T-Bone

Picking back up on some things I talked about in my first post – of the complicated mindset, habits, etc. – which kept me imprisoned - by my own thoughts! These little nefarious mental “tidbits” were actually TWI-biased – and I had absorbed them! They were perhaps the graviton particles that gave certain TWI leaders something to “grab onto”. Without those in my head – TWI’s “gravitational pull” is inoperative. Earlier in this thread Skyrider and DWBH mentioned The Way Tree an idea wierwille copied from AA…I was thinking about all this stuff within the context of manipulation – which is really about control. I am not familiar with AA nor have I ever suffered from substance abuse – so I’m only speaking from what I think is the main idea behind AA – which is to help one gain back control over their own life. There is a difference between developing self-control versus being manipulated by someone else – simply put, with self-control you are in the driver seat - as pilot and navigator rolled into one. That’s NOT to say when you’re being manipulated you’re not in the driver seat – but perhaps it’s more like listening to the directions from a malicious GPS Navigation Device while you’re driving. The GPS does not force you to follow its directions but in regards to being manipulated – you may feel compelled to follow its directions. This powerful inner urge to “do as you are told” (even if it’s just in the form of a suggestion or casual remark) often develops from long exposure to the general mindset of TWI followers – a set of assumptions, attitudes, thought processes, certain inclinations, habits, biases and worldview . All that bears heavily on our decision making...as the link says - “Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make so many quick decisions unconsciously; others we agonize over. We choose actions and form opinions via mental processes which are influenced by biases, reason, emotions, and memories.” So, it doesn’t have to be a visible chain- of-command process – where I am told by a leader what I should do in a certain situation. Rather, given enough time and experiences, the priorities of the ministry’s hierarchy have been absorbed into my thinking process…sort of like an embedded manipulation program. It could be activated by trigger words, phrases, and teachings spoken by others – or more or less spontaneously – from within - as I’m confronted by a situation and need to decide what course of action I should take. I had just got off the WOW field and then got married. We asked the Limb coordinator of the state (where we wanted to live) – where he would need help in establishing new fellowships. He mentioned a few cities. So we chose one and moved there. After living there for a short while, I remember discussing with my wife about going back to finish college and getting a degree. However, “spiritual concerns” seemed to outweigh any reasons to go back to school: we volunteered to establish fellowships in a city suggested by our Limb leader (didn’t want to let him - or God - down by being distracted with school stuff)… and as any TWI follower who is worth their salt knows - “worldly” knowledge is not as important as “spiritual” knowledge anyway …perhaps thoughts of the recognition my wife and I would get – being known as the couple that started “the word” moving in this city were in the back of my mind also.…so of my own accord I decided not to return to college – a decision based upon a faulty TWI-centric thought process. …Another thing that struck me as a little ironic – wierwille was “inspired” by the Alcoholics Anonymous structure - – an organization with the stated primary purpose for its members as to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Somehow wierwille managed to mimic that a$$-backwards - - developing a ministry that encouraged behavioral addiction - which “is a form of addiction that involves a compulsion to engage in a rewarding non-drug-related behavior – sometimes called a natural reward – despite any negative consequences to the person's physical, mental, social or financial well-being.” …the “rewards” of having a TWI-centric thought process are highly valued by some – being known as the person who ran the most classes in your area, recognition for being very generous to the ministry – financially, time / resources, whatever…getting a way corps nametag as a “spiritual” status symbol…being assigned to lead a branch, Limb – whatever so as to be in a position of influence and power…my point is not to impugn genuine people of influence (past or present) who by their example and hard work, actually provide a much needed service to fellowships with their unadulterated love, compassion and good biblical counsel. I think the need or desire for recognition is a natural thing – nothing wrong with that – but when the reward of recognition itself starts becoming more important than the achievements or service – I think something is out of whack…maybe that’s along the lines of behavioral addiction – I dunno. Oddly enough – after reading a bunch of stuff about AA - it was interesting to find an article about why some folks think AA is a cult see here ...Like I said – I have no experience or knowledge of AA but – considering how each local chapter is supposedly self-governing I could see the possibility at a few locations of things getting out of line with their primary purpose…I was intrigued by some cult-like characteristics in that article on the AA: “Cult trait: “The group displays excessively zealous or unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology and practices as the Truth, as law. Cult trait: “The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example they must get permission to date, change jobs, marry — or leaders prescribe what type of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to disciple children and so forth).” ....A lot of this stuff is new and fascinating to me – so please excuse any oversights or inaccuracies – and feel free to correct or elaborate on any point of my rather oversimplified approach.

Thinking about that old TV trope I'm not a real doctor but I play one on TV I began wondering if that could work for TWI. So imagine a TV ad for TWI with scratchy looking video of wierwille saying “I’m not a real doctor but I played one at The Way International.” I thought TWI could use a little truth in advertising…maybe it wouldn’t help their credibility that much but just think of the huge boost to their comedic value!

I only read it a few times...but yeah I used it as a witnessing tool also - one time I was witnessing at a college campus - saw a guy looking at an announcement on a bulletin board about someone who was going to teach something on levitation...mysticism...or something odd...I can’t remember- all I recall is the announcement had a picture of this guy levitating... So I used the Old if-you-think-that’s-something-then-check-this-out routine - I told him about the part in the book of God talking to wierwille etc... well, he actually came to Twig and took the class ...but never stuck around for long - and good for him... maybe he went back to check out that levitating dude - ...oh yeah I got back into TWLIL near the end of my TWI stint - and used it as a springboard for what I should investigate... I contacted Moody Bible Correspondence Registrar and found out wierwille never completed any courses that he claimed he took...Oh my gosh ! That got me thinking - what else did wierwille lie about?

I’ve looked into this before - seems to me there was some old teachings by others that suggested seed of the serpent was physically literal and that Cain was the first offspring - I guess suggesting the Eve and the serpent got it on. I don’t know if wierwille was the first to teach that the “wrong seed” was spiritual - I guess it was supposedly the polar opposite of being born again of incorruptible seed; I think the whole idea of all this is totally ridiculous anyway - but I think it was “ingenious” of wierwille to use it as a ploy to identify anyone who he thought was an enemy of “the true believers” by deeming them as either wrong seed or possessed- this he “knew” by revelation of course. See serpent seed on Wikipedia

Them: how would you like to get blessed? me: how much money do you need?

DWBH, thanks for that great post ! yeah I'm done here

I thought of another version - a funny spin on plagiarism... Make it a sitcom...now what if we plagiarize from “Newhart” - I thought the finale could go something like this: Bob Newhart’s character used to be in a cult run by a big time plagiarist; he thinks he’s been a Vermont Innkeeper but now wakes up from a dream that felt like it was 8 years long - and in bed next to him is his former cult leader. Naw...forget it...nothing funny about that...mmmm actually a little creepy.

Interesting - now there’s a third version of the soap opera “as the lie detector spins” or maybe that movie “Plants, Lies, and Friends”

You actually already did the “work” elsewhere to prove my point. On “a couple of questions” thread you emphatically stated you did use electronic equipment. See here Enough with the misdirection - back to plagiarism - it’s wrong wrong wrong

This sounds like the old moral-switcheroo: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter…Isaiah 5:20 NIV I don’t think this imaginary morally corrupt and mute “god” who thumbs his nose at honest decent folks needs someone to speak up for him - - just a crooked defense attorney.

Great posts, WordWolf !!! wierwille’s statement has the appearance of being humble and honest while at the same time suggests he is the superior theologian able to rightly divide “the word” when handling those subjects. I’m sure his half-a$$ed “disclaimer” would not have fooled any competent theologians especially if they were familiar with the works he plagiarized - but wierwille’s class materials - kept “in house” (conveniently avoiding peer review) tended to impress a lot of young and naive students who didn’t know squat about the Bible anyway, Maybe slightly off topic but it addresses another aspect of wierwille’s plagiarism - how it cheated his students out of a real learning experience...and sort of relates to peer review - After I left TWI and began exploring and expanding how i studied the Bible - I was electrified one day when I was checking out several commentaries that I bought at an estate sale of a pastor. One commentary - in a footnote actually referred to how another commentary interpreted the same passage and criticized it for missing a certain detail of a Greek phrase...another commentary referred to the different ways several commentaries interpreted a verse and gave pros and cons on each alternate view... my point is that my excitement came from getting a taste of the menu for critical thinkers - variety is exciting! That’s what genuine honest teachers do - they expand one’s horizon by presenting various works/viewpoints and let students hone their thinking skills.

I think in wierwille’s little delusional universe where everything revolved around his little narcissistic brain, an elitist mentality ruled supreme; wierwille thought he was superior in intellect and “spirituality”. In his mind The nonsense he passed off as “wisdom” trumps anything - the laws of man, personal boundaries, even the 10 commandments, if it suited his treacherous agenda. So...plagiarizing the works of others - no problem as long as no one finds out about it, garners him recognition, money and power...and gets him laid.

Spectrum 49 – ya know, I did feel really big when I was in TWI – I think my ego swelled but that wasn’t a swell ego…and Starkist wants tuna that tastes good - not tuna with good taste…I still have a picture of what I looked like in the prime of my TWI days when I let all that pseudo-knowledge go to my head – just glance over at my avatar Chockfull – great post! And what an intriguing point you mentioned with - “the gravitational pull of a black hole on personal relationships too, like TBone talking about spousal relationships. Definitely friendships too” …that is something I very briefly touched on in my first post – the question near the end: “Besides any strong social bonds with family and friends in TWI – what was it that kept you from leaving when you first began to realize the ministry was not what it seemed?” The reverse of my question could address other situations. What strong social bonds did some folks defy to stay in TWI? What if the wife and kids want out and the dad wants to stay in? I think I may have a long suit in loyalty and commitment – though they were terribly misplaced when I was in TWI. I put the ministry ahead of everything else – even wife and kids! Never had much time or energy left for them at the end of my work day / ministry “tasks”…Must be almost a damn miracle they didn’t just pack up and leave me! I know the ministry tended to suck the life and love out of most folks who were really involved. ...and remember wierwille’s great divide-and-conquer phrase “when it comes to the word, I have no friends”... My wife and I lost some very close friends when we left. Grace – alright, so you’re on to me…please don’t blow my cover LOL

Is boredom an emotion? I am overcome with great boredom. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz Yeah I’m not buying that "slowly-and-unemotionally-way-back-in-'72-I-was-all-over-this-plagiarism-issue-way-ahead-of-you-guys" anymore then I would buy the old “I-built-crude-lie-detectors-to-study-the-phenomena-of-lying-and-the-consciousness-of-houshold-plants” routine.

What has led you to believe that ?

Ya know, Spectrum...I’ve found that things usually go well in my neck of the galaxy when my wife thinks she’s at the center of it. Perhaps that is indeed the reality of the situation- I mean ...since I’m a whimpy white dwarf I do feel strongly attracted to her.

I was reading up on how a black hole is formed; as the Black Hole link states “Black holes of stellar mass are expected to form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses may form.” I found another website that was a little more descriptive and this really got my imagination going on how else I can abuse I mean use my supermassive black hole / TWI’s “gravitational pull” simile. It was here that I read “Black holes are formed when a really big star dies out. When that happens, the outward force of the star's nuclear fusion cannot overcome its gravity, so it collapses. If the star has more than about four times the mass of our sun, nothing can stop the star's collapse, so it becomes smaller and denser until it becomes a singularity. The singularity's gravitational force is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. This is called a black hole.” ...I dunno maybe I’m just impressing myself with the poetry or how picturesque this simile has become - more so than the logic or technical stuff - so being how this is all just my 2-bit philosophizing all out of proportion – I got to thinking along the lines of what makes a person a narcissist - - maybe a collapsing star isn’t too far off the mark...As the above Psychology Today link states: “People with narcissistic personality disorder believe they are superior or special, and often try to associate with other people they believe are unique or gifted in some way. This association enhances their self-esteem, which is typically quite fragile underneath the surface. Individuals with NPD seek excessive admiration and attention in order to know that others think highly of them. Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder have difficulty tolerating criticism or defeat, and may be left feeling humiliated or empty when they experience an "injury" in the form of criticism or rejection.” …I am no expert in psychology or personality disorders but I have often wondered (without considering any genetic predispositions or other factors) why wierwille was so driven to attain recognition… ...he wanted everyone to call him “doctor”…he plagiarizes a lot of other folks’ work to call it all his own…fabricates a story of God supposedly speaking to him and then making it snow on demand. I think as his ego grew bigger – he became more self-absorbed – and like a dying star, whatever energy there was that might have been harnessed to serve others, could not escape outward – the gravity…the attraction to the self was too great to allow it. Now imagine - in a weird and Twilight Zone way – a supermassive-black-hole-of-an-ego. Its gravitational force becoming so strong as to exert considerable force to pull in a handful of people…hundreds of people…thousands of people...with a supermassive a$$hole for a leader I think when it comes to nefarious leaders, often religion can be used as a very effective tool of manipulation. Some folks can have very strong feelings about their beliefs. I think wierwille’s ministry was a thinly disguised exploitative organization. It had a veneer of Christianity. Perhaps that is a little more palatable than how Jesus described the hypocrites of his day – see Matthew 23 . Now all this got me thinking about where do manipulative leaders derive their power. In doing some research on the Internet, I came across an article Using Religion for Power and one post by Abagail really captivated my interest by what she said: “Through my own research on the topic of the temple and priesthood of Amen, I found that the Pharaoh was seen as the true son of the god. When the king was made Pharaoh, it was the god claiming him as his heir. The priests of Amen also held sway over the people because they perpetuated an image of themselves as heroes to the downtrodden. In fact, religion held so much power at a point in Egyptian history that the priesthood of Amen rivaled the power of the Pharaoh. Even when the Pharaoh turned to a different main god, the general public still held strong to Amen-Re. Religion is a powerful thing, but the power derives from the people; the Pharaoh and the gods only had as much power as the people let them have through their strong beliefs in the gods.” That one line really stuck with me “the Pharaoh and the gods only had as much power as the people let them have through their strong beliefs in the gods.” That makes me think of the “idols of the heart” mentioned in Ezekiel 14:3 - which eventually becomes a stumbling block as the rest of the verse indicates... An idol of the heart is invisible. No one knows it’s there - maybe not even the person who has this idol within their heart. You see, I never really thought of wierwille as an idol of the heart – but when I think back on how much I admired him...revered him as head and shoulders above any other great persons I could think of...I mean, I had such respect for his life and work – that God chose wierwille to teach “the word” to modern man. I considered his classes and books like keys to unlock all the great truths of the Bible...I was so young and gullible when I first got involved in TWI... Guess it took 12 years of spinning my wheels and gaining some life experiences that got me to start wondering what was the stumbling block in my pursuit of God and the Christian lifestyle. …but let me clarify – I did not think he was god or took the place of god – I think what I was doing was more along the lines of what’s prohibited in Exodus 20: 3 “you shall have no other gods before me”. ...For me, wierwille was like an interface between me and God...being guided by his interpretation of the Bible was how I thought I could connect and communicate with God. Nothing wrong with a desire to connect and communicate with God - - but now I see that following wierwille's "spiritual" leadership was a very dubious means of achieving that...so now I say to all you God lovers out there who can hear my post (huh? - - oh never mind - musta clicked on an old commercial or sumpin') - cut out the middleman - and go direct That brings me back to what I said in my first post: “…the feeling of being trapped and thinking of TWI as almost like a custodian of my fate. Whatever they say will happen to me are the supposed consequences of my believing - something to be feared ...nice little trick though - it really was a self-imposed mental prison - but I was not aware that I was the only one that could let myself go free...I can't really leave until they say it's ok to do so...which they never will, of course...especially if you were in the way corps - it's a lifetime commitment to Christian service.” ...There's a little lesson from The Wizard of Oz for all of us: Dorothy had the power to escape the supermassive black hole all along; and even in space Toto still needs his daily walk. Yup I think you got that right, Abagail “the Pharaoh and the gods only had as much power as the people let them have through their strong beliefs in the gods.”

not this time, Twinky... now it's Strongbow Hard Cider !

Community Center Public Announcement: The Round Hole Peg Board Meeting is at 8PM every Thursday. Be there or be square.

If I was your lawyer I could have gotten you off the hook by merely saying you were giving the proper attribution to the works cited.

Personal Ad: Lonely guy seeking a platonic relationship; willing to accept a Socratic relationship if you’re willing to go 50 / 50 on the questions.

I just wanted to mention the definition of plagiarism which is using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, i.e. not crediting the original author – in other words, stealing and lying - which are significant enough to be mentioned throughout the Bible as something we should NOT do. Perhaps THAT is God’s perspective on plagiarism. In my book, wierwille is the poster child for false teachers – and his unabashed plagiarism is just the tip of the iceberg of his personality disorders – a good reason to question his integrity, competence, and body of work. The example set by his teachings and in much of his work has the undertones of it being ok to disrespect your peers, that you should be willing to steal and lie for your work, and that you can take shortcuts so you don’t have to learn and practice the skills needed for the work.

This quoted post reveals a cognitive bias toward the plagiarized and mangled works of wierwille...the go-to false authority To state that the Bible interprets itself is circular reasoning and ignores the simple but necessary things involved in reading comprehension ...saying that the difficult verses are understood in light of the clear ones is merely wishful thinking …no adequate examples have been given to support this idea that is being forwarded...furthermore a verse could be considered “difficult” merely because it does not agree with one's theology. Besides the fact that there may be no solution to the problem. Perhaps there is a tendency by those who want to worship a book or who attempt to prove that their ministry has the answers that they must resort to elaborate explanations for discrepancies in the texts / recorded accounts and come up with Rube-Goldberg-teachings like "the four crucified with Jesus" to camouflage inconsistent issues in the four Gospels…besides the contradictions and flaws within the Bible there’s a whole other bugaboo to consider if one is wanting to prove the Bible is inerrant – you see, the difficult-in-light-of-clear-verse theory does not address passages of the Bible that clearly contradict the things known by the various disciplines of science and history. Personally – I don’t have a problem with the Bible being the way it is in all of its imperfections and glorious humanity…my faith is not based on a book but on a person. I mean, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. How human is that! But you know – Bible-wise, you can base your faith on whatever you want…after all, faith is something based on a supposedly spiritual or religious apprehension rather than any physical proof – in a religious context, faith is a belief in the supernatural anyway – that which is beyond any known and observable realms - and II Corinthians 5:7 does say we walk by faith and not by sight anyway.

point # 1 is an argument from repetition this argument has been used several times before on other threads and when it was challenged like here - no evidence, proof, specific instances or examples are ever given. also lacks specificity - see point # 2 point # 2: is an argument by faulty generalization and lacks any specificity