T-Bone

Wow – this is even more whacky than Bullinger/wierwille’s dispensationalism! Well…to each his own. Have fun Mike

Because = the reason that, since; used to introduce a word or phrase that stands for a clause expressing an explanation or reason; Because is a conjunction. It typically expresses a logical link between two ideas or events. Often, this link is due to cause and effect. It does not say "Saul was blinded because he was a primary persecutor" - YOU are saying that. The passage does NOT give the REASON Paul was blinded. Not sure why you quoted this...okay I think you're saying Paul was blinded by God & JC - but as God & JC's defense attorney - I would just like to say...naw just kidding they don't need my apologetics...what I'm getting at is that it may not have been the intention of God & JC to blind Paul for being a bad guy. The trauma may have been something Paul brought on himself - like I said earlier in daring to look at Christ's visage....the way you used "because" in your earlier post implies intent or motivation on the part of God & JC...but maybe that is what you meant to convey - I don't know. Let’s look at it another way…I walk up to a fenced-in area that is a power sub-station and it has signs posted all over the place – like this: I’m not authorized personnel – matter of fact I’m on my break from the McDonald’s down the street - I can see, read and understand all the signage - but I decide to climb the fence on a whim anyway – I then walk over to one of the lower transformers touch a 440 volt line and poof – I be dead! Do we say The Power company electrocuted that man because he was a dumb-a$$ ? Again, getting back to Paul’s conversion – why was he blinded and not his companions? I don’t know. One possibility was that he was such a headstrong person that he defiantly stared at the Son of God when the others shielded their eyes.

But in reading Acts 9 I don't find where it says Saul was blinded because ...maybe you've seen that reason clearly indicated in other passages - if so, can you please point them out?

Again, YOU underestimate the risen Christ. And why do you harp on Jesus the man? Do you have an “identity crisis” about Jesus Christ? Are you uncertain or confused about who he is – then or now? 36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” 40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence. Luke 24 The risen Christ said, “it is I myself?” Would you feel a lot more comfortable if he showed you a government-issue photo ID? You seem to have a problem believing Jesus Christ is both transcendent and immanent. Do you feel the need to reduce Jesus Christ down to something manageable? Not to bring it up again - but wierwille had that same tendency to underestimate the God that he preached about. From page 19 of Lifelines wierwille said The believer’s fear binds the omnipotence of God. Here’s an interesting book with an apt title for those who like to put God in a box: The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity I wonder if wierwille liked the idea of a god HE could manage...if and when his conscience might bother him over his despicable behavior he could just relegate this god to the back of his mind and justify himself by thinking God puts up with my bad behavior because I'm teaching His Word.

I love the part where he explains how he’s going to guarantee you get just as good a workout as the 8-minute abs – if you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes…(pauses to think about it) we’re going to send you the extra minute free… …imagine if TWI did that with the PFAL class…We guarantee you’ll get everything that we claim on the back of the PFAL signup card – and if not (pauses to SIT about it) we’re going to let you sit (and SIT) through the next PFAL class for free.

Why would that be good? What’s the rush? My suggestion – don’t try to reinvent the wheel – there’s an international code signal of extreme distress S O S …savior oh savior

question - are we talking about the 7-minute abs or the 8-minute abs?

how did that work? was it like automatic writing? your idea goes counter to holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. how do you come up with this baloney? Fans call Bruce Springstein Boss

no thanks

Awesome OldSkool! Sorry – I don’t remember those. it’s labeled 1980 commercials – and I have a good excuse for missing outin 1980 I was busy “moving the Word” and didn’t have time to watch TV…unless it was PFAL. zzzZZZ again with the sleep.

I don't care

What? Limit God because YOU can’t imagine He has a gazillion or more ways to orchestrate events? It's okay if YOU want to limit God or Christ - it doesn't bother me one bit. Don’t need to prove you’re wrong or prove wierwille was wrong – because you’ve done a fine job of mimicking how wierwille twisted Scripture and besides that you're also showing YOU can’t or won’t accept the truth that Christ is transcendent and immanent…I don’t care if you change your position when sleeping through PFAL…you can slouch in your chair…rest your head on your desk…position doesn’t matter…must sleep…need more sleep… zzzZZZ ZZzzz

Hey Dude – true confessions here…I loved watching commercials when I was a kid – still love watching them – the weirder, the dorkier, the funnier, or the more unprofessional and/or local the better… ...here’s another dark secret – both Mom & Dad worked – so when I came home from school I was all alone…and being somewhat of a scaredy-cat I’d watch TV of course to get my mind off of unknown terrors…if I had to go in the basement for something or got tired of TV, I would sing to myself some commercial jingle… ...okay – wanna know why I really took the class…I wanted to find out what killed that little boy. Did he neglect to sing an advertisement for protection?

if you think it's butter but it's not

Fascinating…I noticed you did something similar on the NT canon thread – when I commented that your literary structure idea sounded a lot like Bullinger’s - you went on about finding it on your own and impressing the hell out of Walter when you showed it to him… …if I didn’t know better it seems like you’re wanting to distance yourself from being associated with wierwille and Bullinger. Like that baloney of someone saying to wierwille you teach like Bullinger writes… ...it’s more like wierwille writes like Xerox copies. if it smells like wierwille's baloney...looks like wierwille's baloney...even though someone changed the product label on the outside...it's probably still wierwille's baloney

irrelevant ! This thread is about analyzing wierwille's twisted doctrine of the supposed absent Christ. stay on topic. you're bringing up events that are unrelated to Paul's conversion.

I don’t know if we should read too much into the conversion of Paul – like speculating what was the intent of God and Jesus Christ. That’s a tough one since we humans sometimes have difficulty figuring out our own motivation or that of others – let alone that of divine minds…I agree that Paul was humbled to be calling Jesus Lord – but there might be a simpler explanation of Paul’s blindness… …it’s silly to think we can conduct an after-the-fact crime scene investigation to collect and catalog all physical evidence of Paul’s conversion scene for forensic analysis…we don’t have much to go on except for what the Bible gives us. Why was Paul blinded and not his companions? I don’t know. Was Paul trying to gaze on something so blindingly bright while his companions shielded their eyes? I don’t know. Was there some divine intervention that protected the eyes of Paul’s companions but not Paul’s eyes. Maybe a flipflop variation of Daniel 3 : 19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual 20 and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. 21 So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. 22 The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” 25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Why were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego invulnerable to the blazing furnace - but not the strongest soldiers in Nebuchadnezzar’s army who - upon urgent command- were tasked with tying them up and throwing them into the fire? This sounds like an X-Files episodes. Why weren’t those 3 guys killed? They went into the same situation as the soldiers. Were they aliens? …is it possible Paul dared to look on the risen Christ and was blinded by the visage - not vision – but Christ's visage?!?! I don’t know. I wasn’t there…and we don’t have a whole lot of info on how God and/or Jesus Christ pulled off this highly selective with pinpoint accuracy traumatic experience.

How odd you didn’t do that - but I did in mentioning all 3 accounts of Paul’s conversion in my previous post. Is it just my imagination or do you think you’re authorized to place limits on what the risen Christ can and cannot do? Reminds me of wierwille’s pontificating about what God can and cannot do. If the Lord Jesus Christ is transcendent AND immanent I think He can do whatever He wants and physically appear however He wants whenever He wants. FYI : I’m not interested in wierwille’s idea of a little god who answers to our beck and call and an absent savior.

But you’re thinking in modern concepts of multimedia which tries to provide as much of a virtual immersive experience as possible. Needs a lot of technology to do that. Seems like you’re trying to shoehorn Jesus’ appearance to Paul into your own interpretation of “the absent Christ” I think it was the actual presence of Jesus Christ in whatever form he so chose for others to experience - and they all certainly experienced something phenomenal!

Maybe look into what “vision” meant in Paul’s time and culture…in all 3 accounts – Paul notes the reactions of those who were with him : Acts 9:3-8, Paul was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Jesus, who told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in the city. His associates did not see the light, but heard the voice. Acts 22:6-11, Paul said he was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Jesus, who again told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in Damascus. In this account Paul’s companions saw the light but, unlike Paul, were not blinded. Acts 26.13-19, Paul told Agrippa that he saw a brilliant light and heard Jesus, who gave him his mission, but did not command him to go to Damascus. He fell down, but there is no mention of blindness, nor is there any mention of the men seeing or hearing anything, although for some reason they also fell down. He told those at Damascus and Jerusalem about his conversion experience. From what I gather in the details of these 3 accounts – it was probably NOT a vision like maybe some today would think of it being a closed circuit revelation streaming into one and only one person’s mind in a group of others. The details indicate Paul’s associates HEARD something, SAW a blinding light and FELL DOWN in REACTION to something they experienced.

Mike said: I only have time right now for one or two items. Maybe more later. If you identify your favorite item, I'll try that next. T-Bone’s response: It really doesn’t matter to me, Mike – I’m not a big fan of you going all over the map about the value of nonsense. So – you can pick one thing that is appropriate to this discussion on the NT canon - and please, please, please don’t whip out one of your stream-of-consciousness-disorganized-and-confused-roadmaps to nowhere. ~ ~ ~ ~ Mike said: What Godel showed, much to the consternation of the math world was that there were mathematical statements that are TRUE, but that CANNOT be proved or derived. They can be found, and noticed to always seem true, but they can't IN PRINCIPLE be proved. If this is true for the clean world of math truths, it is even more true for the messy world's "life's truths." T-Bone’s response: Yikes! You’re still going on about the price of Kool-Aid in China…well…this bears repeating: that really doesn’t matter to me, Mike – I’m not a big fan of you going all over the map about the value of nonsense. Please talk about something appropriate to this discussion on the NT canon - and please, please, please don’t whip out one of your stream-of-consciousness-disorganized-and-confused- roadmaps to nowhere. ~ ~ ~ ~ Mike said: We can get told certain truths, as in revelation, but we can't prove them. This means logic can only take you so far, and then your are stranded. Accepting the possibility of true revelations from God is necessary to see the world of truths, most fully. T-Bone’s response: Here’s the thing, Mike. I have a hard time taking you seriously – because you come off like a child who finds big words on the internet – he doesn’t really understand what they mean but he tosses together a word salad and thinks he can carry on a meaningful conversation with adults. I suggested you Google the difference between mathematical logic and philosophical logic. But did you do that? Noooooo! You reply back pretty quick using some big words again. I don’t know why I’m even having this talking-passed-each-other-conversation with you right now…maybe part of the reason is I’m a softie and I tend to have compassion for someone who seems to be trapped in a particular mindset like I was…definitely part of why I engage in these discussions is the sheer pleasure of the Socratic method…I like to explore and learn…but I’m not stupid…actions speak louder than words…and often I can’t decide if you say stuff to just get a reaction from others…or run a reconfigured wierwille-idea up the flagpole and check out the response…or maybe there’s a slim chance you want out of a debilitating mindset – and so if it’s truly that - I’ll throw you a bone on the pursuit of truth. Sorry folks - sort of off-topic - but in a sideways connection it’s relevant to the NT canon in that the truth or falsity of the ancient NT docs being reliable is determined only by how consistently good in quality it is to communicate the original message. That was the essence of Bruce’s book. Scientific truth and mathematical truth give us no criteria for metaphysical truth. Therefore, what is needed is another definition of truth for the metaphysical realm. In reading up on philosophy, I lean toward one theory of what truth is – it’s called the correspondence theory of truth “In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world. Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or facts on the other.” From Wikipedia: correspondence theory of truth ....and remember it's just a THEORY !!!! So basically, truth consists in some form of connection…correlation…resemblance…agreement between a belief and a fact. For me, this gets into how I look at the Bible – and there’s a lot of ways to look at the Bible – even as a Christian. I believe the Bible is metaphysical truth (metaphysical = in a transcendent sense or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses) – that it is a revelation from God – written by people inspired of God. Considering that people are not perfect, have worldviews shaped by their times and culture, I think the Bible is best understood as metaphysical truth and not as scientific truth – it’s not written or laid out like a textbook. But consider the opening passage of the Bible - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”…Now I can use the correspondence theory of truth, and reason that Genesis 1:1 might very well correlate with the big bang theory…but that’s just my opinion I could be wrong. ...it's my best guess...that's all I know The big bang theory is one of scientists’ best guess on how the universe began – it is “the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution… the theory describes an increasingly concentrated cosmos preceded by a singularity in which space and time lose meaning (typically named "the Big Bang singularity")” (from Wikipedia: Big Bang ) ~ ~ ~ ~ Mike, at the end of your post you talked about some truths that cannot be proved. That’s right. God, Jesus Christ, heaven cannot be proved. Our logic can only take us so far. There is so much we don’t know. And like you said it is scary to tinker with one's Postulates. It's the unknown, and maybe even blasphemous. But a good searcher, researcher, seeker of truth will be brave and want to know what hidden assumptions (or Postulates) underlay their thinking. That’s what critical thinking is all about. And for a Christian there’s the twofold challenge: faith seeking understanding and understanding seeking faith.

Edited 2 hours ago by Mike the reformatting of the above quote within a quote is below 1. Mike said: .It was Kurt Godel who showed the limitations to the cleanest logic known: math He did this in 1933. His proofs are (or maybe were) regarded as the most difficult ideas in Western Civilization. As a result he and Einstein became neighbors and buddies. There are a few Godel fans here. We've discussed him before here. T-Bone’s response: Hold up! What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? How about for homework YOU do some Googling on the internet and learn the difference between Mathematical logic and philosophical logic and maybe you’ll make some sense in this discussion. ~ ~ ~ ~ 2. Mike said: .Please let me know when I do that, and I will consider it. Right now I don't exactly know what you mean, specifically. T-Bone: you mean like earlier when you were attempting to redefine logic and standard ideas to explain something. (see above point 1) Sure! I’ll keep calling attention to it like I’ve been doing. ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. Mike said: No, confirmation bias happens in the proof stages or even later. I am talking about the beginning, Postulate stages. Think Euclidean Geometry with proofs and theorems and Postulates. I explained this to WW a couple days ago, probably in the absent Christ thread. T-Bone’s response: whoop whoop the redefining alarm has been activated! oh hey, Mike – you’re doing it right now - again! Ah man, this is surreal. This was covered in points 1 & 2 – see above ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. Mike said: .Yes. My canon theory is actually VERY simple. I will soon re-write it here. The bookhouse stuff is not so simple. T-Bone’s response: whatever…I won’t hold my breath waiting…uhm...your canon theory doesn’t involve a Ouija board or using your Advanced Class nametag swinging-pendant style does it? You can answer yes...no...yes...no...ask the swinging Advanced Class nametag...yes...no... ~ ~ ~ ~ 5. Mike said: .No! It was not that. exactly. He taught us that the adversary had made difficult passaages that gave us sureness and power over him. It was subtle. He also taught us that we can get back to SOME of the originals by working the keys taught, and even including some academic research at times. But to get back to the FULLNESS of what the First Century believers had, it would require the assistance of God Almighty, which he had. God taught Dr and Dr taught us. T-Bone’s response: there you go scurrying back to your security blanket – wierwille. Right there is your number one postulate – you assume “God taught Dr and Dr taught us”. That’s what a postulate is - in verb form it means to suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of (something) as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief; in noun form it means a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief. You’ve just revealed the basis for your beliefs! Don’t kid me with talk of how much you’ve figured stuff out on your own and verified wierwille’s PFAL stuff was accurate and practical. You just managed to shoot your credibility in your other foot – oh my gosh you’re de-feeted! ~ ~ ~ ~ 6. Mike said: …I think VPW said something like 80% of what was reconstructed by the academics was available to us and accurate. T-Bone’s response: who cares what wierwille said?!?! He also said he took everything he could take from Moody Bible Institute via correspondence courses – and we know that’s a bold-faced lie! I’ve got the letter from the registrar’s office to prove it and wave it high with investigative pride every chance I get…but I must be honest - I’m rushing through this reply to you so I can get back to watching another episode of The West Wing with my wife – so you can hunt for that doc on Grease Spot using its search feature or go to my profile under albums > blast from the past. ~ ~ ~ ~ 7. Mike said: It's the fullness and power that God wanted us to have, minus the debilitating errors in tradition like JC=God, the dead are alive, new birth can be lost by sin, and a few other ringers. T-Bone’s response: “minus the debilitating errors in tradition like JC=God” ?!?! what the hell does that mean?!?! Hey, if you’re going to throw in senseless and inflammatory remarks would you please post them in the appropriate thread. I’ve already challenged you to participate in the Trinity – asset or liability? thread started by johniam…the darndest thing – as of right now I’ve got 67 posts filled to overflowing with Biblical, theological, philosophical, linguistic arguments that address the profound doctrine of the Trinity…Even though it appears johniam started the thread to trash Trinitarians and promote his favorite con artist – he only posted a handful of replies and the “best” ammo he had for attack-mode was a post saying wierwille was 7th in line of whatever and the other silly post was referring to the Omen film series. You should come join that discussion – you and him have a lot in common…come on…it’ll be fun. that's all for now...I'm off to watch more West Wing

Please explain what you think are the limitations of logic. Also, I prefer you don’t try to redefine words and conventional concepts. Maybe YOU imagine postulate selection leans on emotional commitments. But that’s sounds like mumbo jumbo. Maybe you’re thinking of confirmation bias. But speaking of theories and postulates I would think a good, valid or legitimate theory is usually simple and postulates clear testable predictions that are NOT refuted by evidence. I’m thinking of Einstein’s special relativity, and theory of general relativity, the Big Bang theory (NOT the TV show. ) for example. My earlier post mentioning FF Bruce’s book on asking are the NT Docs reliable - i think it’s obvious what Bruce proved through textual criticism (by evidence) refutes wierwille’s goofy “subliminal postulate” that suggested we can’t get back to the original message unless we “work The Word” his way . We don’t need wierwille’s PFAL class to find out what the Word of God really says !!!! Bruce PROVED the existing ancient NT docs ARE RELIABLE - in other words they are of consistently good quality to be trusted as communicating the original message!

Well, once again you've managed to shoot your credibility in the foot referencing one of wierwille’s lackeys. I’m supposed to be dazzled that Walter was impressed with your structure analysis – as if that even happened. But on the let’s-pretend-it-really happened argument, I would counter your argument by saying it doesn’t matter because Walter was wierwille’s flunkey - he obsequiously performed the relatively menial albeit conspiratorially necessary task of backing up wierwille’s skewed interpretations of the Bible. Penworks’ book Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International gets into that and … uhm …hold on… …My subroutine of cognitive skills is registering a temporal anomaly… …processing… …processing… eeyore…eeyore… …recalibrating… …recalibrating… Ah ha and a sis-boom-bah It’s not a temporal anomaly but a Déjà vu of someone’s diversionary tactics… …when I input the reference to Penworks’ book a subroutine of T-Bone Cognitive Skills must have correlated it with other recorded incidents of your diversionary tactics and my countermeasures to your evasiveness – like this one here on your 2nd wave thread - - hi there, remember us? Coincidentally on that thread we got into a similar discussion about the reliability of the NT docs. And that post of mine referenced another thread Plagiarism on the road to success - here where YOUR comment as you were reading Penworks’ book was: Mike said: I have it and am slowly reading it. My first objection, though, is how she objected to the idea that "the Bible interprets itself." I find that objection very dim witted, even when pumped up with detail like with the posters that attacked it 15 years ago here. It slowed down my reading, but I still intend to finish it. That interpretation issue lowered my expectations and the book's priority in my schedule. In a nutshell: Imagine how quirky it is for God to issue His Word to communicate to us, but then He FAILS to put cues, keys, and signposts in there to guide sincere seekers. That sounds like a bad way to get a message out. It's like Him saying "I want you to know something but I will not help you understand it." The phrase "The Bible interprets itself" is an extreme abbreviation of a complex idea. She did not do that justice IMO. The criticism this idea got here 15 years ago I thought was similarly lacking. My impression was that she was leading uninformed readers into thinking God is supposed to be mysterious, an old Catholic idea. Maybe her book will get better later. If you can recommend a spot to skip ahead to I would appreciate seeing what you feel is an section important to me. – see here for link to your post I’m not really impressed with your cursory reading skills and pretentious mumbo jumbo analytics. You don’t have time – or you don’t want to take the time – or you once did have the time and dismissed with prejudice what you saw on The New Testament canon…like your dismissive response to me on that Plagiarism thread – you pulled the same thing here – wanting someone to provide a shortcut by summarizing what’s on those hyperlinks about The New Testament Canon. I’m really not trying to give you a hard time. Me ...and I think some other Grease Spotters are trying to help you disentangle yourself from – for want of a better description – a problematic mindset. With some of the more detailed explanations you’ve given in this discussion - I am actually hopeful you are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel…And what do I mean by that? I mean at long last you’re referencing someone other than just wierwille and starting to get down to some essential nuts and bolts of a topic. And to further clarify my hopes: I don’t care what anyone thinks of wierwille, Grease Spot Café, Bullinger…whatever…what I like to see is the Socratic method in play…if everyone tries to be honest and clear we’ll get somewhere in boiling things down to the essential truths, facts, theories, and such. I’ve been honest and upfront with you. I think very little of wierwille – and it doesn’t matter to me if you or others think the world of him. I’ve been honest and upfront about Bullinger. I like his Companion Bible for certain details like literary structure – but I think some of his a priori assumptions are for the birds. And I can argue the pros and cons of various Bullinger doctrines with the best of them because I’ve done my homework and I know what I’m talking about. You may ask how will the Socratic method help me? Well Mike, all I can say about that is something I’ve learned from being a technician most of my life. A good technician has an insatiable desire to figure out how something works. I’ve had service calls where I could not diagnose the problem with a system. Sometimes when I get that frustrated, I dissemble the whole thing – at least identify the essential parts. That’s when I might discover a faulty part or bad installation technique by another technician. That’s when I can fix it. I used to train installers and service technicians. I pushed 3 steps - investigate the problem, isolate the problem, eliminate the problem. Sort of like the Socratic method. If you really want to get your message out to others – first figure out what that message is. If it’s wierwille is a great Bible teacher – well, you might want to zero in on something that’s easier to prove. And if it’s I learned from PFAL the Bible interprets itself – well, don’t pick something that’s impossible to prove either. I have a high opinion of the Socratic method on Grease Spot because it helps eliminate dubious theories and often boils things down to what essentially matters.