potato

I only watched high country caravan on video. I didn't like them, but I never like hee-haw either, and they seemed like a direct rip off of the whole idea. yeah, like the SERMONS? those were just like side-show performances. talk about ego.

thank you, WG. I didn't remember that as being part of PFAL, but it certainly explains some things. it was a deeply engrained part of twi culture. I wonder how Bathsheba, as Uriah's wife, reacted. no one said no to the king, so her cooperation was most certainly coerced because of his position of power, unless he took the time to seduce her. was she afraid? did she cry afterward? was what David did essentially RAPE? I think it probably was. Bathsheba didn't have a choice. looking at Nathan's confrontation, it would certainly seem that god equated David's rape of Bathsheba to destroying something precious. in the parable, the beloved lamb was sacrificed for a feast. that implies greed and lust and a disregard for others. nice qualities in a king! since the MOG was the modern-day spiritual equivalent of David, it must have been easy to overlook the effect on the women who were used if David's only crime was murder. from what Nathan said, though, God saw it differently.

sounds like you're moving through the stages of grief. I don't know if it's denial to anger, or bargaining to acceptance, for me they were kind of jumbled up sometimes. I remember though that ANGER was an essential part of it. instead of listening to the people who told me not to be angry, get over it, etc. I decided to embrace it. I confessed it. I said "I'm angry!" until I quit feeling bad about feeling. so, what you're feeling is actually healthy. it means you'll be able to move on, at least emotionally. since you have ties through a child, it won't be a clean get-away and you'll end up working through things over and over as long as she's toxic, but at least once you've been through the process you'll find it gets easier each time you have to do it. with practice, pretty soon you'll be able to read the signs of manipulation and just not play the game.

pfal was always a means to an end.

I know there are devout christians who are inclusive, not exclusive, who have empathy rather than egotism regarding their beliefs. so yeah, I wasn't implying that faith in jesus is equal to being afraid of looking at other points of view. the brand that twi taught us was so incredibly exclusive. we were taught to avoid anything that contradicts it, in other words to reject it as a valid source of information. without even considering it! because you know, Eve got in trouble by considering the words of the serpent. so you keep a certain rule of faith and practice intact, with no room to adjust according to Truth. because, you know, we can't know the Truth, just bits of it. so how will we learn more, if we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world? because the MOG has a direct line to god, so we're covered, people! when Mike made his call to get back to vpw's teachings as they concern the "only rule of faith and practice", I realized that what he was saying was probably simply no longer valid, even for those who continued to embrace christianity. I mean I assumed at least some of you guys decided to expand your understanding of your own faith, and that's what I'm finding to be true in the responses here. it applies to christians and non-christians, really. twi demanded narrow-mindedness from all of us. that's just not healthy, no matter what your spiritual beliefs.

seriously, I didn't want this to become the evangelical hour or a comparison of who's brand of christianity is most accurate. it was more about vpw's charge to make the scripture your "only rule of faith of practice", something I actually got tired of hearing regurgitated on this board. I'm still interested in how people have moved beyond vpw's teachings, or how you've revised your need for one source, as if your spiritual life were a trip to walmart. personally, I find I'm no longer afraid to consider other points of view. I'm no longer afraid that if I don't hold fast to the one source and the vpw interpretation thereof, that the devil will get his claws in me and it'll be worse for me than if I was seed of the serpent. I'm just not afraid of those things anymore, and it's opened up huge warehouses of knowledge, a multitude of avenues of inquiry.

I don't want to go back to something I've moved on from.

not sure if this is on topic, but I was talking with someone today about lcm's hatred of imperfection and his reaction to the deaf miss america, his comments about how some people should have been aborted and how we're weakening the gene pool (imagine the forehead talking about imperfections in others! fat, ugly, stupid and a bad dancer!). to me the kind of bombardment we went through in the 90s was a violation of human dignity, and very cruel. beyond that, my dossier at HQ is a violation of my privacy. religious cruelty, yeah: being held in a room on a conference call with the RCs office b!tch while she humilated and abused me over speakerphone. having every detail of my life controlled by my FCs. being hit and called names by my ex for questioning his decisions. being cut off from family and having to communicate with my sister in secret.

does anyone know with whom/when the dogma regarding David's sin originated? the one where David didn't sin in seducing (or raping, the record isn't clear) another man's wife, since all the women of the kingdom were his, but that David's only sin was in having Uriah murdered. seems like that one was a standard as far back as I can remember.

thank you for the thoughtful reply, Mark. your description of only rule of faith and practice is very different from vpw's, and I venture to say that the spiritual life you describe would be nearly impossible to accomplish if you were obedient to twi doctrine.

I'm a female potato :) you are right about the squeaky wheels. narcissists, the lot of them. my ex, too. he was "corps material" because of his attention-seeking behavior, until we actually made it into residence and he couldn't hold his stuff together. I'm so thankful we got kicked out. I hate squeaky wheels, and I hated the expectation that I should be one to get listened to. I like living with people who can just dialogue, explaining and listening, you know? didn't happen in twi. we were taught to listen with the ulterior motive to get people BACK ON THE WORD, and usually make them feel like crap in the process.

so, vpw actually encouraged incest. it makes me very sad to think there may have been some perverts in the room who took him up on the invitation. funny, I head someone talk about this teaching when I was pretty new to twi. it seemed so "out there" that it didn't register on my brain as valid.

with vpw it was "the word, the word, and nothing but the word". do you think he was right? what's different for you? is it the way you approach the bible, the way you think about it, and do you consider ideas from other sources, other points of view on the same subjects? since starting this thread, I've come to view the maintenance of my moral rule-set differently. rather than just walking away from the bible and trying to assess what I believe, I'm reading a lot and reconsidering my beliefs as I trip over them. that's why I claim to be agnostic, at least for now. twi was such an intellectual no-man's land. being forced to give up every independent thought didn't make me a better thinker. excluding all influences except the bible didn't make me a better person.

how the heck did "the squeaky wheel" idiom become such a part of twi culture? reading this just now really rubbed me the wrong way, because I went to twi leadership for help with my marriage and I was told I was the problem in spite of the fact that my ex is a pathological liar.once I was divorced they accused me of not having asked for help.... when I pointed out that I did, they said I should have kept after it, because "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". all I can say to that now is "SCREW THAT BS." an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure. once the wheel is squeaky, the repairs are gonna cost. and here I thought honesty was worth something! why was it always about who made the most noise? the loudest people got the most praise. what a screwed up organization.

so would you bible folks say that the scriptures are your "only rule of faith and practice" as vpw taught?

good read. thanks for taking the time to research and write it, and for continuing to maintain your website.

I'm afraid as an agnostic that one wouldn't settle the issue for me although it would be an interesting intellectual exercise :)

that's why I was really relieved to get kicked out, and we didn't even have a fire drill.

you're right, geisha. studying law will really open up your eyes. my personal law experience has been as a plaintiff in several cases. one was a collections case, which I won and am currently collecting on. I got the judgment pro se, then handed it to a lawyer in another state for collection. one was a personal damages case, which I won, which makes it possible to collect the damages. one is a wage and hour case which is still pending in another state, which isn't yet a class action but for which the lawyers are working to get class status, for which I supplied evidence. the other is an ongoing family law dispute in which I've managed to win some major victories, both pro se and with representation, by picking apart my ex's lies in court, once I got over that stupid "wives submit to your husbands" habit. I've also written a legal research paper (completely on my own) which was submitted to a state agency for review because I found major flaws in their procedures, which also helped my lawyer get a fair judgment for another of his clients. I've memorized huge sections of the statutes and rules in 3 states, out of necessity (you have to when you're pro se, which I was for years). I love law. if I wasn't busy doing other things, I'd go to law school.

we have no reason not to believe anyone is lying about their story unless it can be proven they are. for instance, I don't assume you're lying about being at Emporia, or that your wife worked for vpw at HQ, although I have no way to corroborate your testimony. I just don't have any facts on which to claim your statements are untrue. I also have no reason to believe that the women who've told their stories about being raped by vpw are lying, therefore, like rascal, I will accept them as factual unless I have good reason to believe they aren't.

just the two bolded points above, WD: do you know that often people who've been in highly abusive situations have a hard time being "neutral", as you put it? the more deeply they've been hurt, the less neutral they are especially when they are in the process of coming to grips with having been abused. I know first-hand about how people treat you... like a liar, like you're insane, when nothing could be further from the truth. the other is, I'm sure there are a LOT of women that vpw didn't try to take advantage of, for whatever reason. molesters and rapists choose their victims based on certain criteria. it'd be nice to know when she worked for him, how often, did she see any of the women at the time they were with vpw, or did she work for him under other circumstances? see, you can't just assume that since your wife didn't get molested, that no one else did. lots of people survive being murdered by serial killers because they just aren't the right victim.

well thanks for informing me. how could I presume to know what you experienced, when you've refused to answer any questions? now I know you spent time at Emporia. how long were you in, anyway? I do read, WD. I've been reading for some time now and what I'm reading is you telling rascal she doesn't know anything compared to you. but you never have, in all my reading, actually revealed what you DO know, although you've been asked numerous times. if you want to be an authority, then you've got to give your creds. getting respect ain't gonna happen by ripping into a woman and telling her she's nothing compared to you because she didn't sleep at Emporia for a year.

WD, I'd love to know if you ever lived on grounds at a root locale. that would give some basis for the authority you'd like us to think you have. yeah whatever. rascal has shared a lot about her experiences, but you won't even answer a direct question about where you gathered all this wisdom you want everyone to think you have. you spend your time attacking, instead of building your own foundation for gaining respect. your experience wasn't the same, couldn't have been, unless you both spent the same amount of time with the same people in the same locations for the same period of time, even then it'd be different depending on who was in the doghouse for not being spiritual enough. enough with the high horse parade, why don't you just back up your own opinions based on your own experience instead of working so hard to tear other people down? you may have left twi, but it doesn't seem to have left you.

why is it, WD, that you feel you have to one-up rascal all the time? you didn't go through corps training, and her statement was correct. spouse corps didn't go through the grueling 3 years of slavery (my entire apprentice year was easier than the week I spent in residence), from what I could see being spouse corps was at the worst like being apprentice corps, where you live to do the leadership bidding day and night and constantly prove yourself good enough... yeah I can see that. BUT, you didn't get the in-residence experience by osmosis just because you got married.

around we go again! yeah, we covered this. they can go ahead and bring their suit, and then presumption of innocence applies to the person against whom they are pressing charges, and the burden of proof is on the person pressing the libel charge. ok? ok! as has been stated several times (at least) twi or vpw's family could go ahead and pursue this, and they'd have burden of proof to show that falsehoods were told to sully vpw's memory. in other words, they would HAVE TO PROVE THAT VPW DIDN'T MOLEST SOMEONE WHO SAID HE DID. you're very insistent about this libel thing. just who are you alleging is committing such a crime?