Twinky

There was nothing memorable about the class when I took it. No dogs with women videos. There was negligible stuff about families, Christian or otherwise. In these days of inappropriate treatment of children, you might think there'd be loving guidelines about bringing up a child with tenderness and love (oh wait - this is TWI), teaching kids to say prayers at an early age, etc. I recall nothing of the type. There was probably a section about wives submitting to their husbands - their husbands, not to other men/other wives' husbands. Whatever - this section would have been taught in a way that pushed females to a lower status than men. (And, not followed in practice anyway, where other men's wives were fair game for VPW and LCM.) When it came to sex, there was no careful teaching about (if you like) how to make love (not sex) except that "sex starts at the breakfast table" - in other words, be nice to your wife all day if you want her to be nice to you at night. Some people are even now, and more so when this class was recorded, remarkably ignorant about how babies are made, best times to make babies, natural family planning etc. This got a brief nod and may have taken all of 5 mins. It could have been a decent, careful explanation - but it wasn't. No teaching about what happens to a woman's body during pregnancy, extra care she might need, post-partum issues, or possible loss of libido. What I do recall is a great long list of nicknames for men's and women's private parts. VPW spent a lot of time on this. We needed to know, because people might use these names to describe their sexual problems to us when we were "counselling" them, so we'd need to know what these terms meant, and not to be shocked by them. This class was a total disappointment, an abysmal waste of time, and if you'd paid for it, an utter waste of money.

At the moment, my microwave /small fan oven has failed - the Start button doesn't work any more. Worn out, I think. It's surprising how many times I want to use the oven - to cook conventionally, to mwave food, or simply to soften some butter. How easily we become reliant on technology. With an enormous power outage, practically everything everywhere would stop. No electricity for street lights and home appliances. No ATMs, no fuel pumps. How long would hospital generators continue to work? No info from satellites! No info from satellites? Wow! No media! Just think about all the out-of-work celebs there would be!

Skyrider! After all this time you care - to re-take WAP?

I think, after all this time, I really don't care any more. What does WAP stand for anyway - Waste of Abundance and Personality? Find a decent church, get to know the people there, and see what they DO, not just what they say.

This thread has got right off topic, so I'm just posting the starter post to remind people what the thread's about. It would be interesting to know what differences there are - and what still remain.

That's disappointing, when he agreed to 30 years. It's obviously not in the nature of a "contract" that he agreed to, when he agreed to be extradited. And then to lodge an appeal?! He'll still be an old man when he get out - if he gets out. Methinks the "accidents" that have befallen him, and attacks from other inmates, may not improve his lifespan. He may be unhealthy from years of prison life. Perhaps getting geriatric illnesses and diseases. In the UK sometimes such prisoners are given early release, because a prison isn't a hospital and they don't have facilities to deal with the problems - like dementia, or serious degeneration of their bodies - of very elderly prisoners. But some - like Ian Brady, a notorious torturer and killer of young children - die there, despite their condition (he had brain cancer). Perhaps they're kept in because even after decades, it's safer for them in prison.

Also, Chockfull, if someone didn't complete the WAP class(es), did that become the leader's fault (because the leader didn't "undershepherd" well enough? I recall pressure to get people signed up to run classes, more pressure to keep people who'd started the class, and then of course if the people didn't stick around... I recall LCM shrieking about poor undershepherding - that was when PFAL was being run. I was gone before WAP was introduced.

Interesting, I'd never read much about this. Didn't realise that the gang was mostly women. In the UK, these women (and the male gang member) would probably have been allowed out on licence long ago. (Parolees are, of course, supervised, and can be recalled at any time and for any - or no - reason.) I'd think, with careful psych treatment, they could have been returned to society and got on with life, at least to some extent. With their cult leader out of the way, they could have resumed "normal" brain function. As for Manson himself, he seems to have been such a degenerate person that no matter where he was, he ought to have been locked up forever - as indeed he was. A horrible start to life, apparently, but did nothing to redeem himself or improve his life chances. What a waste.

I did actually pose the question as a serious one.

So this infamous cult leader has finally died, in prison. No loss to society. Any thoughts, anyone? What happened to his followers? Were any imprisoned? Released? Gone on to be helpful, or horrible, members of society?

Ah, T-Bone, not going to give up posting here - just that I won't bother attempting to engage with rrobs.

Difficult to know, but I'm not falling for it again. This is the second thread (at least) where he's talked past me, won't engage. So I won't get involved in his threads again. If he posts again!

Grace, have a practice in the area at the bottom of the Home page, called Testing 1 2 3. You can try out whatever you might need to do, there, or perhaps even find out some answers to other potential problems.

"Stinky"???? Okay, I see you changed that in a later post. Do you know you can edit posts, Grace?

I am coming to the conclusion that rrobs may have Asperger's syndrome. Clearly intelligent, well able to function in a mechanical way (after all, he was a pilot) - but not able to comprehend the meaning behind the words. Asperger's people take things at face value; literally; black and white; that's it. Excellent at some tasks, logical, decisive. But lacking, as Rocky remarks, empathy and compassion. Asperger's people can learn a little of what goes on behind the words, but they don't comprehend it. There's more to life than that. Words encapsulate what goes on in the heart. "Love" as such isn't literal, isn't quantifiable or measurable, and isn't mechanical. Nor is "forgiveness." If these are any of those "mechanical" things, it's not love and it's not forgiveness. An alternative to rrobs having Asperger's is that he is simply a Waybot, the sort of person that spouts the scriptures but doesn't properly consider who he's talking to and what their needs might be, but simply talks right over them. These people are like records or tape machines. They aren't really interested in what the person they are talking to has actually said, don't pay attention to responses, and they don't "draw out" from whomever they are talking to what is really going on, what the problem really is. Sadly, Waybots don't even notice when responses cease. Rather, this seems to make them spout even more scripture of increasing irrelevance to the person they are addressing. I don't know whether Waybot-ness is learned behaviour or whether it patterns onto something in the Waybot's own personality. Whatever... they still miss the point that they are dealing with people and people's issues. And thus, (despite probably being well-meaning) they fail to be good ministers of the gospel. I prefer to think of rrobs as the former. The latter thought is too horrible to entertain.

T-Bone, what are you on???!!!

Thank you, Rocky. Looks like rrobs doesn't bother to read responses. He could easily have seen those posts. Not like this is a long thread; this is only page two.

I find it most interesting that rrobs posts something about being loving and getting on and loving the unlovable (paraphrase). I posted something very personal and directly on point; an initial post and a follow-up one. Other people have commented, and one kind poster has PM'd me. I know rrobs has had the opportunity to see it, because he has posted a couple of things after that. What has he said, or done? Just plain IGNORED IT and thus IGNORED ME. How very "loving" of him.

Hahahahahaha! PFAL was the biggest "clone class" going. A stolen class from someone who'd genuinely put it together. Oh, the irony!!

It's much more deeply seated than that, Grace. Sis has some psychological problems, and I am the unwitting focus for these. It is absolutely nothing to do with me. She has some sort of anger management issues (I believe) and I am a "safe" focus for these, where she dare not express them to the person(s) concerned. I have sought counselling/reconciliation with the aid of a totally independent minister associate, my Mum's minister, whom I hardly know (my sister would know her much better) - it was a disaster and the minister was shocked at the violence of sis's litany of issues. I believe it is a spiritual issue. I (and others) pray for her, and for the other people caught up in this. It causes much deep hurt within family and friends. But there is nothing to be done until she herself recognises that she has a problem that needs to be addressed in some way. She is a nice caring (but controlling) person to everyone else and if anyone met her outside of any context that involves me, they would probably like her. Meet her in any context that has a connection to me, and they would get the cold shoulder (at best). To bring this back to the context of this thread, she is loved, treated well and kindly, but every effort is turned back. It is rebuffed, and worse, seen as some effort to manipulate her or control her life in some way. It is hard to love someone like that, but I do and nonetheless would do whatever I could to help her and would never do anything to harm her. Did not the Lord seek us out when we were totally unlovable, rejecting, and vile? Does he not welcome us back with open arms and complete forgiveness? Does he not hanker after reconciliation? As soon as we are ready, we are embraced in his love. And that is my deep desire, with my sister - and for all others that are lost in their worlds of hatred, misery, violence, addiction, or whatever their problem is.

rrobs, you're welcome to go and speak to my sister. Exemplary Christian that she is, she lets me know that I am a vile and unforgivable person because, it seems, I called her a name when we were both little kids, thereby totally ruining her entire life. I'm talking 50 years or more ago.

I posted this on another recent thread: (Oops, the bit at the end about Bolshevik's comment shouldn't be in the quote but I don't seem to be able to edit it out. I know I put the quote marks in the right place!)

I don't know if you in the US will be able to follow this link but it's a really interesting series of 15 min talks by Neil MacGregor, ex curator of the British Museum, now working in some top museum in Germany. Excellent credentials. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia, from which longer article I learn, to my surprise, that he is a devout Christian. He has run several most interesting series on examining the backgrounds to many artefacts and currently he is looking at Living with the Gods. It's of general interest, not even remotely considering the Bible, but is considering the routines of religions (that's plural), what they might have meant then and now, and similarities and differences. He bases his talk around some artefact that may or may not have (to us) religious significance. The artefact might be a garment, a coin, a shard... I mention this because it might give some insight into how some different religious practices came into existence. How those practices play out in other cultures, religions, time periods. One recently was about sacrifice, starting with Incas, moving through various stages, taking in Christianity, and moving forward. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c1mhy If that doesn't work, you could try bbc.com (rather than bbc.co.uk).

Might it be okay to think of "government" as "orderliness"? Rather than any specific form of rule, domination, etc. God had seen (Genesis) that the world had become chaotic, and imposed orderliness upon it. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace - orderliness. Christians are supposed to be peaceful, respectful, orderly, both in the church and in their relationships with other people. We are not "peaceable" if we are being anarchic, butting up against people, arguing and fighting. That, however, does to mean that we should not stand up for what we believe in: Mordecai [book of Esther], whose act of civil disobedience was not words but simply refusing to bow when the pompous bully Haman passed by. But Mordecai did not fight against the regime of the time - in fact, quite the opposite - his submission to that regime brought about hte liberation of his people.

Who cares who'd write it? Who the h311 would read it?