Rocky

There's a very brief (one paragraph) news story on the incident on the Toledo Blade website. I got the link from the reddit thread. I have to figure TWI has at least indirect culpability for the situation. Anna could have had several possible/potential stressors leading to her decision. Her job, her coursework, her marriage, or some kind of pressure more directly from twi; any or all of them or something else could have been factors. Very tragic. I feel bad for her even now, almost two years after she died.

No, they aren't valid. They are fallacious. IF a certain instance is at all possibly correct, it is NOT because of this.

At least that's the excuse they give you when you ask, right?

According to whom? Or, who says?

https://www.religioustraumainstitute.com This appears to be a website to provide clinicians access to training on how to recognize and treat people who have experienced religious trauma, based in Dallas, TX.

I watched the series when it was first available (on Hulu). It resonated with me.

I didn't say I wanted to debate it. Just that it's debatable. Fair questions, however.

And there you have cultism in a nutshell. Followers have delegated their responsibility for rational thought and self-determination to the cult leader and/or his successors. However, I believe that mindset can be overcome in many cases.

That's a debatable claim.

The first three points VERY much describe how people are after years of involvement in The Way International.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18668059-the-obstacle-is-the-way https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43582733-stillness-is-the-key https://goodreads.com/book/show/27036528.Ego_Is_the_Enemy He's written more than these three, but this trilogy are, IMO, the most significant. Highly readable, not overly long or tedious.

Respectfully, my question was for OutandAbout.

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." — Thomas Paine This is for Mike AND everyone who engages with him.

How so? Anything anyone here can do to help you get untriggered?

Have you read any of his books?

I agree with T-Bone (as I quoted the end of his previous comment). And I agree with Socrates on the cause and effect error. A person making such a claim apparently doesn't grasp the fact it is not even close to a valid argument/claim. Unless he does and made the statement to knowingly deceive the listener(s).

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson Whether your rape is actual sexual violence or not, TWI is a cult. You may have experienced the rape as emotional or spiritual violence. Make some noise.

Back at you, dude! If only Marcus Aurelius could have heard the (fictional) advice from his adopted grandfather, Hadrian, that Marguerite Yourcenar writes into her prize-winning book Memoirs of Hadrian. “Our great mistake,” she has Hadrian say, “is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.” How much happier Marcus would have been had he been more able to see the good in people, and how much better a leader he could have been had he leaned into their strengths rather than disdained their weaknesses. Each of us would benefit from that advice as well. We have to focus on what we can learn from other people. We have to focus on what is special and unique about them instead of zeroing in on the ways they are not as good as us. We have to be forgiving and patient, kind and appreciative. We have to engage with what they bring to the table, not lament the things they take from it. Then we have to work to make those people around us better…not write them off as hopeless and broken. **** When I TRY to look at the good in you and bring it out, you declare that I post garbage about you. That's sad.

Has it EVER occurred to you to consider HOW or WHY that matters to you at all?

LOL... there YOU go again.

It seems important to me to parse what the question means or implies. Clearly, children in the US can be and are troubled sometimes and to some extent by abusive aspects of their parents' religions. Clearly, said second generation of people adversely impacted by various cults could/would hope for a mechanism for government to facilitate escape from those controlling and abusive religious organizations. But what kind of mechanism could at all be feasible without jeopardizing foundational freedoms (of religion)? Perhaps some kind of education program about spiritual/religious abuse? But even with that, wouldn't there be difficult issues to navigate any or all of which would cause potentially large and vociferous reactionary pushback?

However, this innovative idea (don't forget last year's idea of a revamped/rehashed music festival for young people) is nothing to shake a stick at. Failure ALSO is necessary for learning. They'll learn things from the postcard experiment. BUT... they are likely to get stuck when they decline to innovate the organization's approach to God. They likely hold dear the verse in Hebrews which tells them Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Yet, is the Jesus taught by Wierwille and Martindale the same Jesus of the bible? I remember Loy asking that very question, as if he and twi were the ones who had it right. Put another way, if twi doesn't go beyond the "research" and private interpretation of Wierwille, it just may not matter how much organizational learning or innovation they do. Btw, has it occurred to anyone here on GSC (maybe it has) that despite Wierwille's attempt to link up HIS interpretation as being GOD's actual interpretation of the bible, he actually also declared it to be his, Victor's OWN interpretation, because nobody has had it right since the First Century?

At any moment, roughly a million people are reclining in comfortable chairs thousands of miles above the surface of the planet. Such has been the success of commercial flight. It was not long ago that traveling through the sky was an unthinkably rare and risky adventure. Now it hardly lifts an eyebrow: we board like sleepwalkers, only becoming energized if something gets in the way of our expectation of delicious meals, reclining seats and streaming movies. Eagleman, David; Brandt, Anthony. The Runaway Species (p. 16). Catapult. Kindle Edition.