Talk:Armstrongism

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Originally the term "Armstrongism" was created as a redirect to the Worldwide Church of God. Now that this church has rejected most of Armstrong's teachings, it makes sense to have a separate article. I created this as a stub and I hope others would expand on it. Please remember about NPOV and avoid promotion of a specific belief. RelHistBuff 11:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Citing Bible Scriptures

The point of wikipedia is not to convince people one way or the other on any issue - it is to inform and teach in an objective way. In that vein, what is the current thought on citing basis for some of these more seeminly outlandish teachings of Armstrong? In other words - for things like a "Triple Tithe" which sounds very oppresive - is it responsible for editors to add where in the Bible he got such an idea from? -Elmerglu 14:24, 2007-03-21 (EDT)

[edit] POV already appears compromised

I believe an effort has been made toward neutrality, but there still appears to be loaded language (mostly favoring Armstrongism but at times opposed to it) and as mentioned above, this stub does not engage this topic sufficiently to offset POV issues. I will watch this and where time permits I hope to include information that includes POV's from outside Armstrongism and Armstrong CG's. LiteratPJ 19:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

After reading the "Other non-mainstream teachings" section of this article, I have to wonder whether anyone is minding the store here. I come to Wikipedia because I'm curious about a lot of things, including Christian subcultures I've never heard of. When I find that a major section of an article contains juvenile wisecracks, hostile characterizations, and obvious personal biases, I end up concluding that the entire article may be unreliable and that I have therefore learned nothing. With the recent Wikipedia scandal involving "essjay", the increasingly widespread mistrust of wikis in general caused by the emergence of intellectual atrocities such as Conservapedia and CreationWiki, and the glee with which Fox News reports that Middlebury College students will no longer be allowed to cite Wikipedia as a primary reference source, I am finding it harder and harder to convince friends and relatives that Wikipedia is the valuable resource I think (thought?) it is. If open-source, open-access information resources like Wikipedia can be judged by reasonable people to be operating at the functional level of MMORPGs and online dating chatrooms, then perhaps it's time to consign Wikipedia (AND all its imitators and parodists) to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and leave the encyclopedia business to Britannica et al., who still have the respect of most people over the age of 30. Personally, I do what I can improve the product by fixing typos, bad grammar, and incorrect hotlinks whenever I have the time, but I'm not "bold" enough to just go in and delete a whole section like "Other non-mainstream teachings" even though it clearly begs for deletion. Maybe I should be. I hope that whoever is mainly responsible for this page (assuming there is such a person) will deal with the problem. JRamlow 07:03, 8 March 2007 UTC)

67.80.157.45 03:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)From Jebbrady I read your comments with interest and agree with you. Wikipeida is valuable but tragically for Wikipedia, human nature is what it is. Most of the problems with this article and others relating to it have to do with: 1) flagrant religious discrimination or even an eerie outright bigotry directed toward H.W. Armstrong and the old WCG 2) the historic tendency of persecution by mainstream religious groups against those who criticize them or those that are less mainstream (read H.W. Armstrong), or who tether their beliefs more to the Bible as opposed to seminary traditions (H.W. Armstrong) 3) A secular suspicion of the Bible and those who adhere to it.

Actually, the absence of these biases is so rare that for some people, the absence strikes an eerie chord of POV in favor of the religious group, like when a winter morning in a urban area brings a heavy accumulation of snow, and with it the odd absence of any traffic noise--something just doesn't seem right, yet there's nothing wrong with the lack of noise. Take care my friend.

[edit] Statement Removed

This statement was removed by me and will remain so: "Some of the doctrines can be found in other religion groups including, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and Baptists while others are attributed to Armstrong."

To anyone who comes upon this article who is familiar with H.W. Armstrong's positions on doctrine and what he based them on, the statement quickly undermines the credibility of the artcle, and of course hurts wikipedia.

He focussed entirely on publically presenting scriptures he believed supported certain doctrines, and would then would then present an argument as to why other scriptures cited by his critics were mistakenly applied or mistranslated etc etc. It was all based on his study and view of the Bible.

Secondly, he had long taught that all christian sects were daughter churches of a "great false church".

For anyone to continue to assert that he borrowed his doctrines from those churches, in the face of the facts I just presented which anyone can easily verify, would be tantamount to religious bigotry, something that of course has no place in Wikipedia.

67.80.157.45 01:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC) Jebbrady