WordWolf

Concerning the fifth... in the final cut, the actor definitely moved, so your idea is probably correct. As to the fourth, I'd probably get people chiming in with the movie's name if I posted either, let alone both.

Nobody is interested in discussing it with you, probably because your motives for bringing it up are suspect. That's without any discussion back and forth, since it seems pretty obvious this wasn't about genuine curiosity about the Bible. We've read the verses, we've come to our own conclusions, and at the moment, none of us trust your motives enough to discuss them with you. This really shouldn't surprise you by now.

-One actor, facing his role, said "Ed has bequeathed this part to me, I look at it as my generation's Hamlet." -One actor kept snacking all through the filming- he'd succeeded in hiding food all over the sets. -One actor said he got his favorite text message ever during filming. One of the actors sent a short text to the principal cast to get together for a night out. -One actor improvised several lines. One prompted the director to have the FX people to add something to a scene. Another included a suggestion to call out for work. -One actor had a rope attached to his leg. He knew that it would be pulled at SOME point, but had no idea WHEN it would be pulled. This improved a moment because the actor was surprised.

Personally, I no longer believe that what we were TOLD was speaking in tongues was anything of the kind, and it bears no resemblance to the 1st century church experience, the New Testament experience. However, when I did believe it was, I wondered about that one as well. Did they produce sign language that didn't represent any actual signs from the language? My conclusions at the time- which were just my thinking and not endorsed by anyone- were that the physical evidence, the physical speaking, wasn't going to happen. However, it could still be done silently and entirely "in the spirit". (Remember, we were taught the audible part was not the main thing, that was the speaking "in the spirit" which can be done silently. The audible part was simply evidence.) So, there's 2 answers for the price of one. A) Since we don't really speak in tongues, they're not missing anything. They don't do it any LESS than we do. B) They can do it silently, and hear it in their head, and the spiritual part still operates the same as for anyone else. (For the curious, I say I'm agnostic to the idea of modern speaking in tongues. I'm confident I've neither seen it nor done it, but I don't dismiss the idea that someone, somewhere, is actually doing the Acts 2 thing- I dismiss the idea I've seen it so far and that it would look anything like we were taught.)

I really, really don't like paraphrase Bibles. If used on an individual verse you're actually working on, that might be one thing. Otherwise, you're trusting that whoever put it together understood fully what they were putting together- and in the example of Philippians 4:13, I don't think that's correct. So, examining only 1 verse in, and I have no confidence. I don't expect it to improve on a deeper search. At BEST, I expect as much accuracy as a concept-for-concept like the NIV (I'm ok with that version, but I don't use it for myself.) If you're taking the words seriously, a word-for-word is what you need. Of course, if you don't care either way, a paraphrase is usually more colorful and modern. So, for the person who almost never opens their Bible, sure, that might be at least as good as any. The problem with claims vpw compiled the material and that was original, was that he claimed it so seldom. The quoted usage was ONE mention, casually buried, in "The Way- Living in Love", over 100 pages into the book. That's it. Rarely did he mention it in SNTs or anywhere else, and certainly not in "the class." (People who dig and dig can probably find another mention buried SOMEWHERE, but that's after extensive digging, and not something any sane person should be expected to do with vpw's "work."

"Video unavailable. The uploader has not made this video available in your country." I'm GUESSING it's a Bob Dylan song, but there's reasons we ask that the title and artist be posted in plain text. Sometimes the video isn't available. Sometimes the video is removed right after the post is posted. Sometimes, the reader has the player disabled- and sometimes they're locked out from re-enabling it. So, I still don't have the title. *does a search on the lyrics with Bob Dylan* Ok, that was "Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine". https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/mostlikelyyougoyourwayandillgomine.html

I see that the worst of vpw's laziness is still in twi, awaiting to trip up new people. Among the many lies was that vpw-who studied how to preach, not how to translate nor even Church history- actually knew something about Bible translations. vpw played to his strengths- how to plagiarize and how to deliver a sermon even when he neither understood the contents nor cared about them or the people (he knew how to fake sincerity.) So, supposedly, one of the things he came up with was a "literal translation according to usage" (A PARAPHRASE) of Philippians 4:13. "I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Christ who infuses inner strength into me." It makes a nifty motto, but it's not a translation of Philippians 4:13. That's so egregious that geer- who was a virtual worshipper of vpw- didn't teach it that way after hearing vpw teach it that way. It's also plagiarism. The Amplified Bible wasn't owned by most twi'ers= who were told to use a KJV or possibly Lamsa's if they were examining things- but vpw obviously had a copy. Philippians 4:13 " I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] I would expect most of vpw's supposed "literal translations according to usage" came out of that book. Frankly, as little as I trust paraphrase Bibles, at least their people had a scholarly background, so I'd probably trust them OVER vpw for the meaning of a verse. (Not that they are guaranteed to have it, either.)

That narrows the field a lot. If Carol Burnett was in the list, I'd feel more comfortable about guessing "QUEEN ELIZABETH", aka The Queen Mother.

Since Tom Swift is in the public domain, they can get away with doing anything to him. They aren't the first- there's been novels- and I doubt they will be the last. I'll be skipping this version.

This keeps making me think of "ISHTAR."

Hulka and Winger, during a run.

That's it.

Lots of people know how punctuation alone can change a message. "What's that in the road? A head?" "CUT! The line is 'what's that in the road ahead?' " "Let's eat Grandma!" vs "Let's eat, Grandma!" Punctuation saves lives. This happens in all languages, some more easily than others.

When I was in college, I took "Nature of Religion". (It satisfied the distribution requirement, I was able to get in the class.) There, the class was largely about how all religions were the same and all religions were fake. Considering how we began with Eliade, it was possible to teach the class with some leeway for believing SOMETHING was out there, that different experiences of the divine counted for something or at least MIGHT - but that's not the direction this teacher took. (Frankly, he conformed to the worst stereotypes mentioned in twi.) During the class, I noticed something which said a lot about the teacher's worldview. When he covered things that might have multiple explanations, he did at least 2 things I found unusual. One, he taught ALL the answers, and gave them all equal weight and said them as if each was THE answer and they weren't contradictory. Two, he never seemed too concerned about actually finding out what was factually correct. As in, "Why did these people say this? They meant..." with contradictory explanations different times and no concern that he contradicted the previous class. His history was also sloppy but matched what he wanted to say. Ever wonder about why gladiators waited for thumbs up or thumbs down before killing? The historical truth is that they looked for a single signal- the thumbs up or the thumb HIDDEN. The thumb UP meant to stab the knife, to kill. The thumb HIDDEN meant to refrain from stabbing, let him live. My teacher taught that it was thumbs up or thumbs down, and that thumbs up originally meant to kill, and that it was an easier way to signal a nod from a distance, and that the nod was what was being conveyed. (He was on a kick about the head and religious practices, and apparently everything was about the head and sky for about 5 minutes- they everything was about the earth for another 5 minutes.) We got much the same thing in pfal. vpw's explanations were sometimes all over the map and contradicted each other. This should have been a sign he wasn't paying attention, that he was spitting back rote answers without understanding them- otherwise he would have noticed what contradicted. So long as he got the money, he didn't really care when his explanations didn't make sense or contradicted. As has been pointed out.... "God is Spirit, and GOD CAN ONLY GIVE WHAT HE IS" was right in pfal, and doesn't make one lick of sense. "God gave manna. God is not manna." His explanation sometimes said God could only give what He is, and sometimes said He could only communicate with spirit- which was STILL wrong because God communicates with flesh all the time, via the 5 senses or some other way. Ask Adam and Eve if they were still communicating with God after "they lost spirit." The insistence that ALL of His communications with man had to have spirit slapped onto a man conditionally to receive a message from God, then it was taken away IMMEDIATELY was an odd rationalization that neither made sense on paper nor was backed up with verses. (Prophets yes, Joe down the street for 4 minutes, no.) This was glaringly obvious in the Advanced class, with the writing on the wall. The inability to understand the writing was "explained" by saying Nebuchadnezzar had spirit put on him and that's how he read writing that was only visible to spirit, and that's why the wise men didn't understand it. FF Bruce had already explained what the problem was decades before, in a book sometimes carried in the twi bookstore! vpw was a lazy student. Bruce said that the words were perfectly visible, but, without the vowels, they either meant "weighed, numbered, divided" in one language, or "a dollar, a fiver and some change" in a different language. Anyway, wierwille's explanations contradicted each other or common sense because he didn't understand what he was passing along, and didn't really care as long as people went along with it. For a conman, this is not a surprise. For an alleged minister, it's a disgrace.

"Who is it?" "It's Idi Amin!" "And then Depression set in." "Tito Puente's gonna be dead, and you're gonna say, "Oh, I've been listening to him for years, and I think he's fabulous." " "Excuse me, stewardess. Is there a movie on this flight?" "We will do this ourselves." " Sir, those numb nuts can't even tie their own shoelaces." "One of these men may save your life one of these days. You understand that?" "Then again, maybe one of us won't." "Do the words "Act of War" mean anything to you?" " I have a plan." Great. Custer had a plan." "Explain yourselves." "Well sir, we were going to this bingo parlor at the YMCA, well one thing led to another, and the instructions got all fouled up..." "I've noticed you're always last." "I'm pacing myself"

*snip* To most people, it's obvious that, even if it's true that you'd "NEVER be able to do that had the class not been there consistently", and you could "love the Epistles of Paul, and see them as Jesus Christ's ministry to us in THIS administration", and even be "extremely blessed when first learning PFAL" all of that could be completely true without the notion that God taught vpw.

Adherents to the supposed "law" of believing are inconsistent about this- mainly because it's so inconsistent in results (mostly due to it being bunk.) In one instance, they say it works equally well, positively or negatively, and it's universal. vpw himself taught it was as fundamental as scientific fact- that 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom make up a water molecule. He said outright that God would have to rewrite The Laws of the Universe if He didn't want The Law of Believing to work. In another instance, the slightest lapse of dedication in kissing twi's @$$ will surely result in devils overtaking the person, no matter how strong they continue to believe. To leave twi is to leave God's Protection regardless of Believing, and to be a "greasespot by midnight." Midnight has come and gone, and we're doing fine. I remember a friend who suffered the sudden loss of his wife. IIRC, she died in her sleep, without warning. (Heart attack or something.) Part of his suffering was in the rude awakening in how the supposed "Law" of Believing had failed them- how he and she had very positively believed that they would be in excellent health and so on, and others believed that for them and so on, and yet, the Laws of the Universe didn't intervene and save her life. If nothing else, it shows that the supposed "Law" of Believing is nothing of the sort. Oh, what killed vpw? The man chain-smoked for decades, and drank all day for decades. The heavy drinking has been shown to suppress the immune system. Smoking has been linked to a variety of cancers, including cancer of the eye (it's exposed to the smoke.) vpw got cancer of the eye, which spread and killed him. vpw CLAIMED that the 2 weeks of filming pfal with studio lights decades earlier are why he got eye cancer. Studio lights do not cause eye cancer. We are not getting regular reports of stage actors, singers, dancers etc getting cancer after a 9-month tour under stage lights (which are at least as bright as the old studio lights.) There have been a few reports of people who neglected using a WELDER'S MASK when WELDING and later got eye cancer. There's no reports of stage performers dropping of cancer by the hundreds. If vpw wasn't such a habitual liar, there might be some kind of question here. Why did he lie so completely about how he got cancer? 1) It helped distract from his inability to Super-Believe and blast the cancer out of his eye. vpw liked to have people portray him as some super-believer whose prayers and Believing affected the whole world at once- but in reality, it couldn't even affect his whole EYE at once, or the cells individually. Word-Faith preachers, in general, don't seem to live long lives, they wear glasses, and often seem in poor health. These are strange things for the preachers to believe FOR! 2) It turned two of his VICES (addiction to strong drink, addiction to tobacco) into appearing virtuous. Instead of dying because he was a slave to his expensive vices (paid for with your ABS), he was dying because he filmed pfal decades before and now his eye was suffering for it. Yes, the lights had been bright. Yes, they'd hurt his eyes- but that is hardly the same as them giving him cancer. Bright lights do not cause cancer. 3) Those seeking to make a martyr out of vpw never blame his vices nor his faulty believing for his death. They blame EVERYBODY else, and I mean EVERYBODY else. The story is that vpw was perfect, but everybody else was flawed and messing everything up all the time, and finally vpw got tired of pulling THEIR weight all the time, so he got tired of believing and "tired of the fight", so what killed him was "EVERYBODY ELSE." No, I'm NOT making any of this up.

There's always a minority opinion. Of course you can accept that he agreed with you on anything- now he's going to be cited as an "expert" that "agreed" with you on what that meant. Actually, the literal was correctly explained before- that the Scriptures (which are God-breathed) were contrasted with the work of several men including vpw. One thing I didn't mention now- but have before- is vpw's tendency to vaguely imply things without saying them outright. That way, he could technically say he didn't say something, but had people believe he did because he IMPLIED it, he deceived by implication. He did this when he got people to believe he played for the Sheboygan Redskins basketball team. One document claimed he did- but their source for that was the sentence where he IMPLIED it, and the writer mistook the meaning, not realizing it was deception. He said he was CONNECTED WITH THEM. He never even said he handled the ball or practiced with them- but he got people to believe he HAD said that. So, similar weasel-wording could leave well-intentioned people to believe that he'd actually said some of what he wrote or taught would be God-breathed- when he left it unstated but with enough IMPLICATION that people would THINK he said that and go along with it. The grammar of the passage says otherwise, but if one fixates on the implication, that is easily ignored. Then we start to get several rounds of "of course he implied it, he hid it as secret information so that we could find it decades later and God wants us to think this" and so on. For someone determined to go down with the ship- and insist it's not only not sinking, but is handling exceptionally well on the ocean, this sort of thing is EXPECTED.

C) The alleged promise was based on ignorance. twi's system shares a trait with the Mikean system- they're both Gnostic systems based on secret knowledge. The twi system-which was vpw's system, set up by him and used by him all the time- was that study of the verses was the key to God (plus the "Law of Believing"),. So, the more you study the verses, the more "godly" you can become, especially if you study it the twi way. We've all seen far too many horror stories of twi "masters" who partly memorized vpw/twi materials and were bigger schmucks if anything. Geer spent hours going over vpw's teachings in between drugging women for vpw to rape and preparing to throw himself over vpw as a human shield if anyone tried to shoot him. But, let's expose the IGNORANCE in the alleged "promise." How DID the 1st century Christian church know God's Word? They knew the Torah/Old Testament. They knew the SPOKEN word, They knew The Word BY EXPERIENCE AND POWER. Think about it. They were getting converts left and right while being a disciple was ILLEGAL and punished by imprisonment, murder, or both. They got LOTS of converts with that going on. No amount of charismatic demagoguery can make up for the risk of being killed or imprisoned. You might get a few disaffected outsiders. Saul of Tarsus joined them - a former persecutor and murderer of Christians (he didn't put his hand on the knife, but he ordered it done.) Did the Greeks hear good speeches then run out and conclude that their gods walked among them and prepared to offer blood sacrifices? They SAW something. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. However, provide the extraordinary proof, and the claims stop looking extraordinary-at least in comparison to the proof. The 1st century Christians preached-but were known because they had power and could deliver where they spoke. Lots of people preached and didn't get significant converts. Theirs was a pragmatic, direct, power-based ministry. twi was never that. They were study-based, and TALKED ABOUT power lots of times, then considered "Kojacking" a significant witness of "power." 1st century Christians were never centrally-controlled nor organized. twi bore no resemblance to 1st century Christianity except where twi CLAIMED they did. But all the claims don't mean reality matches a claim. The 1st century Christians probably didn't have access to the entire New Testament ANYWHERE. All documents had to be hand-copied. With no printing press and no scanners and PDFs, that was a laborious process and few copies circulated for the 1st century AD (certainly relative to now.) So, twi has NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." because vpw NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." vpw might have known that when he phrased the promise he was supposedly given, but he skipped over "Church history". So, he was likely to make such a mistake where God Almighty would not. vpw made up the alleged 1942 promise. and it's easy to show all the errors. There was no such promise. There's no real, sensible reason to laud vpw or "his" books. They don't comprise "revelation." It was easy for vpw to fool impressionable kids about this sort of thing, since they lacked the education to see how obviously incorrect it was. It's the kind of mistake someone makes when they skip over learning any "Church history", and the kind of mistake kids can miss. To miss it now, even after it's pointed out, is more than sloppy thinking, it's willful ignorance. Why would someone remain willfully ignorant in the face of what's clear and obvious? Well....

Was the wording of the supposed 1942 promise sensible? It was not. B) The alleged promise was a lie. Supposedly, God Almighty promised He would teach like it hadn't been known since the 1st century AD. If this were true, there would be a complete disconnect with what was being taught and known elsewhere in 1942 EVERYWHERE and what vpw later taught (because we know he taught others.) However, even those who idolize vpw agree that the material he taught was already taught by others. A paper trail can be traced for virtually all the twi material vpw taught. vpw took Leonard's class, and a few months later, taught 100% of the same material. vpw bought Stiles' book, then typed up a book with the contents- later adding the contents of books by Bullinger to flesh it out more. And so on. So, either God Almighty lied when giving this promise, someone else claiming to be God lied and vpw couldn't tell the difference between a lying spirit and God Almighty, or vpw lied and nobody promised him at all. Which is it, God Almighty lied, someone else (say, a devil) claimed to be God, and vpw couldn't tell the truth so he literally taught the doctrine of a devil for the rest of his life, or vpw lied and nobody promised him anything? Of course, one can ignore the sensible discussion and cling dogmatically to the idea that vpw could not possibly have lied about this, and that God Almighty was somehow right even though factually incorrect at a rather obvious level. One has to lie to oneself to do that, but it's certainly available, and tempting if one insists that to even CONSIDER the possibilities is forbidden and evil.

So, according to Mike, A) Because someone once saw a snow squall that came up once, I'm supposed to believe that's exactly what happened here, despite 1- It supposedly happened in an INSTANT, the sky went from EMPTY to so FULL he couldn't see a few yards away; 2- vpw was shown to have lied about other supposed snowstorms throughout his career, but supposedly THIS ONE was real and the others were fake 3- vpw supposedly saw a sky completely FULL of snow, yet was unable to tell you if the sky was completely BLACKED OUT or was in a complete WHITE OUT. His story went from "the sky was PITCH BLACK" to "the sky was completely WHITE" within a year or so. I expect that, having spoken to people who'd actually SEEN heavy snow, his account of BLACK changed to WHITE once he realized he made up the wrong details. If he'd actually seen BLACK, he would have stuck to his story. If he'd actually seen WHITE, he would have STARTED with that story. If he'd actually have seen either, he'd have remembered whether or not the sky seemed completely white or completely black, and there'd be no confusion whatsoever about the color. When he was asked about another incident where he lied about an imaginary snowstorm, he never asserted he was correct, he immediately adapted the details of his story to what he thought the person in front of him would believe (that he got the most basic details wrong because angels jumped in and deceived him in detail.) The only reason to believe this snow job is if you're determined to discard all sensible conclusions, and dogmatically cling to the idea that vpw wouldn't have lied about it. Why would this be so important? If there's no miraculous snowstorm, there's no 1942 promise. If there's no 1942 promise, vpw was not a great man of God who was delivering a new Bible. If that's not true, Mike's wasted the last decades of his life on a lie. Anyone know what the sunk-cost fallacy is? That's when you double-down on something that is definitely losing, despite it losing, because of all the investment you've already put into it. There was no miraculous snowstorm in 1942. vpw did not hear from God Almighty. pfal was never meant to replace the Bible- which is why it never says it's supposed to- it's a class and a book on KEYS, not REPLACING Genesis to Revelation nor CONTAINING Genesis to Revelation, but keys to UNDERSTANDING Genesis to Revelation.

Not "Tropic Thunder."

"Who is it?" "It's Idi Amin!" "And then Depression set in." "Tito Puente's gonna be dead, and you're gonna say, "Oh, I've been listening to him for years, and I think he's fabulous." " "Excuse me, stewardess. Is there a movie on this flight?" "We will do this ourselves." " Sir, those numb nuts can't even tie their own shoelaces." "One of these men may save your life one of these days. You understand that?" "Then again, maybe one of us won't."

C) The alleged promise was based on ignorance. twi's system shares a trait with the Mikean system- they're both Gnostic systems based on secret knowledge. The twi system-which was vpw's system, set up by him and used by him all the time- was that study of the verses was the key to God (plus the "Law of Believing"),. So, the more you study the verses, the more "godly" you can become, especially if you study it the twi way. We've all seen far too many horror stories of twi "masters" who partly memorized vpw/twi materials and were bigger schmucks if anything. Geer spent hours going over vpw's teachings in between drugging women for vpw to rape and preparing to throw himself over vpw as a human shield if anyone tried to shoot him. But, let's expose the IGNORANCE in the alleged "promise." How DID the 1st century Christian church know God's Word? They knew the Torah/Old Testament. They knew the SPOKEN word, They knew The Word BY EXPERIENCE AND POWER. Think about it. They were getting converts left and right while being a disciple was ILLEGAL and punished by imprisonment, murder, or both. They got LOTS of converts with that going on. No amount of charismatic demagoguery can make up for the risk of being killed or imprisoned. You might get a few disaffected outsiders. Saul of Tarsus joined them - a former persecutor and murderer of Christians (he didn't put his hand on the knife, but he ordered it done.) Did the Greeks hear good speeches then run out and conclude that their gods walked among them and prepared to offer blood sacrifices? They SAW something. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. However, provide the extraordinary proof, and the claims stop looking extraordinary-at least in comparison to the proof. The 1st century Christians preached-but were known because they had power and could deliver where they spoke. Lots of people preached and didn't get significant converts. Theirs was a pragmatic, direct, power-based ministry. twi was never that. They were study-based, and TALKED ABOUT power lots of times, then considered "Kojacking" a significant witness of "power." 1st century Christians were never centrally-controlled nor organized. twi bore no resemblance to 1st century Christianity except where twi CLAIMED they did. But all the claims don't mean reality matches a claim. The 1st century Christians probably didn't have access to the entire New Testament ANYWHERE. All documents had to be hand-copied. With no printing press and no scanners and PDFs, that was a laborious process and few copies circulated for the 1st century AD (certainly relative to now.) So, twi has NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." because vpw NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." vpw might have known that when he phrased the promise he was supposedly given, but he skipped over "Church history". So, he was likely to make such a mistake where God Almighty would not. vpw made up the alleged 1942 promise. and it's easy to show all the errors. There was no such promise. There's no real, sensible reason to laud vpw or "his" books. They don't comrpise "revelation."