Rocky

We should ALL (including Mike) consider how this one applies to us.

I hope you'll be prepared in the unfortunate even Idalia takes a sharp right turn. Much love to friends in the Orlando and Tampa/St Pete metro areas too.

Good one!

I love it. However, with the one caveat that I haven't put enough study into the perspective you've shared to say I can agree with it without reservation. Yet, on the surface, it makes sense to me. Thanks again.

Wonderfully eloquent way to envision the story nature of scriptures. I came to a personal realization/recognition not too very long ago that the Bible is an anthology of stories. I see the main truth as being since we are humans, in a radically different culture than then, all we can do is imagine. And I go back to my current favorite passage Proverbs 2:1-5. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

At least massive trust in terms of how we (I) understand what it would take. Not only after enduring temptations for 30 years, but cultivating enough trust (and, I suppose also love) in the Hebrew scriptures or whatever other basis Jesus could have had to develop such a trust to be willing to go through the torture and death.

Hey Rrobs, Long time no see. For the record, TL;DR, however I read some of your post and find the apparent point quite intriguing. In so doing, it occurs to me that not only is or could be "idioms of permission" a truly BFD [idiom used NOT in any political sense but rather just to invoke a colloquial definition/usage] in an of itself, instead this notion/concept as you present it herein seems to dramatically illustrate the wideness of the chasm in modern day cultural interpretation and understanding of JudeoChristian scriptures and how the writers of said scriptures actually understood their words and intended messages. So, more succinctly, thanks for posting that information.

Dennett describes himself as "an autodidact—or, more properly, the beneficiary of hundreds of hours of informal tutorials on all the fields that interest me, from some of the world's leading scientists".[21] I reflect back to previous discussion and reiterate that I am not an academic... and while I'm not even close to being in the same league as Dennett, I can somewhat relate to approaching the condition of being an autodidact.

Thanks. Are you able to articulate a comparison/contrast of what you understand any of those brain scientists believe and/or promulgate(d) now as opposed to in the 1990s?

Mike, to summarize my perspective on your contributions to GSC, Regarding YOUR experience(s) and YOUR beliefs, when you make clear that's what you are saying in a comment, I don't see a need to challenge them. I may still disagree with the underlying claim(s) regarding interpretation of anything in TWI. Regarding your intellectual curiosity about other fields of study and endeavor, I (and WE here at GSC) can learn from you, whether we're ready to accept your ideas or not. Regarding your communication skills/practices. You and they still need dramatic improvement if you ever intend to promote them here and hope to see any of your ideas accepted. Regarding your "research" and your "theories" I recommend this video made recently by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. She lists several points that you can (and should) use as guideposts or guiderails to keep yourself on track and promote a more favorable environment here for discussion and acceptance of your ideas. Peace, Dude!

Also exquisitely elegant and eloquent. And dead on salient.

Well... anyway, I had simply posed questions. I had not at all indicated a particular judgment about your intention. Sorry if my first reply was a bit harsh.

Exquisitely elegant reply. I think you've hit on something(s) Penworks that goes to the power of cults. 1) Hierarchy. Frans de Waal mentions the word repeatedly in Mama's Last Hug. Human hierarchies can be quite apparent, but we don’t always recognize them as such, and academics often act as if they don’t exist. I have sat through entire conferences on adolescent human behavior without ever hearing the words power and sex, even though to me they are what teen life is all about. De Waal, Frans . Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves (p. 31). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. 2) As I used the expression, "commitment to the underlying Word of God" would be whether those who articulated expressions like "the Word of God is the Will of God" walked the walk instead of just talking the talk. Perhaps it's an artifact of the exponential growth of psychological and spiritual research, knowledge and understanding in the 50+ years since the rapid growth of Victor Wierwille's organization that we can identify inconsistencies so readily in our experience of the subculture itself. 3) Many of us who were drawn into The Way were primed for it by "virtue" of our childhood religious education and culture. IIRC, Penworks, you were raised in the Catholic Church. As was I, at least for me my first 13 years. It was interrupted for me when I moved with my mother and siblings to Arizona. After a less than robust couple of years religiously, at the end of high school, typical spiritual longings and curiosity began again to arise. After one semester of college, I dropped out and signed a delayed enlistment contract with the USAF. During the six month interim, a close HS friend invited me to his (Pentecostal/charismatic) church. During tech school in Mississippi, I connected with a charismatic fellowship off base. So, when I went overseas at age 19, it was natural for me to gravitate to a fellowship at the base chapel. Anyway, the two things that hooked me was, as you noted for yourself, longing for God; and the obvious need to build a social network on the small military base in a foreign land. The Way tapped ALL the right keys. It wasn't for a few years afterward that I engaged with what I now know to have been a highly corrupt (or at least dysfunctional) hierarchy.

Really? You seemingly admit you didn't understand my response to you, but then indicate a particular judgment about my intention? I posed questions. That's what one reasonably does when seeking clarification(s). Isn't that what discussion forums are inherently about? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. iykyk

That's what I figured.

Do you mean at some point there WAS some hype and commitment to the underlying Word of God, the overall body of Christ, or anything [at all] related to building virtue? Has The Way Corporation ever given any commitment to living godly lives, or concern for the overall body of Christ? I suppose the answers are or would be subjective.

From the Daily Stoic website: In stark contrast to the cult notion of whether you're being protected by God or whether God will even "spit in your direction." This Timeless Adage Will Determine Your Destiny This is not another note about memento mori. It’s about a different immutable, inescapable law of human existence that comes to us from the Stoics through Heraclitus (one of Marcus Aurelius’ favorites): Character is fate. After death and taxes, this is a timeless adage that the Stoics believed will determine our destiny whether we like it or not. And just a quick glimpse around the world and across history confirms it: Liars and cheats eventually destroy themselves. The corrupt overreach. The ignorant make fatal, self-inflicted mistakes. The egotistical ignore the data that challenges them and the warnings that could save them. The selfish end up isolated and alone, even if they’re surrounded by fame and fortune. The “robbers, perverts, killers and tyrants” Marcus Aurelius wrote about always end up in a hell of their own making. It’s a law as true as gravity. Bad character might drive someone into a position of leadership—because of their ambition, their ruthlessness, their shamelessness—but eventually, inevitably, this supposed “strength” becomes an Achilles’ heel when it comes time to actually do the job. Who trusts them? Who actually wants to work with them? What kind of culture develops around them? How can they learn? How can they know where the landmines are? If you want to know why things are the way they are right now—on Wall Street, in politics, in Silicon Valley, on college campuses, [in corporate leadership of nascent religions] everywhere—it’s because character is fate. And for too long we have ignored the predictive—no, *prophetic—*power of character. When you make excuses for liars and cheats and egomaniacs because they agree with you, or they might benefit your business or help your cause in the short term, not only do you do so at your own long term peril, but you are exhibiting bad character yourself. And that is what will come back to bite you. That is what is biting us right now, on every continent, in every corner of culture, at nearly every turn. Because character is fate. Always has been. Always will be. **** When I think of Ecclesiastes and the truth of no new thing under the sun, I don't see it as a limit on technology or exploration, even of the heavens. But I do see it as that the ancients had enough experience with human nature to recognize that character is fate.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs 2%3A1-5&version=NIV

Taking this insight back to how people on GSC have described the conduct of TWI's foundational class (often) by young people without sophisticated education/training, for those who have gone through such classes, can (for those open to recognizing) have the lightbulb of understanding come on. You say you had questions about something in the PFLAP class when it didn't sit right when you first heard it? You were told to hold your questions until the end of the last session. Instead of a class coordinator reading the questions and cogently explaining logical, rational answers, what happened? Rarely, if ever, was anything done except gloss over the elephant in the room (said questions) hoping nobody would notice the silence... or the glossolalia (a cacophony of chaos) with everybody excitedly uttering "words" they didn't understand. What happened to the cognitive dissonance in your mind? Did you chalk it up to having made a free will decision to decide your questions were no longer relevant?

Did you forget about Hilary (only one L)?

They OWN American Christian Press still?