Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Is Bob Thiel Setting the Scene to Declare Himself "The Elijah to Come" AND One of the Two Witnesses As Well?




It is quite possible I am reading a bit too much between the lines. So I just ask the question. I learned how to do this from Bob the Prophetic Fudger. But when Bob Thiel notes that HWA was definitely NOT the Elijah to come but...

"Now, presuming Jesus will return within the next couple of decades, then that ‘Elijah’ would need to be alive now. And he would be part of the church that places the highest priority on the truth."

...I have to wonder what he's implying.



(Ok, that's my title for his title)

"PCG claims Herbert Armstrong restored all things, but he did not, nor did he ever make that claim. HWA's writings show he was NOT the Elijah to come"


"Herbert W. Armstrong never claimed to have restored ALL THINGS (Mark 9:12). Neither did he nor the Bible define ALL THINGS as Joel Hilliker has.

Since the Bible does teach that there will be an ‘Elijah’ who is alive right before Jesus returns (Malachi 4:5-6), thus it is not possible that Herbert W. Armstrong was the prophesied final Elijah.

Now, presuming Jesus will return within the next couple of decades, then that ‘Elijah’ would need to be alive now. And he would be part of the church that places the highest priority on the truth.

Yet, most Christians seemingly refuse to accept that."


"....Consider also that the Bible indicates that it is likely that the ‘Elijah’ will be one of the two witnesses."

Monday, August 9, 2021

Why Do the Members of the Restored and Philadelphian Church of God Cults Stay Gyrating in Their Seats?




How Authoritarians Leaders Get Away with It
The one psychological move that frees followers from doubt.


(read the complete article here)
Excerpts from the article:

Experimental psychologist Bob Altemeyer spent his entire career studying authoritarians, both the leaders and the followers. In 1998, he wrote:

“Wanna-be tyrants in a democracy are just comical figures on soapboxes when they have no following. So the real…threat lay coiled in parts of the population itself…ready someday to catapult the next Hitler to power with their votes.”

His and other’s research yields this list of conclusions about authoritarian followers whether they follow tyrants on the left, right, religious, spiritual, whatever:

1. They are highly ethnocentric, highly inclined to see the world as their in-group versus everyone else. Because they are so committed to their in-group, they are very zealous in its cause. 
 
2. They are highly fearful of a dangerous world. Their parents taught them, more than parents usually do, that the world is dangerous. They may also be genetically predisposed to experiencing stronger fear than most people do. 
 
3. They are highly self-righteous. They believe they are the “good people” and this unlocks a lot of hostile impulses against those they consider bad. 
 
4. They are aggressive. Given the chance to attack someone with the approval of an authority, they will lower the boom. 
 
5. Their beliefs are a mass of contradictions. They have highly compartmentalized minds, in which opposite beliefs exist side-by-side in adjacent boxes. As a result, their thinking is full of double-standards. 
 
6. They reason poorly. If they like the conclusion of an argument, they don’t pay much attention to whether the evidence is valid or the argument is consistent. 
 
7. They are highly dogmatic. Because they have gotten their beliefs mainly from the authorities in their lives, rather than think things out for themselves, they have no real defense when facts or events indicate they are wrong. So they just dig in their heels and refuse to change. 
 
8. They are very dependent on social reinforcement of their beliefs. They think they are right because almost everyone they know, almost every news broadcast they see, almost every radio commentator they listen to, tells them they are. That is, they screen out the sources that will suggest that they are wrong. 
 
9. Because they severely limit their exposure to different people and ideas, they vastly overestimate the extent to which other people agree with them. And thinking they are “the moral majority” supports their attacks on the “evil minorities” they see in the country. 
 
10. They are easily duped by manipulators who pretend to espouse their causes when all the con-artists really want is personal gain. 
 
11. They are largely blind to themselves. They have little self-understanding and insight into why they think and do what they do.

Why would people be like this? Lots of reasons that are hard to distinguish. There are probably evolutionary origins beta males subordinating themselves in species with alpha males. Upbringing and social context play a role. We could list benefits of being a follower, for example, that self-certainty is fun. We could also list the costs of the alternatives, for example, that self-doubt, changing one’s mind, or admitting you’re wrong is uncomfortable.

Then there are those who aren’t choosing to be followers but can’t help it because they actually can’t think hard enough to make their own big choices. And then there’s an often overlooked factor: The more complicated the world becomes the more appealing it is to give up on thinking and put trust in an authority who speaks with confidence.

We need to know what motivates authoritarian followers in order to figure out how to deal with them. Demanding that someone think harder will backfire with people who can’t. Calling them con-artists when they’re simpletons or simpletons when they’re con-artists will backfire too. Still, it’s hard to discern true motives, especially with authoritarian-followers, people who don’t know their own motives and so couldn’t or wouldn’t report them.

Here then, rather than focusing on what motivates them, I’ll focus on how they can justify and rationalize believing anything their leaders say and do. I’ll call their approach "machine envy.” They act like they think life’s questions can be answered by a machine that they have discovered and become. Input anything into the machine, you get the one reliable true output.

An algorithm is basically a reliable machine made of numbers, for example, 1+X=Y. Whatever you put into X, you’ll get a reliable output for Y.

Authoritarian followers pretend life is reducible to machine-like cause and effect algorithms. It is the alternative to thinking, defined as doubting, wondering, struggling with ambiguity and ambivalence. Computers may be “intelligent” by some definitions of the term, but they do not think as defined here. They don’t strive to discern differences as though their lives depended on it. Humans think, not that we love having to do it. Still, our lives depend on it.

With authoritarian followers, the thinking is already over. They’re not guessing at what’s true. There’s no interpretation left to do. They and their leaders have already done all the interpretation necessary. They discovered the truth, embraced it, internalized it, and now only have to act on it like machines. They see reality clearly, truly and purely through their unambiguous mechanistic world view.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Gerald Flurry Now Sending Offering Envelopes To Children In PCG


 

Church of God leaders have always been good about how much money they can milk their members out of. Due to the tithing hoax that the Church of God has promoted for decades by having members tithe 30% of their income, tithe on their tithe, give money to building funds, fund private jets and airplane fuel funds, give special offerings, host garage sales/fundraisers, and those idiotic Member/Co-worker letter end-time push solicitations. Not satisfied with the amount of money they are currently raking in, they expect more from their members. 

Gerald Flurry and his elite boys in Edmond, who live on the cult compound in housing with free maintenance and upkeep, are now sending out offering envelopes to children of members. This is a great way to keep tabs on parents to make sure they are teaching them cult doctrines and also monitor the youth to see how engaged they are in the church. If you don't send in the money you won't be going to summer camps!

Exit and Support Network has this up:

GF Says Children Will Now Receive Offering Envelopes:
August 4, 2021
Andrew Locher sent a letter to the members which included their offering envelopes for the fall holy days. In this letter he said that GF “has requested that offering envelopes also be sent to the children of members and prospective members so they might be taught the principle of cheerfully giving back to God according according to how He has blessed us.” You can read the letter here in PDF: Offering Letter 2021 –Anonymous

While members are being milked to send their tithe money for the final end time push, Gerald and Lil'Stevie are spending money as fast as it comes in. The Edmond cult compound is on a building spree with all kinds of new buildings. The Edstone England cult compound is building and buying new farm animals. Flurry's grandkids have new modern state-of-the-art dance studios built so they dance their Dance of David. Flurry's grandkids are flown to dance competitions. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being bankrolled into Celtic Throne dance productions in various cities and members are told to give money to buy fuel for Flurry's private jet.