George Aar

Absolutely! Pray for rain! And it will absolutely rain!... sooner or later... (I think the folks in Ohio have been praying a bit too much, maybe they could share?)

Let me get this straight, A supposed "minister" shows - unannounced - hardcore porn to a mixed audience of kids and adults and those that think that that action was wrong have to explain why they feel that way? If I had you and your kids over to my house for an evening of Bible talk and then decided it was time to show you the home movie of my "witnessing" trip to a Tijuana donkey show, how many of yas would be running to my defense now? Of course I'm not The Great and Wonderful MOG, I guess that makes all the difference...

I dunno, I think advice, like religion, MLMs, and infomercials is mostly BuII$hi+. It's pretty hard to distill ANY of life's really important lessons into mere words. Living REALLY well is something done by a very few. Likewise, living really poorly isn't tremendously common (at least not in the western world) either. That leaves a whole bunch of the rest of us to flounder around, sometimes pulling off a "coup", but more often just wallowing around in the same mediocrity that a gazillion generations past have. Cutesey aphorisms or barroom philosophy will never change that...

So Clay, you misread my post, but you're willing to let it drop? Mighty magnanimous of you...

O.K., the pressure's getting to me. I'm a lesbian too...

Well, Clay, if you would follow the dictates of our dearly departed MOGman, just READ what is WRITTEN, I implied that the god promoted by WayWorld would have to be anal-retentive to be so obsessed with the amount of times a cock crowed, or how many were crucified with Jesus, and what their occupations were, etc. And I stand by that That WOULD BE an anal-retentive god, IMNSHO. I think obsessing over the placement of commas, conjunctions and pronouns - all without changing anything of doctrinal substance - makes one's god into a rather small-minded entity. But that's what passed for "Biblical Research" at WayWorld. Got a problem with my opinion? Gee, how unusual...

cman, kindly keep your comments about me to yourself, huh big boy? Or if you'd care to indulge in mindless personal attacks, let the games begin...

"There you go describing what you see yourself" Um, as opposed to what? Describing what somebody else sees?

I remember listening to the "Gartmore Tapes" while still on staff at Wayworld. We had the whole WayBuilders crowd back in the "tool shack" area and listened to the pearls of wisdom from Mr. Geer. I spent a lot of time looking around the room (and behind my back) to see who else might be there. It was a really peculiar event. IIRC there was a lot of stuff from "Acts" and lots of innuendo and outright assaults on TWI leadership. Been a long time though, I can't think of anything specific that was "taught". It struck me at the time that it was more office politics than Bible anyway...

Were I a Bible-believing man, I think I'd still have a hard time accepting that Almighty God would be so anal-retentive as to require some sort of secret-decoder ring to understand His will. Just doesn't seem to fit with an all-knowing, all loving sort of entity. Sorry...

I get so tired of this. Would anybody spend any time at all coming to the defense of Jimmy Swaggert, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Peter Popoff, or Ernest Angley? Why go to bat for Mr. Wierwille then? Jeezus, he was just another self-absorbed, self-serving, narcissistic charlatan among the MANY...

Sad to say, I don't even know anymore...

Yeah, and then there's the kind of upbringing they had that may have taught them that sort of coping method. I knew a person (well, sort of, apparently not all that well) who spent her whole life in P.A. mode. I'm pretty sure she wasn't even aware of it. It was most likely a defense mechanism learned at a very early age. She got pretty adept at it too. It was decades before I ever caught on, and by then it was too late. O.K., so I'm not that bright...

Are there real trucks like these? I mean, these have all been "photo-shopped", no?

I dunno, LAE, With 165k, I'd say all the good miles are used up. I guess it depends on how many miles you'll be putting on and how many people, and cargo you're gonna be carrying - things like that, but there's definitely going to be a lot of maintenance (routine AND otherwise) in the near future for this machine. Personally I'd never buy a rig with much over 50k on it, 'cause I'd plan on keeping it a LOOOOONG time and that's not really feasible with a high mileage number. I should point out though, that I routinely put 30k a year on my vehicles (or more). Also, I think there's better machines for winter driving (if that's the main criteria?) that get a lot better gas mileage. We had a Subaru Legacy wagon for several years that was a GREAT car in the snow, easy on gas, lots of power, comfortable, and wasn't horrendously expensive either. There's lots of other good choices too. Why the Jeep?

Hello, My name is George, and I... I I HATE SNOWCONES! There, I've said it!...

I find it's more often the person who is physically at a disadvantage who employs the technique mostly out of a defensive strategy (consciously or not). Specifically, I find women (almost universally) tend towards the passive/aggressive technique almost as their default mode. Maybe it's just my perception? Maybe...

Yeah, I read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" several years ago, IIRC. It was recommended by Larry P2 (our now AWOL resident legal staffer) and I do remember getting a chuckle or two out of it. That was about at the end of my Christian period.

It's been awhile since I've called up WayWorld, but the last time I did I got the Stepford Wife operator. The sad part was, when I finally was put through to the person I wanted to speak to, they were even WORSE. So much for trying to communicate with the undead. With family it makes it just that much worse. Sorry for that...

Several years ago William T. Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at Toronto University, did an exhaustive 5-year study of "glossolalia". His conclusions: "Glossolalia consists of strings of meaningless syllables made up of sounds taken from those familiar to the speaker and put together more or less haphazardly. The speaker controls the rhythm, volume, speed and inflection of his speech so that the sounds emerge as pseudolanguage in the form of words and sentences. Glossolalia is language-like because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be language-like. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia fundamentally is not language. Samarin also noted that according to more than half of the glossolalists he studied, it was easier to speak in tongues than in ordinary language. "You don't have to think just let the words flow. One minister said he could 'go on forever: it's just like drumming.'" (Joe Nickell, "Examining Miracle Claims") I doubt this will be significant to any believer and practitioner, but, there IS research out there about "tongues". Probably not what you're looking for, though...

That's not the impression I get Bluzeman, I think he's being fer real. Well, whatever. I thought it was a humorous diversion. I guess if I took any religious tenets seriously I could muster up some outrage, but - I don't. I just find it funny. "I don't know if you have noticed but not only is GS a group of ex-TWIers and a few others, but most importantly it is a group of Christians. Everybody who posts here posts as a Christian. " Oh really? "If you are not a Christian I don't believe you have any reason to post here any longer except to attempt to harass or to attempt to provoke us. " Mighty egalitarian of you! "Seth, do us all a favor and sign off. go find a GS that is for athiest, you'll be much happier there. Don't come back here. People don't need to discuss such idiotic ideas. You are not doing anyone any service by posting here on this Christian site (same goes for any other Athiest who posts here)" Wow, where's the love, man?

I'm not sure where the heck I was. I mean, it wasn't GOD that died, it was a semi-washed-up R&R star. O.K., you enjoyed his music and performances and probably his overall personna as well, fine. But there was a 60-something year-old lady that DIED of heat exhaustion today waiting in line at Elvis's old digs, waiting to pay homage to "The King's" memory or somesuch and a little kid was hospitalized. To which I can only respond -HUH? There's all manner of REALLY significant things going on in the world, but people are so obsessed with Elvis that this manic circus of sycophants still buzzes around Graceland hoping to share in some of his magic still. I'm sorry, but I think this kind of adoration borders on the perverse.

Still trying to figure out how the "fruit" got in the "pudding"?

Oh come on. If you really wanna break out of a rut, why not try out something like "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, or "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan? Sagan was a brilliant guy but without any trace of animosity that Dawkins often betrays. Both are/were really smart guys, scary smart in Sagan's case. Either of those will definitely get some different wheels spinning...

"Sky Giant", wasn't that an Eric Burdon song? (Cue the electric bagpipes) (You know Jonny, if I were a Bible-believing man still, I'd mention something about Matthew 12:34 "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." But I"m not, so forget I said anything)