lindyhopper

Something Jonny Lingo said in another thread about how there wasn't anything spiritual about the decisions to drop corps. (surprise) But it made me think of an experience I had with my family at the Corps relo tent the year the WOW program was canned. I wrote about it in my first post in "my story", "put this in your pipe and smoke it". Were there any "spiritual" decisions at all in twi? LOL You know my answer. Anyone have any relo stories or know anything about the decision making process? or were apart of the decision making. If you are the old Rev. Ander-son-of-a or the Rev. Rump and you are out now...well, sorry, I had to disguise your name some how. :P--> (and you were kind of an a$$ back then) (well no kind of about it :D-->)

Hey Jay, I grew up in twi as well, only my Ps wern't as smart as yours. Actually, they are still in. It took me 20 years to break away myself. I like a lot of what you said. Looking back it seems more than a little silly to me though. It is incredibly sad and rediculous. Hope to see your POV popping up around here.

BTW, Allxn Lxcht and wife (Dxbby?) were two great individuals. Allxn was one of my favorite leaders around, down to earth and very funny. They had their times of LCMishness, but who at that level didn't and weren't pressured to be so. sorry to derail a bit

My time line may be a little off, but I am pretty sure those folks left after the Allxn lawsuit? I guess I thought that WayDale was up before the lawsuits came out. Yes No?

Evan, Glad to see someone took me up on that endorsement I made a few months ago. Krakauer is a great writer, usually writing about extreme outdoor lifestyles and experiences. Religious extremism was a new direction for him, but it turns out there are some similarities.

Here is a good one. I was almost thrown out after getting mugged and not telling my area coordinator about it. Thankfully --> I was given my "last chance" after making up some sh!t about how I was going to be a better man O God. If I hadn't left on my own, I seemed dangerously close to getting tossed out for hanging out with my unbelieving friends a little too much. Boy, I sure miss those bastards. Or not.

I still don't get this "regal line" stuff. It wouldn't make any difference if JC was the actual sone of God, and much less if he was God "himself". How much time passed between JC and David? Is that what the 14 gen, 14 gen ,14 gen was a reference to. Regardless, I think I remember some one teaching me that there were 500 years between Malachi and John the Baptist. Add on a couple more hundred to get to David and you have quite a few generations. I would suspect by that time it would be something like saying you are related to Wachington or Jefferson. Hey, I had distant relatives on the Mayflower. Well, there are tons of people who can claim the same thing. I would think that by the time of Jesus a Nazerine (sp?) son of a carpenter wouldn't hold much water with too many people. At least not until many many many years later when people wrote the gospel and tried to add some legitamacy to JC's life and teachings. Not to mention that using Mary would seem like a stretch in a society that viewed women as property and didn't include them in 99% of geneologies. There is no "regal line" that is passed on by the women anyway. Unless of course they were already worshiping Mary to some degree as the mother of God or "blessed is the woman that" breastfed the SOG, sort of thing. What would be the inportance of the blood line thng anyway to those in the Grace admin.? The time period "hidden from the ages" by God. His big mystery. The way He really wanted things. The bloodline thing seems such like a social thing and not a "Godly" thing anyway. If God designed it all and knows everything then He would know that blood is determined by both parents, not just the man. so why the masculine emphasis? Ancient society? Didn't know that God bent to those sort of social pressures.

Were the "corps principles" apart of the program from the start or were they revamped over time? The reson I am bringing this up is all the talk of risk that has been going on. One of the corps principles was about your body being a vehicle of righteousness or some sh!t like that. It seems that TWI put some sort of equation together involving physical ability and believing equaling spiritual pumpatude. They apparently thought the saying " you can do anything you put your mind to" to mean anything you believe without actually using your brain. I know VP wanted the Corps to be like the mArine Corps, but those people are trained physically and mentally. In the corps you were just thrown into situaltions without appropriate technical and physical training. You were told the magic of believing (as Satori put it) was the key to all your mental, physical and spiritual obsticles. Maybe some of you could share your thoughts on this physicalness = spiritualness ideology.

Well, that's just a stones throw away. maybe we can hook up again at some point. There is so much to do and see. The Mall area is a must and could take up all three days. The National Gallery is a must, as is the Natural History Museum, as is the Aerospace Museum, as is at least the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress, as are all the memorials, the Corcoran Gallery, as is ....well bring your running shows, or some roller blades. The National Portrait Museum.... Are the Chinney-chin-chins coming with? If ya'll need a tour guild one day or maybe just some good Lebanese or Tia food, maybe I could convince the wife for us to head on down (we know the good spots). ;)-->

A great book to read on fundamentalist Mormons is "Under the Banner of Heaven: a story of violent faith" by Jon Krakauer. Cheating the government out of tax dollars is not just a common practice among them, it is thought to be smiled upon by God...a religious duty. Not all young ladies are happy with the way things go in these groups, but most don't know anything else. They have been brain washed from a very young age to think that to be a great woman of God you want a man to pick you as one of his wives at a young age. It is less polygamy and more religion sponcered pedophilia under the guise of the "covenant" of "spiritual wifery". Read the book. You thought TWI was strange the story of the LDS and the FLDS is one crazy history. It is not just in Colorado City. The FLDS is alive and well in many areas of the country and our neighbors to the north and south. For ex. the Elizebeth Smart case. Quite a sick bunch of freaks.

You really are a genius aren't you, old man?

While this was a terrible accident that was obviously not dealt with properly, there is one thing that still blowes my mind every day... how stupid we all were back in those days, as humans. I remember sitting in the back of a pickup, in a lawn chair, going 60 down the highway as a young teen. What were we thinking? That is illeagal in hopefully every state now. On our long trips to the ROA every year (25+ hours usually), us kids would be in the back of the boat of a station wagon restling and playing all the way. These days I would think it would be rediculous to let your 5,6,7...yr old in a car without a seatbelt, but there I was sleeping under the seat on every long trip. Guess it was our believing. --> Please continue with your story...sorry for the slight derail.

Glad you made it out, JT. Glad we could help. ;)-->

Def, I won't argue how you put that last bit, but I will say that "our eyes of understanding" is all we have. I challenge you to explain an undrestanding that one can obtain outside of thier own. Contray to what you seem to think, this is not a "God does not exist" post. If fact, this is possibly the clostest I have come to saying a God could exist. Other than all those times I have flat out said that a god could exist. ;)--> The problem I think you and others and actually most of us are having is with the word "nothing" or "nothingness". There are actually two ways to think of this word or two definitions. One would be that of something not being apparent in this perticular time and place. The other would be "non-extistence". Now IMO one could think of God in both of those ways, for a couple of reasons. God could exist, outside of our frame of reference, in another place or just not apparent at this place and time. Then again so could unicorns, elves, Santa, and many other things. If what many cosmologists are saying is true, Black holes being our link to an infinite universe or multi verse, then many think could be possible. We certainly have horses here on earth and they probably have ancestors with horns somewhere on them. In another universe there very well could be a jolly guy in a red and white suit, existing outside of time so that he could deliver presents to all in one night. He would just be existing outside of our ability to perceive, in another universe. We just don't know. Then there is the "non-existence" side of nothing. Think of beyond the beginging, or outside of the universe. Go out past the realm of existence. No not there, keep going. What do you see? How can you explain it? Blackness? Whiteness? You can't explain it. It is outside of existence. To try and explain it would be paradoxical, for to explain it would be attributing meaning to something that exists outside of meaning. For to have meaning something must exist. Maybe the reason we can't give God meaning without giving it human characteristics or words of human understanding is because God exists outside of our existence. Which from our perspective would be in "non-existence". Non-existence would be infinite. Although to say that again is a little problematic. Obviously, certain contradictions can't exist. A square circle for example. OR We could look at it in another way. A way in which (1 = 0) or (0 = 1). Think of a blank canvas. Most of us would say that there is nothing on it. It is white. We could also say the same with any other color. Now extend that canvas out infinitely so that all we see is that one color. You see nothing else. We wouldn't be able to tell where one thing starts and another begins. Infact from our perspective nothing else would be visible. As I said... Just absolute balckness. How far does it go? How close is it? We wouldn't be able to tell. Same with absolute whiteness etc. Some may nothing is there, but we would say that because there is a singularity... a oneness. 1 (everything)= 0 (nothingness). The reality, I guess, would be oneness and the perspective would be nothingness. That is how omni-presence would be. A oneness. A nothingness. It is OK to come to that realization. Or only in the spaces in between. In between existence outside of existence in nothingness non-extistence

I first checkeed out WayDale because I had friends outside of the ministry that told me about it. I didn't believe everything I read and didn't go back except for one or two other times. Eventually I left for my own reasons and then found GreaseSpot as I was doing a paper in school that involved TWI's wacked out points of view. So I guess I should have voted "After" but I voted "before but I was already leaving" because I kind of considered WayDale as the pre-Greasespot. So, JT, what is your vote? How big a part did us G-Spotters play in your exit?

Song, LOL nice! +ODD I think I am beginning to understand you. :)--> Sky, sorry, it's a bit of a conundrum isn't it. It is also a long answer with another answer attached to it. Simply though, think of our real number system. There is no final number either positive or negative. But if you take the sum of those numbers you get zero. ex. (1 + -1)+(2+ -2)...etc = 0 or (1+2+3...)+ (-1+ -2 + -3)=0 Usually we think of zero as nothing. Everything equaling nothing is mathematically impossible. right? Well cosmologists and others get around that by creating a new number system, one in which zero does not = nothingness but = the sum of everything. It gets a little complicated, but maybe this will explain to some why SirG is posting links to sites about black holes. It is a different number system and a different language, really, but in a word you could say that if God is in everything then he exists in nothingness, by existing in everything. Or as +ODD would say "." Or you could say +ODD =ODD more or less. ;)--> It is a little paradoxical, I know. Unfortuanately I don't have the time to answer it more thoroughly. Sorry. You could say I'm a fleeting poster. My logic is "just a passin' thru..." lol

Actually, "talk to your leadership" seems to be a popular answer over there. I just checked it out again and the admin. guy said that just because it is not affiliated with twi does not mean that leadership in da ministry wouldn't be looking in on it on a regular basis and emailing him of anything that they thought needed to be addressed. lol What a joke.

I especially enjoyed the review of the Adv. Cl. Sp. "you's doesn't have to be asmart to research the Word" (and come to our conclusions) Oh BTW, Mike was a great drummer and had one of the greatest laughs in the world. Although, I think the ministry supressed that part of him when he went into the corps. The loudest "HEEEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEAH HEEEEEE" you ever heard. :D-->

I bet this may be a bigger head ache for them than they bagained for.

I tend to think of LCM as a tired, old, beaten, depressed, SOB. I remember after "da fog" he talked about being depressed to the point of even considering suiside. Now that may just have been a story, but I think I believe it. A man with such extreme mood swings...swings both ways. lol I think the realization of that all he had to fall back on was, as someone else said, his feeble college atheletic career, has made what he did to others hit home. He is not beyond that. He realised at some point after kicking out tons of corps that these people didn't have a career to go back to, since many went in so young. So, his response was to incourage kids to go to college first before going corps. Of course that also meant that they could get better paying jobs and ABS more. Anyway, I imagine him as a depressed aging old fart trying his hardest to keep fit and look young and failling miserably. He goes home after work and either watches TV all night or studies his Bible looking for ways to get it right and finding no answers, because all he has ever seen in there is how great he was and how low he is now. I bet he even thinks about ending his pathetic life occationally too. either that or he's an anger old curmudgeon constantly talking to himself about how right he is and how the world is out to get him. Of course this may just be my own little heaven and hell fantasy, hoping he gets waht he deserves.

Actually, Raf, I would think the exact opposite should happen. Absolute omnipresence would make it that there really could only be one God. If there is room for another immeasurable god then another god would be possible if not plausible. Also, if one thinks of spirits in terms of the physical thus leading them to pantheaism, and God is omnipresent, thier only sin is in giving physical things spiritual attributes or conversely, giving spritual things physical attributes. Which is all we can do anyway. Hell, if the Bible is the WOG then that is exactly what God does. How can he not? "His ways are not our ways, His thoughts not our thoughts." Condiscensio Anthropopathia, all that. You'll probably disagree and correct my Greek and Hebrew spelling :)-->, there is one thing we have similar outlooks on though...I won't be loosing any sleep wondering if God is something, everything, or nothing either.

Cool SirG, flatulating black holes... hmm, axis of rotation, that is usually where it happens with me too. :P-->

BTW, Sky. Thanks for saying sorry. Not that you ever wronged me personally. It is just big of you. And it gives a little hope. It would be nice if a few people I remember would say sorry. A lot of us feel that way.

I think what we have all been forgetting is da word of VP. "Revelation given once may change as circumstances change." Clearly you kids had forgotten your Keys to Spiritual Conformity. You may have gotten your KSC's with your KFC's (Keys to Fornicating "Consensually") ;)-->

Mr.H, regarding earlier posts...don't worry about it. I admit, out side of a few people that I remember I don't think that highly of most of them. Then, I think of my family and realise they are just caught up in this mess with no self worth outside of the ministry or are just too afraid to say anything to thier spouses. Sky, What was the draw in those years for new corpes? Or what was the pitch from the existing corpes? Were ya'll required to or have quotas for new corpes recruits? I know I was busy trying to get out of debt so that I could go back to school (while working full time to pay for it), so I didn't notice a lot of what you are talking about. Although, I was asked repeatedly "when are you going in the corps?" over and over and over. By the same people most of the time...as if they had forgotten the "I'm in debt" part. I can't imagine what the draw would be. Was that feeling of superiority it? Maybe folks thought that once they were corps God would show them all this "heavy revy" to explain all the apparent stupidity.