Nathan_Jr

We do? Is that so? Is that so? There has GOT to be? This is fundamental to man's suffering and confusion that has persisted for hundreds of thousands of years: that there is some authority, some guru, some system of thought put together by the mortal thoughts of another that will guide us. No! Yikes! The question is WHY? If my thoughts are guided by another, then I am not free, but a slave to the errors of another, a slave to the opinions of another, a slave to the conclusions of another. If there is a "rule for faith and practice," it can only be put together by the thoughts of man. Obviously. Again, no one seems to see this. This is the fundamental problem: we are always lazily, fearfully seeking the easy, comfortable answers from another. Is this not obvious? Is it in writing? Does that change anything? Who is writing? The guru? The minister? The priest? The self-anointed authority? Who made the authority? Mortal man. Obviously. No! Fools beleeve another can light their path, and that fool follows that path into a perpetuity of confusion. What was in the beginning? Light, the Word. What is the Word? Is it the Christ? Where is the Christ? Is it within? What does your scripture say? Even Paul, a Pharisee so full of conclusions and surety, got THAT right.

Who needs freedom of will, freedom of thought, when alls ya got to do is imitate your daddy in da werd? Just stand on daddy's shoulders! (How will I ever see out of this bowl of soup when I'm standing on the shoulders of a spiritual dwarf?)

As it stands now, AI does not benefit from free will. It is its replacement. Free will is an illusion with current state AI.

Thanks, Rocky. Always good book recs from you. There's plenty to be concerned about here. AI exploits our instinctive affinity for patterns. We are spoon fed what we want without having to articulate what we want, so we "choose" only what we could have ever chosen. The ancient, unconscious, pattern-seeking brain is being exploited for profit, whereas the profiteers are carful to mitigate the risk of the customer using his slow, careful, thoughtful brain to make real choices. And WE, the customers, the voters, the potential proselytes, are increasingly anesthetized to this auto comfort. It is confirmation bias on steroids. "Rely not on your own understanding." Chilling.

Not I. And my oatmeal cookies are damn good. (They'll make your tongue hard.) Anyway... gonna file this in a folder. Mogadishu!

Or anywhere else. It was a cookie. The error was only apparent.

Mike: That is putting evidence on a slightly higher pedestal than it deserves. Says every Flat Earther... says every propagator of Four Crucified... says anyone "teaching" a bastard bar mitzvah...

If the epistles are theopneustos, and in them are the criteria to be a minister of the Word of God, and victor objectively and demonstrably fails the criteria established by God, then victor is not a minister of God or His Word. Nevertheless, he is a MAN of God, even a THE Man of God (ask the music coordinator), even if he is not a MINISTER of God. A man of God, yes. A minister of God, no. Umm... okay... got it. So, back to the bathtub. Throw out victor's ministry, which includes his written and taped "work" (bathwater) because it is not of God, according to scripture, but keep victor the dead mortal man (baby cadaver). Umm... yeah... ok, got it! (Hey! I didn't write the book. Have you seen The Omen?)

How do you know? And don’t say because the music coordinator said so.

This is literally everything. It is not a matter of beleef. It is not a matter of choice, neither considered nor whimsical. There is nothing to contemplate. Nothing to decide. Once it is seen, it cannot be unseen.

Don't the epistles provide criteria for a man of god? Haven't we already shown victor doesn't meet those criteria? That seems like a reasonable place to start, since victor set the Bible up as an idol. Hey! I didn't write the book. *mogadishu barbacoa chi kwalla

Well said. We still agree 100%. I was “taught” that the Ten Commandments were rubbish laws for stupid Jews. I never bought that logic. And if there should be any doubt for a hyper dispensationalist, one who exalts Paul above Christ, didn’t even Paul quote a few of the Ten Commandments in one of the later chapters of Romans?

Interpreting native tongue into glossolalia is a prerequisite to being a REAL man of god. Victor could only interpret one way - glossolalia to native tongue. And his was all counterfeit, anyway. Math. See? Isn't that wonderful? It makes perfect sense, like freshly squeezed orange juice. (Ever see The Omen?)

Good for you.

Victor even plagiarized poetry. POETRY! Who TF does THAT? Not an honest man. Not a man of God. Narcissists want and demand ALL the attention. They HATE giving credit to anyone else, lest someone diverts their attention away from the narc. The narcissist's great fear is being discovered for what they REALLY are. All narcissists are liars and frauds. How do you know a narcissist is lying? His lips are moving.

Plagiarism, fundamentally, is not about academic norms, style or methodology, it's about a man's integrity. victor said he worked 18 hours a day "researching" and "working the word." He portrayed himself as the final arbiter, the final authority, on the accuracy of the Bible. He did the work so we don't have to. The work? It doesn't require 18 hours a day for years to copy and paste. If he lied about his "work," what else did he lie about. Turns out damn near EVERYTHING.

No doubt. No shonta. To/for is a bullshonta cop out, IMO. Chockfull is right on. I agree with him. @chockfullSorry, Chockfull, if you didn't get it. My comment was pure sarcastic snark. It wasn't aimed AT you. It was aimed WITH you - aligned WITH your sarcastic critiques of the fraudsters.

To/For

Rely NOT on your own consideration. Let someone else with a bracelet do the considering for you. Seek to BELEEEVE, not to find out, not to understand, not to know, not to see.

Thanks, WW, for reposting this. Thanks, Raf, for your honest reflection. I finally and forever stopped going to fellowship because of this very issue of integrity and that it does, indeed, matter. I read somewhere in this forum about an obscure, out of print E.W. Bullinger book called The Giver And His Gifts (It was also published with an alternate title, I think?) A few weeks later at fellowship, the commander and his wife, both Corps, held forth for an embarrassingly long time about the great sacrifices victor paul wierwille made to "research the word." Victor worked 18 hours a day for years to find every use of "Holy Spirit" in the Bible, they said. No one else ever had or ever would do this, they said. We should be so humbly grateful to victor, they said. He did all the work so we wouldn't have to, they said. Isn't that wonderful, they said. The accurate truth, I discovered, was victor copied the The Giver And His Gifts for all the uses of "Holy Spirit" for the appendix of RTHST. Why hide this? What's wrong with saying victor found this book from Bullinger and copied it so we wouldn't have to? Why make such a deliberate, painstaking effort to gushingly misattribute credit to victor for this? Why hide? Why deceive? That was it for me. I had endured the bullshonta to keep the peace, but the deliberate deception I couldn't abide. If it wasn't deliberate deception on the fellowship commander's part (doubtful), then it was willful ignorance on his part, which is self deception -- I couldn't abide that, either. A week later, the FC texted me for something unrelated. I replied with, "Are you familiar with The Giver and His Gifts by EW Bullinger?" FC: Yes NATE: Is that the source for RTHSPT? FC: Somewhat NATE: I mean the appendix. FC: Dr. put together various writings. Bullinger was a biggie. But not EVERTHING Bullinger wrote was accurate. NATE: I get it. Bullinger did the research, the work. But it seems Bullinger was a trinitarian. Everything was accurate, except that, I guess. FC: I am concerned with rightly dividing the Word of truth. When we do, we get rewarded. Deflect, distract, derail, deny. Red herrings are dirty birds. That's where the conversation ended. I was done with the deception, but he wasn't.

A music coordinator said he was the seventh THE man of god. Must be something to it if a music coordinator said it Plus, Vic wore a silver bracelet engraved with “The man of god.” The bracelet says it, I believe it, that settles it. Did you ever see the movie The Omen?

Yep. Yep. And yep. The typical deflective apologia I encountered when raising the issue of plagiarism (dishonesty, a lie) was, “If it’s true, what does it matter.” This, it seems to me, is weirdly equivalent to the bathing baby, or at least a limping step towards it. What does it matter? It literally matters EVERYTHING. That’s what. The plagiarism is bad enough, but the plagiarized material is inaccurate or untrue, making it all so… ridiculous. Why does the bathwater need throwing out? Because it’s filthy. Understood. We can all agree. Why is the bathwater filthy? Oh, I don’t know… could it have anything to do with the rotting corpse of a baby floating in it? It’s just ridiculous to keep a cadaver of a baby around. It’s absurd. It’s gross.

It is written in an undiscovered manuscript. I beleeve one day that manuscript will be found, but not in my lifetime.

Well done, WW. Thank you.