Tzaia

Trying to be nice - give the benefit of the doubt - etc., etc.

Steve - the reality is that you HAVE to put certain premises in place for any of it to make sense, or appear to be true. Just because the idea that there could be an elaborate conspiracy theory is acknowledged (and refuted), does not mean none took place. Jesus appearing to his persecutors and executors in his new body would have completely eliminated the notion of a conspiracy. Yet, that did not happen. His ascension into heaven could have been a very public thing. Yet it was not. In our removal from these events along with the only recording of these events happening nearly 2 generations later, notwithstanding the fact that there is no outside verification of anything other than he existed (in one generally believed authentic sentence by a Jewish historian who lived after Jesus died - when the life of Jesus would presumably be reasonably fresh), one has to question the veracity of the claims. Strictly from an investigative point of view. Paul's claim - his "come to Jesus moment" - is it any different than ours - besides the being struck blind thing? (the apparently necessary incredible circumstance that supposedly makes his conversion credible) I don't know. What I do know is that the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus that Paul knows are 2 different guys who preached 2 different things. I would say that Paul's Jesus was a bit more practical. He moved away from the law in a way that Jesus never did in practice. Although his critics believe Jesus moved far away from the law in his interpretation and practice. I would have to agree. In order to fit those divergent pieces together, one has to claim a new covenant, or a new age. Otherwise you have a hot mess if the word of god is inerrant.

From what I can gather, MRAP's experience was shorter lived and even less exposed than mine. He certainly left before it got ugly at the twig level. He has no clue what the true believer went through to remain true. So he can be glad he did it because he didn't hang around long enough to have REALLY done it. Like me. But I'm not glad other than for some of the great people I met - very few of which I actually keep in contact with. I used to think that 70% of what TWI was B.S. Now I think all of it was. I can't think of one redeeming quality other than the level of cynicism towards religion it provoked. We approached mainstream religion from an outsider's viewpoint. Some of us actually tried to embrace mainstream religion. I've determined that for me, cynicism towards all religious organizations works best.

Yeah, the day my little neighbor boy was telling me how the Catholic church does not believe in the death penalty. He was young, but I did tell him to read up on church history and when he got older we could talk about the utter irony of that. We were discussing mormonism at church the other day and I point blank said that pretty much no one does families better. I still have my "Womanly Art of Homemaking" book that I had to beg my local christian bookstore to order for me back in the 80s. My experience with mormon families who are invested in the church and community is that the kids are smart, polite, and have a good work ethic. The marriages are good even though they tend to be patriarchal. What fault can be found in that? I just don't need to go down that infighting path anymore. So I won't participate.

As if, waysider. The guy was, at the very least, a narcissist. Probably a sociopath. Neither are inclined toward self examination.

I know this is a really old topic, but I met Hayes Gahagan and his young family in Indiana. At a TWI function. Past 1980. I have been to his home. In Indiana. Past 1980. He did (supposedly) leave shortly after, and he wasn't all that involved in TWI (due to his busy schedule) (I lived down the street from the limb headquarters, so I saw a lot of what went on) - but I do believe he was doing some sort of home fellowship. I do remember that we were told he moved back to Maine, only to find out he didn't - at least not when TWI flunkies said he did. There wasn't any talk of him having left TWI, which makes sense in hindsight. He says he left in 1978, but he, for whatever reason, had some involvement past that date because that is the only way I would have known who he was. He had celebrity status even though he had lost in Maine.

It was started as a deeply flawed way of belief by a deeply flawed man, and rather than reform, it was passed to another, more deeply flawed man who had even more flawed beliefs. Then rather than reform, it was passed to an apathetic and deeply flawed woman. It cut out all the decent wood and left the dead to rot.

And hijacks every frakin' thread when it's not all about him.

Yesterday I met a lady whose entire family left the Mormon church after about 28 years. One of her sons sat down and actually read the NT while on his mission and discovered that the book of mormon (I first spelled it moron) deviated from the NT. That they had been deceived. She has her PhD and taught at BYU, and somehow managed to not know any of mormon history. As if it had somehow been kept from her. She found nothing odd about the temple ceremonies, despite the strange costumes and utter secrecy. She knew nothing about the racism, misogyny, and polygamy. One of the pastors of the church I attend has been spending weeks on the fallacies of the mormon church. Why an expose on the mormon church? Why not dwell on the fallacies of the Catholic (capitalized only to differentiate it from the term catholic) church? Why not talk about how the denominations have persecuted and murdered 10s of thousands over doctrine? Why not talk about how John Calvin murdered over doctrine? Why pick on the LDS church? Because self examination is hard. I have been asked why I have not become a presbyterian. I point blank say that I can't agree with doctrine that somehow gave a man the right to murder others over points of doctrine. That this "godly" man, IMO, missed pretty much the whole point of Paul's gospel, which deviates greatly from the gospel taught by Jesus. How can one follow a man who did those things? Would you follow Jesus if he had done those things? At least Paul was a repentant murderer. John Calvin was not. I want to scream, "Haven't we all been deceived?" So they wanted me to run AV for the 2 hour presentation. I told them I'd rather nap. Seriously. She was standing there and I said that Sunday was my nap day. It is, but more importantly I have been watching previous seasons of Game of Thrones. I prefer doing that to listening to someone talk about how they have left one rather innocuous religious cult organization for another. Someone tried to sell me her book. Will I buy it? No. I doubt if I'd read it even if someone gave me a copy. Reading about someone's escape from Islam is far more compelling.

Have you any idea the ridicule one faced if one didn't present themselves as a "true believer"? I knew back in 1980 that VPW was at the very least a lecherous old man. Not even my husband believed me.

MRAP - because you don't know what's written in stone, that's why.

I first saw Good Seed at a local bar here in Indy.

I regret to this day not downloading the youtube video of the athletes/rocky horror mashup.

I have no recollection of being taught the trinity as a kid. By the time I got old enough to know, I was attending a UU church, led by an atheist. When I started with TWI, I was good with who they taught that Jesus was not. I had real issues with who they taught he was, once I left. I now attend a church that has become very trinitarian since it left PCUSA and went to evangelical Presbyterian. I get why they believe it, but in my opinion it misses the whole point. I don't discuss it with anyone there other than I felt that the reason for dropping Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down was the wrong reason. They did it because she came out as non-trinitarian (technically socian unitarian). I personally had problems with her views on obedience and how she put them into practice in her own ministry. So for me there's nothing to go back to. If I were to go back to anything post TWI, it would be some form of humanism as the new age stuff I dabbled in still strikes me as ridiculous.

If you can belittle and demean, then you don't have to listen or consider. I used to say that TWI was evangelical instead of pastoral. Sort of as an excuse as to why it was so mean to its adherents. The reality is that its theology did not allow for compassion as anything bad that happened was due to one's failure to properly believe.

Actually, the Star Wars analogy is perfect. There was a sense of what happened in the past in the "middle trilogy", but no specifics, so/and Lucas went back and fleshed it out which, if you watch the first 3 first, doing that gives context to the second 3. So it happened with what we call the Bible. Several people had the idea to sit down and write a narrative of Jesus' life. Some borrowed heavily on earlier narrative and some (in the opinion of some) just made stuff up. So the "early" church fathers sat down and waded through all that stuff and picked out what to include - most of it confined to what agreed with later beliefs - not necessarily what was believed when Jesus was alive, or even shortly after his death. The unvarnished truth is that the "NT" does not contain one account written by an eye-witness to the events surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Not one person who can be verified to have had an actual relationship with Jesus when he was alive even thought to pen what was miraculous. Every last bit of it has to be taken on "faith" that the people are reporting accurately on events that they never witnessed. Furthermore, all of this was put together centuries after the fact, which further dilutes the "to whom it is written" aspect. None of it was written to anyone in particular, except when a letter specifically states to whom it is written. The NT as a whole didn't have to be logical. It didn't have to agree. It didn't have to be perfect. That is something we have been fed as a necessity in order to lend street-cred to the text. And we have been twisting ourselves in knots ever since trying to make it so. At least the Catholic church doesn't really try. Later "scholars" introduced these different methodologies to try to deal with the inconsistencies and utter failure of logic. Are we in an age of "grace"? Jesus spoke nothing along those lines (that I can recall and I'm too lazy to check). He believed his return was going to happen sooner as opposed to later, but even then he was hedgy when it came to the when part. Paul introduces the concept of grace, probably as a diversion to deal with the when problem, which is a segue from what Jesus taught, which then had to be dealt with. [Edit] So I think dispensations are a way to make sense of the utter differences between what Jesus taught and what Paul taught to fulfill the premise that the Bible is inerrant. If you remove that premise, no dividing into ages is necessary, but then one is left wondering is one should follow the Jesus of the gospels, or Paul's Jesus.

Not. Any. More. (pop pop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is...)

STF's take on scripture is very "to whom it is written" oriented. IMO, that theory of study goes out the window the minute one takes into account that the "gospels" were written after the epistles - something TWI / Bullinger never acknowledges. The gospel narrative was never simply "for our information" nor was the OT. Jesus himself never advocated a turning away from the law. His approach was simply a kinder, gentler approach. Paul, on the other hand, took Jesus in an entirely different direction. The only way one can resolve what Paul has to say about Jesus and to keep the bible (somewhat) "inerrant" is to divide up the bible into ages. My pastor calls these diametrically opposed views "tension". But it goes way beyond "tension". If you ignore Paul's filling in the blanks on Jesus, you come up with a very different Jesus. Try it.

Raf - are you referring to the "red thread"?

Yummy

Really? Not my experience at all.

The entertainment factor comes in when watching someone come here who thinks they've shaken the shackles of TWI, but are still into the whole "working the word" thing. Without a doubt the steps are all the same. We've ALL been there to some extent. We've ALL had to go through the process of being de-waybrained. There is a bit of an entertainment factor watching and helping someone go through the process - if you can stick it out. We really are trying to help you. Just not in the way you would like. Just think of it as god giving you what you need, not what you want. waysider first came here looking for PFAL books. I can assure you that he is not looking for PFAL books now. waysider, I love those lemon filled donuts covered with powdered sugar. But anyway, I won't bother with JWS's new fangled NT. I don't doubt his sincerity, but it's still a vanity book.

We had a pastor in a freakin' Presbyterian church that actually expected people to bring their bibles to church.

The entertainment factor is rather high.

It also never went beyond the science or the imagery of the people who wrote it.