George Aar

Belle, The "five" of the trustees included LCM, DEW, HA, and then they added Ricardo Cabellero and Johnny Townsend, IIRC. BTW, skyrider, wasn't the real exodus in the spring of '89? That's when LCM gave his infamous "my way or the highway" directive and all those with any doubts whatsoever about the wisdom of WayWorld mandates were unceremoniously shown the door...

Sunesis, Thanks for rerunning the "Liberty Lobby" stuff. I hadn't caught that the first time around, and it certainly fills in a few details. How does the LL still garner any support after so many failed "Head for the hills!" directives? I guess being right isn't all that important for those that embrace those sort of notions, eh? Just look at the JWs...

Another little tidbit that may give a little insight into the motivation behind the book. Koestler, I'm told, is Hungarian. During the WWII who do you suppose Hungary allied with? Uh, yeah, that side. I guess they enjoyed goosestepping. I only mention this because an acquaintance of mine (and sometimes business associate) is Hungarian and always rants and raves about the "Myth of the Six-million" and other holocaust denial conspiracy stuff. There's no talking him out of the ridiculous theories, though, Lord knows I've tried. Could there be a cultural bias to Koestler's book? Sure doesn't seem too far-fetched to me. Oh, and yes, I think the DNA evidence has pretty much destroyed the concept.

Re:"at least a good trial lawyer will tell you that eye witness testimony beats double blind, placebo studies all to hell." Well, David, at least you're as well versed in the law as you are in chemistry. Gotta love the consistency, anyway...

Well, I used to have a life before I stumbled onto eBay (about 6 or 7 years ago). I think I need an "intervention" 'er something, help!

At last! I'm normal! er, ordinary, anyway... (is this a Bev Doolittle print?)

UH, Don't forget the concessions! All the fishes and loaves musta made JC a fortune!

Oh, and re: "There's more power and lasting blessing in that one thought than ..." There is? I'm not even sure I know what the hell it means. Near as I can tell it's something like "The Bible is God's Word" This is some new, earthshattering, heretofore unknown doctrine? Uh, uh, whatever blows your skirt up. What do you think about the fact that Wierwille identified that picture of "The first PFAL Class" as such, when he was actually teaching B.G. Leonard's class for him? How do you rationlize that? Maybe he thought that taking B.G.'s class in Canada was all just a Godly vision, revelation from the Almighty?

Oldiesman, You've got lots of competition of late, but I think you're definitely in the lead for poster boy for "cognitive dissonance". Congratulations!

UH, "My guess is right AFTER he copied it all down on paper and put his own name on it! I mean, no sense in keeping the evidence around" LOL

And O.M., Do you think that V.P. didn't know that the PFAL class was stolen from B.G. Leonard? That the RTHST was stolen from Stiles? That even the PFAL book was largely plagiarized from Bullinger? What do you think was going on in his head? Did he honestly think that all the works he stole were somehow legitimately his property?

Oh, and don't forget all of the works of other men that he stole and slapped his name on. Maybe he did that while he was sleepwalking?

Well lets see. Wierwille claimed to have made a pact with The Almighty in 1942 with the incredible snowy gaspumps. A phenomenon that no one else has ever mentioned and that Wierwille himself said nothing about until many years after the actual event. He also claimed to have been snowbound in Tulsa a few years later (he really seemed to have a fixation on snow as the perrennial causitive agent for God's Will, didn't he?), though there's no record of snow in Tulsa at the time. He claimed to be "good friends" with a number of semi-famous preacher types of the 40's and 50's (Star Daily, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and numerous others), funny they don't seem to have the same memories. When palpable errors in his doctrine were pointed out to him by associates, they were either "re-educated" or shown the door. In fairness to Wierwille, I don't think his decision to deceive was so much a conscious thing as it was an indicator of a mental malady. I believe he was simply one sick Mutha #$%%er...

Just one tidbit that jumped out at me: "All I'm saying is that just because VPW committed these heinous sins that doesn't negate any of the good he also did." To which I would say, "Yes, it does." Charles Manson had wonderful "fellowships" with his followers, John Wayne Gacy entertained kids as a clown, Hitler was very fond of his dog. So what? The fact that there may be some shred of humanity left in a person, or that they're adept at putting on airs doesn't mitigate their life of narcissisistic greed and excess. Mr. Wierwille spent a good portion of his life conning, misleading, and abusing decent, idealistic kids. I don't care how many heart-warming moments you spent with him reminiscing about God's goodness, the man was slime. Innocence lost, lives wasted, careers derailed, families broken up, for what? So the Vickster could feather his own nest. The world would be a better place had he and those like him never been born. Yeah, I'm not a fan anymore...

They got any Boone's Farm or Cribare left?

Rottiegirl, If you haven't had enough of MLM advice yet, you might wanta read this: http://skepdic.com/mlm.html Quite a list of additional reading there too...

No, John Boy, I don't think we were all idiots. We were just conned. Pretty simple. It's done all the time. Do you think the followers of David Koresh or Jim Jones were all idiots? I don't. They certainly acted in a severely foolish manner at the end, but how did they get there? They simply accepted the word of a gifted grifter and slowly their perception of reality is altered to the point where just about anything the "holy man" says is regarded as God's Word. Ridiculous concepts that a rational person would never consider become the norm when you slowly allow the unprovable and superstitious to occupy an honored place in your brain. Certainly nobody gave as much credence to "believing" and it's consequences before the took PFAL. But look at all the nonsense we went through after we adopted that ridiculous notion as "law". We started living in an alternate universe of VPW's design. Eventually a lot of us finally started to grow up a bit and saw the delusional WayWorld lifestyle for what it really was. I'm sorry you haven't been able to reach that point yet. You weren't the only one to test the great truths of the great MOG. I think we probably all did that quite regularly. Unfortunately, unlike you, I never got the positive results that were promised. "Believe and get healed" - nope, "Go W.O.W. and see God work" - nope, "Give me your money and you'll prosper even more!" - nope. And so it went. YMMV, I assume. I find it remarkable that - despite the oceans of ink used in promoting such nonsense - there has never, in the entire history of humanity, been a single paranormal event that was observed and recorded under laboratory conditions with proper protocols in place. Not once. Not ever. Gee, why do you suppose that is? All you have to do is believe, right? Maybe God's just having fun with us. And Mikey, please, believe whatever you'd like. Just don't go getting a pilot's license anytime soon, O.K.?

I can just see it, The camera pans from the face of the stalwart Man of God, seated dignified in his railcar to the station landing with the Jain priest, tears streaming down his face, waving goodbye with his newly-healed arm - "But I still don't believe in your Jesus!" he mouths as the train pulls out. THE END Too bad we never got a sequel...

Every now and then reality is a cold slap in the face. I have no idea what any of yas are even talking about. I have never even heard of any of the names of the supposed entertainers that you're talking about. Am I outta touch 'er what? Why wouldn't they have real musicians to play? Maybe "Pearl Django", or Martin Taylor, or possibly "Manhattan Transfer"? To me there's Jazz and there's noise, with very little in between. And anything that even approaches "Hip Hop" is downright vile. But then, whaddo I know?

Yeah, you've got to wonder about the man's legacy just a little, don't you? If he was really God's righthand man here on earth, why did everything he build turn to $hit in a matter of a couple of years? Is Almighty God's work so delicate so as to be completely undone in such a short time? Certainly that seemed to be a tenet of Wierwillian dogma. After all, the "First Century Church" lost the "greatness of the mystery" in just a few years, didn't it? There's been so many of Wierwille's ilk that have come and gone over the years, you'd think we'd be wise to them by now. Evidently not. If he smiled at us and made us feel special every now and then, he must have been telling us the truth, right?

So John, Are you saying then, that if your son had been a little older you'd have let him get run over? No, I wouldn't think so. Yet Almighty God can sit on the sidelines while HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people get slaughtered and just shrug His shoulders? Yeah, He sure loves us. (Damn, kinda makes God sound like an abusive father - "He punishes me sometimes 'cause I know I've been bad, but I know he really loves me!) And no, money is not the equivalent of faith. I believe rather strongly in the laws of physics, but that's about all. Rich nations like the U.S. get a free pass when it comes to a lot of the world's ills, no doubt. Infant mortality, injuries, industrial and civic safety, communicable diseases, health care in general, all give the west a tremendous advantage over the third world. But is that due to God blessing us, or is it just the way things played out? In any game there's going to be some winners and some losers, and a whole lot somewhere in between. You can influence the outcome to a greater or lesser degree by your own actions, and there's also an element of luck in anything. But appealing to some invisible, anonymous god has never seemed to have any tangible effect on anything I'm aware of. Oh, and BTW, I can't disprove the existence of Spiderman either...

"I absolutely know it is NOT a placebo effect." Of course there's always "communal reinforcement", "selective thinking", and "self-deception". Not to mention "confirmation bias". Any one of which makes more sense than the claims of "unclustered water" and such like from the good folks at "Penta"...

I was kinda curious about how the true believer would try to square an all-loving, all-powerful god with a tragedy of this magnitude, and I can't say I'm much surprised by this tack. God's trying to teach us an important lesson, I'm sure. Or maybe it's just that mean 'ole devil up to his tricks again (and God, in order to be just has to let him). Whatever, I'm sure there's some way to rationalize it so one's superstitions can remain intact. Uh, uh, here we are five years into the 21st century and we've still got religious martyrs dying for their god, religious wars based on nothing more than differing superstitions, and folks still doing mental flip-flops to get Almighty God off the hook again when things go horribly wrong. I'd like to think better of us, but it seems we're destined to live out our days with the ridiculous millstone of religiousity around our necks.

Maybe it's my non-theist mindset, but I don't see the statement as any sort of insult. It's a simple statement of fact. Well, facts as HCW saw them. I was never bowled over by DEW's "commitment to the Wurd" either. He did seem like a very tenderhearted guy most of the time. Maybe that was just an act? I dunno. As far as the good 'ole daze at WayWorld go, well, I'm a lot older and a little wiser now. The Vickster was no doubt an accomplished grifter and salesman. I have no doubt he could manipulate people with a tremendous skill and subtlety. That's what conmen do. Funny, he used that same line on me as well (about being able to "take it"), and on several others I know. Pretty slick, chew somebody's a$$ out and then turn it into a compliment. Pure genius...

Anybody else notice that all the police/crime dramas are dreadfully "overwritten"? Used to be they could just lay out the facts and see the trail lead to the perpetraitor. No more. The trail looks like it's heading that way, but then it has to take at least 3 turns before we can see how it's going to turn out. The child dies. Looks like the mother did it, but no, it's more likely the father, no, no, the milkman is a real psycho and surely must have done it. But no, it turns out in the last 2 minutes that the mother's lesbian lover (who we've never heard of until then) did it because the kid kicked her dog. Convoluted, contrived, and just plain bad writing seems to be the order of the day for "Law and Order", "Crossing Jordan", and especially "Third Watch". I guess that's why I spend so much time watching "Antiques Roadshow"...