UCG Now Claimning There is Only Three or Four Years Left?

After the abysmal failure of Harold Camping last past weekend (May 21, 2011) you would think UCG would keep their mouths shut about end time prophecy.  But no, they can't.  They can't because they are "God's TRUE Church" and therefore are privilege to special hidden knowledge. 

The UCG Council has informed the ministry that they will be dumped from the UCG retirement programs because UCG over extended themselves with television obligations and now have to pay up.

But not to worry!  You sheeple ministers won't be needing it anyway because we only have three or four years left. 

Stupid, stupid men!  With over seventy years worth of documented failed prophecies you would think that they would have learned to keep their mouths shut.  Seventy years worth of blatant lies and they still continue on with more lies.  Stupid, stupid men!

Herbert Armstrong and L Ron Hubbard

In Memoriam: Two Con Men, Herbert W. Armstrong and L. Ron Hubbard

Armstrong and Hubbard

Twenty-five years ago this week, the two greatest con men of the 20^th century both died, within the space of eight days of each other. The creativity and sheer chutzpah of Herbert W. Armstrong and L. Ron Hubbard are worth remembering, and in some ways even treasuring as a species of human achievement, with the same sort of awe one reserves for the destructive power of a tsunami. Though both men were failures in the business world, when they turned to religion they discovered a sucker market of breathtaking scope.

Herbert W. Armstrong, born in 1892, worked at several jobs in the world of commercial advertising, failing at each. In the 1920s, he decided that religion was an easier racket, and fought to take control of a small congregation in Oregon. He failed at that, too, but on his way out the door managed to take the mailing list with him.

In 1935 Armstrong launched Plain Truth magazine, initially in mimeographed form; at about the same time he began regular radio broadcasts. To distinguish himself from the evangelical pack, Armstrong specialized in prophecy. He got lucky when an early prophecy, that Mussolini would conquer Ethiopia, actually came to pass. That a mechanized army would defeat spear-carrying tribesmen may seem to be not going too far out on a limb, but Armstrong hyped it into something special.

More prophecies followed, as Armstrong discovered that his audiences ate them up: Italy would conquer Palestine; then Russia would attack Palestine; then Britain would fall to the Germans; then German armies would appear on American shores. The accuracy rate began to deteriorate, but in wartime America where censorship kept the news bland and upbeat, Armstrong’s juicy predictions built his following.

The end of the German threat in 1945 would have dealt a lesser man a serious blow. Armstrong responded by assuring his readers and listeners – for decades on end – that Hitler was still alive, and ready to strike again any minute now.

There is much more to the article at Secular News Daily

One interesting tidbit I learned recently was that L Ron Hubbard was a distant relative of Elbert Hubbard who HWA idolized as a great thinker.