WordWolf

I was going to guess "It's My Life" by the Animals, but that's obviously not it.

*wild swing* "From Here to Eternity"???

According to vpw in pfal, God is Spirit, and can only communicate with that which He is-which is Spirit. (That's the 2nd of the 2 mutually-exclusive postulates he gave. the less-limiting one.) vpw's standard explanation for revelation to people not born again and not prophets was that God Almighty would put spirit upon them conditionally in that instance only, and remove it shortly thereafter. (That's how he explained "the writing on the wall." BTW, FF Bruce explained it better, and that explanation doesn't require discussing revelation.) So, to follow vpw's rules for spirit strictly, What happened here was that God Almighty, since he was unable to communicate directly with the mind of the donkey, put some spirit conditionally upon the donkey. Since that was not sufficient to make the donkey able to speak and make sense, God also had to perform a miracle and temporarily increase the donkey's wit and make him able to utter intelligible speech. Once He had done that, He could communicate with His Spirit to the donkey's temporary spirit, which became manifested in the senses realm when the donkey spoke. To discard vpw's explanation, God Almighty performed a miracle that raised the donkey's wit, and allowed him intelligible speech. Nothing further was needed. That was pretty miraculous as it was.

We never really made a thread on the subject, because it was so easily proven wrong. First of all, it wasn't even consistent. "God is Spirit- and God can only give that which He is, which is Spirit." -vpw, pfal. "God gave manna. God is not manna." -Raf, GSC. "God is Spirit- and God can only communicate with that which He is, which is Spirit."-vpw, pfal. Several people pointed out the obvious problems with that, as it doesn't even work on paper- especially when what vpw called "The Great Principle" comes into play. "God is Spirit, and God communicates with his spirit in you- which is now your spirit, and your spirit teaches your mind. Then it becomes manifested in the senses realm as you act." So, now God's Spirit IS UNABLE to communicate with my mind directly, because God is Spirit, and Spirit cannot communicate with mind directly since mind is not spirit. So, God's Spirit communicates directly to my spirit. The next step is that my spirit teaches my mind. To do that, it MUST FIRST COMMUNICATE with my mind. So, my spirit can do what God Almighty's Spirit is UNABLE TO DO. Seriously, if you spend time trying to save "the Great Principle" with your usual method of "that's the version for public consumption, but even the Corps and the inner cadre never REALLY heard the secret, occult meaning behind that- of which the version in pfal is an oversimplified, understated version", you're not going to get any converts to it, and you're just going to sink deeper into the rabbit hole. But, if you really want to discuss it, sure, start a new thread in Doctrinal. (That's when you make a new thread yourself specifically to discuss something, that's not when you take a different, existing thread with a different subject and start posting your new subject on it.)

[False Dilemma. "There are 2 types of people- those who divide people into 2 types, and those who don't." (BTW, that's another false dilemma even while it's a joke.) False Dilemmas are a lot like the postulate "You can't go beyond what you've been taught." They limit discussion and they limit THINKING into narrow channels, when other answers may work better. (Oh, and for those who are just skimming me for finding cut-and-paste to use against me later.... Just because only two options are offered is NOT a guarantee something is a False Dilemma. Sometimes there's only two possibilities, and often there are a lot more. One actually has to make the effort to determine which they are dealing with. Since that's work, some people will just guess. In the case of those who fence themselves in with a postulate (like "I can't go beyond what I've been taught") will find they don't really have an option without stepping outside their postulate.) ]

This was a perceptual flaw that was inflicted on you. It was inflicted on me, too, but I actually blew it off the first time I heard it, since I knew it was wrong. "You can't go beyond what you've been taught."- vpw False. "You can't go beyond what you KNEW- but you can learn more and THEN go beyond what you KNEW." - WordWolf What's the difference? vpw's version inflicts the "need" for a teacher on someone in order to learn ANYTHING. vpw was fond of inventing problems- and then offering the solutions for them- for a price. it was a lucrative, if unprincipled, business for him. So, if you begin with "You can't go beyond what you've been taught", then the next thing is needing to find a teacher, and only going as far as they can teach you. If you truly seek "mastery" of something, you have to completely discard that postulate and go FAR beyond what anyone can teach you. That's what "masters" of a thing do. Bruce Lee developed Jeet Kun Do in private, having gone far beyond what others had taught him. The Gracie family took Jiu Jitsu- a striking style- and added large amounts of grappling, holding, throws, and ground-fighting to it. The result was "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu"- which is a lot more dangerous than the conventional kind. (Check the octagon if there's any doubt.) Those who DECIDE that they CAN'T go beyond what they've been taught will discover they are correct, and those who decide that they CAN go beyond what they've been taught will discover that THEY are correct as well.

According to one method of thinking.... Provided that you're born again, Matthew 18 doesn't apply to you. Since it was before Pentecost, "the church of God" HAS no penalties. However, Jesus gave strong warnings and he didn't qualify them. So, this "sin all you want and God Almighty will give all the Big Jobs and exempt you from punishment" thing is invented- and the first man who set it up, big surprise, was vpw, who sinned all he wanted, claimed God Almighty gave him the Big Job, and genuinely wondered on his deathbed where he'd stumbled and why he was unable to get healing. Seriously- DECADES of sin and he couldn't find one. Then again, he also claimed he'd never taken an aspirin IN HIS LIFE and never taken a sick day IN HIS LIFE. There's a story where some Native American is asked what a conscience is. He replies that it's a 3-cornered thing in here, signalling to his chest. He said that when he did wrong, it turned and the corners hurt him. But if he KEPT doing wrong, then the corners wore down and it STOPPED hurting.

There's a certain futility in answering you in according to your posts, Mike, and Rocky acknowledged that. He also pointed out that, once again, you hijacked a thread. Unlike you, the rest of us can learn from each other, and read and respond to each other's posts accordingly. With you, it's always "what can I pick and choose from what they said and use to push my agenda", so you tend to miss the content, and sometimes who posted it. (I never posted about John the Baptizer's diet nor his outfit, someone else did.) It's a lot like how John Lynn would "advertise" here and refuse to post in threads. He'd post the initial post and run off, or have someone else post something to us, and insist all communications with him be by phone. Whenever someone phoned him, they'd be subjected to a continuous ad of "take my classes and buy my book." In between, he'd criticize us anonymously and pretend he wasn't advertising to us, wink-wink- as if it wasn't plainly obvious to EVERYONE. Looking back, I honestly think he thought we didn't notice, so everybody but him got what was going on and why his advertising wasn't translating into increased sales. There's a lesson there, for those ready to receive it.

Since someone's posting who could benefit from the contents of this thread, I'm bumping it up in case they've missed it before.

Has the leopard changed his spots?

I also notice how Mike can see it that way- but when another thread has actual discussions that address how Charlene was correct and that the Bible does NOT interpret itself, that's when Mike "gets busy" again, and never DIRECTLY addresses anything that refutes his position. He responds with emotion and ad hominem attacks ("dim-witted"), but the actual discussion he ducks. This reminds me of an old saying. "If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have neither on your side, hammer the table." We're getting noise but a skipping of substance- and that tells us a great deal.

That's it.

Since I'm 100% sure of my answer, here's the next one. "We don't need no education."

"Unchained Melody", by The Righteous Brothers.

That's it. Too easy?

The further into twi you got, the more powerful "the adversary" became, and the less-powerful God Almighty's protection became. A single thought and "the adversary" could get you, but for God to protect you, you needed to tithe, and do increasingly-longer lists of things, and skipping any one of them would negate His protection. So, the more you gave to twi to get the same coverage against :"the adversary". Consider it "adversary insurance", or consider it "protection money" if you wish.

"Easy, Igor, you impetuous young boy."

I am? Oops. Hang on.

So, most of us, after the 1st session, were told to have "Christians Should Be Prosperous" read before the next session (the book was an argument for tithing to twi). twi also taught "abundant sharing." In twi, the tithe was/is MANDATORY, although the Christian's donations are to be freewill and not "of necessity" (in other words, NOT MANDATORY.) Supposedly, 10 percent is the minimum, less than that and "God won't even spit in your direction." (lcm primarily.) That's "the seed." Donations above 10 percent were called "abundant sharing." This got a bit confusing when the tithe (from the word "TENTH") was raised to 15 percent then 20 percent under lcm. Man, THAT didn't last long..... So, people were encouraged to donate directly to twi above 10 percent. Then there's "plurality giving." Ever heard that term outside of twi? In twi, that meant taking your income, subtracting all you need to live on, and donating the rest directly to twi- as in HQ, NEVER locally. So, you were not supposed to save money for emergencies or investments. You were to trust twi that God would cover you in case of emergencies. As for investments like a house, in practice it was expected that you count on inheritences to give you a house, since otherwise you won't be handing all that cash over to twi. Outside of twi - and possibly ex-twi groups- neither the term nor the concept- are taught. Then again, I haven't checked cults. No Christian denomination teaches it. twi, from the beginning, was organized to turn a profit. Pfal was set up to sell the materials at RETAIL prices, guaranteeing a profit. It was held in homes where the locals covered all expenses. It pushed tithing (see above.) Intermediate was even more egregious about retail prices, since you got almost no materials. ROAs were always priced with everything RETAIL. And so on. Everything either had additional costs that weren't covering an obvious need, or was on its own expense. Want to go WOW? There's a flat fee of $200 that twi keeps- and gives back nothing in exchange. The rest of the fee is for you to find housing where you're assigned. The group is chosen with an eye towards who has a car. twi does not transport the groups, nor pay for gas or housing. Any help with housing is out-of-pocket for LOCALS, who ALWAYS pay the check in twi. And the main goal in WOW is to run pfal classes- which run at a profit for twi and attempt to reel in more suckers to get 10 percent or more of their income.

TW- LIL pg-234. "Then Johnny Townsend, another young man who had the class in the army, came here that summer in 1969. He stayed here two years. Like so many of these young people, he'd rather read than work. He learned the Word, and he learned to work and study here. He'd spoil this, spoil that, and then he'd learn. Now he heads the state of Kansas, and he is the spiritual coordinator of the Western Region." I don't know what the army teaches people about working, but I get the impression that they work pretty hard there, even in peacetime. vpw seems to disagree-at least at this moment.

That's him. Victor Frankenstein is Italian-Swiss. I removed Sting from the list because his character was Dr Frankenstein but was not named "Victor Frankenstein."

That's the thing. It's an instance of someone needing to malign people in the Bible- all to claim they were all weak and venal- so that vpw could be said to fit in their company. Finding the need to libel people in the Bible just to try to give vpw a free pass is remarkable, and happened here, as you can all see. It's also wildly dishonest, but honesty is of lesser importance to cleaning up vpw's image.

If you're skimming when looking for him, and you come across a youth mentioning the Army, slow down and go back a page or so- that was JT.

vpw's entire premise of the Bible interpreting itself was based on a False Dilemma- that there were exactly 2 possibilities AND NO MORE- 1) the Bible had no interpretation 2) the Bible interpreted ITSELF Surely, EVEN IF HE HAD BEEN RIGHT, no "private' interpretation would have meant there was a "PUBLIC" interpretation. (That bugged me a long time ago.) All of that's academic- since vpw was wrong about what that meant. Since he used the archaic KJV's wording, he was able to twist things to sound like they meant what he wanted- even if the Greek was completely different or the Hebrew was. In this case, as GSC regulars know, the verses were talking about HOW WE GOT THE SCRIPTURES, their ORIGIN. They said NOTHING about how we are to approach them. The word "interpretation" was an awful translation- which is obvious when vpw claims that "private interpretation" is "one's own letting-loose like you let loose the dogs on a hunt." There was nothing about "interpreting" in vpw's colorful digression into dogs on a hunt.

It's fascinating how many Bibles Lamsa sold, all to pfal grads who wanted to show other people ONE VERSE in Lamsa's Bible....... a verse that was later shown to be WRONG by twi's own research department! A lot of people thought twi used Lamsa's instead of the KJV. No, but they sure made up most of the sales of that book....