From a reader:
NEWSFLASH/WARNING: LCG is now putting cross-domain cookies on the computers of people who visit their Members page at LCG.org. They'll probably claim it's a convenience for easier access to shared LCG resources, but cross-domain cookies can also give them the ability to see if LCG members are visiting other ACOG websites, ACOG critic sites, or political/news sites they disapprove of. If they can identify and crush mockers, they'll do so. Of course, if you're an LCG member who uses the site and you haven't accepted their cookies, they may be suspicious of that, too, so you're kind of screwed either way.
24 comments:
I'm skeptical. There are very rigorous data protection and privacy laws in Europe, where LCG also operates. If LCG discloses the information collection and lets visitors opt out, no laws are being violated, no big deal. And I can't believe LCG would try to collect user data clandestinely, as the inevitable resulting lawsuit could bankrupt LCG, making the old Leona McNair lawsuit look like pocket change by comparison. Let's wait and see what LCG insiders may have to say about this.
Heh! Reminds me of my WCG Mom lecturing me about mail order in the 1960s. I had ordered an Ed ""Big Daddy" Roth shirt to wear during track practice, (Hey! Basil wasn't selling T-shirts, and BDR was the closest I could find!). When it arrived to my attention, she opened it, of course. She actually told me that these mail order people sold your name and address to pornographers, and how would I like it if suddenly I received a lot of pornographic mail! Made me give the shirt to my cousin! What a bitch!
If I were an ACOG member, I'd not only be using DuckDuckGo, I'd also have a VPN!
Good reasons to be skeptical. But I went there just now to look at Weston's member update, and I encountered an "accept marketing cookies" notice. It's disturbing enough that LCG for sure would have pre-announced it if it were innocent, as it's guaranteed to spook visitors. The only reason for not reassuring members in advance would be if they're trying to pull a fast one on members visiting the site. And now they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they now try to explain what they've done, members will wonder why they didn't admit to it before people noticed it and became concerned, and they may even wonder whether LCG is being honest about it, as they weren't transparent about it when they put it into effect. Quite an own goal for LCG!
The rock bottom for me was knowing LCG covers for child predators. Every other scuzzy thing is just another confirmation.
Years ago, someone reported here that there were some nasty cooties with which RCG admin forebombed visitors to the RCG site!
If LCG is checking their members' cross-traffic activities, at least one thing is certain! They'te not finding any Theiliesexuals amongst their members! 😷🫥🫣
Google "Can a web site owner see my browsing history on other web sites?"
From Google:
Yes, in some cases, a website owner can potentially see your browsing history on other websites. This is typically done through the use of third-party cookies, which allow trackers to follow your activity across different sites. However, many browsers offer settings to block or limit third-party cookies, and some browsers default to disabling them, according to Khan Academy.
So the answer is that it depends on how scummy the website administrators choose to be, and whether the website users take precautions.
The Jehovahs Witnesses had to sell its headquarters to pay for its many child sex abuse settlements. Their history is one of typically not notifying the police if an accusation is made. They deal with accusations "in house" which involves a child having to confront a church panel of elders (who are often plumbers, bus drivers etc, ie, are they really qualified). As their dissidents point out, this is very demanding for a child, which discourages others from stepping forward. Plus their insistence of applying the two witness rule is misplaced here since such abuses typically happen with no witnesses present. These cases exposes the Pharisaic character of many denominations, the ACOGs being no exception.
Cultish churches present a noble inner face to their members via their sermons and literature, but this face is divided into a inner and outer face. The inner face is the real moral code of these groups, which is simply school yard bully morality.
Seems a bit cultish to me. Don't want to be criticized online. Oh the big, bad internet. Wach out for the cookie monsters you lcg members.
I guess it is a legacy behavior. I know back in the day hearing a local minister claim that Worldwide did not monitor the amount of donations & tithes members sent in only to find out later it waa the opposite.
5:55PM
Yep. I use Startpage or DuckDuckGo and use a VPN.
Well, people including the LCG members could choose to boycot the website. Yes, Duck Duck Go, and also a browser like Brave would protect one's browsing, but putting up shields would also limit one's interaction with LCG's website and access to its content. Fine for me. Unfortunately most of our members are simply afraid. Afraid to where they become listless but functional and so they think they are okay. No, they are not okay. The ministers would not get away with a tenth of what they do if only God's people in LCG would speak up and stand up for what is right and good. This is not being rebellious as the LCG ministers accuse people who do speak up. Not speaking up and caving into our ministers can be a severe case of a disease called idolatritis. Worse than the covid plague.
All sorts of websites have cookies notices now. European court rulings have made them practically mandatory and commonplace.
UCG's site has such a notice. Life, Hope and Truth does. Interesting that PCG, RCG and GCI do not.
We're talking about churches who have largely refused to repent of many of the sins of the founder of Armstrongism, Herbert W. Armstrong. And, this is not an uncommon phenomenon amongst groups who consider their agenda to be above the law. As an example, there are numerous people and groups who still defend the activities and policies of Richard Nixon, and insist that he did nothing wrong.
All we need do is look back to the activities of the 1970s to understand what the ACOGs would be doing today with regard to membership privacy issues. Data bases were compiled on members in Pasadena containing details from Visiting Program reports, SEP disciplinary reports, tithing records, Manpower Committee discussions, voluntary counselling sessions, Spokesman's Club activities, and numerous other sources. If you knew, and were friends with some of the right people who were privy to these records, they would actually share with you some of the information the church or college had on you.
During the mid 1970s, as dissidents arose, paranoia emerged. The dormitories at AC Pasadena were bugged. Surveillance vans patterned after those seen on TV police procedural dramas were dispatched to the sites of meetings of dissident ministers who were founding the first splinter groups. Church members were photographed from these vans as they walked from parking lots and entered the meetings. All employees of the church and college had to sign a loyalty oath to Herbert W. Armstrong as a condition to their continued employment. Members were encouraged to report what other members had shared in confidence about themselves regarding attitudes toward church policies and members of the ministry, and those reported (ratted in) were "called in" to inquisitional counselling sessions.
Since the founders of today's splinter groups were present and in power during that era, it is no surprise that such policies would have been updated in order to maintain pace with modern technology. Secrecy, and loyalty to the cult are absolutely paramount to these groups. Difference in opinion, questioning of leadership are considered to be rebellious and disloyal, and cause for censure or dismissal if detected. It's why we have so many anonymous posters here, who are so cautious about sharing any details which would make their identities detectable. It's why anonymous loyalists also come here with their condemnations and conspiracy theories. They feel a need to know what others shield to maintain their personal privacy from a group that does not respect that concept. They're also collecting "brownie points" as they navigate the power ladder within their groups, and are often ruthless in their ascent.
It's a paradox for those who know these things about their churches, yet, for one reason or another, wish to critique and dissent, and yet remain in the good graces of their church. It is very freeing when one finally decides that they no longer care about what these little tin horn dictators think of them, or could do to them, and feels comfortable sharing what they feel regardless. "Be true to thyself!" may not be in the Bible, but it is the only way for one's mind to diffuse COGnitive dissonance.
BB
Yes, and LCG still does this and keeps track of its lay members. You'll hear something about yourself thrown at you suddenly one day and you'll wonder how they found that out. There are snitches in their ranks who have the ear of their ministers, and for some reason their comments and reports about members are listened to and taken more seriously than the members statements themselves. Here in the GTA we have people like this deacon named Art Morin. He is like Doeg the Edomite from the Bible, or like Grima Wormtongue from LOTR. and yet this same deacon who has the ministers ear unquestioned has been into certain types of porn and even necrophilia for decades. He has also been on and off medication for his psychological delusions. Once we asked this deacon why he didn't stay on his medication and he said to us that because it wasn't from the ministers and he didn't think he needed it and it didn't do him any good. He is a liar and a weasel as some have termed it. And yet the ministers in LCG take Art's word as though it were the Plain Truth about whoever he is accusing to them. For them. So by the time the poor member comes up for their ministerial correction the ministers have already made up their minds about said member. And much of what they believe is based on the wormtongue of a porno necro deacon who doesn't take his medication as he should. Now what kind of God guided LCG leadership is this?
Is your Art Morin the Arthur Morin whose daughter Nicole disappeared mysteriously in 1985? That kind of tragedy and trauma would be enough to make many a father quite psychologically brittle and unstable.
Yeah it's the same Art Morin. He was into porn and necrophilia and he was a psycho case before little Nicole Louise disappeared. His wife threw him out and told him to get lost. When she died of cancer several years back now he played the sad widower and he told the people that he had not been apart from her and that he had lovingly taken care of her when she becane sick before she died. More lies from him. Many of us but not all knew the truth. He would talk about his dreams and his sex fantasies of raping little girls and dead women so much that several of us finally just asked him during one of the FOt if he did snatch and kill his daughter. He simply said that he believed God had forgiven him of this now. Whether he was answering us directly or he was talking about something else on his mind well who knows. Anyways he has no excuse to be the way he is,and our ministers should be shocked and ashamed to repentance that they take Art's word about anything and anyone at all. If he does evil then our LCG ministers do just as bad and worse by acting on his filthy lies about various members as if they are true. For just one verse Proverbs 18:17. So what does this say about our ministers and elders?
Was Art ever a WCG member? It's kind of weird reading a 1987 Toronto Star newspaper caption in which he says "Christmas doesn't mean very much to me now," and the obvious context readers will draw is that Christmas is empty for him because Nicole is gone, not because he thinks Christmas is pagan.
I remember sitting in birmingham listening to Ken Martin talking about taking the loyalty oath to HWA when i was a teenager & immediately thinking about the loyalty oath wermacht soldiers took to Adolf Hitler and how many German Generals were upset saying their soldiers first obligation should be to Germany, not the leader. In the same vein, the Church should be loyal to God & Christ, not some self proclaimed apostle.
Anon 7:26AM
Most of the COG is afraid…
Afraid of DNA disproving British Isrealism
Afraid of people recognizing all the failed prophecies and history of HWA
Afraid of sliding into further irrelevance
The COG was built on a foundation of Millerite fear. LCG is but a shingle on a leaky roof where knowledge of its origins and falsehoods keeps leaking in.
Also you’re on Banned.
Yes 5:55:56 Art Morin was a WCG member in the 1980s. So his comment about Christmas was insincere. then when WCG changed he was with CGI for a wile and then with Global/LCG. The little girl knew that she would be snatched but she didn't say who she thought it would be.
This is why most of us stay anonymous. And I personally have gone to the LCG members page and given my two "sense" quite a few times. And correct Anon 10:06, they don't want to be proven wrong on things. The old guard just wants to keep things as they were back in the "good old days." As time goes on......
Well, just so long as they don't bombard us with Stuck Poop commercials like are all over Youtube right now, then we're cool.
Here in the GTA ? Would a LCG member write like that?
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