Monday, September 2, 2019

The Soon Coming Coming Destruction

At this time of writing, one of the most powerful hurricanes in modern history is devastating the Bahamas with winds of 185 Miles Per Hour - gusting to an unfathomable 220 Miles per hour at times. The images I have seen coming out of the storm have been nothing short of absolute devastation - homes demolished, extreme storm surge, people trapped. It is a worst-case scenario for the Bahamas - but they have been warned. 

All of this got me to thinking about another type of warning the Church has been blasting for over 70 years - a warning of extreme destruction, demolition, and damage due to what is known as the "Great Tribulation" - a "Great Near-Extinction Event" of nuclear war that immediately heralded the supernatural and very visible return of Jesus Christ to Earth and the beginning of Armstrong's version of the Kingdom for 1,000 years. 

Somehow, we believed that Herbert Armstrong and his successors had all the tools to know what was coming. We believed he had the satellite, the radar, the ground truth, the reports, and the understanding necessary to put everything together to make a solid forecast. Herbert and company sold us into believing he had the ability to interpret the radar, look at the satellites, read into the news, understand the models and through a divine calling, somehow see, just on the horizon, the Category 5 Armageddon about ready to unleash it's fury onto the world. 

The problem was, there was never a Category 5 Armageddon on the horizon. Sure, there were flare-ups, showers and storms, and dark skies on the horizon. But these all ended up to just be passing showers of little consequence. If Herbert and company had looked up beyond their tools, they would have seen that there was absolutely nothing of any significance on the horizon. They would have seen they were wrong. 

How could they have been wrong? The truth is very simple and profound. They were operating on flawed data from models that did not have correct information. 

We know what is happening with Hurricane Dorian because the signs are being interpreted correctly. There are satellites looking down. There are instruments collecting information all over the place - from weather balloon launches to hurricane hunter aircraft measuring everything from temperature to humidity to upper level winds. There are high-tech computer models crunching numbers day in and day out, plotting paths and curves to give a general idea of exactly what is going to happen. Radar shows the detailed features of the storm. Infrared shows internal temperature dynamics. Florida and all of the Southeast Coast are being warned that something is going to happen. And indeed, something WILL happen. Do they know exactly what will happen days out? Not precisely, but they have enough correct information to tell you that the hurricane IS coming, and actions need to be taken NOW. 

We thought we knew the same thing on a spiritual scale. We believed that Herbert had the answers. We believed the Church knew "the truth". We put our confidence, our hearts, and our minds into this warning message over and over again. Yet we know now - 70 plus years after 3 to 5 years repeated constantly on a never-ending loop - that the warnings were false. Not only in timing, but in causation, in depth, and in reality - they were false. But why? What false information did Herbert have? How did he get it so wrong? 

Herbert relied on a model we will call the USBP. The USBP Model stands for "The United States Britain Prophetic Model". This spiritual model predicted a particular outcome based on a belief of the United States and Britain meeting certain prophetic criteria. The USBP Model carved a path of destruction based on scriptural interpretation.The model was wrong. The problem is, even now, certain church leaders in Armstrongism are still relying on this false model to make their forecasts. It's stupidity in its finest form. If real meteorologists used an outdated model to predict the hurricane as Armstrongism uses USBP, there would have been no way of predicting where and when Dorian would go. So the first mistake was using outdated or inaccurate information. 

The real model they were using was the IITC model. The IITC model is the "Income Into the Church" Model. In order to keep the Income Into the Church Model high, they had to create the conditions necessary for money. This had to include the proper ingredients: Loyalty (to the Church), Fear (of leaving the Church), Hope (That the Church was correct), and Belief (in everything the Church taught), then they could accurately predict what really mattered to them: Income. The vision they had was of a materialistic Campus that was to be one of, if not, the finest in the world. They were able - with help with the SRM (Stanley Rader Model), to predict the only thing that really mattered to them - money - to build their vision at the expense of using a false model publicly to the Church. In effect, they used a false warning to create an internal financial windfall. You could lump all of this into one word: Deception, intentional or not. 

Unethical? Yes. Lies? Yes. False? Yes. Did they believe it? Yes. When you put your trust in falsehoods - which we know are falsehoods - Armstrongism is the result. Because they believed in an inaccurate, incorrect, and untruthful system, they ended up crying wolf over and over again - predicting a storm that never existed and was never in any danger of existing. Then again, Armstrong never had the degree or the knowledge to understand how any of his "models" worked anyway. He, literally, went to the Library, pulled out some textbooks, and without the aid of any instruction but of his own mind, worked out how everything was supposed to work, and literally went with it, bringing in a crowd of believing suckers who he convinced he was right. He cobbled up his own theories, and then created his own "Armstrong Channel" to promote his own "forecasts" on what he believed was the worst storm ever to hit the planet based on the way he saw the world and the Bible. 

Is there any doubt now why Armstrongism is being ignored? Is there any doubt why all of these splinter groups are absolutely insignificant? Let's face it. Let's be honest. They got it wrong. Absolutely, completely, and totally wrong. 

I am currently watching The Weather Channel of people who have been trained for years and hold actual degrees in meteorology on understanding how the weather works to REALLY warn people about a REAL threat. They have gone to school, learned everything they could about atmospheric sciences, were trained by the best of the best, and now live to warn the public. They know what they are doing and are saving lives using real information to help real people doing a real warning service. Armstrongism, on the other hand, was and is a scam, started by a high-school dropout who used a failed system to create an alternate reality of alternate beliefs that had no basis in reality and still does not today. Armstrongism isfake religion, and always has been, used to enrich their leaders and oppress the poor. And after seventy years, there are still people out there who are listening to the bad spiritual forecasts made from fake preachers teaching from an inaccurate model who were not trained to interpret a jot from a tittle. It's time people wake up and stop listening to bad forecasts and horrible warnings from unqualified "preachers" making a living off of lies while sucking the life out of those who trust them. 

Armstrongism is one of the few places where people actually pay boatloads of cash to other people, willingly, for bad information and false warnings. It's time this stops, because it is literally insanity to do so over and over, and over again, for something that is so obviously proven so fundamentally wrong.

submitted by SHT

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did they believe it? Yes.

No. If they sincerely believed it, they sincerely believed (1) that there's a First Resurrection better than the others, and (2) people could not only gain the First Resurrection but be spared terrible suffering, and (3) God would judge them for the zeal of their outreach as well as their adherence to the Ten Commandments.

What did we see instead? Ministers who could have lived in very nice homes chose instead to live in LAVISH homes, diverting money to themselves instead of to outreach. Ministers who taught against fornication had sex with their daughters, students, etc. Ministers who taught against lying were notorious for their lies.

There may have been a very few true believers in the bunch, but usually they left or became corrupted like the others.

Byker Bob said...

I don’t normally go for apocalyptic entertainment, but recently I acquired the turn of the millennium TV series “Dark Angel”, the series which brought Jessica Alba to prominence.

The series is set in Seattle in the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse which laid waste to the technologies upon which the city’s civilization had depended for sustenance and prosperity.

Jessica plays the part of Max Guevara, a genetically enhanced test tube baby, specially engineered and trained to be a super soldier. She had escaped from Manticore, the organization which had created her, and is attempting to lead a “normal” life as a bicycle courier. A motorcycle enthusiast, she gets drawn into many situations in which her super-soldier attributes assist her in righting injustices.

How does this relate to us? Max exists in the aftermath of a secular apocalypse. We were promised a divine one, for which most of the people who were warned and made preparations (and their leaders) have actually now died. Max and her test-tube brothers and sisters were altered to varying degrees, some to the point of not being able to blend with the rest of humanity. By the design of WCG founders, this was also done to us. Some cannot escape who and what they have become. Others can and do, completely. Still others, while mostly having regained equillibrium, do need to occasionally visit with those who have shared the experience, to compare notes, and remain grounded. That’s part of the appeal of Banned. Max went back and destroyed Manticore, freeing the captive mutants. The people who performed this service for us were called Joe (Tkach).

Just as Max and the mutant nation gradually discover that there are new enemies and obstacles to their existence, we have also discovered new adversaries. Bottom line is, we people who are different, or have been rendered into something different must fend for ourselves against the collectives and the collectors who attempt to exploit by feigning having our best interests at heart. I suspect that that is the natural order of things, and the way it has always been. Collectives are generally extensions of their leaders and founders, and any protection which we receive from them only comes about when our interests coincide with theirs. When they don’t, we are the enemy.

BB

Feastgoer said...

It's sad to see what the Bahamas is enduring from Dorian.

But could the prayers of many believers be persuading God to keep the storm from making a direct hit on the U.S. right now - with the storm practically stuck in its tracks, and some projections sending it on a "hard right turn" away from the coast?

jim said...

That’s my prayer feastgoer.

TLA said...

Feastgoer- if you believe God controls the weather, then why do you think He hates the Bahamas?
Why destructive hurricanes anyway?
Do you think people in the Bahamas aren’t praying?

Stoned Stephen Society said...

SHT...soooo good!

Anonymous said...

"I am currently watching The Weather Channel of people who have been trained for years and hold actual degrees in meteorology on understanding how the weather works to REALLY warn people about a REAL threat."




keep in mind that their job is to sell advertising....no ads, no weather channel....that's one reason they jumped on the "global warming" bandwagon, they thought the public was buying into it so they would push it to gain viewers.

same goes for all media....that's why they get so crazy, gotta hype everything to "sell papers" (or air time, or whatever their form of dispensing is)

Anonymous said...

Question asked was: "But could the prayers of many believers be persuading God to keep the storm from making a direct hit on the U.S. right now..."?

What makes you think God must be persuaded? What about Satan, if you believe in that vile, evil, thing...to later be taken and destroyed?

Besides, if God were perfect, why would you try to persuade Him to do your will, rather than His own will.
I suspect God has nothing to do with Dorian, but time will tell...

John

Retired Prof said...

John of the "time will tell" catchphrase asks, ["[W]hy would you try to persuade Him to do your will, rather than His own will."

Good question. That's why I haven't bothered to pray again after composing my version of the Lord's Prayer years ago: "Go ahead, God. Do whatever in hell you want to. You're going to anyway."