So_crates

The point I was attempting to make was: the group a person belongs to does not preclude harmlessness or harmfulness. Its a logical fallacy called Division Fallacy: it presumes the individual has the same qualities as the group. This argument, when diagrammed would look something like: Christians are harmless X is a Christian Therefore X is harmless That may or may not be true. X being harmless would be contingent on a lot of other factors other than s/he being Christian. SoCrates

Your point is well taken. And to show you how well you've made your point, I'll ask you: after all the time I've wasted with Saint Vic and his demented circus do you think I'll ever involve myself with another church or religion? Will I ever speak of Saint Vic's doctrine (this, of course, presupposes he has the truth, which he didn't), outside of telling them how he plagerized and raped and misused ministry funds, to another soul? So, the devil, through Saint Vic, has succeeded in preventing the gospel from being moved in me. SoCrates

On the contrary, its a very big issue. First off, Saint Vic was selling second hand clothes as off the rack. Most everything he presented was researched by someone else. If anyone should have gotten the money, it should have been Scofeild and Bullinger and who was the guy Saint Vic ripped the class off of? Second: we get to one of my questions you skipped over: Why didn't Christ hold classes and charge for them? Why didn't Paul? Or Peter? Third: So your telling me that Saint Vic was working for the devil? Whose speaking with a forked tongue now? A couple of posts ago, he was the shovel ready man of God, now he's the agent of the devil. Fourth: when somebody commits a crime, we don't put the devil on trial. Likewise, the devil doesn't pull time in prison. Usually, especially if the individual is unrepentant and unremorseful, they shoulder the blame themselves. I blame both Saint Vic and the devil. Saint Vic took my money and used it to his nefarious ends, not the devil. Saint Vic spread his venom, not the devil. Saint Vic plagerized, not the devil. SoCrates

Sure blows the "spiritually clean money" concept out of the water. SoCrates

Ultimately, its all the same thing. One of the things I always wondered was if believing were true, why didn't Saint Vic mine the scriptures and experiment to learn the dynamics of it? To me that's like saying there's gravity, but leaving it at that: not bothering to find out about mass, the rate objects fall, or escape velocities. I wondered about that for a couple of years, then along came the law of attraction. Surprisingly, they were much more explicit than the law of believing. I read everything on it I could for 6 months. Tried some of the principles and found out it, too, is bunk. SoCrates

That would be a reasonable safe bet. I mean TWI is losing most of CO for a reason. That suggests to me TWI is involved somehow. SoCrates

Yah, google the law of attraction. It's the law of believing, repackaged. SoCrates

In the process of writing a reply to the Dishing it out thread, an interesting thought occured to me. With all the people creating TWI offshoots, why is nobody on this board doing the same? I mean, think about it: there are many, many corps people on this board who know the Saint Vic line and it would be a cash cow. I was just thinking, gee, I have a companion bible, I know Saint Vic's sources, add in a little of my own magic and Bob's your uncle! But, then, I presume many of you are like me in the sense that your too honorable to follow in the footsteps of Saint Vic: you would never do something to intentionally hurt someone; would never plagerize; would never sell out God for your own gain. Just a thought. SoCrates

Or insist a broken system can fly. Too many people out their have done the program and landed flat on their face. Too many people know what the Saint Vic legacy is really all about. Its going to be a little harder to fool us this time. SoCrates

Don't I recall a verse of two about Christ throwing the moneychangers out of the temple? Something about making my house a den of theives? Once you marketing yourself, it stops being about God and starts being about you. God gave us his word freely, freely it should also be given. ABS? That's from the heart, not because someone charges $50 for a book. Its from a feeling of thankfulness, not commerce. Your argument about quality also holds no water. So your telling me the minister whose giving people the bread of life on the street corner is presenting a poorer quality verson of the bible than someone, say, charging $100 for a class? If that were true, why didn't Christ charge? Why didn't the apostles? And they preached a purer form of the bible than we could ever get. Second of all, your comparing apples and oranges. The Eagles are about entertainment, not your personal relationship with God. And, as long as I'm at it, what happened to that give and it'll given onto you pressed down, shaken together, and running over schtick that the ministry is so good about handing out to people. What better to give then the word? Think of all the blessings they're missing out onby not giving people the class. The real way in wass designed to be was for the ministry to teach you about God, His blessings, and your relationship with Him and as you are blessed and recieve those blessings you ABS. Saint Vic knew not enough people would recive blessings from his line of bull (statistical probability states 1 in 10 would recieve whatever they thought was a blessing from the class), so he created a counterfiet way of getting what he should have through blessed peoples ABS. He charged for the class. Then when it got to be more about money and less about God, he emphasized ABS. Craigmeister finished the cycle by demanding ABS--or else. SoCrates

The mystery of how people ever believed he was a MOG of our day and time. SoCrates

I'm thinking that's where most religions get derailed. Once the MOG starts drawing a salary, then it's no longer about God, but about the money. The MOG no longer has to rely on God to get his needs met, he has money. And then it becomes a game of how much money can I amass. The legalism, well that's just to keep people in their place: You have to treat every word the MOG says as the gospel truth and be sure to give your 10%--everything you don't need if you really want to be blessed--so the MOG can have his plane, motorcoach, and motorcycle to bless God's people. Sure, know anymore funny stories? SoCrates

I can see your point: after all, all those people who blew up abortion clinics and killed doctors who did abortions were "jesus freaks" and therefore harmless. SoCrates

Okay, God doesn't work for the Liberty Lobby. SoCrates

Oh no, the ghost of Werewille past! SoCrates

Hmmmm. Revelations from God? Liberty Lobby? God must work for the Liberty Lobby. :) SoCrates

I'm attempting to make a point about the hypocracy of the ministry. They teach one thing, yet their actions betray their true nature. SoCrates

I believe that's the point I'm trying to make. From post #132 of the Forgiveness thread: Of course, giving equals recieving means you get a return. Who invest something without expecting a return of some sort. So, getting back to my point, in this context, if you believe you'll get 50-60 times the amount you gave why be stingy with resources? Why not pay corps people, then all that money will come back to you? Why not make the PFAL class free, think of all the deliverence you'll give and all the ABS you'll be returned? SoCrates

Not doubting you, doubting your source. Looking at it from a reasoning point of view, how was following your branch leader or watching from a select spot in LEAD supposed to lead them to illegal guns. Note: I said illegal. If lead had legal rifles, there wasn't much they could do about it. SoCrates

Like? SoCrates

The simple truth: Saint Vic wasn't interested in counseling people. Oh, he wanted their money, but other than that I don't think he gave a puppy f@rt. Look at PFAL, if Saint Vic was interested in delivering people, PFAL would have been a freebie--or at least went for the cost of the materials. The whole, you don't pay you don't get nothing out of it, was nothing more than a smokescreen. The ministry wanted your 10% ABS, They wanted it so badly, the made it mandantory. Oh but you'll be so blessed, they'd say. See the previous post I made on this thread. And if you failed to manifest all the wonderous things you were supposed to get, they could always hide behind, "it was your believing." Here's something that just struck me: if giving equals recieving why didn't he pay the corps people. Just think of all the blessings the ministry missed out on. SoCrates

Apparently definitions of "finest" and "put together" we're not familiar with. SoCrates

I think that it is a solvable equasion is what lies at the crux of most of the conflict people are experiencing. Remember, Saint Vic taught us the Word worked with a "mathamatical exactness and a scientific percision" (whatever that is). His teachings are loaded with psudo-formulas and results: 1. Giving equals recieving I doubt he ment G=R, but I thing its more If you G, then you R. 2. Believing equals recieving Again not B=R but If you B then you R 3. Love is giving A little more obvious, if you L then you G. How was the law of believing presened to us in PFAL? Equation by analogy. He used a camera: Exposure, Light, Time, Results. Or If E and L and T then R. Getting born again: confession with your mouth, believe in your heart. If CM and BH then BA Being born again, speaking in tongues. If BA, then SIT. Or the three D's of Dulos doing: Decision, Desire, Details, Deliverence. Again, if D1 and D2 and D3, then D4. These are off the top of my head. I'm sure if I wanted to come up with more examples I could. Is it any wonder when we run into a problem we treat it like a formula? SoCrates