A Cult That Churns Out Atheists
Herbert Armstrong founded the Worldwide Church of God with a bold promise: to create true Christians, a chosen remnant who would follow the "one true faith" and inherit God’s Kingdom. He preached that only his teachings—rooted in Old Testament laws and a rejection of mainstream Christianity—led to salvation. It was a stark choice: follow Herbie’s narrow path, or be cast out as a heretic, no better than a godless nonbeliever. This rigid dichotomy defined Armstrongism, a movement that claimed to be the sole bastion of truth in a world of deception.
But here’s the bitter irony: Armstrongism doesn’t produce devout Christians. It’s a factory for atheists, driving members to reject faith entirely after escaping its grip. The cult’s legalism, fear-based control, and dismissal of all other beliefs create a brittle faith that shatters under scrutiny. For every loyalist clinging to Herbie’s teachings, dozens walk away from both Armstrongism and God altogether, their belief crushed by spiritual abuse. We’ll explore how Armstrong’s legacy has churned out disbelief, turning would-be believers into atheists through its toxic mechanisms.
The False Dichotomy: Herbert’s Way or The Highway
Herbie wielded a false dichotomy like a weapon: follow his way, or you’re as lost as a nonbeliever. He taught that mainstream Christianity—Easter, Christmas, Sunday worship—was a satanic counterfeit, rendering its practitioners no better than atheists. Old Man Herb even claimed nonbelievers might have a better shot at salvation than those following a corrupted faith, because they weren’t actively defying God with false worship. There was no middle ground: either you accepted his truth—Saturday Sabbath, Old Testament festivals, rejection of "pagan" holidays—or your faith was meaningless.
This "my way or the highway" mindset was about control, not faith. Armstrongism demanded total allegiance to Herbie’s rules, leaving no room for individual conviction. Question the Sabbath? You’re out. Celebrate Christmas? You’re out. Consider mainstream Christianity? You’re out. Only a tiny elite who followed Herbert without deviation knew the real path to salvation, while everyone else—from Baptists to nonbelievers—was equally lost. This pressure cooker didn’t build resilient Christians; it made faith so suffocating that, for many, the only escape was atheism—not because they rejected God outright, but because Herbie’s version of God was unbearable
Legalism Over Love: A Faith That Crushes
The engine of Armstrongism’s atheist factory is its legalism. Old Man Herb taught that true Christianity meant strict adherence to Old Testament laws—Sabbath-keeping, dietary restrictions, festival observance—while rejecting "pagan" practices like Easter. This was a mandate, enforced with threats of disfellowshipment and eternal damnation. A single misstep—like eating pork—could sever your connection to God, leaving you as lost as any nonbeliever. Faith became a checklist of dos and don’ts, with no room for grace.
This legalistic grind eroded faith. Ex-members describe the exhaustion of living under Herbie’s rules: every action scrutinized, every holiday a minefield. The Cult demanded up to 30% of income in triple tithes, leaving families strained while Rich Man Herb lived in luxury—private jets, a Pasadena mansion, gold-plated offices—a hypocrisy that fueled disillusionment. When faith is just a performance—keep the Sabbath, shun Easter—there’s no space for a personal connection to God. Love and joy were replaced by fear and guilt. For many, this hollow Christianity became unbearable. When they broke free, they didn’t seek a new faith—they rejected faith entirely, associating God with the control they’d endured. Armstrongism didn’t make them Christians; it made them atheists.
Isolation and Fear: Cutting Off Alternatives
Armstrongism’s isolation tactics further fuel its atheist production line. Herbie dismissed all other forms of worship as pagan abominations, teaching that mainstream Christianity was a satanic counterfeit. By labeling Easter and Sunday worship as godless, he ensured followers saw no viable path outside the Cult, with Herbie as the sole arbiter of truth. Members were taught to shun "worldly" influences—family, friends, other churches—leaving them dependent on Armstrongism. The world became a spiritual wasteland, with the Cult as the only oasis.
This bred a fragile faith that couldn’t survive outside the Cult. When members left, often after years of abuse, they faced a stark reality: the world they were taught to fear was just human. Having been told all other faiths were false, many didn’t seek a new church; they abandoned faith altogether. The Cult’s fear-based control—disfellowshipment for dissent, end-times panic, threats of eternal punishment—left them spiritually scarred. For every person who found a new belief system, countless others became atheists, unable to separate God from the terror Herbie instilled. Armstrongism’s isolation didn’t create Christians—it created exiles who rejected faith entirely.
The Breaking Point: When Faith Shatters
The tipping point for many was realizing Herbie’s promises were empty. His failed prophecies—like the 1972 Great Tribulation—exposed cracks in his divine authority, yet the Cult doubled down. Ex-members recall the moment they saw through the façade: Herb’s lavish lifestyle while they struggled to pay tithes; the control tactics like the Visiting Program, exposed as a surveillance tool in a previous article; the endless rules that left no joy. When they questioned doctrine, they were cast out, labeled heretics for daring to think for themselves.
This rejection often led to a complete loss of faith. Having been taught Armstrongism was the only true path, ex-members faced a brutal choice: cling to a system they no longer believed in, or abandon faith entirely. Many chose the latter. The Cult’s collapse in the 1990s, after doctrinal reforms under Joseph Tkach, saw 75% of its 100,000 members leave. Some joined splinters, but many walked away from religion altogether, becoming atheists—not because they rejected God outright, but because Herbie’s version of God was so tied to control and fear that they couldn’t imagine faith without it. Herbie’s factory produced atheists, its rigid system a conveyor belt to disbelief.
A Dying Cult: Attrition and the Loss of Youth
Armstrongism’s atheist factory isn’t just a past failure—it’s a present crisis. The Cult’s numbers have plummeted since its 1980s peak, with splinters like PCG, UCG, COGTE, RCG, and others claiming to carry Herbie’s torch but dwindling as ex-members share their stories online. A 2018 survey by the International Cultic Studies Association found that 40% of ex-members of high-control groups like the Cult abandon religion altogether, compared to 15% who join another faith. But the real death knell is the loss of second- and third-generation youth. These kids, raised in Armstrongism’s suffocating rules, often reject it as soon as they can. They see the hypocrisy, feel the fear, and witness the failed prophecies—like Herbie’s end-times predictions that never came true. Most don’t stick around; they leave, and many become atheists, unable to reconcile faith with the control they grew up under. Armstrongism is dying from attrition, its legacy not a thriving remnant but a generation of disbelief.
Herbie’s True Legacy
Herbert Armstrong promised to create true Christians, but his Worldwide Church of God became an atheist factory, churning out disbelief through legalism, fear, and isolation. His "my way or the highway" rhetoric left members with no room to grow or question. When they broke free, many rejected faith entirely, unable to separate God from the control they endured. Second- and third-generation youth are fleeing, accelerating Armstrongism’s decline through attrition. Herbie’s legacy isn’t a remnant of believers—it’s a generation of atheists, their faith shattered by a cult that valued rules over relationship. For AiCOG readers, this is a stark reminder: HWA’s highway leads not to salvation, but to spiritual desolation.
Support ::Armstrongism investigated::By Ai-COG · Launched 2 months ago::Armstrongism investigated:: takes a Deep Dive into the cultic murky world of the Worldwide Church of God and its offshoots. If you love investigating cults stick around and prepare to dive deep!
32 comments:
the "hour" of armstrongism - Rev 3:10? Herb's 7 feasts (only 3). Herb's 3 tithes (don't now exist).
Nonbelief is much more than just a bad experience with a church.
I understand the point being made however, loss of faith in faith is common in many a church these days where facts about church history, historical vs mythical stories, origins of the scriptures, origins in science etc not generally available to the congregants previously are now more than available for consideration outside the box any church has locked them into.
While WCG's approach, practice and beliefs could, of course, make one flee religion and into nonbelief, it is a kind of atheism light in what it produces. I know many who said they no longer believed but what they meant was they no longer believed in the Bible as presented by WCG, Adventism or JWs etc. They may have then joined a more satisfying church. This is not atheism of course.
The genuine unbeliever has usually done a lot more homework as to why they don't believe that just a bad experience with a religion, though that bad experience may launch them into a faith shattering for the good by them asking, what else was I not told about the Biblical story and origins? This was my personal move to unbelief and by soaking in the scriptures and knowing what they said and the story they presented very well. WCG just threw in the corporate church drama and trauma to hasten the process when the time came.
Faith based belief is a weak kind of belief as it has no evidence for that belief. That's the definition of faith. Belief without evidence. Being a person of great faith is not actually a compliment. It is a statement that one is content to believe without evidence. It may seem "spiritual" but it is simply delusional.
"Churning out atheists" was not the sole territory of the WCG. Evangelicals turn them out by the thousands and the rise of unmasking Biblical ignorance and the desire to leave it was elevated to new heights with the rise of both the Internet and televangelism and all the associated foolishness associated with it.
The explosion of the sciences has also collapsed the beliefs, at least in Bible literalism, as well. We know more now in the last 30 years on human origins, the actual evolution of all life on the planet and the cosmos than in the previous 10,000.
"Faith requires that we literally make believe., that we presume presuppose, and pretend that we ignore what we actually really do see and imagine something is there when it apparently isn't. It means we lie to ourselves and fool ourselves. Worse than that, faith requires that we believe the unbelievable.
... faith offers no way to discover the real truth about anything, but it's a great way to stay wrong forever and never admit it, even to yourself"
"In other words, faith assumes its own conclusions, believes impossible nonsense without reasons and defends those beliefs against all reason to the contrary"
Aron Ra
Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism
PS Walking by faith and not by sight (evidence) that something is so, is probably one of the more dangerous approaches to anything a human can participate in.
Dennis, your definition of faith is a semantic distortion. Faith means fidelity or loyalty... it does not mean "belief without evidence." The etymological origins have to do with trust and reliance... this is belief with evidence.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=faith
Your comment walking by faith and not by sight, evidence, that something is so, is probably one of the more dangerous approaches to anything a human can participate in……is certainly applicable in these uncertain times as we look at the political sphere, on both sides of the political spectrum.
I for one am grateful for those men and women who by faith brought about enormous positive change for human society through the ages. Be it in the sciences healthcare medicine such as Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, Johanna’s Kepler, Blaine Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz, Carl Linnaeus, Antoine Leeuwenhoek, John Polkinghorne, Rosalind Picard, Owen Gingrich to name just a few. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Dr Francis Collin’s and Is Atheism Dead by Eric Metaxas are fine reads, especially when we look at the impossible bleakness of materialism.
"faith means fidelity or loyalty" = Faith is belief without evidence. Yes, loyalty to the belief in something for which there is no proof
"We know more now in the last 30 years on human origins, the actual evolution of all life on the planet and the cosmos than in the previous 10,000."
And we still know crap about how the universe operates at the quantum level, or the grand level- dark matter, dark energy and the like. The basis of
existence still eludes us.
Apostle Paul is famous for "Faith is the substance of things unseen" and "We walk by faith and not by sight" but he also said "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." For many people, the witness and awe of nature are enough evidence (to include a litany of brilliant minds mentioned by Anon 3:23), for others, not so much. I think it's a bit arrogant on the part of the latter accusing the former of being delusional.
What always got me was that Herb justified Ambassador College by claiming that today's universities teach their students how to earn a living, but not how to live. This is pure public relations and complete bull. How can AC and Herb's church teach its members how to live if it rejects rights and that relationships are two way? It can't. The result is a Mad Max law of the jungle church culture. It's street gang morality, which is the true inner-face moral code of these churches.
We cant see any of the laws of physics and chemistry. All we see is their effects. Which is true of God's laws as well. Which is the real meaning of walking by faith (evidence plus a line of reasoning) rather than sight (only direct 5 sense perception). Which is why to me, people claiming that they'll only believe in God if they see dancing angels in front of them are being intellectually dishonest.
“Religion by embarrassing contrast, has contributed literally zero to what we know, combined with a huge hubristic confidence in the alleged facts it has simply made up…” so said Richard Dawkins. Perhaps one of the most astonishingly arrogant and ignorant comments made by a public personality one can find outside of the political arena. Asphyxiatingly bizarre, plus a comment one would not of expected from a highly educated individual. But no doubt he had faith to make the exclamation he did. One looks at the shocking carnage left by atheist regimes, who all expounded and lorded science; of all colours and persuasions. Their copses, counted in the hundreds of millions, caused Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to write “Men have forgotten God, that is why all this has happened”. The collapse of Soviet Russia and the Eastern Bloc was due above all to the inability of the atheist regimes to satisfy the soul and feed it. They, the regimes, feared faith, as it provided answers they could not or would not countenance. It was the paurpacy of faith. Until atheism can truely provide, religious belief, for better or worse will thrive.
Satan Doing Evil In God's Name
Satan has his extremely deceitful, perverse, and vicious false prophet, Gerald R. Flurry, deliberately do all his own outrageous evil in God's name.
Satan wants to deceive people into wrongly believing that his own satanic imposter cult, the PCG, is God's one true church.
Satan has his own, wicked, fake “ministers” treat people brutally and then unfairly kick them out of the PCG cult just for the thrill of it.
Satan then wants the victims to be totally confused about what happened to them and think that it was God who did it all and that they are now doomed to the lake of fire.
A much better and more correct way to look at it is to realize that God is letting them learn a very important and valuable lesson about the need to “beware of false prophets” as Jesus instructed in the Sermon on the Mount so that they do not foolishly “build their house upon the sand.” God is actually delivering them from Satan's direct clutches.
To broadbrush present day Sabbath Christians as ungodly, non believing cultist's is nothing but absolute bullying and a open slice of how very deep intricate nastiness bitterness dwells in some who run this blog.
Do you feel better about yourself when you judge others ?
Remind yourselves how many decades has Herbert been dead. Whole generations of Christ loving Sabbatarian Christians have grown up not knowing Herbert Armstrong and not even sitting through any of his sermons, broadcasts or reading his letters.
"Do you feel better about yourself when you judge others ?"
Absolutely. I feel great exposing the toxic church culture that HWA insisted was God's social system. It feels good (like helping the poor) warning the splinter members to keep their Gestapo ministers at arms length and not blindly believing whatever they say. Thanks for asking 10.45.
I don't believe that you understand completely, 10:46. First of all, the sabbath was the primary implement of our spiritual rape. In the case of physical rape, I understand that many victims can never again recapture the enjoyment of the physical intimacy which they once had. It can be the same with any type of spiritual rape. It robs people of the capacity for joy in religion or worship.
In the years following my own recovery from Armstrongism, I have had numerous sabbatarian friends, both of the Jewish and Seventh Day Adventist persuasions. Their religious experiences are completely different from those suffered by the victims of Herbert W. Armstrong and those who claim to have his mantle today. They were not savagely beaten as children, ruined financially by misinterpretation of the Torah's tithing principle, or artificially kept in a constant state of fear by a ridiculous prophecy mold which promises national subjugation and slavery at the hands of alleged modern day Assyrians, the Germans. Consequently, these other groups who were not spiritually raped are able to have a natural love for, and joy in the sabbath. I say natural, because it is not what you might call joy on command. Extreme duress cannot cause joy. It only produces begrudging compliance.
When I'm speaking with friends today who were never part of Armstrongism, if we are discussing backgrounds, I describe myself as having been raised as a kind of Messianic Jew, in a church that promised that Jesus would return in 1975. They appreciate the humor in it, and there is no need to go into unpleasant minutiae beyond that. I'm comfortable with a wide variety of people, because I realize that it is common for people to find joy in a wide variety of cultural experiences, even in adherence to the culture God gave to the Jewish people, people who never were abused by that culture, people who never had an Armstrongian despot imposing himself on their lives. People who love their rabbi, love doing Shabbos, and even dance with their Torah scrolls.
This blog or website is a kind of sanctuary for those of us who are continuing our recovery process, a place where we express the things which we cannot express anywhere else. We have in depth discussions of many topics, topics which are very helpful to us, and potentially helpful to others who are awakening and emerging. Perhaps that is not your experience. 🙂
BB
As a person who grew up in Worldwide, it seemed as if something was off in my mind even when I was a child, initially being raised in a Southern Baptist church then going to Worldwide & the HWA idolatry and burdens heaped on the membership by the leadership & ministry. I would probably say that the percentage of former members who gave up all faith & belief is probably the highest of any former sect. It always seemed as if they wanted to minimize the sacrifice of Christ and exalt themselves and the Church leadership. Way to go Herbert, Gerald & Dave!!!
"That's the definition of faith. Belief without evidence."
I hear this often from atheists. As an engineer, I am well familiar with the scientific method. As a Christian who grew up in WCG, I'm well familiar with authoritarian dogma as well as the Bible (even the New Testament more recently, haha).
While atheists like to talk as though all our beliefs ought to be founded on evidence of the scientific kind, we really go through life living by all sorts of epistemologies other than science. History, news, how-to instructions, relationships, reputations of people and businesses. We function in life based on trust, which we often don't have the luxury to prove in the scientific sense. But we put trust in information, people, businesses on the basis of various sorts of evidence, filtered through experiential heuristics, even though we have incomplete evidence and we couldn't say we have "proof".
In the case of religious beliefs, there are many ways to build trust in the truth claims, and science can be one of the ways. I operate with a definition of faith which is very similar to trust. I have trust in the character of God and the truth claims of Christianity for reasons that are based in science, history, archaeology, the Biblical text and what it says about who God is and what His plan and goal is with all of us.
I can say to atheists, "I have faith (trust) for these reasons which I regard as evidence that satisfies me". Typically an atheist will respond something like "That's not evidence. Christians have no evidence for their faith." You're welcome to disagree with the quality of the evidence, but it's a straw-man and disingenuous to say "faith is belief with no evidence".
The secular view of the issue of faith in the existence of God differs from the Christian view. The secular view I encounter most often is the idea that God needs to prove himself, with evidence appreciable to the five senses, so the non-believer will have the empirical basis to become a believer. And since this evidence is seldom forthcoming, atheists have a field day criticizing those who believe but cannot easily express why they believe. Further, this approach of testing empirical evidence can make atheists seem to have won the argument. And believers are viewed as having inadequate foundation for believing what they do.
The NT does not support this kind of empirical methodology. The NT asserts that there are certain people who become Christians because they were elected to be so from the foundation of the Cosmos. And that these people will one day receive the faith of Jesus Christ that will dwell in them. It is not their human belief but the imparted faith of Christ (pistis Christou). And they will know incontrovertibly that God has touched their lives. And since this happens at the spiritual level, it is evident to non-believers only as a changed life in the believer, which means it is not usually easily discernible because people just don’t know that much about each other.
I believe there are philosophical reasons why it makes sense that there is a God who is the uncaused first cause. The easiest is that we live in a Universe of matter and energy that undergoes entropy and there is nothing about the properties of matter and energy that would make us think that it could have existed in an organized state from eternity. Yet, atheists will assert that the organized Universe has always been here, from eternity, no Creator required. That dog doesn’t hunt.
Finally, this is the conclusion that makes people angry because it plays with their concept of personal free choice. Atheists and other non-believers are atheists and non-believers at this time because God would have it so. So, HWA in the last analysis doesn’t churn out atheists. HWA doesn't have the power to influence anybody's ultimate salvation.
Scout
Scout, these atheists are often even aware of Romans 1:20 and will quote it to believers.
Others do not accept any explanation involving the 22 physical constants of the universe, and the need for these to have been ordained by a Creator. Their response is "Where is it that you say God came from? He was just there, right?
Which is easier to believe, that an incredible, all powerful being was just there, or that a set of constants was just there?
They also dismiss statistical analysis.
I believe that something just needs to pop for people to change beliefs of any kind.
BB
Individuals can look at the same evidence and come up with entirely different conclusions- I guess that's why we have jury trials.
Byker 11:19
I agree with you on that. An intelligent, designing Creator as the Uncaused First Cause is unavoidable. Hawking once said, "because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing". Christian Theists reply, “where did the gravity and its behavioral properties come from?” Hawking, of course, did not postulate a mass that generates the gravity field.
The atheist reply is that Hawking statement about gravity from nowhere is no sillier than the Christian Theist view that there is a God from nowhere. But there is a salient difference between gravity as the beginning point and God as a beginning point. You can see it in what Hawking wrote. He states the Universe “can” and “will” create itself. He had to re-make the Universe into a Being with Will in order to even put his idea into words.
But gravity is not a being. It has no Will to bring anything into existence. It cannot impart existence to anything. It is in fact contingent on mass so it does not have a first cause capacity. This is true of any principle from physics that someone might try to recruit as the Uncaused First Cause.
Scout
Anon1046, You are describing precisely what Herbert Armstrong taught about Christians outside of WWCG. And, this is continued in the splinter cults.
Apologist Frank Turek, in his book "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist", writes:
" Every worldview, including atheism, requires some degree of faith"!
"Who (the atheist /the Christian) has more evidence for their conclusion? Which conclusion is more reasonable? Looking at the evidence, the atheist has to muster a lot more faith than the Christian. What does that mean? It means that the less evidence you have for your position, the more faith you need to believe it. Faith covers a gap in knowledge. And it turns out that atheists have bigger gaps in knowledge because they have far less evidence for their beliefs than Christians have for theirs. In other words, the empirical, forensic, and philosophical evidence strongly supports conclusions consistent with Christianity and inconsistent with atheism".
What is that evidence? There is way too much to reveal here. I highly recommend you read the book! If that's too much to ask, catch Frank on YouTube.
But the reality is that some people are in love with Armstrongism since It fulfills their emotional needs. I observed this when I attended services. By hiding behind their minister's skirts, they got away with behaving like social and moral barbarians. Attending church was a holiday from the real world.
As queer as Herbert was, the disease of Herbism was more biblical that the disease of modern Christianity.
First of all, it is highly unlikely Hawking wrote all the many books with his name on them. He had a disability and a ton of other work to do. So who wrote them? And why? Probably a team of people wrote them.
Where did Hawking actually say that? Chapter and verse please.
How about this. You demonstrate to us that Hawking did not say that. It's all over the internet. You have the minority position.
Scout
I recall a TV host once asking Matha Stewart how she found the time to write her most recent cook book. Matha ignored the question. In American culture, it's the norm for the rich and famous to have ghost writers. The odd syndicated columnist admits to having research assistants, but that's it.
Such lies, such hypocrisy. Yet there you'll all be Passover lording it over others.
Exposing? Are you a post writer ?
I find it odd that the discussion of believer and non believer always comes back to creation. Whats one got to do with the other? Theres a million Gods out there you can worship. I dont find any urgency whatsoever to choose one in order to have the creation story all down pat and feel as smart as the people looking for answers outside that option. Maybe someday when mankind acquires 1% of all universal knowledge we might have a better shot at this...both ways.
The prevailing religious system in English-speaking nations and much of Europe has been Christianity, 5:04. This is the system within which English-speaking atheists are functioning. For the purpose of debate, many atheists use the term "Bible God". Creation is one of the lynchpins of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So, in the interchange of ideas with a goal of showing the opposite side that they are wrong, it is inevitable that creation would be discussed, and even attacked.
I've never seen a discussion of what it might be like for atheists to live and function in Buddhist, or Hindu nations. They would probably be tolerated to a greater extent in Buddhist countries than amongst the Hindus. There does not seem to be any innate goodness in communist countries where life is not valued to the extent that we see in the USA. Even Mr. Spock would have a difficult time living on his Vulcan logic in beautiful downtown Moscow.
I have a much different understanding of creation week than do literalists. For it to make any sense at all, one's view must be informed by science. Unfortunately, Evangelicals and other fundamentalists associate science with atheism, and tend to reject what it can teach us. That is a very artificial construct, the product of black and white, or binary thinking.
BB
The initial teaching of Armstrongism was that all the other churches are false and deceived. That was the first lesson of Armstrongism. It was not Jesus as Savior. It was all others are wrong. They used the sabbath amongst those that viewed the Bible as true and instructive and unified. I say unified in that most that were susceptible to Armstrongism viewed the Bible as having truth throughout it even if their religious background was more focused in the New Covenant. But, still they had respect for the entire Bible (this was my own experience and I was young).
But, suddenly we were told all these churches are wrong primarily because they go to church on Sunday when the Bible tells us saturday is the sabbath. Well, most had not really looked into why they went to church on Sunday and didn't know the arguments but knew Jesus was resurrected on Sunday.
But, now Armstrong showed in the old testament where the sabbath was indeed Saturday. Well, this seemed enough to show all these other churches were wrong. Then Armstrong showed us more things from the old covenant that Sunday churches didn't do. Now they had us.
They then showed that these people were actually practitioners of paganism by observing Christmas and Easter. Hislop backed them up; too bad we had no idea that Hislop made much of his book up with false connections and terrible scholarship.
We now knew that all of Christianity, outside of the COGs, was deceived and false.
But, then, faults and gross errors in doctrine and administration within the COGs start becoming apparent to the poor COG member. "These things aren't right!", he declares.
But, what is he to do? He sees the grave faults in Armstrongism and for years/decades he's been told non-cog Christianity is false. So, when he leaves Armstrongism there is no other place to go and often he entirely gives up religion and becomes an unbeliever.
A friend of mine experienced this very thing; I've told him that we can't base Christianity on what the COGs taught and said. I told him we never really were taught Christianity because we didn't understand Jesus and barely mentioned Him. Fortunately, my recognition of the falseness of Armstronmgism occurred while working within a community of non-cog Christians. These were wonderful people, so the lies of Armstrongism melted away at the same time as the concept of non-cog Christianity being false and deceived.
So, the ridiculous claims and faults in Armstrongism did not carry over to the my view of other Christians. Obviously, these fine Christians were not perfect, but their fruits of the spirit shone more brightly than within the Cog club and in difficult situations where grace and generosity prevailed.
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