T-Bone

93. a cult-leader’s teachings become law There are clearly stated “rules” in PFAL: 1. To receive anything from God you must know what is available, 2. Know how to receive it…etc. There’s also many words-of-“wisdom”-one-liners that get parroted in groupthink that effectively get massaged into a priori assumptions. For example, “You can’t go beyond what you’re taught” over time becomes “Thou shall not deviate from what wierwille says.”

Yo Mike, the English language is calling…wants its words back You’re like a bullShonta in a glass dictionary FYI - don't take it personally Mike - I've got nothing against you - it's that damn idol you're ~ ~ ~ ~ Let’s decode Mike’s mishmash dictionary Anti = a PREPOSITION - opposed to; against. Idol = a person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered what a goofball! again with the redefinitions! oy vey! ~ ~ ~ ~ Consider me being in the anti-idol group please… Jonah 2:8 Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. Galatians 5:19-21 19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. John 5:21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. ~ ~ ~ ~ Psalm 97:10 Hate evil, you who love the Lord, Psalm 119:104 From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore, I hate every false way. Proverbs 13:5 A righteous man hates falsehood, But a wicked man acts disgustingly and shamefully Romans 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Consider me being in the idol haters group please… well... if you're promoting wierwille / PFAL as something or someone to be greatly admired, loved, or revered - you're asking for trouble anyway. you're an idol-representative...and idol salesman You so funny Mike - you make no sense whether you're promoting a nonsensical "thesis" or trying to sell folks on your favorite idols = wierwille/PFAL you so funny...and unconvincing but your persistence is something else I'm sure your posts will get tens of tens views...maybe

92. Students develop a false confidence in wierwille’s ideas When I first took PFAL, there was great anticipation and anxiety building toward the session when wierwille would “lead us into receiving the holy spirit” – speaking in tongues. I worried that I might not have the believing to receive it. But I hung in there because I wanted that unshakeable confidence that wierwille talked about – “when you speak in tongues you’ll know that you know, that you know that you’re going to heaven and all hell can’t stop you from going.” ~ ~ ~ ~ Have you ever wondered what faith is all about? for we walk by faith, not by sight [living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises] II Corinthians 5:7 Amplified One commentary on this verse says: For we walk by faith, not by sight—Better, and not by what we see (or, by appearance). It seems almost sad to alter the wording of a familiar and favourite text, but it must be admitted that the word translated “sight” never means the faculty of seeing, but always the form and fashion of the thing seen. (Comp. Luke 3:22; Luke 9:29; John 5:37.) The fact is taken for granted; and it comes as the proof that as we are, we are absent from the Lord. Now we believe in Him without seeing Him; hereafter we shall see Him face to face. Our life and conduct and our “walk” in this world rest on our belief in the Unseen. From : Bible Hub: II Corinthians 5:7 commentary ~ ~ ~ ~ I’m not a philosopher or theologian. I’m a technician by trade – it comes natural to me – I guess because I’ve always been fascinated by how things work. Not that I always could figure out how something worked – but you know a typical kid’s mentality - it couldn’t hurt to try. Even as a kid growing up in a Roman Catholic home, I remember having these “think-about-it-sessions” on metaphysical matters. Where was heaven? What does God look like? Does God really exist? That last question was a dandy. I was troubled with that one day - after a ride home on the school bus – during which I overheard some older kids talking about their dads dressing up to be Santa. Since I still believed there was a real Santa Claus – my belief system was shaken to the core. Thus, began sporadic think-about-it-sessions over whether God existed. Which would then prompt me to go to mom and dad. I never asked them about the legend of Santa – I went straight for the question of all questions – how do you know if God exists? Mom’s response came from a life filled with challenges – her dad a widower and fisherman by trade – she was often being looked after by relatives and boarding schools. She talked about having a trust in God – that He was always there with her. Mom always seemed anchored – nothing seemed to shake her. I still remember the calming effect just being around her – like sitting by a gentle stream and listening to the water move around the rocks and brush by the shoreline. Dad’s response came out of a tough life too – a medic in the war, got 2 Purple Hearts. He was technical-minded too – probably where I got it from. For a time was a shop foreman at a Bulova factory. He suffered from PTSD related to the war – but there wasn’t that much awareness of it as there is now. He could tough it out with the best of them. He would often call my attention to the beauty and wonder of nature – and like mom he felt that God is always with us – tending to His wonderful creations big and small. ~ ~ ~ ~ I still have think-about-it-sessions on a wide variety of topics. But not about whether God exists. When you come right down to it – there is no way to prove in the existence or non-existence of God. I think it’s something we each have to figure out for ourselves…Leaving TWI was one of the most trying times in my life. Because what was at stake was a childhood faith that has gotten me through some really big messes that I made. During my slow exit from a harmful and controlling cult like The Way International, there was that “faith thing” that anchored me to something intangible – and there was that “tech thing” that kept driving me to figure out how this Christian life is supposed to work. 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. Matthew 7 ~ ~ ~ ~ As I leave behind the bogus tenets of a cult, I find my faith deepens as I focus on what truly matters in my personal belief system. In the Christian faith – Jesus Christ is at the center of it. I aim to know more about Him. I read a great book – faith affirming - The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona. It got me to think like an historian or lawyer would studying a past event or a case – looking at the evidence, probabilities, testimonies – of even hostile witnesses. If you think about the evangelizing efforts of the early church – it was simple. They didn’t formulate catechisms, Bible classes, discipling programs…They didn’t have a cookie cutter mentality of expecting everyone to experience Christianity the way they did. They just preached about Jesus Christ offering Himself to be our Savior from sin and death and God raising Him from the dead, and now Jesus Christ is Lord - He has supremacy over all creation and has promised to be with us always in a personal relationship of love.

Now that you mention David G of Pink Floyd - I say yeah...I forgot about him. My brother got to see them at Fillmore East in early 70s and described one hell of a show with soundscapes and great musicianship - and at one point it sounded like footsteps overhead - walking from one side of the auditorium to the other - crazy man No band would ever let me sing...I didn't want to anyway - cuz I can't sing...if only there was some class that guaranteed I would manifest by session 12

Yikes - not what I was expecting !!!

it's one of those days when I'm mad at myself for not thinking it through

The church cat that nodded off during prayer time

1. you just described how the conscience works without using the word conscience 2. No - Romans teaches that the law is written in humankind’s heart . Why do you make things do complicated and hard ? What’s with the “slowly and gradually “ business? Guess you’ve never had kids. They can be a trip! Kids know when they’re being bad - and when they’re being really really bad l 3. You’re talking about the nature / nurture aspects of man - see my reference to Pinker’s The Blank Slate

Another aspect is the sociopath who plays the victim card to make you feel guilty – we see that here sometimes. Below a few links on the conscience, you might like: The act of eliciting pity from another unequivocally makes the elicitor something to be pitied, a victim, per se. It is human nature to aid the pitied. Hence, the pity play, or victim stance, stands to get the Sociopath what he or she wants easily and without being found out as a bad guy. This is manipulation. Manipulation is the tool of choice for smart criminal thinkers and, according to Dr. Stout, the Sociopaths amongst us. She says, "Sociopaths have no regard whatsoever for the social contract, but they do know how to use it to their advantage. And all in all, I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him." From: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/take-all-prisoners/200912/your-conscience-the-sociopaths-weapon-choice https://www.britannica.com/topic/conscience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience

Could be…I’ve often wondered why some folks get so adamant about defending wierwille…and since his bad behavior was well known by many - it really gives one pause for thought – what motivates them to do so? It just doesn’t ring true when they say they just want to focus on “the Word” that the man taught regardless of his behavior. It hits me as being a phony reason because if they really did love “The Word” they would see how much wierwille desecrates God’s Word with his hypocrisy and malignant narcissism and the hurt he caused to God’s flock with his abusive and dispassionate demeanor when he was just around staff and way corps. What a phony! The Mystery that Christ is in each believer - was indeed a mystery to him. Even in the secular world I’ve observed in the workplace that people who defend really bad behavior or want to give a free pass to celebrities and politicians in the news over some scandal - tend to exhibit bad morals themselves. Makes me wonder if some wierwille defenders imagine giving the free pass to him absolves them of some secret sins - - and further, what if they're running an opinion up the flagpole to see how others react.... or are they trying to acclimatize others to the idea that the particular bad behavior isn’t so bad after all? another ploy is the "oh we're all sinners - who are you to judge?" baloney. Uhm - I'm no adulterer - I'm no sexual predator...I'm no thief and pathological liar. There's laws against that stuff. Don't know - but publicly stated concerns (I just love "the Word" that he taught) seem out of tune with the 2 great commandments - love God and neighbor. ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey all, we watched God Forbid documentary the other night on Hulu...wierwille and TWI are not the only religious hypocrites out there - it's just that with wierwille / TWI and their isolationist / lockbox mentality they're able to keep below the radar of the public eye - here's a couple of articles about God Forbid: https://www.wsj.com/articles/god-forbid-the-sex-scandal-that-brought-down-a-dynasty-review-jerry-falwell-jr-11666908728?mod=latest_headlines https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/god-forbid-jerry-falwell-jr-actually-practiced-what-he-preached-n1300493

= == = = = = = = = = = Grease Spotters, be forewarned – Mike says this thread “is so closely aligned with the free will versus determinism thread” that was started for him – but I started this thoughtful thread and as a contributor on the aforementioned thread of free will / determinism – I can confidently say these two threads are polar opposites. Mike attempts to float these flaky theories of half-baked PFAL nonsense and pseudoscientific baloney on the free will / Determ. thread and thinks he’s got some great theories. And another hilarious thing Mike quotes Johniam’s post (above) on the conscience like it’s the God-breathed truth – but you'll recognize Johniam is just spewing more garbage he learned and regurgitated from the # 1 cult-leader with a seared conscience – wierwille.

Let’s break this down for the folks at home: 1. Out of one side of your mouth you say what we were taught is incorrect. I have always specified what parts were incorrect. You paint with a huuuuuge roller! ~ ~ ~ ~ 2. Then out of the other side you say that VPW stole good material from good people. Again with the huuuuuge paint roller! In many threads in About the Way and in Doctrinal I have analyzed the baloney out of the PFAL material – and have documented wierwille’s incompetency when plagiarizing from sources like Bullinger – some decent material he screwed up and made it worse – check out this thread 2nd wave of PFAL - post about Bullinger and wierwille and Origin stories – wierwille’s copying another person’s error and wierwille screwing up what another person got right Let's face it - wierwille was an incompetent plagiarist...he didn't know what he was talking about hmmmm reminds me of someone ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. That is quite a cognitive dissonance you feed there. Cognitive dissonance = the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change; In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Mike, I think you’re projecting – this sounds like a description of the way YOU operate here. btw - thanks Mike, my counterarguments to your goofball ideas gives me a good opportunity to tie in links to some of my best analytical work on wierwille's baloney. Inquiring disenchanted and dissatisfied PFAL grads need to know this stuff. Hope you're okay with that...all is fair in love and war on cults, right?

a most excellent counterargument! thanks Nathan !

I’ll probably be more conventional and point out wierwille’s misinterpretations of Scripture and his bogus speech-mechanics prep…I’ll probably slip in some other sources… Meanwhile you might enjoy this video – John MacArthur, author of Charismatic Chaos, mistakenly gets invited to speak at a huge Charismatic’s conference (whoever lined up the speakers probably didn’t know of MacArthur’s views and he thought they wanted to hear the other side – both groups figured the other side were starting to come around – this interview is hilarious to watch)...anyway here's the video John MacArthur explains why tongues is easy to falsify in an ignorant environment FYI: I like John MacArthur and have a number of his books, commentaries and study Bible...I like him because he's sharp in his theology - he's a tough conservative evangelical type - so he doesn't get sloppy in his hermeneutics and is usually solid in his logic But I’ll let everyone know right now – my stance on the matter – I believe I faked it and I will get into that later on in this thread. When I first left TWI – I was leaning strongly toward cessationism but in the last few years I’ve softened up – and think the nine manifestations are possible today - there's other abilities too if you check out near the end of Romans– but it’s up to the Spirit to do the distributing – not some Betamax video tape of PFAL !...don’t anyone get nervous – if you’ve really got something don’t let my two-bit analysis shake you – if it works for you than keep on with the keeping on.

Love it ! One of my all time favs of SNL "I'm Bruce Dickenson, baby cock-a-the-walk" Hey - I saw a poster of Christopher Walkens in window of hair salon it said Walkens welcome

on the contrary - your thesis is easy to follow - in terms of understanding the individual points - but your coherency is crap, and it does not add up to a viable hypothesis I don't know what you're trying to say...but when you talk about the "benefits" of your thesis in your posts outside your chapters - it reminds me of the ridiculous claims on the back of the green PFAL sign up card. I don't see what benefits one would gain from your gobbledygook...you're making claims that your thesis will accomplish but the actual chapters are made of nonsense that has no purpose oh well, maybe back to the drawing board

double post

review everything - review what everyone has said on this thread and review all the links everyone posted too

you've made friend with Kool-Aid that's for sure - I think you have your own recipe

more baloney - goodbye

uhm,,,nope...bunch of baloney I would like to apologize to my eyeballs and brain cells for using vital resources to look over this nonsense Grrrrrrr you don't listen!

Damn!!!! You’re hired!!!! You sound great!!!! I like your style - I got some Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray V, Frank Zappa, Joe Walsh, and Jack White vibes from your playing I like what the piano is doing too – that part felt like Black Mill, GoGo Penguin, Hidden Orchestra Overall the sound was impressive Mars Volta meets Blind Faith meets Frank Zappa meets Muse meets Monster Magnet meets Hidden Orchestra Downloaded it to my laptop !

I’ve noticed a go-to reference you use quite often – “we were taught” I wouldn’t advise falling back on a shyster of a teacher We really don’t know what went on in Paul’s mind So_crates is right – it also looks to me like your attempting to force a tenuous theory onto the given facts – and it won’t fit!

So, you were a professional teacher - fascinating – I’m curious as to what your frustration was over. And I’m surprised at the way you disparage academia. In my opinion respect and becoming a teacher are similar in that it’s something you earn. Usually when I check out some expert in a particular field – I look at their credentials among other things – because it tells me they’ve had a certain level of training and were disciplined enough to earn a degree. And legitimate credentials mean that a certain level of achievement was met – depending on the credentials it shows the person demonstrated they could hold to specific standards agreed upon by peers / educators in that field. Mike, I don’t mean to give you a hard time on this – and I realize the academia and credential references is a sore spot with you – and I mean you no disrespect other than I don’t think you’ve earned the right to talk about something if you disregard standards of practice – which are models of established training/preparation that are commonly accepted as correct. Folks here have been patient enough to point out a number of holes and contradictions in your “thesis” – and you often tend to respond like we’re nincompoops who don’t understand a simple concept like determinism and free will – but what I think is the real problem, is that your description of words and concepts are often according to “standards” that no one has agreed upon BUT YOU. Something I really appreciate are all the discussions I've had with atheists, agnostics, and folks of other faiths - it helped me get out of the fundamentalist mindset of TWI. Rather than a rush to produce a finished product/theory here - i.e., your thesis – maybe you should think about having discussions on one item at a time to brainstorm and eliminate errors. I asked you earlier if you were a frustrated teacher. What I’ve realized long after my 12 frustrating years in TWI of trying to mimic wierwille, is that I’m NOT a Bible teacher – or a teacher of any particular subject – unless you want to count developing cognitive skills. And it’s NOT that I teach that – I like to inspire others to develop THEIR OWN cognitive skills. In the secular world I’ve had a number of jobs where I trained technicians to be installers and service personnel. I started teaching industry standards for various security/access control/audio/video/telephone/DVR/signaling systems. I get into why standards are important for continuity of service and ease of troubleshooting. The fun part is when I got to field-training for installs and repairs. Each job site is different. That’s when theory meets practice and rubber meets the road. That’s when critical and creative thinking skills start to develop – cuz one is in the real world with real obstacles, unforeseen issues, forgetting a formula, breaking a tool, underestimating job parts, inclement weather, kid is sick at home, dealing with an angry customer, and etc. On other threads like Why PFAL sucks, The Absent Christ?, The NT canon I disagree with you - not because it’s you Mike – but because the idea or method you put forth is faulty…and I don’t think we’re playing politics here where we make concessions and deals so others might accept our ideas – at least that’s not what I’m doing – I’m focused on the idea itself – to whittle it down to essentials – and we figure out if it’s true/viable or not – I think most folks who are patient and can go the distance will be able to figure that out for themselves. Maybe it’s too little too late – but I hope my input here helps to make up for the 12 years of me pushing a frustrating system of thought known as PFAL. A lot of my beliefs are in a state of flux – so my intent is mostly just to push us all to do our best thinking – no matter the individual belief systems.

Man, I bet you're good - I'd love to hear you play! I envy you for having some formal music training...I'm self-taught...early on I took a few lessons from a local bass player in The Village Voice - he had a beat up precision bass with a picture of Nixon on the back - and would ham it up on stage - sometimes during the singer's sweet vocals - by flipping his bass around and flashing Nixon to the crowd - yeah guy was weird - stoned most of the time...anyway took a few lessons from him - five bucks a shot - he fell in love with my Fender Jazz Bass and sweet talked me into trading with him and he'd throw in a bunch of free lessons. So, I get home from bass lessons and show my Mom the ratty looking bass - told her about the trade - she goes "Nope your Dad and brother helped you buy that bass - get it back!" which I did. Moms - they're the best! dropped going for lessons after that too.