waysider

rrob In the realm of critical thinking, this is what is known as a straw man. A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition...SOURCE No one said nothing has changed since Adam and Eve or that everything is just the same.

rrobs No one is attacking you. Disagree with some of your points? Sure. But, not attacking you. Do you not realize that what you assume to be "the word" is really just someone's private interpretation of it? Sometimes you can spend years, even decades, thinking you understand a verse or section of scripture, only to find you were mistaken about it's meaning. It's just simply not possible to "know that you know that you know". Learning is an adventure. You can never be quite sure where it will lead you.

You can say it if you want to. Me? I'll pass because, quite frankly, it doesn't.

That's a huuuuge assumption, especially when you factor in chronology. Remember...the gospels were written quite a bit AFTER the epistles. At any rate, the audience would have been limited and you can't know what depth of understanding someone might have come away with.

I can only speak for myself on this point: I've heard more than enough "teachings" to last me a couple lifetimes. But, anyway, who's wound up? Certainly not me. The simple fact is, all this stuff is inextricably interwoven. If you heard something in, let's say, PFAL, what would be the point in avoiding the name of the class? Likewise, if you heard something that was taught by VPW, what would be the point in avoiding where you heard it? That sounds counterproductive to me. You don't do that with secular subjects, do you? I mean, if you're discussing the inner workings of an aircraft powerplant, it's perfectly fine to cite the source of your information, is it not?

Fine, I'll rephrase my response. The organization we aligned ourselves with was completely dependent on John Nelson Darby's dispensationalism, which we knew to be called administrations. Better?

Who knows what they understood? It's not like they were in a situation where information was readily available.

Truth be told, (it's just an expression.) Wierwille rarely taught ANYTHING about Jesus. The concept of nine manifestation that Wierwille taught was borrowed from another source. Bullinger maybe? I don't remember. I do know, however, all the definitions of the *manifestations*, which can be found in the Advanced Class syllabus, did not originate with Wierwille. He copied those from an uncited source, almost word-for-word.

Except...There was no book of Romans at the time the epistle to the Corinthians was written. Most scholars feel Romans was one of the last letters written, perhaps even the very last. Would the Corinthians have even had access to it if, indeed, it did exist at that time? There was no canon or consolidated form of the epistles until centuries later. The concept that proposes the epistles follow a "doctrine/reproof/correction" sequence as they appear in modern Bibles is a man made concept. To make matters even more complicated, the gospels were written well AFTER the Pauline epistles. The idea of the new testament being written in a chronological order is completely man made. Much of what we thought we learned during our time spent in The Way was completely dependent on accepting Darby's dispensationalism, which Wierwille relabeled administrations. That seems like an easy question, yet it has no easy answer.

All nine all the time. Hey. That's pretty good. It's nine more then VPW operated. The most I ever saw him do was repeat the old "Lo Shanta La Macka See Tay" shtick. Does anyone have any evidence VPW operated all nine...or even one? I'd love to hear about the evidence. edit: VPW teaching how to operate "all nine all the time" is like a homeless guy teaching how to achieve financial success... except, there really is such a thing as financial success.

Are you comparing yourself to Paul? I'm sure you probably didn't mean it like that, but that's how it sounds. Anyway, Paul's not here, so it's a non-issue. BTW, for anyone still interested in the original topic, it's important to note that Are The Dead Alive Now? is also a product of plagiarism. For this one, Wierwille combined Bullinger's The Rich Man and Lazarus: An Intermediate State? and King Saul and the Witch of Endor, which is currently out of print HERE is a discussion we had some time ago.. And, of course, if you combine Bullinger's How To Enjoy The Bible, Figures of Speech in The Bible, along with portions of BG Leonard's class (which Wierwille absconded after forcing his way into it when it was offered in Canada.) and Stile's book, being discussed here, you have almost the entire PFAL class, as well as large portions of the Intermediate and Advanced classes.. "The Word, like it hasn't been known since the first century!"...VPW (My mommy told me it's not nice to lie.)

Or Peter Parker and that Spidey Dude.

The food we ate wasn't great. But it wasn't terrible, either. The big problem was quantity. The meals were skimpy and not very filling. We all worked full time, mostly at labor intensive jobs. A Swiss Chard and veggie salad just doesn't cut it as a main course after a long, hot day in a factory or foundry.

I have to go with the *cheap* explanation. In FellowLaborers, we usually only had some type of meat once a week. Why? Meat is expensive. We did, however, have sprouts on an almost daily basis. They're not as good at providing protein as meat is but they provide some of the pieces for the amino jig saw puzzle. We also had familia on an almost daily basis. Familia is oat based and typically has some form of nuts added. Both are sources of amino acids that are missing in the sprouts. So, there you have the missing pieces of the protein puzzle. Plus, we grew many of our own vegetables to save money. conclusion: cheap, cheap, cheap. (Is there a bird in here?)

"As the familia churns" (It's a real gas, man.)

Oh, O.K. Our equivalent would be ".pizz off".

Wow! It's like Lawrence Welk on quaaludes.

Speaking only for myself, I don't mind when threads go off on tangents...as long as the tangents aren't meant to deliberately change the topic. I think we've all seen our share of those. But having a little peripheral fun? I'm cool with it. BTW: In the U.S., we say "bug" off. (Like when you chase away a pesky mosquito or something.) Close enough for me, though.

Now you've hit on something important! People here really do understand that aspect of it all. You see, its all interwoven... the word, The Way, VP, LCM, etc. What makes you think what you call *the word* isn't really just what VP wanted you to think it is? The PFAL Class, the Intermediate Class, the Advanced Class, for that matter, all the peripheral classes, as well, are jam packed with documentable errors. Geeze, I mean even VP's system for separating truth from error is filled with error. You're using a broken ruler to check the accuracy of another ruler...What could possibly go wrong? (/s)... I can tell you from experience, simply throwing scriptures at a problem is no remedy for the curve balls life throws at us.Don't even get me started on *the law of believing*. We'll be here until Happy Ho Ho. On a side note: If you have a specific doctrinal issue you wish to discuss, we have a forum for that toward the bottom of the page. Yep, you guessed it, it's called the doctrinal forum. You are more than welcome to start a new thread or reopen an existing thread that addressed one of the doctrinal points you raised. Just be civil and all will be cool. Meanwhile, the topic at hand here is discussing the similarities of Stile's book with Wierwille's, as well as the differences..

Well, if he did, he wasn't listening very closely because both books contain academic errors.

Seriously? As a pilot, you almost certainly have a post-secondary level of education. Am I correct in that? How can one possibly advance one's education without a thorough understanding of academic honesty? No matter. You can use the search window here to find several threads where we discussed plagiarism in great detail.

No, they're not similar. By literary standards, they are identical. One was published in 1948, the other in 1972. That's called plagiarism. If you are not familiar with what constitutes plagiarism, we would be glad to enlighten you. If two high school books did this, it would still be plagiarism.

I thought we passed that point in the discussion. I have to assume you may be afraid of what that link reveals. Hiding your head in the sand (avoiding that link) does not make reality go away. And, yes, I'm glad I'm not you, too.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth so I'll ask you forthright... Are you trying to say that, because he was human and all humans make mistakes, that it was o.k. for him to blatantly steal (yes, I said steal. Plagiarism is theft.) the works of other men and claim that God gave them to him? Did you even examine at the comparison I posted? I suggest you do so before you proclaim you know what it contains.

The focal topic of this thread is comparing Stile's book to Wierwille's book and noting the inordinate similarities. Perhaps you missed the link that details the similarities. Here it is for your perusal: http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_stiles.htm Your comment on the comparison is welcome.