JeffSjo

Dear Socks, I hope this response is not too late. I can see how someone can choose anonymity and BE accountable. In that sense it applies to character and not whether or not someone is able to be held accountable. Considering the WAYGB, and TWI's history of abuse I fully am willing to fight for a place like this that allows people who have been abused the availability to be anonymous. Espescially as it seems it may be necessary for them to post their own thoughts without being counter attacked when it comes to family and friends. And while it seems obvous that TWI knows the names of some of the supposedly anonymous posters here it also seems obvious that they may bully anyone who they think will let them get away with it. And unfortunately abuse victims are often prone to letting it happen again. But the fact that I've used my own name does seem to heighten my sense of accountability for my words and my ideas in spite of all that. I've been thinking lately that I believe the Lord will hold me completely accountable for my words whether or not I choose to be anonymous. So before Him my anonymity is a moot point. I guess I feel like if I know I'll be held accountable by Him, what freakin difference should it make to me what anyone else thinks of me? But in regards to actually being pursued by TWI style bullies in real life; I'm generally feeling too irked by all the lies, deception, and what it has already cost me to care to much about whether or not that actually ever happens.

Mostly I feel o.k., but sometimes I still don't feel comfortable in my own skin, but I may be starting to feel comfortable with myself. Have I changed, boy I hope so!

In my former splinter group it worked like this. The apostle/ word-in-the-flesh/ true father/ true husband/ shepherd of the sheep was the only head. Yes, with that level of glorification of him Jesus Christ was out of the picture. The ones who were allowed to be chiefs were also the biggest indians. So close-to-the-top leadership seemed to grow crueler and more twisted as time went on. Between their buttkissing and the authority they were allowed it seems inevitable that such things would happen. It seemed to me that the bastard-in-charge was willing to take away all their appearance authority at the slightest provocation, such as thinking for one's self or God forbid, questioning his authority. In a closed system run by a madman, how could it end up good for all? The big-dogs are also the biggest dogs. (edited for grammar and spelling)

Dear Tagalong, I see by the latest "shouts" that you intend to leave this site.Personally it is no fun to see you go. I would rather get into some issues and try to work through them. The doctrinal section is available to consider scriptures and doctrinal points anytime. And in the PM's that you invited me to do in the "new member" section I did bring up a couple of pretty straightforward scriptures as concerning the general matter of some of the topics at the Greasespot to you. And a couple of things regarding how not to put people down when quoting an important scripture. (Swine and pearls) And how I would feel if you did so again. But I did not quote them and give the references either. So whether or not you know which scriptures I was refering to at least for you it is honest for me to say that I'm certain somebody has brought up relevant scriptural points to consider. And since it is an open site you have the right to come to any conclusions at all and take your leave. But it is one thing to talk about power. Just pick a television minister and you will likely get the same lecture. But it is something else entirely to prove it as the scriptures record many doing. And I do not feel bad at all about doubting the talking about power, it is only talk after all. But oftentimes the conversation here goes toward the topic of how wicked people can be while selling the concept of God's power to people. And based on the experiences that I have read here that topic of conversation is perfectly reasonable to me.

I have to leave real soon, but this will be interesting. I felt pretty much like this once too!

After this conversation I can see why their might be advantages to a relatively harmless (I guess it depends) posting board and anonymity. It provides a little cushion against disgreements becoming too personal. Whenever people touch on anothers "hot button issues" it seems there is more potential for learning for all and allows everyone to not get labelled as a ______ of any kind. But I kind of enjoy being fully accountable for what I say. If I am wrong then I would say....gee...I was wrong or some such thing. And if I was caught up into some seriously hatefull thinking and somebody showed me the light then I would really make it plain and simple for everyone to understand. If the change was big enough I'd probably end up being thankful for the correction, but it wouldn't be so much about feeling bad for being caught being wrong, it would be about being transparently thankful for the correction. But in my case, my name is at stake. And I think I like the accountability.

HMMMPH! And a man who calls himself "A True Son Of Wierwille" got his twisted head into my marriage and my ex-wife's head. Even if it had been a TWI rooted minister with less than "River Road Fellowship's" level of insanity I wouldn't tend to expect much of anything good to come from any situation like mine. The root was just too rotten IMO. And leaven has this habit of spreading after all.

For me, the cyber-stalking issue is pretty simple. I go to the Greasespot, I have a Gmail account, and I use the library computer. And even though I don't understand computer capabilities very well, I feel like saying,"Stalk away psychos!" And while I sooo clearly recognize peoples' perogatives and rights in the category of anonymity i just choose to go the other direction in a big way. Besides, while I have gained a lot from a lot of you "anonymous ones" here at this site anonymity has it's limitations. And most of those limitations fall into the category of "not as good or real a friendship as otherwise possible." So while I like and fully support everyone's right to choose for themselves I started this thread to throw out the idea that it could be better. But right along with that I recognize that it is riskier to go my route.

Based on the newer view of "The Way International" I have picked up on since visiting the greasespot this is my ATTEMPT TO UNSPIN THE PHRASE "PRESENT TRUTH" AS USED BY TWI..... We cannot handle the truth of our founding fathers' actions or mannerisms. We cannot deal with these things publicly either. So we will continue to lie and spin our "WAY" out of the jam we are in. We will continue to run the ministry as we see fit in spite of the fact that the manners we learned were poison. We will fool them all, or at least enough of them, to continue fooling others (and maybe even ourselves) into thinking that we are serving God. WE WILL CALL IT "THE PRESENT TRUTH." (added in editng) P.S. Can anyone give me some history and/or context of this phrase "present truth" as they use it. Even without some specific contexts I'm willing to go with the first part of this post. I am not anticipating having to "recant" or anything like that right now. :B) The only reason that I mention that possibility at all is because I am more reasonable than TWI leadership. :P

Dear Wordwolf, WELL, O.K. You could add some of your considerations and/or concerns to the thread if you wish. It would add a little to the open character of the thread that I was going for. If all the children play nice it could be polite. Their might not even be a superhero that feels obliged to jump in and save the day.

It is sad that they have become such good liars and decievers. I appreciate hearing the more recent versions of their b.s. that they cram down people's throats though. It may be useful someday...who knows... if not, I'd rather be informed. "The Present Truth", it has the ring of a catchy but real revolting jingle. Maybe because I've have a different perspective of the source than I did not too long ago.

Good point. So whether they refer to "God" or how to run a marriage and/or relationship it seems a safe bet to assume that it will not be to your good believersnonbeliever. I hope that you are coming to see enough to deal with TWI according as you have to without getting taken in by them. But perhaps as you chose such a poigniant avatar name you had already percieved where they were coming from before you joined this site.

Very interesting reference WW. I have heard very reliable stories of people who were betrayed by family to the nazis and other brutal governmental forces because they believed the scriptures. And such stories always seem to make it plain that the ones who were betrayed for believing seemed to have the single commonality of NOT HAVING DONE ANY EVIL THINGS. Now I have not a single doubt in my little mind that TWI used these verses as they saw fit to use the frowned upon and other times irrelevant gospel scriptures to point out that people they were leading needed to abandon their families. I remember such things in my former splinter group too. Where TWI blew it was since top leadership was corrupted by their very own Wierwille and seemed to only get worse over time they did not have the right to claim these verses as applying to them as the believers with unbelieving enemies. Heck TWI was rotten and such things I am afraid only served to smokescreen the truth that TWI was vile and corrupt. And in this circumstance those verses only served to further blind the already blinded and lead them straight into the proverbial ditch. To my way of thinking if they are rotten then they misled people with these types of exhortaions; and if they had done no evil and only did good then they may have deserved to be thought of as those who faced enemies who were family for Christ's sake. But now I have a lot more sympathy for those in my family who were talking to the deprogrammers in the early eighties than I did then. I didn't do anything evil about it then, I just made it very clear that any attempt to kidnap me would backfire in a big way on every level. If I was anything like my former splinter group leader I would use such an event in my past to prove that my life was in danger because I am such a bigshot. But he learned that kind of manipulation from the very worst of TWI leadership practises I guess. But I think he is supplying his very own insanity however.

It is soooo cool when simple human decency overrides religious differences. (yep, edited for spelling) Sarcasm here..............serve God, be a d-ckhead!

Dear Now I See, I am thankful that I happen to live in a country where it is available to think for myself. But their are entire countries where pretty much everyone is forced to let others have that kind of power over them. I tend to think of the problem to which you speak as a human problem that just happens to apply to TWI as "you see now". (a half hearted play on words....sorry ....kind of.... o.k.,not really) (edited for grammar)

Dear Wordwolf, Since I have been here I have never, ever seen you drop any topic that IMO has the potential for some really good give and take like this one. What happened, did you lose interest?

A couple of days ago a longtime poster was given a little time off, and since then I have been keying off of a few of his/her words. They were something along the lines of (apparently speaking of the "good old days" of TWI), "I remember when we used to encourage believing spouses to stay with their unbelieving spouses." And the further implication that I remember from the now deleted posts was that TWI was right in actvely seeking to seperate spouses from their unbelieving spouses. Now while it is good common sense for some folks to consider religious differences before taking a relationship into marriage what this poster was refering to was a TWI stand that looking back, had nothing to do with common sense IMO. Now from a scriptural standpoint, Paul's exhortation to stay with an unbelieving spouse was pretty straight forward, and was based on the believing spouse being lovingly concerned for their spouses welfare. And IMO that doesn't give anyone a right to treat marriage like it is suppose to be some kind of loveless bondage. In the law their is instruction for how a wife should behave if she leaves her husband (for instance). And IMO it only takes a little common sense lovingly applied to see why there are situations where it was good for the scriptures to allow for some guidance in a situation where a wife may have to leave her husband, like for her or the kids safety and well being.....DUH! And even if you are amoung those who do not desire to go to the scriptures for such guidance, I hope you are willing to look at these things based on the principles involved alone and do not think that I am intending to beat you over the head with scripture. I'll take what you say at face value as well as I can. But "The Way International" was founded by Wierwille. And it is evident to me now that he was a narcisistic man with sociopathic characteristics (Thank you Greasespot for that) and it seems that because of who Wierwille was marriage became screwed up in TWI. Let's see....hmmm...Leadership became sexually active and slept around with other's spouses and single believers that were prone to be fooled. And then taught that upper leadership had the right and needed these releases from the stresses of their God-given responsibilities. gag....barf! IT IS A WONDER TO ME HOW ANY GREASESPOTTER MIGHT STILL THINK THAT TWI WAS IN ANY GOOD PLACE TO BE CORRECT IN EXECUTING SOUND JUDGEMENT WHEN CONSIDERING WHICH MARRIAGES TO KEEP AND WHICH ONES TO DISCARD. I know that my former splinter group is capable of poisoning one spouses mind against another. I believe that Wierwille slept with women and destroyed their families while pretending to be a man of God. I believe that TWI tried to keep abusive marriages together because they thought that loyal but abusive followers were o.k. I BELIEVE NOW, BASED ON THE POSTINGS; NOW DELETED; THAT I REFERED TO EARLIER THAT SOME PEOPLE STILL HOLD ONTO THE TWISTED, SICK, CRUEL, AND GODLESS THINKING THAT TWI TAUGHT THEM WHEN THEY EVALUATE THESE THINGS. Not to mention the screwy, false recollections based on lying TWI propoganda. It seems plain to me that when TWI turned away from Paul's simple, loving counsel it was not because of extraordinary circumstances as TWI had us believing. It was because TWI was rotten to the core of it's founding president.

There was once when my group tried to get us to witness to people to get them to come to open meetings in my former splinter group. I felt that to even bring folks there while they expected to hear something good would be a deception. My response to leadership was a sarcastic," Why, when I consider how well I've been loved here it makes it very clear to me how many people I'll be bringing around." As usual, some of leadership caught the intent of my sarcasm, but most people did not. Their critical thinking skills were very much in the process of being eliminated at that point.

Dear believersnonbeliever, Like I said, you can expect to have this kind of cruelty thrown in your face. I am not certain about many individuals' motives, the human heart being so fragile and all, but IT IS WRITTEN that people will even be more cruel than this and decieve themselves into thinking that they are serving God even. (edited for spelling)

Dear Believersnonebeliever, What you can expect from TWI leadership if they become aware of who you are is more of this aggressive style of baiting. Leadership will be content if when they challenge your manhood it provokes you into doing something unwise or breaks your heart and then you give up. Either reaction will work for them. They may also bait your girlfriend by offering her a nearly unable to be refused offer to "go and grow with God" that will also happen to take her away from you. Or they may simply command her to stop seeing you. Or they may just poison her mind against you by making your real faults seem worse than they really are. If any of these things happen you may well feel that you have been put through the wringer. The only reason you will feel like this is because that will be what they have done to you in truth. I am out of time on the computer for now, but I think I may feel obliged to check back at some point...sigh...here we go again.....!? Of course someone could permanently shut down the bully, maybe this time before I spend another year fighting them....DUH!

I have been in a situation that was very similar to Copenhagen's in my former splinter group. I chose to hang onto my marriage in spite of all the oposition. In the end all she (my ex-wife) had to do was walk away from our marriage, and my effort was seemingly pointless. If their is no further reward than just this life then I lost everytrhing, period. Well..... I still get to see my son. In my opinion, believersnonebeliever, you should be willing to face the possible outcomes before you chose to stick with this fight. At least then you know what you are fighting for and you can choose. But as I was in a situation similar to Copenhagen's I can honestly say that I wouldn't wish being caught between a relationship and TWI on my worst enemy. But it might gain you some hard won experiential knowledge of Sampson's life, even if you do not get to knock the false temple down.

Thanks for the well wishing Socks. It has been a weekend plus full of considerations why I went too far this time. But just the very fact that I shared my intentions without forcing someone to feel pressure for their actions in an underserving manner does not seem like the worst that could have happened. After all, I might have actually done it instead of just sharing my intentions. But that being said I am in kind of a "what now for me" moment in my life. Just the fact that this thread has forced me to consider how that I am used to being in unreasonable situations with mostly unworkable solutions may be a good thing, if I now focus on moving towards relationships with real people. I now realize that a more normal life will possibly not include the extremes that I am perhaps too used to. You know, focus on my life, and not even so much what is going on with all of you here at the Greasespot. For me, because of my view of the uses and limitations of anonymity along with my very limited cyber footprint (Greasespot and E-mail only) leaving the Greasespot is leaving all of you too. And the possibilities and the annoyances dissappear just as quickly as the computer leaves this sight when I log off the computer. There are some things that happened here that seem a little amazing too, but with nobody to share it with it may be good to relegate these things to the files in my life of fights that have been fought in the past. Being alone with these memories without friends to share in even small victories is getting real old for me. Take Care and God Bless. JEFF

With my splinter group background it seems evident to me that I have become a little to accustome to forcing the issues that I feel need to be faced upon those who are either decieved or have some sort of insanity that seems to be at the base of some kind of group think that is going to a very bad place. While bringing issues up like I just did has become kind of a habit while fighting for things to become better in dismal circumstances it seems clear to me now that my intention to post the outers less than anonymous avatar names is a mistake. What you refer to as "desire to be a thorn in these people's sides" I think is sometimes just the fact that I was forced to resort to such things in order to discuss things that I felt truly needed to be discussed. Actually, I'd prefer to discuss it with both of them or either of them because I would really like to know what was behind the fact that they offered me a name for a poster each. But I'm fairly certain that is unlikely. I am content to let it be known that if anyone is even thinking of trying to jerk me around by baiting or name dropping another poster's name that I will not let it effect the content of my posts or my reactions to another's post. But if I am feeling like I may be being jerked around by such tactics my annoyance may come out in my posts. But I am glad that I brought up that this was a consideration of mine, and I am glad to consider your response Socks. I think that you are right in suggesting this as a generally good course of action. All weekend it seemed obvious that since these two that offered me a name have less than anonymous avatar names the repurcussions of my outing them using only their avatar names would be too harsh. Since I've come to the Greasespot a lot of the conversation is about hidden things that need to be outed, both for the sake of those that are/were involved and for others who have the right to know what TWI is/was all about. And even from a poster for whom another gave me a name, and whose content I have come to rely on too a certain degree I feel may be a little soft when it comes to things being brought out in the open. But it may just be that I am not aware of certain related concerns. But things actually being shouted from roof tops as justice sometimes requires is a somewhat rude act. But doing it to those who DON'T REALLY DESERVE TO BE OUTED is certainly no better. For what it may be worth to you Socks, your post doesn't seem harsh to me at all. I'd call it thought provokingly pointed; kind of a good thing if you will.

Dear Rumrunner, I think I will out the outers unless they give account for their actions out here in broad daylight. One of them I have a feeling for his motives and my gut tells me it may have even been by permission. But an anonymity policy is a policy after all. I will give him the chance to come clean right here. The other one I don't have any gut feeling for because of lack of conversation between us and I have no idea why he offered a name or if it was complete b.s., but I will give him a chance to come clean right here. Interestingly, these two guys are two of the less than anonymous posters here and long time GS members. ______________________ Dear Doojable, In my case it is not too hard to verify my identity. :B) But I don't even feel close to having run out of things that I may feel that need to be said about them, and every new person that comes around seems to get me feeling fired up all over again. I think that my decision to try to help TWI victims, even in the relatively insignificant ways that I am able makes me someone that TWI would generally not want to have around. I believe they feel that I have already done more damage to them than a mole might be worth to them, but that is only because I believe they are uptight to the point of being permanently constipated.

Dear Racscal, I think you may be right about the fact that the non-responses to my overtures of friendship hurt a little. And even though I understand how many feel it seems that my expectations can be a little at odds with my reason. Well, at least that gives me something in common with the rest of the human race. At least my splinter group experiences seems to give me a lot of common ground with many Greasespotters. Most of the time I think of that as just a good place to start. ______________________ I am glad that I started this thread. Thank you for sharing, all of you. I probably won't be back through a long weekend. It is a holiday in the United States (for all the international Greasespotters) and I may not get back until Tuesday. I will look forward to checking for more action on this thread then. Speaking just for myself, I really am not afraid of having gone public. But I am not any of you either and I still respect your concerns 100%.