In later years a WCG minister mentioned this "sound financial base" idea and said that he did not know of anyone who was doing it. He said that everyone he knew was getting married on a shoestring. If you have to be rich first before you do anything, where is the faith?
As for all those nasty comments by all those nasty people who did not like what you wrote, I wonder if any of them will ever actually send any of their own cash to try to help anyone anywhere, or if they are just trying to financially drain church people in whatever way they can to try to prevent them from supporting the church and its teachings.
Lol, let's see about this birth control effectiveness...
Let's use the span from a woman being 15 years old to her being 50 years old. That's a 35-year span.
The typical 1-year pregnancy rate using Norplant is 0.09%, so a woman would have a 3% chance of getting pregnant once during those 35 years if she were consistently sexually active. That's one in 33 women who would have one child in her lifetime.
On the other end of the spectrum, the typical 1-year pregnancy rate using no birth control method is 85%, so how many children would that be in 35 years for a consistently sexually active woman?
I'm don't know, but I'm sure those Bible-inspired Duggars are working on it.
(Next year they'll be saying, "And baby makes twenty!")
C'mon 12:57,
You're just trying to get a reaction here, right?
You can't really think that kid drives a Jaguar and has a closet full of Dinty Moore beef stew and Armani suits.
Going anonymous here myself, Anonymous 8:18 for obvious reasons, but, I am a regular poster here, an ex-member, and a current critic of the Armstrong movement. I have actually given thousands of dollars over the past 5-10 years so that African children can have shoes, clothing, medical supplies, and clean water. And, I'm not the only one. While I happen to be Christian, I also know of an ex member, an atheist who, with his wife, has started an orphanage in a third world country, and believe me, there are others who have contributed in a big way to try to make a difference for the less fortunate in the here and now.
Many years ago, while working for Ambassador College, even as a church member, I was apalled that we would print (exploit) the likenesses of starving African children on the covers of our magazines, but not lift a finger to assist them or to ease their suffering in any way. Often, in those same issues, there would be pictures of HWA and Stan Rader getting off the jet, and dining sumptuously with opulent and powerful world leaders.
I realized that this was terribly wrong, and unChristlike, yet as members of the WCG, we were "Orwelled" into somehow believing that our activities were the way God would have it. Unfortunately, I did not have the fortitude at that time to obey God, rather than the man (HWA). How many additional lives could I have saved, lives of people whom, if they only lived long enough, might have come to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Same with homeless people who, yes, might have bought a shortdog of wine if given a handout, but having gotten through one more cold, winter night, might have found Jesus the very next day, Who then completely turned their life around.
There is none so blind as one who will not see. Armstrongism is just plain institutionalized blindness.
old EXPCG hag said...
Anonymous said...
If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
July 31, 2014 at 3:39 PM
Grow a brain dumb s---!
July 31, 2014 at 7:18 PM
PS...The only way the PCG and all the splinter hierarchy can afford to raise their kids is by conning others out of their money... living off welfare!
Median statistics in general do not apply to people who live on the fringes, or whose habits lie in the extremes. Armstrongjism was a powerful modifier, one that often put its members "on the jazz".
This means that unless a wannabe "Charley Eppes" type writer or commentator is utilizing them to establish a norm against which to compare much of the flotsam and jetsam from the wake made by Armstrongism, the median simply does not apply to us.
Many of the behavioral extremes were directly attributable to the pressures caused by a vigorously taught bogus apocalypse. The words exacerbate and exaggerate certainly come to mind, as such a teaching will inevitably produce unusual reactions, often unconscious, or unrealized by the participant. Designed to replace all normal loyalties with loyalty to Armstrongism, for a certain percentage of participants, the teachings instead brought the law of unintended consequences into play. We are the statistical anomalies.
BB
Anonymous said...
"Going anonymous here myself, Anonymous 8:18 for obvious reasons, but, I am a regular poster here, an ex-member, and a current critic of the Armstrong movement. I have actually given thousands of dollars over the past 5-10 years so that African children can have shoes, clothing, medical supplies, and clean water."
I appreciate your response. Allow me to explain another viewpoint. My understanding is that the Church of God teaching the laws of God does help people. For example, many people in Africa are currently dying of diseases like Ebola and AIDS as a direct result of eating unclean animals (such as monkeys, etc.) that the laws of God warn people for their own good not to eat, and as a direct result of engaging in sexual practices (such as fornication, adultery, homosexuality, etc.) that the laws of God warn people for their own good not to engage in. As long as people in Africa do not obey the laws of God, they will continue to catch and spread deadly diseases, and to fight and kill each other. We will also continue to receive those Nigerian letter scam e-mails unless people are taught not to covet and lie and steal. Teaching people the right way to live according to God so as to avoid the bad consequences of living the wrong way is an important part of truly helping them for the long term. Without this basic foundational knowledge from God, all your own efforts to try to help people might just be feeding and clothing and medicating child soldiers so they can eat monkeys, rape and kill and sodomize each other, and spread diseases like AIDS and Ebola.
Anonymous, it appears that we are headed towards a debate over New Covenant Christians and Old Covenant Christians, or Jewish Christians versus Gentile Christians. We're going to need to agree to disagree on that, because my understanding is completely different from your understanding. Certainly, I make sure that the organizations which I support teach the TGCOL, Jesus' two great commandments, the law behind Mosaic law so to speak.
I can certainly agree with you to the point that tribal, aboriginal people must be taught a better, more loving, way of life to go along with any financial assistance which is rendered. Basic health, good nourishment and not needing to worry constantly about survival puts people in a better, more receptive space in which they can understand and apply a more enlightened way of life and just, equitable governance. This is the basis for any modern, stable nation.
Also, when impoverished peoples receive a combination of aid for their physical needs and your time in the form of mentoring, they sense vested interest on the part of their mentors, and are more inclined to be receptive to the mentoring. If all you do is media blanketing of their continent with information about the sabbath, holy days, the ten commandments, and unclean meats, expecting that to create relief and prosperity, you are missing the most important part, the veritable key which unlocks the door. Obviously, the Holy Spirit needs to be involved in opening minds, as well as the succeeding process, but a Christian's best success comes from perceiving where the Spirit of God is working, and aligning his efforts with that.
Turning a deaf ear, and acting selfishly with one's financial resources works against the Holy Spirit.
The best way to destroy the human race is to keep feeding the poor until the are another 10 billion of them, breeding like rabbits and sinking the whole planet.
Hey goofs: I wrote the comment at 3:39 and I'm not an Armstrongite, so stop assuming that everything you don't like comes from an Armstrongite. It's really dumb.
And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it.
Waddles like a duck. Quacks like a duck...
In the real world, when education and literacy go up, the birth rate goes down. But, if you prefer just letting them starve and die, that's your report card.
Anonymous said...
If you can't feed your kids, don't have them. If you do, don't blame someone else. Grow up.
July 31, 2014 at 3:39 PM Anonymous said...
Hey goofs: I wrote the comment at 3:39 and I'm not an Armstrongite, so stop assuming that everything you don't like comes from an Armstrongite. It's really dumb.
And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it.
August 2, 2014 at 4:12 PM
But...what if you could afford them at first, and after time goes on...>>LIFE HAPPENS<<...you lose your job, the father/mother dies(less income),economy worsens, health problems/expenses,someone in family disappears/is brutally murdered, all money goes toward finding them/the killer, someone steals your identity and all your money, the breadwinner of the family has a mental breakdown and ends up institutionalized...
>DIVORCE<...ONE INCOME HOUSEHOLD/NO CHILD SUPPORT/>DUMB-ASS JUDGES<...MAJOR CAUSE OF HOMELESS/FOOD-LESS KIDS, minimum wage, "Obama Don't Care"(care-less), earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, wars, RAPE, being held as a sex slave and having the perverts kids (as in Jaycee Dugard), >VIAGRA<, Catholic Church, not handing out enough condoms in Africa, GIVING ALL YOUR MONEY TO SO CALLED >PROPHETS< AKA Gerald Flurry, and on and on and on.
Anon 3:39...Grow up.
I don't know where all the fertility/pregnancy rate stats come from. But no one asked me to be a part of these stats. I have been pregnant with most methods of birth control -- IUD, diaphrahm etc., and as far as my experience goes the only really reliable methods are the pill or sterilization and dare I say abortion. And I have known people who got pregnant on the pill and also after tubal ligation. My belief is that if we didn't have children so easily, in the past the human race might have died out. Of course now we have solved many disease and food problems we are overpopulated.
What right do we have to tell people in poor countries how many children to have either. When we in the 'civilized' world have decided not to have children any more, we'll need someone to continue the human race. And when many of your children die or starve before adulthood, you generally need to have a few extra ones. Meanwhile in the west our biggest problem is obesity.
anonymous of 12.11 presents 'another viewpoint', but one that sounds oh so familiar to me. Or is it a Joke? A formulaic resolution of all the problems in the world. Like a sex manual written by someone who has never had sex. Now really are the problems in Africa caused by people eating unclean meats and by unsavoury sexual practices such as fornication, adultery and homosexuality? Last I heard homosexuality was generally not accepted in Africa, and really isn't it a good solution to overpopulation by people who can't afford to feed their children? Oh but Africa is becoming underpopulated because of AIDS etc......another punishment for not following the sex manual. And what about the curse put on Ham and his descendents? Maybe they are damned anyway to be a slave race.
If you are wondering if following all those rules (laws of God?) will give you a wonderful life, just look at the WCG leaders. Yes a wonderful life for the top ones at least, and definitely plenty to eat and drink, and no lack of sexual experiences.
Kudos to whomever came up with the idea of what we've been calling the UCG or COGaWA Cows. The best way to get people away from eating monkey meat would be to fill the vacuum, give them something better. That right there might have been the most sensible, practical act of charity in the history of Armstongism.
BB
Hey genius of 3:39, I'm the one who wrote the comment from 7/31/2014/11:43PM.
"So, in other words, you're saying, "Why aren't you extinct already?" Isn't this a eugenic attitude and perspective?
Do you really expect the populations of entire nations to stop having families, just because of tough economic conditions?
As Jeff Goldblum said, "Life finds a way." If humans didn't have a fighting spirit, none of us would be here."
I never suggested you were an Armstrongite. I DID, however, suggest that you were a proponent of EUGENICS (a.k.a. Social Darwinism, which, for the last 70 years has been viewed a HEINOUS and UNCIVILIZED idea) but which your latest 4:12 comment only confirms:
"And the cruel and short-sighted ones are those self-righteous dummies who think that feeding hyper-populating rabbits will solve anything. Sorry, but that's the real world. Deal with it."
1) Your comments exhibit none of the compassion or empathy for your fellow man that is necessary to support a little thing called "civilization."
2) People you don't like are "animals." In this case, rabbits, and can be disposed of as such. Why not call them rats? Why not call them cockroaches? Why not call them "vermin"?
3) People you don't like are merely "problems" to be "solved."
4) You claim to be able to discern who should live, and who should be disposed of.
5) You think this is "the real world," but it's only an interpretation you are here to sell as "reality." That doesn't make it so.
6) You think GENOCIDE IS A GOOD IDEA. In this case the method is simply sloth, but what's going on inside your mind is no different than what has gone on inside the minds of so many mass-murders in recent memory.
Still, there have been many genocides in the last 70 years. I suppose you applaud the genocides in Darfur (03-present), Rwanda (94), Cambodia (74-79), and Nigeria (67-70), for for no other reason than it "solves" a few "problems" and rids the world of a few more "useless eaters" who you would prefer to see exterminated.
You apparently have an emotional deficit. You do not seem to experience the normal range of human emotions that the average person does, like how the character Dexter Morgan was presented in the eponymous Showtime series, a sociopath/psychopath/schizoid. I think you are a very dangerous person.
What convinces you that YOU ought to live, but that those born into less fortunate circumstances than you ought to be exterminated?
Anonymous 2:48:
Thank you.
Contrary to the ideas of Thomas Malthus, who in the late 1790's figured that populations expand geometrically but agriculture can only expand arithmetically, thus the population will outstrip the food supply leading to a "Malthusian Crisis," such doomsday scenarios have not so far come to pass.
Why not? Because of innovation. Who is to say how many people this planet can support. People generally go hungry because of political and economic failures, not because of crop failures, or because of "hyper-populating." There's no evidence that anyone has ever faced, or is facing now, a "Malthusian Crisis."
This is the simplistic analysis of an ignorant fool, does not understand the complexities of global affairs, how they work, and how they break down. Try working for a summer with the U.N. World Food Programme. That would be an education.
If it is "cruel," "shortsighted," and "self-righteous" to want to outmaneuver these failures with humanitarian aid, to want to ease human suffering, and to hope with boots on the ground for a better future for all mankind, then what is the alternative?
Is this a dichotomy between cold-hearted neglect and "self-righteousness"? If so, I guess I'll choose the "self-righteousness" with no compunctions.
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