HWA's 209 False
Prophecies
The Most Comprehensive
Listing
of Herbert Armstrong's 52 year record of False
Prophesies ever made.
Or
HWA's Worldwide Church of God: A Non-Prophet
Organization
By
"The Watcher"
Page Three
New on 5/24/98
180) From 1947 to 1972 - repeatedly -
The brilliant German scientists who built the V2 for
Hitler will press ahead and build bigger super-missiles
and nuclear warheads on them to destroy the United
States.
Herbert must for once have felt on
safe ground with this one. After all, Nazis would never
change their spots, would they?
In fact, it was Herbert and his foul
ministers who proved incapable of changing THEIR ways,
and therefore could not believe anyone else could. In
fact, the historical record clearly shows that it was
often easier for Nazi dupes to repent sincerely of what
they did than for senior ministers of the Worldwide
Church of God to ever abandon their money-grubbing,
fear-spreading, screaming and lying ways. Certainly,
Garner Ted Armstrong became a master of the fake,
tear-stained repentance fluent enough to teach Jimmy
Swaggart or Jim Bakker a lesson or two, and his foul old
man of course would never have been able to bring
himself to even fake it.
But - far from the German rocket
scientists of World War II building missile systems to
destroy America, they built the missile systems to
DEFEND her. Within a year of the first successful launch
of an ICBM by the Soviet Union in 1957, the United
States had successfully tested one two, and the German
rocket scientists led by Werner Von Braun who had come
to this country in 1945, played the crucial role in
their development. Then they went on to build the great
Saturn V booster that put American astronauts first on
the Moon. There is no hint that Von Braun or any of his
top scientists ever expressed the slightest regret or
nostalgia for the Nazi past they had abandoned. In the
words of the great Glenn Frey song, even they found it
"Better in the USA." In this, of course, they were
strikingly different from Herbert, who to the end of his
life respected Hitler far more than any American
president and whose documented favorite work of
political thought to which he repeatedly returned was
Hitler's "Mein Kampf."
181) Herbert in his "The Book of
Revelation" revealed at last booklet in the 1950s - The
First Woe of the Book of Revelation clearly means that
Fascist Europe, after it annihilates Britain, America
and the other English-speaking white nations, will then
fiercely attack the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union and the entire
communist system collapsed in 1991 without this ever
happening. Germany was untied the year before, in 1990
and, as we have previously noted, promptly became an
even more stable, even more pro-American loyal ally
within the NATO alliance than it had been before.
If these events had occurred before
1972, the Worldwide Church of God - as it was in those
years - might have been rocked by them as, in fact, it
was, when the world failed to end when Herbert had told
it to. But by 1990, the satanic, child raping little
shit had been dead and eaten by worms for more than four
years.
Many of you, dear readers, had long
since come at least partially to your senses. From The
Watcher's personal observations, very few people in
Worldwide by 1990 consciously believed the fine details
of Herbert's intricate timetables any more, even though
everyone still basically swallowed the biggest and
broadest lies. These included the beliefs that all other
Christian churches were of the Devil, or that Western
Europe would become a fascist superpower.
But if you want to know where Herbert
got his ludicrous ideas about the course of World War
II, it all comes back to this idea. And that is also
where that old fool Dankenbring today gets his idea that
Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the second woe of the sixth
trumpet (There's glory for you!).
Herbert appears to have come to this
interpretation in the summer of 1941 right after Hitler
attacked the Soviet Union.
In all his life, Herbert never came up
with a single sound idea of his own. Other contributors
to this site have repeatedly documented how all his Holy
Day and "master plan of God" teachings were stolen
straight from G.G. Rupert. The entire "United States and
British Commonwealth" was a paragraph by paragraph,
sentence for sentence, scripture for scripture and word
for word shameless rip off of Joseph H. Allen's book
Similarly, once Herbert had a foul,
false or just plain crackpot idea in his head, the old
goat would never let go of it. Look at his "Hitler alive
and well in Antarctica" claims that we've documented,
still lovingly referred to throughout the 1960s.
Therefore, just because Herbert's
"Fascist Europe versus Communist Soviet Union"
prediction failed in 1941 as no reason for him to throw
it out. It remained a useful tool in "Doctor
Confusion's" medical chest to con hundreds of thousands
more out of their wealth and belongings for another four
and a half decades. And his "spiritual sons" still
sallow and vomit out the same unsubstantiated nonsense
to this day.
182) And now let us here a round of
applause, please, for that excellent Painful Truth
contributor Douglas . Doug becomes the very first - and
so far, the only - reader to contribute an additional
false prophecy from Herbert and Co to this record.
Doug writes that at the 1964 Feast of
Tabernacles in Squaw Valley, David Jon Hill confidently
announced that "Brethren, in 10 years, there won't be a
single tree left standing in the Pacific North West."
To which, The Watcher will only add,
in 1990 it was discovered that there were far more trees
standing in the United States than there had been 100
years before. The enlightened preservation policies of
three great presidents, the two Roosevelts and Ronald
Reagan, was part of the reason. But the achievement was
in main part due to modern advanced technology, which
had eliminated the demand for wood as a heating fuel and
greatly reduced our dependence on it for construction
and furniture.
Now,
The Watcher would simply like to add an appeal to all of
you out there, especially those of you with any Plain
Truths, booklets or coworkers letters from the 1940s,
50s and 60s, to scour them for more examples of
Herbert's false prophecies and to send them in to Ed to
be posted on this site. It took a decade after the old
fraud's death for the full, foul picture of his lies and
perversions to be finally rooted out by dozens of
dedicated and disillusioned individuals at this and
other sites. There are many more lies, there is much
more shame, still lying there. Lets get it all out in
the open for all to see. That really is a noble cause,
maybe even a divine one. And none of us at this web site
are asking for a penny from any of you, let alone a
tithe. Pretty good value, huh?
New on 6/20/98
183) India will loyally join with
China (and Russia) in their attack on Fascist Europe. -
Herbert in his 1950s "Middle East in Prophecy" booklet.
As Herbert himself always liked to
say, "Error results from false premises carelessly
assumed."
Keith Stump, the leading Plain Truth
puppet/whore of his generation, was still pontificating
this in the mid-1980s. There can be little if any doubt
that scores of thousands, including many who consciously
abandoned Herbert years ago, still believe because they
swallowed it so eagerly, and have long since forgotten
whom they even got it from.
But it is as worthless as every other
one of his prophetic proclamations. In May 1998, India
exploded five nuclear bombs and the Indian defense
minister openly said they were meant as a strategic
defense against China.
The Indians have, in fact, been scared
stiff of China ever since the Chinese hammered them in
the Himalayan frontier war of 1962. So Herbert actually
had 24 years to correct this particular screw up but of
course he didn't.
His crackpot assumption, as usual, was
based on his and ludicrous Herman Hoeh's identification
of the nations in Ezekiel 38-39 described in the
so-called war of Gog and Magog. They shoehorned in both
India and China. Wrong again, ass-holes.
184) India will be decimated by
horrific famines killing hundreds of millions of people
over the next 10 years. - 1960s "Famine" booklet.
This particular gem again was one of
those that must have seemed a safe bet. After all, India
WAS threatened by a monster famine in 1966-67 and a
couple of intrepid young Plain Truthers from
Amb-ASS-a-DORRRRE college were sent out to "research"
it. As usual, the parasitical jerks got everything back
to front.
They concluded that India was dirt
poor, that its population was exploding far faster than
any extra land could be brought under cultivation and
that, anyway, how could the Indians look after
themselves without the British "Israelite" master-race
to help them out.
Instead, serious famine was averted by
the wise and well-organized actions of the Indian
government in 1966-67 and India has never been
threatened with serious food shortages since then.
The "Green Revolution" which Herbert,
Hoeh and Dale Schurter - a man with a smaller intellect
than a dead pea - all sneered at as "scientific,"
"un-natural" and doomed to failure more than quadrupled
rice yields.
Today, India has more than twice the
population it did on gaining independence from Britain
50 years ago. Its average life expectancy is more than
double what it was when it left the British Empire. And
its famine prevention programs are now being eagerly
copied throughout the world, especially in sub-Saharan
Africa.
For the record, let us also note that
the last catastrophic famine to hit India was in 1942 in
Bengal and was as a direct result of British imperial
incompetence. It killed millions.
185) And now: some light relief.
"Why has God called so many
construction workers, plumbers and electricians into HIS
Church? It is because we are going to build a city for
Him in Petra during the three and a half years the
Church is protected from Tribulation." - Carn Catherwood
at Feast sites as late as the late 1980s.
Carn Catherwood, The Watcher
understands, has always had the deserved reputation of
being a sincere, decent and well-meaning man, very rare
at his level of seniority in the Worldwide ministry. But
this is a clue to his survival there: his rampant
STUPIDITY.
In fact, the reason so many Worldwide
members have been construction workers or plumbers,
"working with their hands" as the Loving Herbert always
referred to such jobs in terms of sneering contempt, is
that, as sincere dupes -as were we all - they abandoned
any efforts at going to college and getting any higher
education and settled for what they could get.
One should add here that The Watcher
knows of at least one well-paid veteran full-time
minister, Paul Suckling in New England, who made damn
sure his own son when to Oxford University in England.
With YOUR tithe dollars, dear reader. Remember that.
Strange, wasn't Amb-ASS-a-DORRRRE College, a finer
university than Harvard or Yale, as that lobotomized
idiot Raymond McNair liked to proclaim? Guess not.
186) Franz Josef Strauss will build
the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe back into the most
powerful air force on earth, the terror of the world. -
Herbert, Hoeh, Meredith and co. in repeated Plain Truth
articles 1956-62 when Strauss was German defense
minister.
Again, this must have seemed like a
safe bet at the time. Strauss WAS German defense
minister. He WAS rebuilding the German armed forces,
including the Luftwaffe.
Herbert was consumed with vicious
hatred and contempt for the greatest leaders in American
history such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S.
Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as Gen. George
Marshall and Secretary of State Dean Acheson for
rebuilding Western Europe after World War II. But he
always had a soft spot for corruptible crooks who were
as incompetent as he was.
In fact, Strauss killed almost as many
German pilots as britain's Royal Air Force did during
the 1940 Battle of Britain (which, you will recall,
Herbert prophesied Britain would lose.
Strauss bought hundreds of Lockheed
F-104 Starfighters for his revived Luftwaffe. But the
design was so over-ambitious for its time, and
overburdened by the fussy, ambitious Strauss with so
many additional systems its airframe could not cope
with, that the plane became a deadly killer. Hundreds
crashed, killing hundreds of Luftwaffe pilots who
labelled it "the Flying Coffin" or "The Widow Maker."
As a result, during the very years
Herbert, Meredith, Dankenbring, Hoeh, McNair, and
Hogberg - all those braying asses still unfortunately
with us today - were confidently predicting that Strauss
would rise to become the charismatic Fuhrer of the
Fourth Reich, the German people, for whom one Nazi
Fuhrer had already been more than enough, were
concluding that he was, in fact, an incompetant,
bungling fool. He was kicked out of office in 1962,
served another term as a tamed finance minister, and had
to spend 20 years outliving the curses of the parents
and widows of those F-104 pilots before he got a crack
at the chancellorship in 1982, and lost then anyway.
New on 6/22/98
187) If Herbert Armstrong dies before
the Coming of Christ, he will sleep until the Coming and
then be the top ruler of the world under only Christ
himself.
This truly blasphemous teaching was
even hammered home to Worldwide members in a chart in
the Worldwide News during the late 1978-early-1979
period when Herbert was "cleaning up the church" from
whatever reality and sanity had seeped in during his son
Garner Ted's booze, broads and gambling regime. Like
father, like son. Though in this case we should add,
father liked daughter - enough to repeatedly rape her
for 10 years.
Well, as we have already noted,
Herbert did indeed die in January 1986, and he hasn't
been raised up yet, despite all the fervent hopes and
prayers of Gerald Flurry's fools. Keep praying guys. But
is Herbert peacefully sleeping and will he still rule
beside Christ?
Bruce Renehan, in
Chapter 16 of his
superb book, "Daughter of Babylon"
included in full here on Ed's Painful Truth site, tells
the following, well documented and true story.
Right after Herbert died in Pasadena,
on Jan. 16, 1986, a psychotic lunatic held under
constraints in a bed in the Augusta Hawkins Psychiatric
Hospital in Los Angeles, began to scream non-stop in
terror and torment, "I'm going to go down under! I am
Herbert W. Armstrong and I am going to go to hell."
The lunatic had never mentioned
Herbert's name before. He had never had any known
connection to Herbert or to the Worldwide Church of God.
But his attending nurse, who witnessed and recorded the
terrifying outbursts, was herself an ex-Worldwide
member. She did not know until days later that Herbert
had just died before the outbursts began.
Mr. Renehan is understandably
intrigued by the story. He calls it "strange" and leaves
it at that.
But what he does not know is that the
phenomenon of transmigration of human consciousness out
of the body and even into those of animals or of other,
usual mentally disturbed, human beings, has been
repeatedly documented.
The great American-Indian scholar Vine
Deloria, Jr. discussed the phenomenon in several of his
articles, some of which are available on the Internet.
He argues that a scientific basis for the phenomenon
exists in the fact that human memory is an organized
bundle of electromagnetic energy and that any such
energy by its very nature is capable of being
transmitted and received.
Just think here, dear reader, of the
truly divine appropriateness of such a punishment.
Here is Herbert, who for 52
unrepentant years denied the very possibility that any
human being could have a soul or experience life after
death, unless he turned over all his blood and sweat
earned wealth to Herbert himself. Herbert also denied
the very possibility of any "Hell" after death, except
for all of humanity who would continue to deny to
worship him as Christ's eventual Senior Human God Number
One.
And now we find that Herbert may very
well indeed have left a Last Message for All His
Followers; a very last message as to what he finally
found in the afterlife. He finally gave his One True
Witness at the very end after all. For once in his life,
he finally told the truth, though it was after his own
conventional mortal death. He finally had one true
revelation from God after all. And what was it?
"I'm Herbert Armstrong and I am going
to go to hell."
The Watcher is convinced that really
happened and that it really was Herbert, strapped down
in that lunatic's body, screaming in terror. For
everyone who suffered torment at his hands, there is
Healing in this Truth.
Spread the Good News. Preach the
Gospel.
Tell your friends.
188) And now, another round of
applause for our splendid colleague Douglas , whose
insight into Herbert's insane mental condition on this
site has broken so much new ground. Doug sends us a
couple more splendid examples. Here's the first one:
Addressing festival sites around the
United States and in other countries by
telecommunications link on the Last Great Day (his
version of the Jewish Shemini Atzeret festival) in 1978,
Herbert repeated his claim to be the only 20th century
apostle. He then added that, if he were not the apostle,
he "wouldn't give a plugged nickel for the chances of
his salvation."
Douglas comments on this that at the
time he was puzzled by what Herbert as referring to. The
Watcher himself recalls that remark and at the time,
being a complete dupe - as all of us were at one time or
another - wrote it down to Herbert's admirable humility.
I assumed he was referring to perhaps a quick temper,
rather than, as we now know, repeated rape and incest,
multiple sexual deviation, fornication, verbal sexual
abuse of teenage girls and many other activities. Oh
well, live and learn.
But compare this most revealing
Herbert statement with the Lunatic's Witness listed
above in No. 187 and all becomes clear.
However hard Herbert worked to
convince himself he was "the end time apostle" and
however successful he may have been in convincing
deranged idiots like Gerald Flurry and company to this
day, he wasn't, was he? So he had no "David Defense"
after all, did he? So, by his own definition, he DIDN'T
have a plugged nickel's chance of salvation after all,
did he, despite - indeed, BECAUSE OF - that lifetime of
toil stealing the heretical and crackpot ideas of dead
men and presenting them as his own.
Burn, Herbie, burn, baby.
189) And now, Doug's second example of
Herbert's wisdom and compassion, again, from his 1978
Last Great Day presentation.
"Every man who contracts AIDS will die
of it."
As Doug correctly notes, in fact,
AIDS, while still not literally curable, is now
extremely treatable and people who would have died in
horrifying circumstances 20 years ago, now - with the
appropriate treatment of medication "cocktails" have
held off critical deterioration for often more than a
decade at a time.
Further, we should note there are two
very good "prophetic" reasons to expect that a full cure
will indeed be found.
First, Herbert prophesied confidently
that it would never happen.
All of you who have persevered with
this record so far, dear readers, know that EVERY TIME
Herbert confidently prophesied that something would
NEVER happen - whether it was Allied victory in World
War II, men walking in space, or America beating Russia
to the Moon - THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT CAME TO PASS.
The fat, foul, little old pervert was
such a twisted Son of Satan Himself he was CONGENITALLY
INCAPABLE of either telling the truth OR predicting it.
Indeed, wouldn't a truly accurate name
title for his magazine have been,"The Plain Truth" but
"Confused and Crackpot Lies"?
Also, Herbert's prophecies were always
inspired to produce terror and despair, never hope,
among his listeners. His AIDS claim fits securely into
that category.
Second, another historic prophet with
a considerably more impressive success record than
Herbert appears to have predicted that AIDS would
eventually be cured. If correctly understood, he even
specified that the cure would be found by Russian
cosmonauts who were conducting scientific experts on
long orbital space flights, possibly from work that has
already been done on the Mir space station.
The skeptical, credulous and curious
alike should refer to the discussion of Nostrodamus's
quatrain No 5, Century 6 in "Nostrodamus and the
Millennium" by John Hogue, Page 155-156, published 1987,
the year after Herbert's half century of false
prophecies finally ended.
190) We should also note here the
claim made by Michael Snyder writing in an early 1980s
Plain Truth that the 16th century French seer Michel de
Nostrodamus was a false prophet who should be ignored
and that, even if he got he a few things right, he was
obviously inspired by demons and paganism anyway.
To which we will merely note:
Look who was talking! What gave Snyder
the right to pass judgment on anyone, let alone to
accuse others of being inspired by demons?
Snyder himself was the well-paid,
loyal yes-man and mouthpiece for a man who taught for
half a century that: Every form of historic Christianity
was a Satanic deception; Every Christian who had ever
lived was doomed to be burned to eternal death unless he
unconditionally obeyed Herbert Armstrong; Whose every
prophecy was proven ludicrous and wrong.
Nostrodamus by contrast has had an
impressive track record that has impressed or puzzled
skeptics for 450 years, whereas Herbert dwindled to
being a derided has-been to within a decade of his own
death. And Nostrodamus all his life was a sincere and
devout Catholic Christian. He never preached any heresy.
He never tried to raise a personal following. He never
threatened anyone with damnation if they did not believe
him or follow him. He never tried to prevent anyone
taking medical treatment himself. Indeed, he was a
brilliantly successful practicing physician himself. And
he never tried to make a single penny from his published
prophecies.
Nostrodamus's life record is a
striking contrast to that of Snyder's lord and master.
Herbert, at his height in the 1970s and 80s, was
bringing in $200 million a year and his palatial
Ambassador "campus" was at the time valued at $300
million - all of it wealth screwed out of widows,
suffering families and the impoverished poor. Let him
who is without sin cast the first stone. Snyder thought
nothing of falsely condemning Nostrodamus the damned
dupe of demons. What does that make him?
191) This example recorded by Bruce
Renehan in his book "Daughter of Babylon." In the late
1980s, even after Herbert had died, "Doctor" Herman Hoeh
pontificated as usual at an Annual Ministerial
Conference at Pasadena. He ordered the ministers to
instruct farmers who were members of the Worldwide
Church of God to leave their fields fallow in the 7th
year and that then they would be "blessed" it.
But it seems that even the Worldwide
ministry had finally had enough of the hypocritical,
sanctimonious and plain, f__king stupid "gems" of Herman
Hoeh, tearing around Pasadena in his 1957 Chrysler
"Bat-mobile." THERE'S righteousness for you!
A young Worldwide minister present
actually asked the phony old fart to his face, "Can you
guarantee our church farmers will be blessed if they do
refuse to plant crops every seven years?"
Hoeh, after a lifetime of sycophantic
responses, wasn't used to having to answer a single,
simple question. All the great scholar and intellectual
could come up with in reply was, "No, I can't."
But did that teach him any real
humility as opposed to all the fake varieties he'd
specialized in all his life? No. Of course not. Acting
the martyred saint, the wealthy old parasite who had
poisoned so many thousands of lives with his crackpot
teachings and shameless fawning to Herbert's every whim
wept his usual crocodile tears.
"This is not the same young man that I
knew in Ambassador College years ago," he sadly remarked
to his accompanying ass-lickers.
To which The Watcher will respond, for
the record: Correct. Unlike you, he had been forced to
face the real world, you hypocritical, stupid,
judgmental old fart.
192) And while we are on the subject
of the "scholarly" and "intellectual" author of the two
volume "Compendium of World History", which was the
basis for his spurious Ambassador College "doctorate":
It was Hoeh's 1950s "calculations in
that ludicrous "Compendium" which convinced him, and,
for at least 15 years, Herbert, that Christ would return
in 1975 and that the three and a half years of
Tribulation would therefore start at Passover 1972.
Well, what can we say, except, Wrong
Again. But did the old fraud learn from such a ludicrous
screw up. He never learned anything legitimate in his
entire fraudulent life.
Because:
193) Over the past 12 years or more,
Hoeh has been solemnly assuring the Joe Tkach era
leadership of Worldwide to as well as whatever new
fawning, young fools he could con about his
"scholarship" and "saintliness" that he has "REVISED HIS
CALCULATIONS."
Does that mean he now realizes that
two and two adds up to four. No. Something that
difficult still remains far beyond him. But he HAS
"proved" that Adam was born, not 25 years EARLIER than
old English Archbishop Ussher claimed in the 17th
century but 30 years LATER. That means that Jesus will
NOW not return until around the year 2030, when Hoeh
himself, no doubt, will be safely dead and no longer
around to be blamed or ridiculed for yet another
ludicrous and fraudulent foul-up.
In fact, of course, the new date he
has "privately" set is without any doubt whatsoever as
fraudulent and false as all his previous ones were.
194) The above calculation leads us,
of course, to another core assumption Herman inherited
from Herbert, and which Flurry, Dankenbring, Meredith
and company continue to slavishly swallow to this day:
that human history is limited by Biblical Chronology to
6,000 years before Jesus comes back.
Well, sorry to be awkward, but be a
little bit more careful about which version of the Bible
that you read, because opinions differ.
Orthodox Jews somehow come up with a
count from Adam of 5758 years and the Apostle Paul did
say in Romans 2 that setting of calendars, dates and the
like was to be left even by Christian believers to the
Jewish authorities.
But even within Christianity, opinions
widely vary. Orthodox Christians have ALWAYS counted
Bible history according to the dates in the Septuagint,
the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew and
the Aramaic made into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt around
270 BC under the rule of the Ptolemies.
As usual, those 300 million Orthodox
Christians about whose existence Herbert and Herman were
so ludicrously ignorant weren't so dumb. They point out
that whenever Jesus quotes from the Old Testament in the
Gospels, he reported as having done so from the
Septuagint translation.
One hundred years after the Septuagint
translation was made, virtually all the copies of the
Five Books of Moses held by the Jewish community in the
land of Israel itself were deliberately destroyed during
the religious persecutions of the Syrian tyrant King
Antiochus IV whose defeat inspired the Jewish winter
festival of Chanukah, observed by Jesus in John, chapter
10.
Now, if the Septuagint translation is
correct, the world celebrated 7,000 years from Adam
(assuming Adam lived exactly when and how the Book of
Genesis describes it, of course) in 1492. Instead of the
Old World ending, that was the year Columbus discovered
the new one.
Now, you COULD, of course, conclude
from all this that while the Jews and the Orthodox
Christians got it wrong, old Archbishop Ussher and
Herbert got it broadly right, whatever mess old Herman
Hoeh went on to make of their theories.
But The Watcher prefers to conclude
instead simply that you can prove anything you want with
numbers.
195) And lest we forget...
Garner Ted Armstrong repeatedly in
1976 and 1977 sermons to assembled Church congregations:
"Jimmy Carter as a jealous and deceived Protestant
fundamentalist is going to unleash a murderous
persecution upon the Worldwide Church of God."
Old GTA claimed to have been seriously
considered by at least one of the big three American
television networks to become one of their pundits back
in his late 1960s and early 70s glory days. Gems like
this explain why he never got the job. This mark you,
from the same "Joshua" who shamelessly courted the favor
of Franz Josef Strauss when he was convinced that
Strauss was going to slaughter hundreds of millions of
Americans in a nuclear attack. GTA even in his heyday
really could "discern the spirits," huh?
196) Another GTA special, the
masturbating on video king is still found of pushing
even now: "Japan will destroy Australia and the west
Coast of the United States.
It's easy to see what inspired this
"insight". GTA was chafing under Herbert's bit while
wanting to play the same game. Being as unoriginal and
talentless a phony as his old man, he couldn't come up
with any genuinely new ideas of his own, so he fell back
on a variation of the old scam. Except, where Herbert
had warned about how a nuclear Germany would stab it
American benefactor in the back, GTA had a nuclear Japan
doing the same thing. Both of them stupidly and falsely
blindly assumed that World War III would have to be a
rerun of World War II, except this time with the bad
guys winning.
Well, wrong again. In East Asia, it is
a deputy foreign minister of CHINA, NOT Japan, who two
years ago threatening to incinerate Los Angeles with a
nuclear missile if the Untied States defended the island
of Taiwan against any invasion by mainland China.
Japan remains a loyal and reliable
ally of the Untied States, as it has been since the
stewardship of Gen. Douglas MacArthur half a century
ago.
Far from impoverishing the United
States, the strength of our stock market, our dollar and
our entire economy has for the past two decades
primarily rested on the continued willingness of the
main Japanese banks to continue to invest in short term
United States Treasury Bonds.
By contrast, within the past two
years, top Chinese military planning studies acquired by
U.S. intelligence have designated the United States as
Strategic Enemy Number One. Chinese leaders visiting
Moscow last year openly boasted of their strategic
cooperation around the world against the United States,
and the CIA has concluded that the bulk of China's
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile nuclear force is
targeted against mainland American cities.
Any of you who are familiar with old
William Dankenbring's site might want to inform that
particular old fraud of some of these facts as he
continues to entertain whatever few dupes he still
retains with Garner Ted's same old "Japan will bring
Tribulation" shtick.
New on 7/5/98
197) The three and a half year
ministry of Jesus began in 27 AD, which was 1,900 years,
or 100 time cycles of 19 years each, before Herbert W
Armstrong was baptized in 1927.
Herbert learned his "big lie"
technique from Adolf Hitler himself. We know this from
the report of David Robinson in his book "Herbert
Armstrong's Tangled Web" - based on the comments to him
by Herbert's family members. Mr. Robinson wrote that
Herbert's favorite "recreational" readings in the 1930s
and 40s were from the "rags to riches' autobiography of
the individual he wrongly thought was the most powerful
man on the planet - Hitler. You didn't read that in the
old fraud's "Autobiography".
Now Hitler, in unconscious imitation
of the Russian neurologist Ivan Pavlov, taught that to
make masses of people swallow a lie, you just had to
keep repeating the same old thing with confidence. Then,
he said, they would so thoroughly take its truth for
granted that they couldn't imagine it was false. And the
bigger the lie, Hitler taught in "Mein Kampf", the more
likely all those gullible fools would swallow it at a
single gulp.
To this day, so-called "scholars' in
offshoots of Worldwide take for granted the assumptions
that Jesus's ministry started in 27 AD and ended in 31
AD. Entire books, including so-called "improved" Gospel
concordances, have been written on this basis. But there
is absolutely no truth to any of it.
Herman Hoeh chopped up and twisted the
70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9 to make it fit the 27 AD
date Herbert had already decreed. That will be discussed
below as No. 207. If you don't want to take the
Watcher's word for it, or are still duped by old German
Herman, The Watcher recommends "Chronological Aspects of
the Life of Christ" by Harold Hoehner, published by
Zondervan, 1981.
Luke 3:1 very clearly states that
Jesus began his ministry in the fifteenth year of the
rule of Tiberius Caesar. Now, Tiberius succeeded his
stepfather Augustus in 14 AD. So his fifteenth year was
the year 29 AD.
Sound simple? Not to Herbert, his fake
scholar "German" Herman Hoeh and all their benighted
disciples and dupes. They have busted their collective
asses to try and argue that the 15 years actually starts
from a co-regency that Tiberius had with Augustus
starting around the year 12 AD.
There's only one trouble with that.
There is NO EVIDENCE ANYWHERE that the Romans EVER dated
the rule of Tiberius that way. His coins only start
right after the death of Augustus and that was when
Tiberius started counting his sole rule. Since Tiberius,
like Augustus before him, ruled the entire known world
with an iron fist in the tradition of Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin, Josef Stalin or, for that matter, Herbert W.
Armstrong, none of his subjects as likely to have the
slightest doubt about that.
Luke chose that dating system
precisely because he WAS a precise fellow and wanted to
make the true date of the start of Jesus's ministry
clear to everyone. Perhaps he realized that some
know-it-all, ignorant little jackass like Herbert would
come along some day to confuse everyone about what
really was a simple fact. As usual, Herbert was trying
to palm off on his dupes a complicated lie as a plain
truth.
Why bother, you might rightly ask?
Because it fed Herbert's own infantile monster ego,
that's why.
As William Meyer, Douglas and other
contributors to this Web site have noted, Herbert was a
narcissistic egomaniac well beyond the points of
blasphemy and clinical insanity. The whole universe, the
entirety of creation, had to revolve around him and -
eventually - bow down to him, at least in his own
crackpot mind.
Therefore, the year of his baptism
could be no ordinary year. It had to be the start of the
only true Christianity there could ever be or ever have
been since the time of Jesus. And since Herbert so
clearly had been shaped to be Jesus' pride and joy, the
very perfection of the Divine creation among men
(!!!!!!), and since Herbert's creepy little mind was
convinced that God Almighty was a crazed clockmaker and
anally-minded number-picking nerd, just as he was
himself, therefore the Call of Herbert must have come in
a year of Cosmic Significance.
The Call of Herbert was the most
important conversion to "true" Christianity since the
call of Jesus himself. That, dear reader, was the way
Herbert saw it. To him, that was a perfectly obvious
"fact." A truth as plain as his booming, bullying,
self-justifying voice.
Therefore, the most important reason
Jesus had to have been "called" in the fall of 27 AD
rather than the fall of 29 AD was, quite simply, because
Herbert himself was "converted" (to what, you might
rightly ask) in 1927.
And since that was self-evident - to
Herbert, it followed that all the supporting evidence
simply had to be "interpreted" out of the obviously
false facts that seemed to say something -anything -
else.
Which brings us to:-
198) Jesus was crucified at Passover
31 AD.
The same crackpot and blasphemous
reasoning that Herbert applied to the start of Jesus's
ministry, he also applied to the end of it.
Herbert was appointed a minister,
following his own frantic efforts, in the Church of God,
Seventh Day, in 1931. Obviously, in his eyes, this was
the most important event in Christian history since the
start of the Christian Church at the Pentecost of Acts
2, just weeks after Jesus's crucifixion.
Therefore that event too must have
been meant just to start a 1,900-year prophetic clock
ticking to the start of his own ministry in 1931.
Therefore it must have started in 31 AD;. Simple, huh.
The only "premise, carelessly assumed" that you have to
accept to reach this conclusion is the idea that all of
Christian history was designed by the Creator God from
the very beginning to revolve around Herbert.
To Herbert himself, nothing could have
been more obvious or natural. After all, hadn't God
given him his daughter Dorothy to "enjoy" for his own
sexual pleasure? That is what he told HER during the 10
years that he repeatedly committed incest upon her,
often forcibly.
Well, sorry to pour cold water on yet
another of "The Apostle's" wet dreams, but the
crucifixion of Jesus and the events of the Pentecost
that followed seven weeks later CANNOT have occurred
EARLIER than 31 AD, based on the evidence of the Gospels
themselves.
The great New Testament scholar and
historian Paul Meier points out Pontius Pilate, governor
of Judaea got the job because he was a bosom buddy of
Sejanus, the Emperor Tiberius's prime minister and chief
hatchet man. But Sejanus was arrested and killed on the
orders of that same Tiberius in October 31 AD and all
his supporters in the Roman senate mercilessly purged
and slaughtered. It was the bloodiest event in the Roman
capital in the century between the civil wars that saw
the rise of Octavian Augustus and the reign of Nero and
none of the people who witnessed it ever forgot it.
The impact of the purge on Pilate was
profound. He kept both his job and his head, but he had
to walk carefully ever after.
When Sejanus was riding high, Pilate
ruled the Jews as a bloody tyrant secure in the
knowledge that his old pal back in Rome would back him
to the hilt against any complaints over his massacres,
murders or robberies.
But that's not the picture of Pilate
we find in the Gospels, is it? There, we find a fearful,
cautious cynic who is scared stiff that the Jewish
leaders might make evil report of him back to Rome. In
other words, it is a picture of Pilate as he ONLY became
AFTER October 31 AD when his friend and protector back
in Rome was executed.
Now, if Herbert had really been the
"scholar' and "seeker after TRUTH" that he repeatedly
assured us he was, THIS truth would have been self
evident, as Mr. Jefferson would have put it. But the
only "truth" that was self-evident to Herbert was his
crazed mania that all of creation and Christianity were
expressly designed to bow at his feet while he indulged
in repeated acts of incest.
In fact, all the fake and flawed
charts of Herman Hoeh to the contrary, the most likely
date for the crucifixion of Jesus is Passover 33 AD and
this is the figure cautiously endorsed by the Catholic
Church. Once again, The Watcher recommends the
discussion in "Chronological Aspects of the Life of
Christ" by Harold Hoehner.
199) The seven churches of Revelation,
chapters 2 and 3 are seven successive eras in the
history of the "true" Christian Church.
Herbert and Herman Hoeh were both hot
to trot on this one too for many years. All we need to
note here is that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the
wording of the Book of Revelation to support this claim
either. Every major commentator clearly states that
there were seven such churches in the Apostle John's
time and that they are listed in the order a mail
communications route would have carried the book to
them.
But little things like facts never
stopped the Prophet of Pasadena, did they?
That, you see, is the "beauty" of
symbolic interpretation of the Bible to a con man like
Herbert. Anything can mean anything you chose it too.
And anyone who doesn't swallow your crazy theories can
always be written off as an "unbeliever' who "lacks
faith" or - Herbert's preferred approach - condemned as
a tool of Satan. Once again, The Watcher replies, look
who was talking.
200) The Philadelphia church, which is
described as the most perfect and heroic church of the
Revelation Seven, of course, had to be Herbert's own,
with those despised Laodicaeans being the degenerates
who would follow him.
This particular lie remains a fruitful
one among Herbert's scores of thousands of remaining
dupes to this very day. Meredith, Dankenbring, Flurry
and the United crew continue to mutually accuse each
other of being Laodicaeans. The whole idea excites the
poor dears to react like chimpanzees on amphetamines.
Come to think of it, amphetamines would do them less
harm, and the comparison is very unfair to the chimps.
In fact, if anyone fits the
description of Laodicaea in Revelation 3, it's Herbert
himself and the Worldwide Church of God organization he
raised up himself.
After all, Herbert was the one who
always boasted - flying in the face of every teaching of
the Old and New Testament alike - that the proof God
approved of him was shown by his wealth. He claimed the
proof he was blessed by God was precisely BECAUSE he was
"rich and increased in goods." He and his fat cat,
$200,000 a year ass-licking executives, believed their
own inspiration and knowledge was so great that the
whole world was piss ignorant and that they had need of
nothing.
Herbert claimed to "see" the future by
having the "keys" to "unlock" the mysteries" of
prophecy. But he was, in reality, a hell of a lot
blinder than any bat you will ever come across, dear
reader. But, blind though he was, he certainly never
"knew" admitted it, during his entire 52- year career of
ludicrously wrong false prophecies that we are
documenting here.
And - rest assured - there are plenty
more to come.
With a fitting sense of Divine
Judgment, for decades before he died, Herbert, like the
Laodicaeans, was virtually physically blind too. Herbert
was certainly "wretched." His second wife Ramona exposed
his sexual perversions and darkest secrets to the world,
leaving him well and truly "naked". And as a mad
manic-depressive all his life from the very time he
descended both into incest and into the conviction that
he was "God's Chosen Servant" he certainly had plenty of
times when he was "miserable" enough.
He claimed to be "the Amen, the
faithful and true witness," and even to be the very
"beginning of God's (spiritual) creation" that had been
put on hold for 1,900 years from the time of Jesus
himself until Herbert could come along and do the job
for him. Those were his claims all right, just as they
are the boasts of the church of Laodicaea.
But just as the Christ of Revelation
vomited those self-satisfied deceivers out of his mouth,
we already have had ample cause to note that God has not
stinted on the signs that Herbert and his heirs have
been puked up and left to rot amid the vomit as well.
Refer back to No 187 and its documentation of the
Lunatic's Witness that Herbert W. Armstrong was going to
go to hell.
201) It is a proof of Herbert's
calling that the Work he raised up is united, but the
Church of God, Seventh Day that rejected him has
splintered into so many warring little obscure sects
that no-one can even keep track of them all.
Herbert boastfully made this claim in
his Autobiography, first written and serialized in the
Plain Truth from around 1958 to 1962 and later reprinted
and widely circulated to Worldwide members in two
volumes.
Well, who's boasting now? The Watcher
as particularly interested to see that this self-evident
point is even beginning to penetrate the skulls of
Herbert's remaining dupes - or "drones", as he lovingly
described his own supporters.
The May 1998 issue of The Journal of
the "churches of God" contains a remarkable letter from
one Craig White. He had previously caught The Watcher's
eye by his zeal for preaching Herbert's Prophetic Gems.
Everyone else, even at The Journal, had enough sense to
realize that such embarrassments should be swept under
the carpet in the fervent hope that no one would ever
again bother to look at them. But no one had broken this
news to poor Mr. White.
However, even he was moved to
plaintively exclaim, 'It's only the false and rejected
churches that split and squabble among themselves. Why
is this happening to us???' To which The Watcher will
gently reply, with the kindness one should show the
terminally simple and insane, 'Draw the obvious
conclusions, Mr. White.'
202) "The Universe will be found to be
perfect but unfinished, like a perfectly designed piece
of furniture which hasn't been painted or polished yet."
- Repeated teaching of Herbert during his last 14 years.
The Universe is a big place. Indeed,
it is a VERY big place. The Hubble Space Telescope found
in a series of observations carried out in 1995-96 that
the known universe is, indeed, at least FIVE times
BIGGER than any previous measurements or observations
had indicated. And we had already known it was very bg
indeed. Thousands of millions of galaxies, each of them
with hundreds of millions of stars, most of which
probably have planets like our own orbiting around them
upon which organic and even intelligent life may have
developed.
But Herbert, who never finished high
school and who never went to ANY college, as usual never
let his own terminal 19th century hick ignorance hold
him back from making even more of a fool of himself than
usual. He was prepared to sum up all the galaxies of
space in language that, to be sure, Albert Einstein or
Isaac Newton would NEVER have used.
Only Herbert could have thought he
could describe the nature of infinity in terms of the
overstuffed, chintzy kitsch junk he stuck in his living
room. Since Herbert believed in "quality" God the Father
must create according to the only principles that
Herbert himself would have approved of. Therefore the
Universe will be found to be "perfect," and made from
"quality" products. This language is so vague and
inappropriate it ought to be laughable. But when we were
"under the influence", we swallowed everything, didn't
we?
203) If you tithe 10 percent gross of
your salary to Herbert, you will be financially blessed
far more than if you had never heard of him.
The ludicrous absurdity of this by now
ought to be self-evident to anyone who reads this. But
judging by Ed's hate mail, there are still plenty of
dupes out there ready to buy a nice bridge in Brooklyn
from Herbert, or anyone else.
204) If you STOP tithing 10 percent to
Herbert, you will be financially cursed.
The power of superstition and fear
again. The old bastard made a great witch doctor, didn't
he? And he obviously had far more effective demons at
his disposal than any voodoo practitioner in Haiti or
West Africa.
But for the record, The Watcher
himself will report that in the three months AFTER he
gave up tithing to Herbert's successor parasites, his
own household income TREBLED and has increased ever
since.
205) The Korean war broke the pride of
America's power forever, and it was all because we
wouldn't let poor General MacArthur win a REAL victory
for us by nuking China - Garner Ted Armstrong in his
1968-era article/booklet "To Kill a Nation."
Looking at the 70-something old
pervert of Tyler, Texas today, videotaped masturbating
in front of a prostitute, its difficult to recall how
high he was flying when he was deflowering the virgins
of Ambassador College back in the 1960s. And what a
dashing, confident figure he cut, flying around the
world in his private jet to hobnob with the likes of
Franz Josef Strauss or Otto Von Hapsburg. But back then,
we really hung on every word he said.
More fool us.
In fact, the Korean War was both a
brilliant tactical and strategic victory for the United
States. It marked a drastic battlefield victory over
China, which stopped its military expansion in its
tracks for half a century. U.S. battlefield dead totaled
58,000. But China's battle dead totaled TEN TIMES that.
The U.S. determination to confront and
restrain communism was not destroyed by the Korean War,
as gabbling Garner Ted claimed. America's pride was not
destroyed by the experience of the Korean War. And it
wasn't destroyed by the failure to win the Vietnam War
either. Garner Ted's wisdom and prophetic insight now
look as convincing as his sex appeal. Give the old creep
a dirty raincoat and sit him in the back of a
pornographic movie.
206) Vietnam will be a loyal ally of
China in attacking Fascist Europe before Christ returns.
Blink and you'll miss it. But this is
one of the confident, ignorant, predictions shoehorned
into Herbert's 1950s article/booklet, "The Middle East
in prophecy." Remember, he claimed that Russia would
lead all the nations of Asia including China against
Europe. The Vietnamese people were supposedly identified
- thanks to Herman Hoeh's "scholarship," as one of the
subset peoples listed in Ezekiel 38-39 following Gog and
Magog
One's eyes understandably glaze over
now at such things, but we once hung on every word,
didn't we, dear readers. And amazingly enough, there are
thousands of hypnotized drones out there who still do.
If any of them have read this far, "This is for YOU TOO,
folks."
Well, in 1979, the Vietnamese, a tough
bunch, as hundreds of thousands of our own Vietnam vets
can testify, took on the Chinese in a border war and
whipped them easily.
The Watcher was in Vietnam on business
a couple of years ago and was struck by the lack of
animosity towards Americans. As long as they didn't have
to fight us, they actually LIKE us.
The Chinese, however, are another
matter. The Vietnamese are scared stiff of them, as well
they might be. There may be almost 80 million Vietnamese
now with a high birth rate. But there are 1,200 million
(that's 1.2 billion) Chinese, bursting at the seams for
more space to expand, And they're JUST OVER THE BORDER.
If The Watcher were Chinese, he'd be worried too.
Also, the Chinese have been the
historic enemy of the Vietnamese for 1,000 years. Well,
you can't expect Herbert to have known that just as
can't have expected him to know that Hitler was more
dangerous than Mussolini, or that the Allies would win
World War II, or any other of the hundreds of obvious
things he got ludicrously wrong, can you?
Some prophet.
207) And now, as we promised above,
back to Herbert's convoluted chronologies.
He and Herman Hoeh claimed that the 70
Weeks prophecy of Daniel 9 was fulfilled in the decree
recorded in Ezra 7 that the Israelite people could go
back to Jerusalem. There were plenty of Persian kings
called Artaxerxes and the one that suited German Herman
started to reign in 465 BC. Hoeh pulls a few strings to
get his seventh year still going in 457 BC and then
counts 69 weeks to come out in 27 AD, a nice, neat 1,900
years EXACTLY before Herbert was baptized (much good it
did him).
Now you can see how Hoeh, Herbert's
intellectual whore, earned those two or three thousand
bucks a year that "unworldly saint" pulled down. But do
what Herbert always told you to do, and actually READ
YOUR BIBLE!!! Then, you will find, strangely enough,
that, as usual, Hoeh was talking through his ass.
If ANY event in that late period of
the Jewish return from captivity marks the opening date
to count the 70 Weeks prophecy, then it is NOT the
decree of Ezra 7 but the Persian king's command of
Nehemiah 2.
Unlike Ezra 7, this royal command
actually DOES refer specifically to the rebuilding of
the walls of Jerusalem. Indeed, the entire Book of
Nehemiah is devoted to that subject, which suggests the
Jewish rabbis who decided what books to finally include
in what we call the Old testament believed rebuilding
those walls was pretty hot stuff.
And if you cut to the Gospels, you see
the four writers there make a big deal out of Jesus'
birth, with heavenly choirs singing, ecstatic virgins
prophesying, UFOs doing cartwheels in the sky, the whole
caboodle. By contrast, Jesus seems to have started off
his ministry low key with his 40 days fast in the
desert. But then, Jesus and the Gospel writers didn't
know how important putting them in 27 AD would be to
Herbert 1,900 years later, did they?
That event took place 13 years later
than Ezra 7 in the reign of the same King Artaxerxes,
which would be 445 BC. But many scholars such as the
late Martin Anstey note that Artaxerxes was an honorific
name attached to all Persian kings and they identify
this guy with King Darius I Hystaspes who started ruling
in 520 BC. Then HIS 20th year would have been 500 BC.
Count 70 weeks from that and you come out in 10 BC for
the birth of Jesus.Christ. But plenty of scholars argue
that 10 phantom years were inserted in the Roman-Greek
counting of their history and that its therefore 490
years and not 500 years from Darius I
Hystaspes-Artaxerxes to the birth of Jesus.
Of course, all of the above assumes A)
That the prophecy of Daniel makes sense to begin with.
B) That it, and other chunks of Daniel like chapter 11,
were actually written by him in the 6th century BC, and
not 450 years later during the Jewish war against the
Syrians. And C) That the Daniel 9 prophecy was written
to point to Jesus as the Messiah in the first place.
In fact, believing, sincere Christians
of every denomination have always found the "proof" of
their faith in their prayers and perceived answers to
them, and in the change they believe Christ makes in
their lives. They don't feel the need to rely upon, or
be obsessed by, the anal obsession with twisting obscure
numbers that so engrossed Herbert. Was Christ really in
Herbert's life? You might well ask.
As you will have gathered, dear
reader, there was a time when The Watcher took such
things seriously, rather than making a six-figure dollar
salary and getting a decent mortgage. For those of you
still determined to waste your time as The Watcher
himself once did, he recommends the discussion of
Daniel's 70 weeks in - again - "Chronological Aspects of
the Life of Christ" by Harold Hoehner and "Daniel's
Prophecy of the 70 Weeks" by Alva McClain, both
published by Zondervan. Dr. (a REAL PhD, by the way)
McClain is especially helpful in unscrambling your
brains from the ministrations of "Dr." Hoeh.
2/19/01
208)
Here's another one to add to your already huge
and growing list. This one was from HWA's robocop Gerald
Waterhouse.
In the late 1960s I attended one of Waterhouse's
marathon sermons. He could rival Fidel Castro for the
length of his harangues. During his "inspired" message
he started talking about the riots that had occurred in
Detroit, Michigan in July 1967. Then he got into how we
were all going to flee the evil US society in and then
the US would be destroyed by Germany. One of the reasons
why our nation needed to be destroyed was its evil
holidays like Christmas. So I was not surprised when he
put all this together and dogmatically and vindictively
asserted, with all the supreme arrogance and "God will
back me up even if I'm wrong" insanity typical of these
megalomaniacs, that "Brethren, there will be no
Christmas in Detroit in 1972. Detroit will be destroyed
by then." For the mouth of the Waterhouse hath spoken
it. Bozo Waterhouse uttered these words about three or
four years before it was supposed to happen.
Just as we were supposed to be able to go visit the
place where ancient Babylon existed and find absolutely
nothing there now but wilderness, I guess today we could
also go visit the smoking ruins of where Detroit,
Michigan used to be located. But we won't be able to get
very close because of the intense radiation from the
nuclear bombs that destroyed it in early 1972.
Bill Fairchild
9/16/02
209) In 1972,
Herbert Armstrong announced loudly in Penticton, British
Columbia, Canada, imperiously thrusting his forefinger
into the air over his
head [it could have been his middle finger--I was a long
way back], "Follow
ME! I will lead you into the KINGDOM!".
In fact, Herbert Armstrong died in January, 1986.
Douglas
210) To be continued. ....
