Leaderboard

"Walk by the spirit, not by sight", "God's Way or the World's", "be spiritually aware", "SIT until you don't recognize yourself" --> "Practice habitual lying until you reach a state delusional paranoia, learn to become comfortable in this altered consciousness by deciding it's everyone else who is in the wrong"

For me my cognitive dissonance led me towards honestly looking at the fruit of people's lives including my own. Many professing Christians need plenty of work on just being a human being that cares about something other than their own fat face and ego. To me the cognitive dissonance is the constant pull of the pure science versus the applied science. Like pure science, religion to me inspires in its proper context. Like applied science, carrying that inspiration out into the real world requires a great deal of toil, is imperfect and frustrating.

So if we get to the place where we decide atheism IS a religion, then do we also have to go down the road of deciding whether it is an ORGANIZED religion or not? aka Dana Carvey's routine - "la, la, la ..... disorganized"? Many Christians will spout off a condescending view like "religion is man-made, Christianity is God-made". I've heard that one before. I mean I do believe the crux of Christianity is a personal relationship with your Savior, as opposed to becoming intimate with Greek, Hebrew, and politics, and that a bunch of smug b@st@rds make a money making scheme for themselves off of Christianity. But that quoted phrase itself carries judgment and condescension, which kind of shows the Christian with that viewpoint to have an innate value system where they see their own lives' value and that of their friends as on a different level than the rest of mankind. That is a dangerous, prideful viewpoint. And it is not Christ's viewpoint. Atheism could just be a rational objection to @$$h0l3s, in one sense. It could be the science versus faith thing. It doesn't have to be - the Jesuits are an organized arm of the Catholics towards that aim. They run colleges. Atheism for those leaving the Way could just be the psyche swinging the balance back the other way, to not accept blindly what people say. To go hard towards the evidence side. That is probably a more healthy overall view than a "Pollyanna believing" outlook without accountability or action. i was thinking about it, and I don't want to pigeonhole atheism into any one label, telling someone how they feel about their own life and thoughts. That's dumb. So I guess it could be a religion. Or it could be a reaction to a religion. Or it could just be a viewpoint and nothing else. If the rationality and logic are inspiring to a soul, more power to you.

Many of us have said we're thankful we got IN and thankful we got OUT. Welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy your stay here.

Hi. Here's a quick primer on a few things you missed. 80s- lcm demanded an oath of loyalty from everyone- 4/5 of the current membership responded by getting up and walking out. Most joined their leadership who refused to swear anything. (When asked, he confirmed verbally it was an oath to follow him BLINDLY.) 90s- lcm tried to erase vpw and replace vpw on everything. His Mrs and Rosalie Rivenbark did all the real thinking for him. After a few years of him yelling and cursing, he got caught when some woman he molested went to the cops. twi settled out of court, and Donna and Rosalie took over twi. Messageboards leading to this one were formed when all that happened. 00s- group got INCREDIBLY boring and bleached of all interest. Rfr insists on holding all the power so she can't be pushed out like she pushed out lcm, and she has no personality to speak of. Group continues to hemorrhage members. 10s- rfr finally steps down and names a successor she has in her pocket. BTW, splinter groups exist. Many were from top twiérs who wanted all the money and power. Some are just local meetings that don't include twi anymore. And groups still split off from time to time, with another set of leaders leaving about a year ago. Nearly everyone once involved with twi is not connected with twi now, nor any splinters.

AOS is destined to become a "cult classic". Wasn't there actually a drive at the time to get AOS shown on public access channels?