Rocky

How certain are you of the interpretation the phrase you quoted is a command? I see it differently but find your take to be intriguing. At this time, I see the phrase as a declaration based on assessment or personal inference. I suppose Victor's intent could have been an effort to place constraints on the minds of his listeners.

I won't "expound on" what you personally thing regarding the internet. But regarding the book and movie...here's a description of the book from Goodreads: One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape? Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

I'm not shocked. They sell soap (Amway) for the mind. They sit on a lot of scratch and they have a few people making up stories to keep the sheep in the fold. Occasionally, one (or some) get out, but the proselytizing keeps it going.

No. But that would be nice right about now.

And even if they did... oh, come on... how could they possibly make sense of what Mike rambles on about anyway?

THIS movie (and book) seem to me to be very significant an related to the cult (and other religions') practice of sexual predation and abuse.

Of course you wonder in that direction. It's called rationalization.

My last name is definitely NOT Sanders. It would have been a harrowing experience for me if I would have transcribed any of Wierwille's teachings.

The movie, Women Talking, will be in wide release in the first week of January 2023. In 2022, I read Polley's memoir, Run Toward the Danger. I loved it. I'm confident the movie will be very emotionally moving and important in countering cult activity world wide.

Perhaps one of the reasons we are so quick to ascribe superpowers to people like this–Stoics or otherwise–is it’s a way of letting ourselves off the hook. If we raise them above ourselves, then we excuse ourselves. From the Daily Stoic, December 20, 2022.

Not a preposterous proposition.

I'm SHOCKED!

What? Still no time for living life, raising children, earning a living, or learning anything other than rehashing pflap?

What do you know about medications for depression? It seems maybe not much. SSRIs (very common type of medications for depression and anxiety) don't make people look or act like zombies. One of the things "they did to him" was give him money to live on. Reportedly, at some point, about $60k/yr. Another thing "they" did was divorce him. But if you like what he has to say, then enjoy.

Okay, I see the Way Mag at the links. However, there's NFW I'm going to read much of it. Bolshevik, does it (the linked Way Mag) mention stoic philosophy at all?

The Obstacle is the Way For some of us The Way has been the Obstacle ;) Ego is the Enemy Stillness is the Key Yeah, you DO have a right to your feelings. I started learning about Stoic philosophy (and ways of looking at life and events) about four years ago. I very much prefer it over being imprisoned by Wierwille's private interpretations of Christianity and the bible as we learning in the pflap class. I am much more able to stay calm and work through challenges I face. Wierwille learned the language of Christianity enough to sell his version. Yet, it seems even though he could talk the talk, much of the darkness in his personal practices and the subculture he built might be directly traceable to not learning stoic lessons on Ego. For him, it perhaps was his primary adversary.

Now that's GRAVITAS. But it's NOT intellectual honesty. And it's not related to the interaction between you and I.

LOL... really? Where'd you learn to answer a question with a question? Did those who so taught you help you recognize the limitations of so reacting? First, what makes you think I suggested I had or needed to have such awareness? My rhetorical questions did not remark about your ability or inability. Posing that particular question is not contingent on my awareness of anyone's ability. Rather, your reactionary approach to only deflect (look over there...) REflects your lack of awareness of biblical declaration that it is only God who can examine and determine what is actually in the hearts of humans. But thank you for affirmatively, or at least by default, acknowledging said lack of awareness of that particular responsibility being only God's. By all means, continue to post at GSC, but also recognize/realize how easily people can rightfully criticize and take apart what you say. One would think that after 2 decades, you'd be able to learn and adapt what you "hold forth" to actually get better at doing so. But then again, you appear not to have so learned... much anyway.

WHO did Jesus look on with anger? Who did he address angrily? WHO are you to even have the most minute awareness of anyone's hardness of heart?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it sure looks like you missed the entire point of the post/comment you had quoted.

I favor Marcus these days. Mike could take a few lessons from his wisdom.

IF you COULD "take it," you probably wouldn't need to complain about it. Worry about (put your concern, time and energy into) what you CAN CONTROL rather than what others do to you, which you cannot control.

“Dr. Edith Eva Eger is my kind of hero. She survived unspeakable horrors and brutality; but rather than let her painful past destroy her, she chose to transform it into a powerful gift—one she uses to help others heal.” —Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle “The Choice is a gift to humanity. One of those rare and eternal stories that you don’t want to end and that leave you forever changed. Dr. Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors and to use that suffering for the benefit of others. She has found true freedom and forgiveness and shows us how we can as well.” —Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Eger, Edith. The Choice: Embrace the Possible (p. I). Scribner. Kindle Edition.