modcat5

This is an experimental answer: Most of us are not unbelievers, though some are. Many of us still hold to some form of what was taught in TWi although that varies wildly from person to person. A handful are mainstream Christians. A handful are unbelievers. Some are connected to various offshoots. The only thing most of us have in common is that at one time in our lives, we took the "foundational class" offered by TWI.

UPDATED: 8/12/2019 This forum is an experiment. We will decide whether it is constructive based on how it progresses. The idea is simple: If you have a question about The Way International, past present or future, this is the place to ask. Due to the nature of this forum, we reserve the right to revisit the issue of who can ask and answer questions. For now, you do NOT need to be registered with GSC to ask a question. You DO have to be registered with GSC to answer and to respond to answers. ALL QUESTIONS have to be approved by moderators. Answers do not. Answers are not to be considered official statements from GSC, its owners or moderators. The standard rules of GSC apply: No namecalling, no "outing" people, no libel/slander, etc. The moderators and owners of GSC will not disclose the IP addresses of those who post here unless legally necessary (don't make threats, and we should all be happy). To clarify for those reading the responses to this question: it was originally posted as "Are you all unbelievers?" A similar question was asked by a guest, so I changed this one to make it more clear that this thread is an explanation of what we're attempting here.

At the suggestion of GSC posters, we have decided to rearrange what was formerly the "doctrinal" section. The "main forum" is now called "Matters of Faith." "Matters of Faith" is for threads that are difficult to categorize. Ideally, it should be empty. But sometimes a thread is hard to categorize by design. Most threads have been moved from this forum accordingly. Some remain because they were too hard to categorize or because they are old and inactive. "Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible" is for explorations about what the Bible actually teaches. It is, de facto, a Christian "safe space." Atheists and unbelievers are welcome to post, but your contribution should be limited to exploring what the Bible says and means, not why you think it's nonsense. Questions may be fair game, but in this forum, "because the Bible says xyz" is an acceptable answer. [Examples: 1. when I post about speaking in tongues, my believe that it's all fake is out of line in doctrinal. My belief that Biblical tongues is always a language, on the other hand, is perfectly fair game. 2. If the discussion is about tithing, it is out of line for me to say tithing is a way to milk $$ from the gullible. My belief that requiring a tithe under the New Testament cannot be supported Biblically is fair game]. When in doubt, make your point and start a new thread in... "Atheism, non theism, skepticism: Questioning Faith" is for explorations of why some might or have decided or come to the realization that they no longer believe in God or Christianity. The fact that the Bible teaches something, anything, is proof of nothing in this forum except that the doctrine is Biblical. Christians are free to post in this forum. They are free to ask questions. They may not like the answers! Page 4 of the Deconversion thread contains a terrific example of an exchange between me and chockfull in which he expresses his Bible-based position, and I respond and it's cordial and everything's fine. The problems begin when the name calling starts. Gullible. Arrogant. Brainwashed. Fool. Pharisee. Depraved. That has to stop. Everyone is free to post in any thread. But please, be respectful. You wouldn't go to a church and spread your unbelief. Consider your conduct in doctrinal. And if you use the Bible to prove your point in Questioning Faith, you can expect the Bible's authority on the subject to be scrutinized. The above [italicized portion] was added 11/26/2024. The original post is below: The main GSC rules apply: NO POLITICS. Also, no namecalling, etc. You know the drill. Subsections of this forum include (as of Aug. 2019) the old doctrinal section, which is now explicitly to explore what the BIBLE teaches, and "Atheism, nontheism, skepticism: Questioning Faith." This is a specific section where people are more free to explore issues that do not presuppose the existence of a God/god/gods. Anyone, regardless of belief or unbelief, is free to post on any thread. We only ask that people recognize the presuppositions of each forum (for example, in the doctrinal section, whether or not you believe the Bible is true, it is expected that your posts will explore what the Bible actually teaches, regardless of whether you believe it. By the same token, "chapter and verse" is not adequate for evidence being sought in "questioning faith" unless the issue being explored is "what does the Bible say." What the Bible says is not a guarantee for truth in that subforum). As always, the job of the moderators is to facilitate conversation. When in doubt, post in "Matters of Faith" and we will review it and place it where we believe it belongs. Best wishes, all. The mods.

According to a radio interview in one of his movies, the band that influenced him most was Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters. ---Raf posting

Socks is talking about appearances. He has a point, whether anyone sees it differently or not. Moreover, we're talking about how it appears... to Socks. On that, there can be no argument. The suggestion has merit independent of what we think when we see "Questioning faith" under "Doctrinal." I suspect we will be tinkering with this forum shortly. Again, REALLY good idea

Good feedback. Thank you

There were no posts removed.

I'll talk it over with modgellan and any other mods who wander back. In the meantime, if you could use this thread to flesh out what you mean, it could give us some guidance. [I like this idea: I'm just trying to figure out its most practical and useful implementation]

Twinky is right. I was about to delete posts that did not contribute to the conversation, but given the topic of this thread, that's not really plausible. The offending posts WERE the topic. Thank you, though.

The false accusations end now. The hyperbolic slander ends now. Abusive behavior will not be tolerated. Enough

Oh ffs

Tell them where to find me. Tell them EXACTLY where to find me. And show them screen caps of the perfectly innocuous posts that made you lose your mind and accuse an innocent man of cyberstalking and abusive behavior. If we're all lucky, oldiesman will be gracious snd not sue you for making false accusations and making him out to be a criminal. You need to back off, DWHB. You have been making false, unsubstantiated and inflammatory accusations for months now and we all love you so much no one wants to stand up to you. So by ALL MEANS, send my contact information to the cybercrimes division of skynet or whoever you think you're calling. I would be BEYOND HAPPY to talk to them. Until then, follow the rules of GSC or watch us enforce them.

The post is in humor, oddly enough. Pretty much whenever the site goes down, GreasyTech is the one who brings it back up. The rest of us sit around and watch Stranger Things

Everyone please give a hand to GreasyTech for fixing the formatting problem with GSC. Welcome back! Back to where we were...

Just now realizing this is the humor forum. We'll leave it at this: No politics. Period. The opening post will stay up as an example of what NOT to post. Whether something is political will be discussed by the mods if there's any need for that. The decisions we make in that regard, as a whole, are guaranteed to be both flawed and final.

Thank you, Paw, for the trust and the compliment! Might be a good time to remind people there's a donate button at the top of the page! :)

The opening post reflects the challenge we face. Making fun of Pat Robertson would appear to be fair game until you realize his connection to the Republican party and its base. The tweet quoted in the opening post doesn't even try to mask the political nature of its contempt for Robertson, with its "Trump/Putin 2020" statement: CLEARLY political. I would be among the first to say there's a difference between politics in 2014 and politics in 2019. If you know me on a personal level, you know I have a LOT to say on the subject. I also know what would happen to GSC if the "no politics" rule were not rigorously enforced, with an abundance of caution as the guiding principle. I'm not trying to shot down the idea of this thread. Or maybe I am. I just do not see, at all, how it can work here without devolving rapidly into a political discussion. We didn't even make it through the opening post. I will await the input of my mod-ally before taking any action on this thread. I do hope this doesn't put Kathy off posting here. She seems to have been on the receiving of a lot of mod action lately (not a judgment or criticism: just an observation).

Gary Busey DC Cab Mr T oops. forgot to Raf

A statement I posted yesterday explaining action I took as a moderator inadvertently made it seem that only one person was the target. The target of the moderating action was an exchange, not a single poster. We once again urge ALL posters to stay on topic. Thank you.

FYI http://www.fox9.com/news/investigators/wife-of-alleged-cult-leader-victor-barnard-files-for-divorce

DWBH: I am taking you at your word that the person you identified as Victor Barnard's wife is, in fact, his wife. EDIT: This post originally appeared to be directed entirely at DWBH. That was my communication error, for which I take sole responsibility. The remainder of this post is directed at ALL USERS. Multiple user posts were deleted, INCLUDING MY OWN. DWBH did not deserve to have the entire post appear to be directed at him. I am deeply sorry. --modcat5, Raf. Personal "calling out" of posters for being "friends" or "followers" on Facebook will not be tolerated on this site. To be clear, there are people who "like" and "follow" pages and identify as "friends" with people for the purpose of being able to keep track of what those people do and say on social media. It does NOT necessarily mean those people are actually "friends" or that the "follower" is indeed a follower of that person. I "follow" and monitor multiple people and campaigns that I do not endorse, either on a personal or especially on a professional level. Multiple posts on this thread were deleted in their entirety. One was trimmed to eliminate what I consider to be a minor but significant infraction of our rules. This thread is about its topic. Any future posts that are not on topic will be deleted. Not edited. Not trimmed. Not examined. Deleted. Please do not transfer an argument from a previous thread, especially one where the offending comments have been deleted, onto other threads. On a personal note: Dear friends are putting us in a position of having to take sides. We don't want to. But when it comes to GSC, we have ONE side: GSC. We will do what we must in the best interest of the site. If we err, we err. But it will NOT be out of disrespect for the mission, purpose and interest of GSC. I hope and trust this is the last time moderators will need to intervene in this dispute.

After careful consideration and in an overabundance of caution, we have decided to hide the spinoff thread that emerged from this discussion. We are aware that this action may be perceived as protecting people whose actions do not deserve protection. Please be assured that the only people we are interested in protecting with this decision are our posters, our moderators/administrators and our site owner. We suppose there is a place for healthy discussion about the second and third tiers of cult leaders, those who enable the leaders, the aiders and abettors of their abuses. But it's a fine line between identifying someone as VB's right hand man and accusing him of participating in criminal behavior. This decision is not final and the thread has not been deleted. It has been hidden so that we can delve into our previous policies on naming people to determine whether there is some middle ground we can reach where names are acceptable under conditions a, b and c but not x, y and z. We are amateurs at this. We are erring on the side of caution and protecting GSC against liability. Thank you for your patience as we seek to work this out.

Raf posting: First, the post-resurrection gospel never changed. In the gospels, pre-resurrection, it was the kingdom. But at the end of the gospels, Jesus gives the explicit instruction to disciple all nations in his name. The only change, scripturally, is that he's resurrected now. There are 40 days of appearances, only a small handful of which are shared in the gospels and Acts. We don't know how many people witnessed each appearance. But if you think he's teaching them the same thing after the resurrection that he was teaching before... I don't even know what to say to that. He of all people knows things have changed, and how. It is beyond reason to think he would not have shared information that they needed to know in order to make disciples of all the nations in his name after having instructed them to do so! So why DON'T the 12 do what he said explicitly to do? The Bible's answer is implied: the 12 struggled to get past the primacy of Israel and the Jews as God's chosen people. It's the only thing that explains Jesus needing additional visions after being told in person by the risen Christ to disciple all nations in his name. [The skeptical answer is that this is a major plot hole in a made up story, but I don't need to resort to that]. Peter should never have needed to explain to the disciples that Paul was justified in preaching to the Gentiles because all of them would have remembered Jesus explicitly saying disciple all nations in his name. So why did Paul learn more than the 12? It's not because he had a different mission. He had the same mission. It's because he got serious about carrying it out. And once he demonstrated his commitment to the instruction, he got more. So the revelation of the One Body comes to Paul. Why? Because the 12 failed to follow the instruction while Paul dedicated himself to it. Easy. Biblical. Corresponds to all scripture on the subject without inventing a reason for Jesus to not mean precisely what he said when he said disciple all nations in his name. [The skeptical answer, of course, is that Paul made his doctrine up and Christianity retconned the words of Jesus to make Paul consistent with his post-resurrection instructions. There being no resurrection, Jesus never said any such thing. The plot hole is only created when you have him say something clear and unambiguous and his most faithful followers completely ignore it].

I just deleted the thread while trying to get rid of a duplicate post. Feel free to carry on while we try to fix it...