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Exactly. He faked that "sincerity" could mean that you were faking-that is, that a "sincere" person could be FEIGNING sincerity and it counts as "sincere." He taught that all around. In real life, sincerity IS no guarantee of truth, but the sincere person at least THINKS what they hold forth is true. They may be honestly MISTAKEN, but there is no attempt to con, to fool, to defraud. vpw held to the opposite, that one attempting to defraud MUST be "sincere." Benny Hill has made jokes on this subject, but vpw was serious. "The most important thing is sincerity. After you can fake that, you've got it made." -Benny Hill. "Always be sincere-even if you don't mean it. I would never knowingly tell a lie-unless it was absolutely convenient."- Benny Hill.

Sincerity is no guarantee for truth, so approach that with caution. But when witnessing, we are to show enthusiasm, en Theos. God is involved there. Now we see.

By his own standards, vpw was certainly SINCERE. Then again, he was quite negative about sincerity. "After all, the guy who tries to sell you the toothbrush with one bristle on it, he's got to be sincere!" "Sincerity is no guarantee for truth!" According to vpw, sincerity has neither a relation to truth, nor to reality. Naturally, vpw was WRONG about that. The 2 big collegiate dictionaries in English in the US are the Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage. Their online versions have definitions of "sincere", and they're very different from what vpw said it meant. ======================================= https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sincere a : free of dissimulation : honest a sincere interestb : free from adulteration : pure a sincere doctrine sincere wine 2 : marked by genuineness : true https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=sincere 1. Not feigned or affected; genuine: sincere indignation. 2. Being without hypocrisy or pretense; true: a sincere friend. 3. Archaic Pure; unadulterated. ================================ If one takes the homiletician as some sort of English expert (Why? His degree was in homiletics), then there's a contradiction. The experts say one thing, he says another. The obvious conclusion is that he was wrong-but his definition was definitely self-serving. It made it sound as if one could be "sincere" during dissimulation, while feigning it, while in pretense, with hypocrisy. That's the opposite of what it actually means. Then again, does this surprise anyone at this point?

This 18 minute (audio only) interview with Maria Konnikova, author of The Confidence Game, provides keen insight into the human psyche including how we fell for Wierwille's con game. http://blogs.wgbh.org/innovation-hub/2017/3/3/konnikova-cons/ I first heard the interview on my local NPR radio station this evening.

Tim, you sound angry that we know things about Wierwille that you disagree with. If you are a Southern Baptist preacher with a BA in Theology, you should recognize we are not into giving Fake News about TWI. Experts both from outside and former members from the inside know the truth better than you. Are you an old time Way believer or child of one?

Interesting points. However, I'm of the opinion that he was mostly disingenuous yet feigned sincerity to sell his con game... of course, he seems to have conned himself too.

Greetings, timlee. It's always nice to welcome newcomers to GSC. Were you personally involved with The Way at some point in your life? I'm not going to "rant, cry, call you a liar or claim to have all the truth". I am, however, going to present some points that may appear to disagree with your position. First, VPW wasn't really a "Dr.". He grossly misrepresented his credentials to give himself an appearance of authority and credibility. You can find quite a bit of cold hard factual information on this site that addresses this subject. Second, he didn't merely "organize and present" what others had found. The truth is, he flat out plagiarized much of the material he presented, sometimes entire paragraphs, chapters, even whole books. Remember when he said God told him He would teach him the word like it hadn't been known for 2,000 years? Well, that simply can't be true if the information was already in published form, attributed to other authors. You mentioned you have a college degree. Surely, then, you must understand the importance of documenting sources. Third, if you think people didn't "stand up for themselves" and protest misdeeds that were taking place, you have a very limited understanding of what actually took place. There's more, of course, much more. If you feel compelled to learn a bit more about the issues I raised, we would be more than glad to engage in a civil discussion with you and direct you to any type of information you feel might help expand your understanding of what took place and the purpose of this site. I bid you peace waysider

Thanks for that audio link, Rocky – I look forward to reading Konnikova’s book in the near future. The thing about it being in our nature to trust is a fascinating point. We are social creatures and do have to rely on others for so many things - otherwise we would not even survive past infancy. But I think life is also about thriving not just surviving – because thriving is about growing…developing useful thinking skills among other things. I think surviving and thriving go hand in hand. Surviving is important – like Twinky and Penworks were saying we need to be wise…cautious…having our BS detector engaged. The world can be dangerous…treacherous…and we will all experience some hardships at times. I am thankful for my mom, dad, siblings, wife, kids, friends, school teachers, mentors, co-workers, books, the arts, the Internet (which includes Grease Spot )…all that good stuff that is passed down or shared amongst us social creatures – because that helps us to survive and thrive. But on the flip side ...sort of relevant here…what about life in a cult? Group think? A “secret” society of social creatures no longer at large? To survive in the hive you must believe all that jive. I do believe we are hardwired to interact with others but I was also fascinated by Konnikova’s point on how we want to think we deserve good things to happen to us or that we tend to overestimate our powers of discernment and like to think we know a good deal when we see one…I liked her idea of stepping back and looking at a situation as if it was about a third person - like it involved someone else and not me (so it’s not my ego at stake) – what would I say to that person if they asked me what I thought of some product or service. Having experience in security technology I’m familiar with playing the role of the bad guy in order to design a better defense system. A good BS detector may be sort of like that – Konnikova’s third person approach is playing the devil’s advocate in your own thought process – it’s having the bad guy tell you exactly why the design is not perfect.

Indeed... yet, easier said than done.

Just listened to it. Good point about our "nature" is to trust others. Can't go through life otherwise very well, but we need to keep our wits about us and ask good questions when something sounds "too good to be true." Keep our B.S. detectors plugged in!

Interesting article, Rocky. ...Be wise [cautious] as a serpent...

VPW's books may be a comfort, but that doesn't mean any of it is true.