HWA's 208 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"

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

 

 

 

209) To be continued. ....

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