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Now I Move the Word if I carry my Bible from the living room to the den. Or vice-versa.

vpw was a sociopath. None of us even EXISTED to him, except in relation to what he could get out of us. As regards to gays, there seems to have been nothing he wanted from them per se (and he didn't want other men sexually,) As for the women, they existed primarily for what he could get out of them-which includes what he could get out of them sexually. A lesbian was of limited interest to him, but a bisexual woman was much more. A lesbian could offer him a "free show" -reports from really inside said he liked to watch women get it on, as a warm-up for him using one of those women. So, a lesbian could offer the view and the warm-up for him- but a bisexual woman who offered the free show could then be used sexually by him, completing he whole show for him. I've heard some guys really go for girl-on-girl, so it wouldn't shock me if this already-established pervert had that in his list of fetishes. It totally doesn't surprise me that he could picture a woman as a "performing artist" as "foreplay" before he pressured her for sex- not any more. Officially, vpw was against all things that weren't monogamous sex in a (heterosexual) marriage. UNofficially, there was "the lockbox" (his term). Remember, he also told J1m D00p that God Almighty was all right with ORGIES-when they were in private. However, the CFS's few mentions made it sound like the only proper thing would be faithful marriage. Hypocrisy from wierwille? Yes, again, of course.

Way, you are so right honey!! Who knows what VPW really thought about. But, in my opinion, he thought about himself, and what he wanted. No one else, and nothing else mattered, as long as he had what he wanted; everyone else could go pound sand. How selfish can one man be??!!

Having trouble finding it? It's probably still in your MAL-PACK.

How sweet! Thank you!

Grace, I believe that Jesus Christ alone and only should be called The Word(Logos), not the Bible(although important to study, not to worship).

Sorry - a little late for that...since that was part of my "severance package" I had the apple and brawn food bar freeze dried and rolled over to my ROTH 401K Post-Apocalypse Account. now if you are still interested in trading - I might still have some Shepard's Pie or Pizza with chicken gizzards on it - hermetically sealed in space-age ziplock baggies of course - in my way corps memorabilia footlocker....I'll have to check - let me get back with you on that.

Hey T-Bone, I'll trade you half a ham salad sandwich for an apple and your brawn food bar.

WG, well-said, and thank you! I did not know that Cancer was "over 600 diseases." I think VPW wanted easy answers to complex medical questions; I think that was why he said it was a DS. Hogwash!! I would not wish Cancer on anyone, but it can be successfully treated, if it is caught in time. I know from personal experience!

Exactly. This is the stage where cognitive dissonance really kicks into high gear.

"Exclusion" is the key word here. He wanted us to intellectually "exclude" anything other than what he recommended. .

vpw was a study in hypocrisy mixed with laziness. When he began, he considered jobs which allowed him to draw attention and/or lots of money- business (money), show business/music (attention, money) and preaching (attention). Since business required a lot more work, and didn't provide the audience, and music was slow to provide a living, especially without long hours (it's said an "overnight success" in music requires 7 years of work first), preaching was a more obvious choice. He could get an audience and a guaranteed living, and not face the risks of never making it big. He was even able to get a Masters from a respectable school in "preaching". (Most people there went to study far more demanding majors, but he was avoiding the hard work.) vpw plagiarized and lied his way to "success", committing crimes and moral wrongs for decades. He publicly preached morals, often, and privately preached and practiced sin and license to sin (ever hear of another preacher saying God Almighty was all right with ORGIES?). As his final months and weeks approached, he was concerned about his HEALTH. Privately, he spoke of the credibility of the speaker for God with physical infirmities, because he realized there was a disconnect between his Word-Faith "God will heal anyone, anytime if they believe" doctrine, his public persona as Super-Believer, and the reality that his body was breaking down. (Decades of alcohol and tobacco abuse seem to have contributed a LOT to that and may have been the direct causes of him getting cancer- I certainly think the evidence is clear on that.) In his final hours, he was heard to have been thinking about his inability to get delivered physically despite his Super-Believing. He was well aware of his decades of lying, sinning, deceit, abuse of God's people and so on. He claimed he was searching earnestly and was UNABLE to find where he had displeased God, where he'd disobeyed God, to the degree he couldn't get the magical healing he claimed God would give. The one person vpw would never blame for vpw's faults and problems was vpw. Facing the consequences of his own decisions never seemed to occur to him, not even on his deathbed.

Ain't that the truth!! He knew much better. He knew what was Godly behavior and what wasn't He knew what was appropriate and what definitely wasn't. And where he didn't know - he wasn't circumspect, and erred on the side of caution. No, he just erred ... and erred ... and erred. A deliberate slap on the face of God. And God will reward him appropriately :eusa_clap:/> :mad2:/>

Yeah....I was going to edit it, but what the heck. It was "past tense" because wierwille was on his deathbed and there was no way he could go back and change what happened. He WAS the man he chose to be!!

he was the ultimate FRAUD for our day and time...

And in summary: He was a selfish old fart who didn't give a damn about anyone but himself. Dat's Riiiight!

Hmmm. I know that when I indicated a preference for going to College over going WOW I got an extensive lecture (aka reaming) on the concept of "worldly knowledge" and how I would be wasting my time pursuing the "knowledge of men". I was even led to believe that by placing college over WOW that I might be opening myself up to "devil spirits" (the default Way argument). I'm glad I ignored them. What drove it home for me was during my second time through PFAL. They had signed up a local physician, (someone's Father I think), and altered the class start time to jibe with his schedule - something they would never do for "Joe believer". Anyway, I could not understand why it was okay to elevate this guy, (who most certainly went to College), while simultaneously telling people to stay away from higher learning. Of course it was because they could use his status as a physician to promote TWI. I didn't even bother to bring up this massive inconsistency in behavior to anyone. It would have been pointless and a waste of time and energy. This event did solidify my plans to depart TWI although it was more of a gradual exit as opposed to a single event.

Critics lumped in VPW with other contemporaries like Jim Jones and other cult leaders, who all shared the same characteristic that they could pontificate on "God's Word" for hours and hours on end. Was it really "God's Word" they were teaching? When you analyze content it seems they all had in common convincing followers that they were the savior on earth somehow, confirmed by visions like snow on gas pumps. Calling themselves prophets, they took advantage of followers in immoral and criminal ways. This is not "God's Word", this is "Their words". There is a big difference, and one mark of brainwashing is the inability to distinguish the difference. Am I glad that I spent more time in the Bible in TWI? Yes I am. Do I see the doctrine taught as evidenced over years in the development of the fruit it produced? Yes I do. And that fruit is putrid. You tell me how Jesus told us to evaluate men's teachings and words if you want to talk about "God's Word".

Westboro Baptist Church members seem to run into this type of contradiction all the time, what with wisdom and behavior they feel others are engaged in that "contradicts God's Word". They run into this type of contradiction a whole lot more than your average Christian. Saying something "contradicts God's Word" usually means it contradicts someone's narrow-minded doctrine and view.

You're very much mistaken about the Biblical meaning of the word "firmament," John. I suggest you do some research in the matter. Here: I'll give you a head start. The firmament is not another word for "heaven" in the sense of the vastness of the universe. It was a FIRM ament, not an etherealament. And the water it was holding back was not perceived as being waaaaay out there beyond the observable universe. It was right up there. In truth, the stars are not IN the firmament as described in the Bible, unless you change the Biblical sense to mean something it is not saying. Change "firmament" to "universe" and all your problems are solved, except the pesky little problem that you're no longer preaching what the Bible says: you're changing your Biblical interpretation to suit what we know to be true from those egotistical scientists with manmade educations. Read through the Bible when it comes to stars, without bringing any preconceived notions to the table, and you do NOT get the sense that they are these humongous balls of gas and heat burning billions of miles away. Rather, you get the impression that they're little set decorations that were added as an afterthought, AFTER the formation/making/creation of the sun (even though we KNOW many stars are quite a bit older than the sun). Without the sun, there is no night and day on earth. The experience of light on earth during the day and darkness at night is entirely dependent on our rotation relative to where the sun is. There could be no day and night on earth without the sun, no evening or morning. This, of course, completely ignores the question of WHERE it was night and day on the first day, considering that on a spherical earth, it's always evening and morning SOMEWHERE. Now, on a flat earth, which the Bible does absolutely nothing to contradict, it's conceivable that it could be evening and morning throughout the earth all at once. But we reject a flat earth, right? Because the Bible doesn't teach it? Wrong: at best, the Bible doesn't address it; at worst, the Bible assumes it and does nothing to contradict it. In step those egotistical scientists with their manmade educations. Plus, the earth did not precede the sun in its formation/making/creation. The sun came first, then the earth. The Bible lists it backward (and depending on whether you hold to "gap theory" between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, the Bible lists the earth as being older by a longshot). Why? I agree with you about Joshua's perception of the sun moving as opposed to the earth. The issue is not that he was wrong. The issue is that the Bible gives no indication, anywhere, that the truth is the other way around, relatively speaking. Egotistical scientists with their manmade educations taught you that, not the Bible. By the way, when the sun "stood still" for Joshua, what actually happened? I ask you again: if you are willing to reject the clear teaching of scripture when it comes to the age of the earth relative to the sun (earth is older in scripture), the relative age of the sun in relation to other stars (sun is a tiny bit older, but all are the same age according to scripture), the fact that there's no glass dome over the earth (look it up, that's what the firmament is, not your revisionist explanation), the fact that the sun revolves around the earth and not the other way around (scripture gives NO indication that the earth revolves and every indication that it's fixed in place with all the stars and planets moving in relation), then where do you draw the line separating world wisdom from acceptable science. I submit that you have rejected God's Word countless times in favor of "world wisdom" and don't even recognize it. P.S. You said the devil spirits who caused the flood are being held in the waters beyond the firmament... assuming such silliness to be true, why do spirit beings need a physical holding place?

World wisdom is anything that is not in alignment with the "teachings" of VPW.

I think the disturbing part of this is how they label "world wisdom" without precisely defining what it is. Is it.. philosophy, art, psychology, science and chemistry, physics, mathematics.. maybe religions which differ in their belief? Maybe "all of the above" is implied.

I got into a spat with Johniam about this some months back. Some worldly wisdom is just that. Wisdom. It's unwise to cross the road without looking both ways. Should we deny that? (See you in the hospital!!) God gave us "common sense" and a brain to think with. It's certainly not spiritual wisdom to deny our God-given thinking powers, our common sense. If you read Proverbs, you'll see that a lot of that is just "common sense" - how to live nicely with other people. How to behave in a socially responsible manner. And yet, Proverbs is often accepted as a collection of helpful sayings that were common at the time. Even though "common sense," does that confirm or negate that the sayings in Proverbs are also Godly wisdom? What about the wisdom of a surgeon operating on a human body? The wisdom of a non-Christian parent tenderly teaching a young child how to live - not to hit other kids, not to tell lies and so on? Now philosphies of men, wordly wisdom about the meaning of life and the existence of karma, nirvana, re-birth, reincarnation, dog-eat-dog approaches to life, etc - those are a different matter. These are the references to wisdom of the world: 1 Corinthians 1:20 KJV Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Read 1 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 1:21 KJV For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe . Read 1 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 2:6 KJV Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought : Read 1 Corinthians 2 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 3:19 KJV For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written , He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Read 1 Corinthians 3 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 2 Corinthians 1:12 KJV For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. Read 2 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations Quite interesting that the refs are all in Corinthians and not in other books of the Bible (now somebody will try to contradict that!) - where the inhabitants loved to argue. VPW made a bigger deal of "wisdom of the world" than it ought to have been, as a control issue, so that people ended up taking in what VPW said the Bible said, and disputing what is or is not wisdom, rather than simply focusing on getting to know what God really wants and imbibing God's wisdom.

I would imagine that if you were to believe that knowledge and wisdom at its highest worldly levels is irredeemably corrupt, you would want to avoid it as ungodly. The trick would be to recognize when you've crossed the line from genuine empirical knowledge to opinions that mask themselves as advanced knowledge. No?

Because then there would be no distinguishing difference between "life wisdom" and "over 100 years of collective spiritual wisdom on the BOD" ??? Somehow I don't think years of kissing bootie, playing politics, and throwing people under a bus do a whole lot for building wisdom.

Perhaps it was said to be bad because world wisdom should keep people from getting sucked in by an abusive cult.

what sounds even colder and really bizarre is he didn't tell you and your wife any response what's with that ? i don't believe ANYONE is not worth praying for i'm sure plenty of wayfer heads (innies/outies) think differently this guy sounds like a loser if he won't even answer a prayer request email and then gets up and walks out when he's just been asked to pray for your children