Thursday, November 14, 2013

Frying Garner Ted Armstrong's Fish



Head on over to Armstrong Delusion for a great article dissecting GTA's infamous farce on disproving evolution, Some Fishy Stories - About An Unproved Theory.

Looking at these booklets put out by Ambassador College is now an embarrassing experience.  Here was a "college" - supposedly filled with educated people - writing this absurd drivel.  Poor research and lack of education produces all kinds of appalling "dogmatic" statements.

Fish Fry -  Part 1
Fish Fry -  Part 2
I have written before about the lies we were told, specifically in the PCG, about the Theory of Evolution. In a way, I am at it again, only this time focusing on Armstrong’s lies about it. Specifically, this is the first of a multi-part series covering the Ambassador College booklets A Fishy StoryA Theory for the Birds, and A Whale of a Tale. In my first article, I was not trying to convince anybody that one side of the Great Debate was more true than the other–I was merely pointing out that we were told lies.

In this article, however, I aim to be more persuasive.


I am not trying to persuade you to abandon faith in a Creator–of some sort (although I, personally, can no longer believe in one). Although many feel the findings of science are incompatible with religious ideas, it is not necessarily so; there are all ranges of Spiritualism, or Deism that are compatible belief systems, and there is even Theistic Evolution for those who wish to retain a stronger faith in a “guiding hand” while not dismissing the evidence.

The fact is that we here at Armstrong Delusion have worked hard, have researched long, to find out “whether those things were so”–things like Prophecy, British Israelism, Divine Weather, etc. The subject of Evolution is just one more topic that needs to be addressed, for there is the reality that exists in the world, and there is the lie that exists in the world of Armstrongism.

In The Beginning

The booklet, Some Fishy Stories, first copyrighted in 1966, was written by Garner Ted Armstrong. It is, to be quite honest, 35 pages of “argument from personal incredulity” combined with “argument from ignorance“. These arguments can be seen as two versions of the same thing, so maybe he is only using one complex argument. Sadly, as I read through it, I could remember thinking the exact same things when growing up and (I realize now) stupidly arguing with the science teachers…other than the aforementioned argument(s), he uses a number of examples of different fish that he claims cannot possibly have evolved gradually.

Sadly, Garner Ted has been dead 10 years already. I say this is sad because he bemoaned the fact that, “never have we received a scientific explanation for the many great problems presented (in the evolutionary theory). Never have we received a point-by-point refutation of the truths we have published.” (Pg. 13). Though it is nearly 50 years since the original publishing, I hope to provide some satisfaction by doing just that.

Eric King: God Revealed To Me The Truth That If Gays Can Shower With Straights Then Opposite Sex Couples Should Shower Together!



How could the mainstream media ignore such a dire fun warning from god's greatest prophet?????

COGSR Against Homosexuals Showering with Straights! “If you are going to let gays shower and change with straights…then let opposite sexes shower and dress together in public facilities with tax payer money!” [This message was given by God’s servant: Mr. E.W.King, founder of COGSR on January 17th, 2012 in Utah. Will the major News Networks address this issue? Probably not! FOX & CNN have ignored Mr. King’s accurate prophecies. They have ignored God’s true Last Day Church!” COGSR]

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Bob Thiel Feels That Christians Being Killed In Iraq And Elsewhere Are Not Real Christians

Baghdad, Iraq - Two Assyrian Christian children have been killed in Baghdad. Raneed Raad 16 and her sister Raphid 6 were slaughtered in their home. 
 
 The family who are well known Assyrian Christians had been threatened. While the family was out terrorists entered and shot the two Children at point blank range. Commentary: Christians Targeted in Iraq! Massacre in Baghdad: Children 6 and 16 Killed at Home!

Bob Thiel is back with his holier-than-thou self-righteous smug attitude.  This time he is using an article from the BBC that claims the number being thrown around on the Internet of Christians being killed around the world is not accurate. BBC dismisses recent ‘Christian martyr’ estimates, but persecution exists and more is coming

Theil quotes this:

It’s often claimed that 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their religion. Earlier this year, the Vatican called it a credible number. But is it?…
On the internet, the statistic has taken on a life of its own, popping up all over the place, sometimes with an additional detail – that these 100,000 lives are taken by Muslims.
The number comes originally from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the US state of
Massachusetts…when you hear that 100,000 Christians are dying for their faith, you need to keep in mind that the vast majority – 90,000 – are people who were killed in DR Congo. This means we can say right away that the internet rumours of Muslims being behind the killing of 100,000 Christian martyrs are nonsense. The DRC is a Christian country. In the civil war, Christians were killing Christians…
If you were to take away the 90,000 deaths in DR Congo from the CSGC’s figure of 100,000, that would leave 10,000 martyrs per year.
And the number of Christians who are killed each year because they are Christians is more likely to be in that order of magnitude, according to Professor Thomas Schirrmacher from the International Society for Human Rights.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24864587
Then Theil, God's greatest gift to the Church of God, says this:

I would add that although I do not consider that many killed were actual Christians (and the Bible shows that real Christians would not be killing other real Christians, see, for example ), the fact is that many who profess forms of Christianity are being persecuted and killed in many parts of the world and this is not setting off the amount of international outrage that many would expect.  And this BBC piece, while correct in some points, seems designed to reduce outrage of violence against those being persecuted/killed in Islamic and other lands.
Because some of these people were NOT Church of God members, and more specifically NOT part of Bob's cult, their deaths are not as important if they have been COG folk.

While I am well aware of the BBC bias towards Muslims, or Asians as the BBC refers to them, Thiel is correct in pointing out that it is written to negate those killed in Muslim lands.  That is a topic for another time and place.  The problem I have is Bob's incessant smear campaign towards Christians who are not part of the sabbath keeping, holy day observing, non-pig eating Church of God.  Their deaths are not as important as they would have been if they were COG members.

He then tries to cover his ass with this:

What has happened to various people who profess Christians in places such as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and other lands is wrong.

That being said, the Bible tells of a time when more persecution will hit those truly part of the Church of God.

...and then goes on to claim that TRUE COG members will be killed by the Catholic Church.  His personality cult will face the brunt of that persecution.  Again you will notice there are no REAL Christians outside of the Church of God

In the past, real Christians were persecuted because they:
  • Kept Passover on the 14th
  • Refused to eat unclean meat
  • Would work on Sunday
  • Had false accusations railed against them
  • Were binitarian
  • Kept the Sabbath
  • Were not trinitarian
  • Taught that the pope was an Antichrist and precursor of the final Antichrist
  • Rejected papal authority
  • Did not accept idols
  • Had different teachings than the Church of Rome
  • Had writings Rome did not like
  • Rejected Roman sacraments
  • Objected to the dress of the Roman ministry
  • Considered Rome to be the prophecied Babylon
  • Taught that in the time of the final Antichrist that some would fall away
  • Had practices that Rome considered Jewish
  • Refused to baptize infants
  • Did not participate in carnal warfare
  • Teaching the Kingdom of God
  • Teaching the millennium
  • Baptized adults
In the future, according to Catholic teachings, they ALSO will be persecuted for:
  • Not accepting non-biblical teachings about Mary
  • Not accepting the Great Monarch (Beast, King of the North)
  • Teaching that the Kingdom of God will come soon
  • Not accepting the ‘Great Monarch’ (who appears to be the King of the North of Bible prophecy)
  • Not wearing crosses
  • Teaching after the Great Tribulation begins that Jesus will return within a few years
 
Christians have been persecuted for holding doctrines that we in the Continuing Church of God hold and are clearly expected to be persecuted in the future for holding Continuing Church of God doctrines.



James Malm Smacks Down Bob Thiel....Again....


I just cannot understand it.  It seems that Mr. Malm is NOT impressed by Dr. Thiel's qualifications. I can't wrap my mind around it.  Why????????????????

27:15 And Moses spake unto the LORD, saying, 27:16 Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, 27:17 Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.

Jesus Christ commands Moses to lay hands on Joshua before all the people, from this comes the concept of the laying on of hands.  However notice that Moses laid hands on the person who was selected by GOD!  he did not lay hands on anyone because they finished a course or proved organizationally loyal; hands are to be laid on those who have proved themselves to be absolutely loyal to God and full of the holy spirit that leads us into the zealous keeping of the whole word of God.  Today, very many of those who have had the hands of men laid on them, are not qualified and are not faithful to the whole word of God.