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
Mental illness and childish delusions and behaviors are a common visitor, it seems, to those who have risen to places of greatness in their own minds. It would serve the remaining followers of the likes of a Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack and others to take a Family to Family course on recognizing and dealing with mental illness in the family. Classes are available at your local NAMI (National Assoc. for the Mentally Ill)location. It doesn't take a genius to see that many if not all of the OT "prophets" displayed the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, delusional thinking and narcissism, among other things. In those times, symptoms not understood were easily viewed as people with special insights and powers. Today a man who laid siege to a frying pan, cooked with his own dung or lay around on his side for a year babbling might not be taken all that seriously (Ezekiel). Like it or not, the Apostle Paul's Damascus Road tale display all the classic signs of temporal lobe epilepsy though the tale is written by Luke in Acts and not spoken of by Paul in his own authentic writings such as in Galatians where Paul simply says , and humbly, he was called from the womb like Jesus and Jeremiah seem to have been.
"Brethren"...reclaim your own minds, families and relationships and consider you may not be following the ideas of a God inspired man who is righteous, but a man who is delusional and mentally ill.
PS It seems to escape many left in the splinters that a man who sees himself specifically spoken of by the Deity 2600 years ago and that he will soon provide a "signal" , from God of course, that the wise will understand, is not mentally healthy and quite a dangerous road to go down with. When timetables and predictions of how it all is fail and fail, they give the leader a pass with the classic view that "God is giving us more time." It is a theologically deadly road and their disillusionment and broken relationships that did not need to be broken aren't far ahead.
Religion is designed to comfort and encourage and should actually be encouraging to the ones who need encouraging. My own difficulty is that I personally am not encouraged by myths, glittering generalities, false hope, gross misapplication of the Biblical books and stories and tale weaving that makes it all mean what it never was meant to mean and certainly not for today. "Soon" and "of things which must shorty come to pass" will never mean 2000 years later to me again. Failed speculations of by gone times are simply failed and cannot be repackaged generation after generation as if that was the original intent of the author or any God. Humans do that.
Always remember, if your head tells you one thing and your stomach tells you something else, your stomach is telling you the truth. It's why we should not stomach the behaviors, ideas and delusions of men off the rails theologically and reinventing the wheel of "follow me, I know" only to see once again it is all just another dog and pony show.
Not my circus and those aren't my monkeys can be quite a liberating view to adopt.
Years ago, I read in the Free Press that the late Janis Joplin at some point realized that she was basically very weird, so decided to surround herself with freaks, and to stay stoned. It made life tolerable, because the eccentricities of the others surrounding her made her feel more normal.
To a certain extent, either subconsciously, or by recognition and design, this same phenomenon occurred amongst the membership and ministry of the WCG. So long as personal weirdness was kept "under control", as defined by HWA, individuals were able to maintain their WCG status. Some, however, were hopelessly beyond either self-control, or the control of the authority structure of the church. At some point in time, the patience of a ministry that did not believe in the mental health profession would run out, and these people were written off.
The problem is, some of them just didn't go away, or take a hint, and maybe seek some help. They went off and started their own "thing", sometimes based on even more extreme conspiracy theories, or alternative patterns of thought. When the internet expanded the proverbial fishing hole into a respectably sized ocean, these people suddenly had a venue for self-validation, realized by accumulating their own audiences. Even so, many of them are recognizably "off". They do not have a message which would tend to resonate with a broad cross section of sane, stable, prosperous individuals, and so the very narrowness of their appeal limits them in their ability to attract participants. The problem is, many of them have retained key Armstrong doctrines which have been shown to be very destructive in both "normal" and fragile peoples' lives. Some "leaders" are more charismatic than others.
We can share the wisdom of "been there, done that", and we can issue the "caveat emptor" warning, but unfortunately, there are always going to be some unstable people with great big holes in their lives, who go into a bad detour as a co-dependent to someone who appears to be a leader with solutions.
I nominate that Eric King as a COG subject be laid to rest.
King does not have a church, does not have any followers, and was never involved in the COG movement other than being a loner who was at one time enraptured with HWA from online reading. He has no social connection to anyone in the COG movement, nor ever has.
It appears that he has moved well beyond all things Armstrong, and has moved deeper into mental illness. Unlike idiots like Pack, Flurry, Thiel , et al. , King is not a danger to anyone, has no "movement" or organization, other than the ability to post bizarre videos.
Banned acts as a public forum and an alternative news source for information and discussion. It deserves recognition as such. To watch King and report on him, is to be a form of voyeurism that I find a bit uncomfortable. I suggest that he be laid charitably to rest, as watching him degrade is sad and discomforting. He should not be the target of our ridicule, entertainment or contempt, but rather one of our concern and mercy.
Mental illness is a tragedy, and when one is only harming himself and not others, should have the grace and mercy of protection, discretion and care.
Dennis suggests that "many if not all of the OT "prophets" displayed the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, delusional thinking and narcissism, among other things," and the Apostle Paul displayed "all the classic signs of temporal lobe epilepsy."
Is it reasonable to suggest that if someone exhibits symptoms of mental illness or epilepsy that all such symptoms are caused by mental illness or epilepsy? Might there be other explanations, other than mental illness of epilepsy?
Might it be something just as strange and bizarre? Strange as it sounds, perhaps these events were what they actually claim to be?
If you watch the You Tube video, Why People Believe Weird Things, with Michael Shermer, you notice that he limits himself to naturalistic explanations for everything. The only problem is that science has been and continues to be limited in what it can study.
Many things are not provable via scientific methods, which are limited. If there is a supernatural being, then we have to accept, I think, the possibility of some really strange occurrences.
Not everything that is claimed to be "from God" is from God. Mental illness and deceit (Peter Popoff, etc) can explain much of what goes on in religion. But is everything that is strange and bizarre from mental illness and fraud, or can it actually be from God, assuming that there is one?
One more thought on my last comment. When Ron Dart left GTA's groups he suggested that just because the messenger is corrupt does not mean that the message is corrupt. In other words, just because HWA was corrupt, doesn't mean that his message was. Well, in his case both the messenger and the message were corrupt. Religion seems to be a playground for the dishonest and the mentally ill. But, just because many are corrupt or mentally ill, does not mean that the original message, when correctly understood, is wrong. But, when you have been burnt by a church, it is easy to throw your hands up in disgust and claim that all of it is wrong.
“I nominate that Eric King as a COG subject be laid to rest.”
I'll second that, for all the same reasons.
My only reservation is that one never knows in advance how Satan can and will use such people. He can always be brought up again in the future if his behavior and circumstances warrant it.
There are plenty of long-term satanic kooks and crooks deep within the COGs who need to be exposed for harming former WCG people.
Anon: If you know of kooks and creeps that I need to be posting here then send me the information. All sources are kept confidential....and I have quit a few here.
12 comments:
Insane
That was sad and very weird. Perhaps the old boy has finally snapped.
Oh, brother. I just noticed King has some UFO videos up as well. One of which he claims to have shot himself. Yikes.
Boy, if there's a shortage of Meth out there tonight, this should explain it.
Mental illness and childish delusions and behaviors are a common visitor, it seems, to those who have risen to places of greatness in their own minds. It would serve the remaining followers of the likes of a Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack and others to take a Family to Family course on recognizing and dealing with mental illness in the family. Classes are available at your local NAMI (National Assoc. for the Mentally Ill)location. It doesn't take a genius to see that many if not all of the OT "prophets" displayed the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, delusional thinking and narcissism, among other things. In those times, symptoms not understood were easily viewed as people with special insights and powers. Today a man who laid siege to a frying pan, cooked with his own dung or lay around on his side for a year babbling might not be taken all that seriously (Ezekiel). Like it or not, the Apostle Paul's Damascus Road tale display all the classic signs of temporal lobe epilepsy though the tale is written by Luke in Acts and not spoken of by Paul in his own authentic writings such as in Galatians where Paul simply says , and humbly, he was called from the womb like Jesus and Jeremiah seem to have been.
"Brethren"...reclaim your own minds, families and relationships and consider you may not be following the ideas of a God inspired man who is righteous, but a man who is delusional and mentally ill.
PS It seems to escape many left in the splinters that a man who sees himself specifically spoken of by the Deity 2600 years ago and that he will soon provide a "signal" , from God of course, that the wise will understand, is not mentally healthy and quite a dangerous road to go down with. When timetables and predictions of how it all is fail and fail, they give the leader a pass with the classic view that "God is giving us more time." It is a theologically deadly road and their disillusionment and broken relationships that did not need to be broken aren't far ahead.
Religion is designed to comfort and encourage and should actually be encouraging to the ones who need encouraging. My own difficulty is that I personally am not encouraged by myths, glittering generalities, false hope, gross misapplication of the Biblical books and stories and tale weaving that makes it all mean what it never was meant to mean and certainly not for today. "Soon" and "of things which must shorty come to pass" will never mean 2000 years later to me again. Failed speculations of by gone times are simply failed and cannot be repackaged generation after generation as if that was the original intent of the author or any God. Humans do that.
Always remember, if your head tells you one thing and your stomach tells you something else, your stomach is telling you the truth. It's why we should not stomach the behaviors, ideas and delusions of men off the rails theologically and reinventing the wheel of "follow me, I know" only to see once again it is all just another dog and pony show.
Not my circus and those aren't my monkeys can be quite a liberating view to adopt.
Years ago, I read in the Free Press that the late Janis Joplin at some point realized that she was basically very weird, so decided to surround herself with freaks, and to stay stoned. It made life tolerable, because the eccentricities of the others surrounding her made her feel more normal.
To a certain extent, either subconsciously, or by recognition and design, this same phenomenon occurred amongst the membership and ministry of the WCG. So long as personal weirdness was kept "under control", as defined by HWA, individuals were able to maintain their WCG status. Some, however, were hopelessly beyond either self-control, or the control of the authority structure of the church. At some point in time, the patience of a ministry that did not believe in the mental health profession would run out, and these people were written off.
The problem is, some of them just didn't go away, or take a hint, and maybe seek some help. They went off and started their own "thing", sometimes based on even more extreme conspiracy theories, or alternative patterns of thought. When the internet expanded the proverbial fishing hole into a respectably sized ocean, these people suddenly had a venue for self-validation, realized by accumulating their own audiences. Even so, many of them are recognizably "off". They do not have a message which would tend to resonate with a broad cross section of sane, stable, prosperous individuals, and so the very narrowness of their appeal limits them in their ability to attract participants. The problem is, many of them have retained key Armstrong doctrines which have been shown to be very destructive in both "normal" and fragile peoples' lives. Some "leaders" are more charismatic than others.
We can share the wisdom of "been there, done that", and we can issue the "caveat emptor" warning, but unfortunately, there are always going to be some unstable people with great big holes in their lives, who go into a bad detour as a co-dependent to someone who appears to be a leader with solutions.
BB
I nominate that Eric King as a COG subject be laid to rest.
King does not have a church, does not have any followers, and was never involved in the COG movement other than being a loner who was at one time enraptured with HWA from online reading. He has no social connection to anyone in the COG movement, nor ever has.
It appears that he has moved well beyond all things Armstrong, and has moved deeper into mental illness. Unlike idiots like Pack, Flurry, Thiel , et al. , King is not a danger to anyone, has no "movement" or organization, other than the ability to post bizarre videos.
Banned acts as a public forum and an alternative news source for information and discussion. It deserves recognition as such. To watch King and report on him, is to be a form of voyeurism that I find a bit uncomfortable. I suggest that he be laid charitably to rest, as watching him degrade is sad and discomforting. He should not be the target of our ridicule, entertainment or contempt, but rather one of our concern and mercy.
Mental illness is a tragedy, and when one is only harming himself and not others, should have the grace and mercy of protection, discretion and care.
Dennis suggests that "many if not all of the OT "prophets" displayed the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, delusional thinking and narcissism, among other things," and the Apostle Paul displayed "all the classic signs of temporal lobe epilepsy."
Is it reasonable to suggest that if someone exhibits symptoms of mental illness or epilepsy that all such symptoms are caused by mental illness or epilepsy? Might there be other explanations, other than mental illness of epilepsy?
Might it be something just as strange and bizarre? Strange as it sounds, perhaps these events were what they actually claim to be?
If you watch the You Tube video, Why People Believe Weird Things, with Michael Shermer, you notice that he limits himself to naturalistic explanations for everything. The only problem is that science has been and continues to be limited in what it can study.
Many things are not provable via scientific methods, which are limited. If there is a supernatural being, then we have to accept, I think, the possibility of some really strange occurrences.
Not everything that is claimed to be "from God" is from God. Mental illness and deceit (Peter Popoff, etc) can explain much of what goes on in religion. But is everything that is strange and bizarre from mental illness and fraud, or can it actually be from God, assuming that there is one?
One more thought on my last comment. When Ron Dart left GTA's groups he suggested that just because the messenger is corrupt does not mean that the message is corrupt. In other words, just because HWA was corrupt, doesn't mean that his message was. Well, in his case both the messenger and the message were corrupt.
Religion seems to be a playground for the dishonest and the mentally ill. But, just because many are corrupt or mentally ill, does not mean that the original message, when correctly understood, is wrong. But, when you have been burnt by a church, it is easy to throw your hands up in disgust and claim that all of it is wrong.
Connie Schmidt said...
“I nominate that Eric King as a COG subject be laid to rest.”
I'll second that, for all the same reasons.
My only reservation is that one never knows in advance how Satan can and will use such people. He can always be brought up again in the future if his behavior and circumstances warrant it.
There are plenty of long-term satanic kooks and crooks deep within the COGs who need to be exposed for harming former WCG people.
Anon: If you know of kooks and creeps that I need to be posting here then send me the information. All sources are kept confidential....and I have quit a few here.
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