JavaJane

That "bless your heart" phrase always bugged me... because if we were supposed to "say what you mean and mean what you say" VP should have replaced it whith "you dumbass!" Would have been more honest.

Here is a question I have always had - if homosexuality was so wrong (it was Eve's original sin to suggest a threesome with the Devil and Adam, like it was taught/heavily implied in the foundational class) then WHY was a threesome OK for the mog?? I know, stupid question, right? But how was this sort of thing presented in a godly light - as if committing adultery wasn't enough.

I think this is a very important topic on its own, Rascal... Maybe you should move it just so it would be easier for people looking for this information to locate in the future. Just a suggestion.

Belle is one of my heroes!

rascal, I would be interested in knowing, as well.

Funny, but I thought the whole treatment of wives like they were second class citizens would stop after twi got a woman as a president... but it didn't. My father in law (who has only attended a couple of twi events that my husband drug him to) said that the first thing that told him something was wrong with twi was the way they treated women... Smart man.

Oh, I remember those haircuts... Female WC haircuts numbers 1-5 - approved by God. Male WC haircut number one - the only hair approved by God.

I kinda come and go at the cafe'... depends on how much twi stuff is bugging me at the particular moment. Nothing like a cup of coffee with people who have really been there to shake off the nastiness of twi!

I also bought into the concept of the "household" of God as it was taught by LCM... that the Household was the most important group of people in the entire world... more important than my family, who I alienated when they were made mark and avoid. I do believe that in some areas at least there was a genuine love of God in operation among the fellowships - that the love that people showed as they took care of each other was the real deal... but on the larger scale of twi, it never existed. In some ways, the genuine love showed among the fellowships was a great thing, but in other ways it just served to hide the true nature of twi. I know it did for me... I still crave that sense of community - of having a large bunch of people who really seemed to care about me and be interested in my life - but I am not willing to give up my freedom of thought just to "belong" again. I don't know if I will ever really "belong" anywhere again, but it's becoming less and less important. I was not exactly one of the "beautiful people" when I was going to school... not really popular, not really part of the in crowd... I sometimes think this is why I was willing to put up with so much to be a part of the community of twi.

Thanks for this thread, waterbuffalo! It has just made me realize that I don't need a belief system that is so tight that I have specific beliefs regarding every little situation in life. I don't have to have a formula to live by - I don't have to have a concrete belief set in stone - I can just take things as they come and deal with them then. FREE AT LAST to THINK FOR MYSELF - and to change things if I find out I was wrong!! WOOO HOOO!!

Rest assured, under the facade of niceness and propriety of the current twi, all things are just as rotten as before. It just looks nicer on the surface. I don't know about you all, but I would rather deal with the evil that is in your face than the sneaky evil that looks pretty on the outside. Reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood - she knew what the wolf was when he was out in the woods, but when he was dressed up like her grandma, it was a lot harder to see she was looking at a predator.

Dooj - reminds me of a dog trying to be the pack leader. Sniff their butts, make yourself big, stalk around like you own everything... That'll teach her who's boss!

I was just thinking about this the other day - the only way we can really KNOW about someone is to look at the fruit of their lives... The flip side of finding devil spirits in everyone was the lauding of the leadership as being above reproach. While we were taught to look at everything and everyone suspiciously as if they were under the control of the devil, we were also taught that everything the mog said was perfect and did not bear any questioning. Wow, did that every screw us up. Everyone else is evil, but this select group, who can do no wrong... and they were the ones committing the biggest atrocities!

I pretty much bought all of it - but that was when I was in as a kid... One thing I never bought into was the idea that anyone who was exceptional in what they did and was not a part of twi had to be possessed. Another one was the teaching that David had the right to Bathsheba because he was the king.. that one never made any sense to me. As I grew up a lot of the other teachings sort of fell apart... especially after LCM was dethroned. Suddenly, since the MOG was brought down to a human level I realized there could be mistakes in all of it and all of it suddenly bore scrutiny. Now I am not sure exactly WHAT I believe... still working through all of that in my head since we didn't leave all that long ago. There are a few things I do believe... I believe that God exists and He loves. I believe that freedom of will is more important than doing the right thing. I believe that it is ok to not know the answer to everything. I believe that truth can be found everywhere if you open your eyes. I believe that no one is any more important or better than anyone else. I believe in the two great commandments - love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And a lot of these things are a far departure from my twi beliefs. I keep finding that underneath everything, at the very core of myself, I am not the person I once thought I was or that I tried so hard to be when I was in twi. It's a little weird to suddenly realize this in the middle of my adult life. Thankfully we got out before we had any children. Our kids will not be raised to believe all the lies that were shoved down our throats.

The way I heard it was that there would always be at least two people standing in twi until Jesus Christ came back... then I heard a version about the Weirwille family.... In any case, it's a scary scary "prophecy" (ego trip.)

In the name of VP, I cast thee out, foul RUDY!!!

I had my TC show up at my job a few times after we had left... that was a little awkward. :blink: Funny, they never seemed to "follow up" on m husband - only me. Probably because they knew that he would just tell them where to go where I was more likely to listen since I was one of the ones "raised in the word." Really it was just that I am a lot more polite than my husband. Some days I wish I could be rude!!

Just curious - been talking to some friends of mine who are still innies and doing some thinking about things. First of all, I didn't realize really how much of a WIMP twi makes people when it came to dealing with other people - I remember wanting to please everyone all of the time, especially if they had a title - and it was all out of fear that I would be kicked out or humiliated in front of other people... Funny thing is, now I could care less what those people think. And then I thought about the manner in which people leave when they get too fed up with all the bs. Some people just sort of disappeared - left in the night never to be heard from again. Some people made a huge scene with confrontation. Some people got kicked out and humiliated in front of everyone. Some people were put on "probation" and then realized it was a lot nicer being out than it was being in. Where do you fit? My husband and I sort of faded into the background by moving a few times... it was a slow transitition for us. But I think that is what I needed to be able to really think clearly on the subject. And it just sort of happened that way - we didn't "plan" on leaving, we just did. We wrestled for a while with if we should "take a stand" and "confront the darkness"... but would it do any good? Would anyone listen other than our close friends? Would we be able to take down the ministry by exposing the error of their ways? For us, the answer was no. We were nobodies...no titles, we had resisted the suggestions to go into the Corps... who would listen? And if they did listen, could they make any real changes? I would be very interested to hear anyone else's opinions on this.

But... Isn't this the prophecy that there will always be someone in the Weirwille family standing for God???

Wow... This is exactly what they did to us, isn't it?

I completely agree, and I think to some extent it still happens today... These examples only happened a couple of years ago while visiting HQ. HA always had a way of making me feel uncomfortable whenever he was around - just like he was a dirty old man or something (Oh, if only I had known the things I know now, I would have run away screaming!). Just too hands on when he hugged you, and the way he looked at me was nasty... until one day he went too far in front of my husband, who told him where he could go. HA just laughed like it was nothing. But he never came at me inappropriately again... And another friend of mine had a WC guy feel her up at a meeting - then told her she was too uptight and there was nothing wrong with it... she told her husband, he complained. That guy never went near her again.

We were told in our pre-marriage counselling that we should consider the reasons we would get divorced... My husband told the clergy that adultury would be the only reason he would consider... the clergy told us that the only reason he would consider getting a divorce from his spouse would be if she decided to leave twi. Funny that adultery wasn't on his list... BUT TWI WAS. My husband and I talked about that later on that night after the counselling session and decided that our marriage was going to rank a lot higher in priority than twi. I think that was one of the first glimpses of light we both had about what twi was really like. And this was only a few years ago - WAY after the lawsuits.

EXACTLY. If you were "standing" in the twi Household you can actually call HQ and ask for information on whether or not an individual is "standing" "not standing" (meaning not bearing any obvious animosity towards twi, or simply never kicked out" or "Mark and Avoid" (meaning their hatred for twi is obvious, or they got kicked out.) You can also get people's addresses who are standing if you wanted to... How's that for not keeping membership files????

Totally true! I never thought about it in this category before. After all, what is the need for secrets when you have nothing bad to hide? This is why I have always said that if everything is really resolved in twi, why don't they just come clean and say what was wrong and how they have fixed it? They can't... reason being? They haven't really fixed anything. But they were sure open with everyone's "spiritual" problems when they were kicked out of the WC or twi, weren't they? They were quick to bring those things right out in the public view, true or not. But their "lockbox" remains sealed.

Lucy, I know exactly how you feel. I do still have some friends who are involved in twi - and they don't seem to have that much of a problem with me not wanting to be a part of the organization anymore, so it is possible to maintain a friendship outside of twi... admittedly, it does not have the same closeness that it used to - and there are certain things we just don't talk about because we know where the other stands on thhe issues at hand. But these people I speak of are very exceptional people - not your typical twi followers. They do think for themselves and know there are problems with their religion. They just don't think there is anything better out there, so they are sticking it out hoping things get better. In a way, I hope they do get better for them, and in a way, I wish they would wake up. The hardest thing for them to see is that it hasn't really changed - it just has a nicer veneer than it used to - but at the root, at the heart, the same people are running things. Rosie may not yell like LCM, but she did provide him with women - so she was involved in the offense and just as guilty. A rose by any other name... smells like poopoo. They just can't see it right now. And to tell them that VP did what LCM did and worse is like telling them that Jesus Christ was a drug dealer. They just can't understand. So, we keep the conversation polite... Just keep in mind, these are people who have been and are being deceived. They are not in their right minds... They don't know. Hope you have good fortune in your talk with your friend.