waysider

That's fodder for a good old-fashioned circular reasoning festival. :B)

Is it possible for something to be true without being a "spiritual truth"? Like the common sense advise in Proverbs. If you read the same thing in a bubble gum wrapper, would it still be good advise? I wonder about stuff like that.

Aside from scientific details, Wierwille had a flawed concept of the purpose of evolution. Evolution has no "end goal". It's a simply an ongoing process of survival. The specimens that are most adept at adapting to change are the ones that survive and propagate. The idea that Man is the highest form of evolution is deeply flawed. This, I think, is the aspect that frustrates deniers the most. edit: This may constitute an "actual error" because Genesis states that Man has dominion over everything. That's a lofty sounding concept but it's not founded in reality.

For whatever it's worth, The Way used to tackle evolution by teaching it was lateral rather than vertical and could not cross genus boundaries.

There are tons of things we can learn if we accept it to be allegory. The problem, however, is that fundamentalist thinking insists it is historical. That approach brings the learning process to a grinding halt.

....having sex is hardly any different than sticking your finger in someone's ear. Fortunately, I never had to chose between the two.

And all this "believe for this and believe for that" was based on a bunch of new-age mysticism that had about as much value as a hot pile of steaming monkey dung.

Now you've gone and done it. Your negative confession has sealed their fate. edit: :P

It was supposed to be your own fault because it meant you weren't believing correctly. It meant you were spiritually weak. No one wants to be accused of being the spiritually weak person whose negative believing is dragging down the twig, branch, training program, whatever. I know of people who literally died (as in left the planet) or came dangerously close to death, trying to believe their way out of serious health problems or physically dangerous situations. Then, after they died, they were publicly denigrated for failing to believe for deliverance. Isn't it bad enough their false doctrines caused people to die? Did they really have to lampoon their character, as well?

They had a real knack for twisting reality to keep people subservient. Here's an example: One year, when the Corps were on *the cleanse*, Wierwille gave an order that no one should leave the grounds. One young man decided to sneak into town for some snacks. Another young man (Gary D.) decided to go with him. They were involved in a horrific auto accident and, as a result, Gary D. died. Wierwille called the driver a murderer to his face and said that anyone who had cheated on the cleanse was complicit, as well. The spin that permeated the ministry was that Wierwille had received revelation that the event would take place and this is why the "don't leave" order had been given. This, of course, made a perfect vehicle for promoting the idea that the MOG knew better than you, despite whatever reality might have indicated. (The MOG always knows the best way to do anything.) In retrospect, it directly contradicts the section of the Advanced Class where it is taught that revelation is always for "profit" (ie: You won't get revelation that a plane is going to crash unless you are going to do something to stop it.) Everything about The Way was a matter of perspective. The important lesson to accept was that it wasn't YOUR OWN perspective that mattered. edit: Gary D.'s death.

Unless you have some really awesome friends, they're probably not going to stick around for three months, listening to patronizing babble. Once you've lost your original support system and replaced it with a pseudo-support system, you are much more vulnerable to their suggestions and demands.

It makes complete sense.

"That's the REAL wierwille in action. How dare you usurp HIS authority on the Word! What gives YOU the right, you snot-nosed punk, to think that you can research the Scriptures to rightly-divide them? Why, you're hardly wet-behind-the-ears and you think you can challenge my research work, my pfal foundation?" This is the scary part: Although his anger may (or may not) have been real, his rationale was having a concern for something he already secretly knew was bogus. It was an act. Part of the emotion may have been real but the character was contrived. edit: This is purely anecdotal. I've seen pathological liars become extremely agitated when you innocently question *facts* that don't seem to add up.

An overabundance of "straw bosses".

Last I heard, he's still alive and living in Brooklyn. :)

Somebody pass me a s'more.

It's not my intent to take this thread off-track or discuss the ins and outs of speaking in tongues. My point is simply this: We were led to believe we were spiritually special, noble if you please. It started with two essential ingredients of the PFAL class, believing and speaking in tongues. Take those two things out of the class and it just becomes another Sunday School lesson...a poor one, at that. But, like it or not, that's the thread that holds the whole PFAL series together. We supposedly had unique knowledge on these subjects that were hard or next to impossible to find anywhere else. Wierwille used that angle to set himself up as an authority figure and instructed a small inner circle of followers how to do the same. Meanwhile, we felt like we had an inside track that other groups only hoped for. We had an elitist, aristocratic attitude. We thought of ourselves as being spiritually noble. Well, we were THE BEST!, after all. Wierwille said so himself. edit: My apologies to chockful. I did a poor job of trying to make my point and didn't mean anything to be taken personally.

Well it was one of those kind of thoughts that runs through your head while you're waiting for the toaster to spit out your pop-tarts.

"wayside I still disagree with this. And you are stating it as fact." It is, indeed, a fact that what we called speaking in tongues (also called glossolalia) is not limited solely to Christians and has been around much longer than Christianity. This "fact" is irrelevant to your experience or mine. How people use it and perceive it is a whole other matter but it's lengthy historical existence is simply a fact, not an opinion.

Despite what the calendar may have indicated, must of us were still "kids" when we became involved with The Way. Current thinking is that mental adulthood is not reached until about 25 years of age. We were like silly-putty, just waiting to be molded.

Even Non-Christians do what we called "speaking in tongues" and have been doing so since long before the days of Christ. It's not unique or mystical. We only thought it was. It was a way to give ourselves unique positioning in the religious world.

"The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers, And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.".....Cream I wonder if people will assign some sort of *spiritual meaning* to this, 2,000 years from now.

"twi's main income has always been its REGULARS- and low pfal tuition paved the way for more regulars." Exactly. It didn't really matter WHAT The Way charged for PLAF (The Wonder Class). The objective was to create a cadre of followers who would vow to relinquish a large portion of their income to the organization, on a long term, regular basis. Anything they made on the class, itself, was icing on the cake.

So, if you paid $100 dollars for the class, did you only get half as "blessed" as the person who paid $200? And what about those poor souls who were only able to get $40 worth of blessing?

The idea of not wanting to redo the original PFAL series is something that always bothered me, greatly, even back in the 1970's, primarily because of the way it was rationalized.. There was a great deal of hype floating around suggesting it was sooooo perfect it could not be improved upon. I didn't buy into that back then and I certainly find it humorous now. Another thing that bothered me was that, despite Wierwille's feigned zeal for Word Over The World!, he was not the least bit interested in making it available to anyone unless it turned him a profit. All that mumbo-jumbo about it being perceived as less valuable if it was free was just that...mumbo-jumbo. Having to pay for the class was simply a way to delude yourself into believing you had made a good choice. If the product had been all it was purported to be, it could have been free and no self delusion would have been needed.