Over the last fifty years, thousands of people have rejected Armstrongism and moved on to other things. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of them have retained their disdain for education, intellectual pursuits and science in general. Herbert Armstrong sought to undermine and/or destroy confidence in any authority other than himself. Sure, he professed to exalt the Bible as the final authority, but (like many before and after him) it was the Bible as HE understood it.
In reading through his writings now, one can see the tenacity and diligence Armstrong employed in discrediting the brilliant people of the world. Moreover, his motivation for doing so is quite obvious in hindsight. He couldn't have anyone competing for the hearts and minds of his followers. Intellectuals were a direct threat to the empire that this man of very limited education had created. These pointy-headed intellectuals might be stuffed with "worldly knowledge," but they were obviously IGNORANT of the stuff that really mattered.
Need some proof? Just take a few moments to peruse a few quotations from one of his greatest works - Mystery of the Ages:
"You live in a world seemingly far advanced in science, technology, higher education and diffusion of knowledge. People think it's a world of GREAT PROGRESS. We send men to cavort about on the moon and return them safely back to earth. Unmanned spacecraft land on Mars and send back to earth close-up photographs of the Martian surface. Other unmanned spacecraft fly close to Jupiter and send back astonishing pictures of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Surgeons transplant human hearts and other organs.
It's a magic, entrancing push-button world where work is done largely by machines. It's the glamour dream world of the three "Ls" -- leisure, luxury and license.
But paradoxically, it s also a world of Ignorance! Even the educated know not how to solve their problems and the world's evils. They know not the way of PEACE or the TRUE VALUES of life!" --Mystery of the Ages (Introduction)
Evolutionists, educators, scientists, religionists have striven in vain to solve the mystery of the ages -- the origin of matter, the universe, and of man -- the mystery of humanity -- of awesome human accomplishment paradoxically paralleling human evils -- of great minds accomplishing the unbelievable while unable to solve human problems. --Mystery of the Ages (Introduction)
And now what of the scholarly of our Western world today? One would think, the most highly educated ought to know WHO and WHAT God is! Suppose you ask at random 100 university deans, "Do you believe in God?" Perhaps three or four would answer, "Oh, I believe in the existence of God -- as a 'first cause.'" But they cannot tell you WHO or WHAT God is! They cannot tell you what God is like! God is not real to them. In other words, he is a mystery. Perhaps another six or eight of the hundred will admit they are agnostics -- they do not know "for sure" whether God exists.
I have said that education has become a matter of memory instillation. From elementary grades to higher graduate levels of study, our educational systems inject ready-made concepts, ideologies and a mixture of facts and fables into the unsuspecting minds of children, youths and young adults. Students in our school systems are graded according to how well they accept, memorize and can recite or write in tests what has been taught -- whether true or false.
Modern education has given universal acceptance to the fable of evolution. --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 1)
IT SEEMS incredible indeed! Higher education teaches technical courses in human physiology, anatomy, anthropology and psychology. The universities take man apart and study him minutely inch by inch. They study every facet and phase of man. They take the human brain apart and study it, yet the human mind remains a total mystery to even the most advanced psychologists. They do not know WHAT man is or WHY he came to be! That is the great Mystery Number 3 that has never been understood by humanity. --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 3)
We ought to want to know! This is a mystery that has baffled higher education. Higher education during the twentieth century has come, with virtual unanimity, to accept the evolutionary theory. It no longer even considers the possibility of a designed and planned creation by a God of supreme mind, perfect intelligence, and limitless power. But the evolutionary theory cannot in any degree explain a paradoxical world of awesome accomplishment that is at the same time utterly helpless to solve its problems of mounting and continually escalating evils. It can give no purpose for human existence. Higher education contemptuously ignores, without any consideration whatsoever, the biblical truths revealing man's presence on the earth and the causes of the present state of civilization. Education in the civilized world today has become entirely materialistic. Education has become a combination of the agnosticism of evolution, the politics and economics of Karl Marx and the morals and social patterns of Sigmund Freud. Higher education remains in utter ignorance of the mystery of mankind and of human civilization.
But higher education does not know. And it doesn't want to know! When we invade the questions of WHAT and WHY, the intellectuals -- the custodians of KNOWLEDGE -- shy away or stand up and fight. Of the questions WHAT and WHY is man, they are willingly ignorant!
So, education shuts its mind, and its mouth in tight silence. Science doesn't know. Religion does not reveal for it also doesn't know! Yes, incredible -- but TRUE!" --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 3)
And the hook - you can know what those "great" minds don't! It was an appeal to vanity. I can know more than these people who have devoted their whole lives to research and study, and all I have to do is take the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course and read a few books/booklets! Those poor, stupid, pointy-headed intellectuals will be taking orders from me in the Kingdom!
Hmmm, maybe it's time to acknowledge that they call them experts for a reason? Maybe there is some merit in consulting the views of someone who has a degree from a "worldly" college/university? Is it possible that an Anglican Doctor of Divinity might know more about the Judeo-Christian Scriptures than you do? You don't have to surrender your right to reach your own conclusions about things to acknowledge that there may be a few folks in the world who might be a tad smarter than you are! And I think that's called wisdom and humility!
In reading through his writings now, one can see the tenacity and diligence Armstrong employed in discrediting the brilliant people of the world. Moreover, his motivation for doing so is quite obvious in hindsight. He couldn't have anyone competing for the hearts and minds of his followers. Intellectuals were a direct threat to the empire that this man of very limited education had created. These pointy-headed intellectuals might be stuffed with "worldly knowledge," but they were obviously IGNORANT of the stuff that really mattered.
Need some proof? Just take a few moments to peruse a few quotations from one of his greatest works - Mystery of the Ages:
"You live in a world seemingly far advanced in science, technology, higher education and diffusion of knowledge. People think it's a world of GREAT PROGRESS. We send men to cavort about on the moon and return them safely back to earth. Unmanned spacecraft land on Mars and send back to earth close-up photographs of the Martian surface. Other unmanned spacecraft fly close to Jupiter and send back astonishing pictures of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Surgeons transplant human hearts and other organs.
It's a magic, entrancing push-button world where work is done largely by machines. It's the glamour dream world of the three "Ls" -- leisure, luxury and license.
But paradoxically, it s also a world of Ignorance! Even the educated know not how to solve their problems and the world's evils. They know not the way of PEACE or the TRUE VALUES of life!" --Mystery of the Ages (Introduction)
Evolutionists, educators, scientists, religionists have striven in vain to solve the mystery of the ages -- the origin of matter, the universe, and of man -- the mystery of humanity -- of awesome human accomplishment paradoxically paralleling human evils -- of great minds accomplishing the unbelievable while unable to solve human problems. --Mystery of the Ages (Introduction)
And now what of the scholarly of our Western world today? One would think, the most highly educated ought to know WHO and WHAT God is! Suppose you ask at random 100 university deans, "Do you believe in God?" Perhaps three or four would answer, "Oh, I believe in the existence of God -- as a 'first cause.'" But they cannot tell you WHO or WHAT God is! They cannot tell you what God is like! God is not real to them. In other words, he is a mystery. Perhaps another six or eight of the hundred will admit they are agnostics -- they do not know "for sure" whether God exists.
I have said that education has become a matter of memory instillation. From elementary grades to higher graduate levels of study, our educational systems inject ready-made concepts, ideologies and a mixture of facts and fables into the unsuspecting minds of children, youths and young adults. Students in our school systems are graded according to how well they accept, memorize and can recite or write in tests what has been taught -- whether true or false.
Modern education has given universal acceptance to the fable of evolution. --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 1)
IT SEEMS incredible indeed! Higher education teaches technical courses in human physiology, anatomy, anthropology and psychology. The universities take man apart and study him minutely inch by inch. They study every facet and phase of man. They take the human brain apart and study it, yet the human mind remains a total mystery to even the most advanced psychologists. They do not know WHAT man is or WHY he came to be! That is the great Mystery Number 3 that has never been understood by humanity. --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 3)
We ought to want to know! This is a mystery that has baffled higher education. Higher education during the twentieth century has come, with virtual unanimity, to accept the evolutionary theory. It no longer even considers the possibility of a designed and planned creation by a God of supreme mind, perfect intelligence, and limitless power. But the evolutionary theory cannot in any degree explain a paradoxical world of awesome accomplishment that is at the same time utterly helpless to solve its problems of mounting and continually escalating evils. It can give no purpose for human existence. Higher education contemptuously ignores, without any consideration whatsoever, the biblical truths revealing man's presence on the earth and the causes of the present state of civilization. Education in the civilized world today has become entirely materialistic. Education has become a combination of the agnosticism of evolution, the politics and economics of Karl Marx and the morals and social patterns of Sigmund Freud. Higher education remains in utter ignorance of the mystery of mankind and of human civilization.
But higher education does not know. And it doesn't want to know! When we invade the questions of WHAT and WHY, the intellectuals -- the custodians of KNOWLEDGE -- shy away or stand up and fight. Of the questions WHAT and WHY is man, they are willingly ignorant!
So, education shuts its mind, and its mouth in tight silence. Science doesn't know. Religion does not reveal for it also doesn't know! Yes, incredible -- but TRUE!" --Mystery of the Ages (Chapter 3)
And the hook - you can know what those "great" minds don't! It was an appeal to vanity. I can know more than these people who have devoted their whole lives to research and study, and all I have to do is take the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course and read a few books/booklets! Those poor, stupid, pointy-headed intellectuals will be taking orders from me in the Kingdom!
Hmmm, maybe it's time to acknowledge that they call them experts for a reason? Maybe there is some merit in consulting the views of someone who has a degree from a "worldly" college/university? Is it possible that an Anglican Doctor of Divinity might know more about the Judeo-Christian Scriptures than you do? You don't have to surrender your right to reach your own conclusions about things to acknowledge that there may be a few folks in the world who might be a tad smarter than you are! And I think that's called wisdom and humility!
Yes, I recall someone (recently deceased) preaching about the futility of higher education. He made the point that God can give you a good job; God, and not education, decides who gets what job. The speaker failed to observe that God seems to give the better jobs to the better educated.
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