Rocky

It certainly hastened his passing.

As if your experience and your emotional pain is the first time anyone in the history humanity has had that happen to them??????????? If you're divorced and if your divorce was not amicable and if there had been any accusations against you in a court of law regarding your relationship with your children's mother... I would think that's a much bigger deal than you getting falsely accused by townies reading waydale and harassing you with it. Just sayin'... having been through such things (in court) myself. There IS such a thing as perspective.

Bam! Righteous, brother.

Like almost all prison inmates, Jeffs is allowed visits from family members, and is permitted to send letters to approved recipients. According to A&ETV, Jeffs and his accomplices, it appears, have learned to take advantage of the freedoms they've been afforded to bend the rules. For example, since Jeffs is allowed to send and receive written letters, authorities believe he may be sending out coded messages, and his wives are deciphering them. What's more, authorities believe that Jeffs has been using his visits with his brothers to send directives on how to run what remains of his church. "We have evidence he continues to direct day-to-day operations of the church, including things like excommunicating individuals and directing what women should be placed with what caretakers," Sean Keveney, a Department of Justice attorney told the makers of "Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil," per A&ETV. Authorities believe that Jeffs' brothers may be using recording devices disguised as watches and pens and that Jeffs is even calling the shots at his brother Seth's FLDS compound in South Dakota's Black Hills. Read More: https://www.grunge.com/361685/the-most-shocking-true-crime-revelations-every-year-since-1999/?utm_campaign=clip

The CLAIMED they could speak in tongues.

Seriously? Used by whom? How were they used?

I didn't read on this thread where you made any such claim. Did you claim Waydale blamed innocent people? Who in any culture/society has control over how information is used once it is written or broadcast? Dude, NONE of your claims make any sense.

I remember. Of course, it was "evil." His pronouncements thereof were not based on any exegesis on the merits of the content of said document. Inclusion of the expression "New World Order" apparently flipped a switch in his mind, in his rhetoric, and in our minds to automatically and robotically dismiss the concepts altogether. Right now, I'm not discussion the political merits of or against the concept. Just that it became an issue in the mid-1970s and just like many other things, Victor ranted dismissively. Declaration of Interdependence. Much of the actual document paralleled the Declaration of Independence, but added wording about responsibility, rather than limiting it to a selfish point of view. Of course, in the ensuing 45+ years since, we HAVE learned that there ARE genuine problems/challenges that increasingly risk survival of humanity. Let's please limit discussion to historical issues and analysis of what Victor said and did. Otherwise, this may end up not being a viable discussion topic for this forum. Thanks.

I emphatically agree! An obedient mind delegates to others the responsibility for moral decision-making. That's, IMO, not at all a good thing. Me too! I don't run any more. It's a chore just to walk very much. Btw, before twi, I was just athletic enough to participate in exercises during USAF basic training and to complete the yearly 1.5 mile run (jog). In HS, I tried out for baseball (didn't make any teams) and JV wrestling. I decided I preferred drama club and choir.

So sorry you had to endure that abuse. So glad it's quite far behind you now. You (and the rest of us, thankfully) are a survivor!

1) I affirmatively do not expect you to either dance or change your belief/understanding of the issue. 2) My intent was absolutely not justifying anything. Nevertheless, beliefs are real cultural phenomena whether you believe them or not. If you're not curious, you're not curious. No doubt there are millions, if not billions of people just like you on that point.

Why would I want to explain hypocrisy in the bible? It wouldn't change either your mind or the content of the bible, right? Are you trying to get me to tell you that you are right and everyone who believe what's in the bible is wrong? That's not how I look at it. But I AM confident that you already believe you're right and everyone who believes in what's in the bible is wrong. What more is there to say about it? Believe it or not, there are people who believe there are more possibilities than that. But if you don't believe what's in the bible, why do you frame your question in terms of what you believe is in the bible? Frankly, I don't think it matters to anyone other than you or me what you believe or what I believe.

Okay, so all you really wanted to do with this thread was to rant. I suppose that's acceptable in this particular (sub) culture.

I was of the impression that it was ALL a psychological hoax.

Cultural literacy I don't know this author's politics or religion, just that he coined the expression cultural literacy more than three decades ago.

That's a HUGE hope. My understanding is that you may have unrealistic expectations. May I suggest pursuing cultural knowledge and understanding to grasp how our culture came to believe and incorporate stories of Santa Claus and God into it. STL, what CMAN may be trying to say is that much of what we do in our mind is use our imagination. In doing so, perhaps we each can decide what we want to try to understand in this life and pursue things in that direction. Btw, CMAN's follow up citing Scrooge is an example thereof. Scrooge IS a character in a story. In that regard, Scrooge is real, even though the story is fictional and was a product of the imagination of Charles Dickens documented in Dickens' novella, A Christmas Carol. Fiction is often something untrue used to communicate things that are actually true. There is no way humanity will ever give up on stories. Stories ARE humanity and the way humanity communicates most efficaciously.

More from Bittersweet by Susan Cain: In her TED talk, Susan David states: The conventional view of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, is rigid. What does it take for us to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world? Rigidity in the face of complexity is TOXIC. We need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving. In that talk, she also says that Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility. She provides insight on HOW WE WERE actually brainwashed. We (willingly) allowed ourselves to indoctrinated (PFLAP and its successor classes) and willingly, as we continued to subject ourselves to fellowships and "undershepherding." In such processes we allowed a whitewashed mindset to be inculcated into our minds/brains as a way to live according to the private and severely limited interpretation and view of a culture and a religion.

Remarkably remarkable remarks... and no doubt, divinely inspired.

Santa Claus is REAL. Not a real person at this time, but a real cultural entity. Culture is real. Culture is an important aspect of humanity. He's the central figure in a cultural story. So is God.

I can't tell you have thankful I am... for you and Bolshevik and T-Bone and WordWolf and, well plenty of others who contribute their life experience and insight here on GSC. And for people who have been living their lives outside of fundamentalist religious cults, who think and ponder life and/or who do scientific research into lots of things around us and regarding human lives and culture. We obviously can't quantify how much we know or did know about much of anything at other points in our lives, but the rapid growth in knowledge available to know has been truly awe-inspiring. I doubt Victor had the imagination to envision what the 35 years after he passed would be like.

From Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America (2009) page 44, the last paragraph of the chapter in which Ehrenreich details her breast cancer diagnosis. Her next chapter is about years of magical thinking. Both chapters reveal much insight against which the culture/subculture of The Way can be measured and is most definitely found wanting. Wierwille's cult morphed from American culture into a very sadistic organism in which misfortune, to which everyone is ultimately subject, is blamed for their/our fate by reimagining the myth of blame as a violation of the cult's standards. IOW, you didn't effing believe enough to overcome. That leaves people who do not rightfully own said blame, taking it upon themselves anyway.

Indeed.

Probably not misremembering. Once upon a time, GSC had an archive of some (maybe all) of the content from Waydale. Old Skool (fifth comment on this thread) faithfully and fairly characterizes Waydale. The most significant aspect of it from my perspective is that it was the precursor to GSC and was started by P*** A**** as an online place to document the experience he and his wife went through at the hands of Loy C Martindale in the wake of Loy's predatory sexual attack and assault on and of his wife... and the foregoing civil litigation. It had massive impact because it primarily contained first hand documentation of the perverse sexual culture endemic in TWI. It appears, and I hope Bolshevik clarifies, that Waydale had substantial unforeseen (perhaps largely indirect) ramifications in the life of teenagers, including himself, who perhaps were coming of age around the time Loy's crimes were being exposed.

For anyone to document any evil(s) rightfully attributed to Waydale or its authors/administrators, such a person would have to show/demonstrate how the words ON the website harmed them. NOT how someone reacted to what was written on Waydale and therefore committed harmful actions against anyone.