Conspiracy Theories and Armstrongism

Why do many within the Armstrong Churches of God seem to be so susceptible to conspiracy theories? Don't think they are? Check these out:  Mark Armstrong's Weekly Update and Bill Watson's Is Anybody Listening? 

Think about it. Conspiracy theorists believe that the truth is hidden - that most folks are deceived about what is really going on in the world, and THIS IS A CENTRAL TENET OF ARMSTRONGISM.

Research into the psychology behind conspiracy theories informs us that they are generated by a lack of trust in institutions and political cynicism (Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Really Skeptics)

In that article, we read:  "The common thread between distrust and cynicism, as defined in these experiments, is a perception of bad character. More broadly, it’s a tendency to focus on intention and agency, rather than randomness or causal complexity." Continuing:  "The more you see the world this way—full of malice and planning instead of circumstance and coincidence—the more likely you are to accept conspiracy theories of all kinds. Once you buy into the first theory, with its premises of coordination, efficacy, and secrecy, the next seems that much more plausible."

Hence, if one has already bought into the idea that Satan and the Catholic Church have hatched a grand conspiracy to deceive Christianity about God, Jesus Christ, the Bible and doctrinal issues, it is easy to believe that other actors have hatched other conspiracies designed to hide the truth about other issues. And this is NOT the kind of suspicion that evokes scientific research and critical thinking. Instead, it seeks information (or to interpret information in a fashion) that reinforces the suspicion!

This is the kind of stuff that turns someone like Donald Trump into a Christian savior and his opponents into maniacal deviants bent on a program of misinformation. If you are prone to this kind of thinking, then climate change can seem like a liberal plot to undercut our free market economy and George Soros can look like he's running the entire show. Nevertheless, for those who are still willing to think for themselves, I think that it is still possible to get back to reality. What do you think?  Miller Jones

Armstrongism's fascination with conspiracy theories

Living Armstrongism: Dave Pack On Conspiracy Theories in Global COG

Living Armstrongism: PCG Promotes Bilderberg Conspiracy Theory

WHAT BEN CARSON’S PYRAMID THEORY MIGHT SAY ABOUT HIS FOREIGN POLICY

The Evil Zionist/Jesuit Conspiracy To Take Down The Church

It's A Masonic Conspiracy!

Rooting Armstrongism out of Ex-Worldwide Church of God Folk

Why So Many People Believe Conspiracy Theories

The Weird Mind of Conservative Armstrongites

Just what do you mean “pagan”?

Herbart Armstrong and all of the men "trained at his feet" love to toss around the word "pagan" whenever they seek to deride and mock others outside their small circle of belief.  Pagan was a word that was used as a weapon to alienate and to strike fear into members lives. If a member even remotely liked something considered "pagan" then their salvation was at risk.

On an exCOG member forum on Facebook, the following comment was made in regards to "paganism."

Just what do you mean “pagan”? 😀I      don’t mean to trigger anyone by borrowing HWA’s default booklet title, Just What Do You Mean ... ?, but I thought I’d bring up the term “pagan.” While HWA said that his followers had to “unlearn” all they learned outside his cult, each of us here has learnt the hard way, and we’re struggling in common challenging ways, that we have to “unlearn” all the crap HWA and his cult put on or in us. 

I’m going to suggest that one of those things to unlearn is how some of us consider the word pagan. Remember that HWA was untrained as a historian or anthropolologist and he was quite simplistic when it came to the term “pagan.” To him, “pagan” was (and is) the equivalent of a monolithic and organized devil worship system that somehow existed almost everywhere. If HWA was in charge of Rome in the first hundreds of years AD, and if he stuck to the crap he wrote, he would have torn down all those beautiful and historic buildings, statues, etc., which is the kind of thing the Taliban and ISIS do today to historic other-religion artifacts in areas they control. 

Just as you know he was so wrong about other things, might I suggest that he was so wrong on how he painted paganism? Paganism is not a monolithic system. Whether you are religious or not, how people in history came up with their religious views (how they are common, borrowed and unique) is a fascinating human story. 

In short, whether you celebrate Christmas for religious and cultural reasons, don’t let HWA’s misguided view of paganism hold you back. If you are a bit stuck on the word “pagan,” remember that almost everything borrows from previous religions (or on “paganism” if you use that term), everything including Thanksgiving (a fact that HWA was deliberate to overlook). 

Merry Christmas!

The Other True Prophet Claims Millions More Will Now Be Saved Since JC Is Coming On April 21, 2019

for about the 500th time...

Many years ago, before he was sent off to prison for a biblical 3 1/2 years,  Ron Weinland claimed Jesus was returning in 2012.  As everyone here knows, nothing happened in regards to this prophecy except for its mouthpiece being sent to prison.

Ron Weinland claimed that God had stepped in and delayed the return of Christ in 2012, because if he did return, far more millions of people would have been slaughtered.  Since God delayed that vengeful Jesus, humanity now has a better chance of being saved from the next slaughter.

It was also mentioned earlier that if 2012 had remained the date for Christ’s coming that the devastation and vast death toll around the world would have been exceedingly greater. With that first date for Christ’s coming, mankind had already been judged and the execution of that judgment would have been far more severe than if it could be moved to 2019. However, God has revealed the vastness of His great mercy and love by extending that judgment for 2012 by an additional seven years so that millions could yet be saved. 

Of course, all one needs to do is listen to and believe Ron Weinland and dingy prophetess Laura and you will be saved.  Woo Hoo!

God's desire was that JC was to rerun in 2019, even though God had previously revealed that JC was to return in 2012.

God has not revealed what significance or meaning there may be in the other three periods of 1,260 days that lie in between that first and fifth period, or even if there is any significant meaning in them other than the fact that they add great meaning for the total being 5 periods of time. The total of those five periods of 1,260 days is 6,300 days. That leaves 70 days remaining (from the total of 6,370). This too is not a matter of chance, but of design, and signifies God’s purpose—that mankind had been judged and that Christ could return on the Pentecost of 2012, if time was to remain cut short. However, it has already been shown that God’s greater desire was that Christ should return on the Pentecost of 2019. 

Beyond 2012

After the Church had moved beyond 2012, God finally began to reveal that the countdown for Christ’s coming had been extended by exactly 7 more years, from Pentecost of 2012 to Pentecost of 2019. It was revealed that His purpose for doing so was to create a greater transformation in those who were in His Church so that they would be prepared to accomplish an even greater work in the end-time that remained.

Christ returning in 2019 gave the Church a new focus. God could now work to create far greater potential for those of the Church that had been scattered after the Apostasy to be saved into the Millennium. This later date also made way for a vastly greater and more complex work to be accomplished whereby a far greater potential could exist to deliver hundreds of millions more people into the Millennium.

This period of additional time revealed another remarkable total number of days that contained even greater meaning. This could be described as an extended deeper meaning to Christ’s coming. This change from 2012 to 2019 added another 2,570 days to the countdown for Christ’s coming. This too is awesomely significant, as this now gave the addition of two more very specific prophetic end-time periods of 1,260 days to that overall count. 

Deluded Ron is trying to pull a Dave Pack here.  He also believes that tens of thousands of COG members will soon be so astounded by his revelations that they will leave their COG's and/or come back to join Ron's crusade.  This will no more happen than 10's of thousands will ever join up with Dave Pack.

With JC returning in 2019, this has given Ron Weinland and dingy prophetess Laura some more time to be a witness to the world.

This second additional end-time period of 1,260 days runs from the 8th of November 2015 to the 20th of April 2019. This count concludes on the weekly Sabbath that is in the midst of the first Holy Day season of that year, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This period is now recognized as the time for God’s two witnesses to complete the physical fulfillment of their witness to the world.

Revelation 11:3-6 reveals that for a period of 1,260 days God will send His two end-time witnesses to prophesy with power through-out this time. Much of that witness and the power given to it is the writing that is contained in this very book. Toward the end of this period of time, they will be able to shut up the heavens so it will not rain wherever and for however long they say. They will strike the earth with plagues as often as they choose. Much of what is fulfilled during this period will have to do with the Thunders of Revelation that will be more completely fulfilled by those things they proclaim. 

Be prepared for something miraculous to happen in April 2019.  Watch the sky above you as you will see JC return on a specific date.

That 50-day period has already been mentioned. It is the time when God begins to pour out the Seven Last Plagues, which will lead to Christ coming to a world that has been humbled and ready to listen to him. As it has been stated, the day when his coming will be manifested in the atmosphere above the earth is the 21st of April 2019. It appears that this manifestation will be at the moment that the Wave Sheaf would have been waved before God on that day, which was in the midst of the Holy Day period of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23). This manifestation of Christ coming will be on the morning of the 1st day of the week that follows Passover that year. 

All of this calculating and postulating over dates is wearisome. A person almost needs a calculator to figure it all out.  It is all useless in the long run as every single prophet the church has had in the last 80-90 years has been a failure.  Putting ones faith into dates that some crazy COG minister sets show how little COG members actually know the Jesu they claim to follow. 

God's ONLY True Apostle Delivers Up To 7 Hours Of New Revelations

The Church of God has only ONE true prophet and that is Gerald Flurry.  I am sure this frosts  Dave Pack, Almost-arrested Bob Thiel and Ron Weinland royal behinds to no end.  How can Gerald Flurry surpass them in revealed knowledge? In spite of the hundreds of idiotic things Pack, Weinland, and Almost-arrested Thiel have prophesied, Flurry outranks them by miles.  

Anyway, Grant Turgeon, the narcissistic son of Wayne Turgeon, has written a glowing report about the impressive ability of Gerald Flurry to be able to deliver 7 hours of biblical information and new revelations to the huddled masses during the 2017 Feast of Tabernacles.

EDMOND—During the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day in October, Philadelphia Church of God Pastor General Gerald Flurry delivered an opening night message, two offertories and four sermons totaling more than seven hours of biblical instruction and new revelation.

On October 4th Flurry preached a sermon about the book of Haggai.  Flurry claims that the vision of the Feast is the cure-all for problems facing the world, including wildfires, mass shootings and threats of nuclear strikes.

He called the vision of the Feast the solution to the many problems plaguing the world, including hurricanes, wildfires, mass shootings, and threats of nuclear strikes. He encouraged pcg members to keep their first love and to hunger and thirst for righteousness, challenging them to not let a single word fall to the ground, and to have a Feast that “shakes the heavens and the Earth,” as Haggai 2 states. 

Then Flurry spoke more about the new revelation he received from his resident demon about the new coronation stone he is in possession of.  Apparently, his god has begun the transition stage for the transfer of power from the Throne of England, with its Scottish coronation stone, to an itty-bitty14-inch tall rock dug out of a hill in Oregon. This will soon be the stone that Jesus is supposed to return to and sit upon.

Now is a transition stage for the throne of David, he said, from the British royal family, through the pcg, to Jesus Christ. He drew a parallel between the pcg possessing the new throne of David during a dangerous, pressure-packed end time, and a mother on the verge of giving birth. The transition stage, the baby’s descent from the womb, is the hardest yet shortest part of labor, he said. It is a time of peak vulnerability for the mother as she becomes desperate for a way to escape the agonizing pain. Mr. Flurry exhorted the brethren to have that same urgency and the same hope that birth into God’s Family is just moments away.

Flurry then went on to claim that all loyal tithe-paying members of the Philadelphia Church of God are "Sons of Zadok."  He then proceeded to list 8 reasons why this was "true."  

Did you know that one of the reasons PCG members are royal children of Zadok the high priest was that they stage musicals about Jeremiah and David in Edmond, Oklahoma?  Seriously!  I want to say WTF, but I won't.  People truly cannot be this stupid that they fall for this, can they?  Oh, wait, yes they can and did!

The message concluded with eight reasons why God’s loyal people are called sons of Zadok:

1. They cling to The United States and Britain in Prophecy.
2. They continue the dig in the City of David.
3. They are spiritual Jews who never lose the Key of David vision.
4. They continue to let God deepen that vision.
5. They continue to follow Herbert W. Armstrong, who taught the truth about David’s family throne.
6. They have staged musicals about Jeremiah and David, both of which focus on David’s throne.
7. They do all they can to proclaim the Key of David message to Israel and the whole world.
8. Is it also because they have the new throne of David?

Gerald then preached another sermon, this time about his new revelation on Herb's prayer rock magically turning into the new coronation stone.  This stone far surpasses Flurry's plagiarized Malachi's Message in the most inspiring way.  Herb's rock is now the centerpiece of the Philadelphia Church of God.  It is now canonized with such great biblical importance that it now possess amazing powers.

On Day 4, Mr. Flurry delivered another extra-length sermon. He reviewed the revelation he announced in January about the Church possessing a new stone of destiny and a new throne of David, calling it a “radical leap” for the Church. He said the new stone, Mr. Armstrong’s prayer rock, is “so special” that it’s described in detail in the Autobiography, and said it’s “more inspiring” than Malachi’s Message

Flurry then went on to talk about Almost-arrested Bob Thiel's bromance buddy, Baron Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.  Flurry claims Guttenberg is so pissed-off right now with Trump that he is filled with "unnatural revenge in his heart"  leading him to destroy the United States. This will be sure to set of Almost-arrested Thiel who will rage with jealousy that he never thought of this first!

Mr. Flurry quoted Britain’s Winston Churchill, who said in 1924 that Germany “smolders with dreams of revenge.” Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s recent attacks on President Donald Trump expose him as a man with unnatural revenge in his heart, Mr. Flurry said. The Nazi underground understands that America was responsible for defeating Germany in World War i and World War ii, he said; next time, the revived Holy Roman Empire will wipe out America first.

Here is the reason Flurry's god removed the Throne of David from the British Royal Family and placed it in Edmond, Oklahoma.  Flurry's god was not pleased with Chamberlain and Halifax at the start of WWII because they were weak impotent little men who disgraced the Throne of England.

It takes just one man to stand up and fight for what is right, Mr. Flurry said, referencing Churchill’s refusal to make a deal with the Nazis. King George vi preferred the compromise approach of Chamberlain and Halifax, making David’s throne a disgrace, Mr. Flurry asserted. It is no wonder that God took the throne from the British royal family, he said.

Philadelphia Church of God members sat there and breathlessly swallowed this bullshit believing every single word Flurry spoke as an inspired new revelation.

I have a feeling that in a few short years we will see death and destruction reign down from the hands of Flurry and the PCG members will go along with it all.      

See: Pastor General Speaks on Future Vision at Fall Festival: Topics included Haggai, the transition of King David’s throne, the Holy Roman Empire, and New Jerusalem.