WordWolf

Some of my best friends are humans. Generally, people who spend all their time talking about one topic (regardless of the topic) tend not to make that list. "Like Rocky said, we are all human. I guess some people just never grow up in certain areas." You had other reasons at the time, which illustrates my point. You've also grown up and apparently don't need to yell or hit when disagreeing with someone or disliking someone or something. That's actually an un-twi thing to do. It's been said before (here) that people in twi tend to get frozen in their development while in twi. So, if they joined twi at age 18, they remain as mature as an 18 year old until sometime after they leave twi, and so on. People who joined later looked more mature- but only because they were frozen at a more mature age. lcm got in during college, and remained stuck as an immature jock for his entire twi experience- and beyond, if evidence is representative. Perhaps NOW he's grown beyond it. I hope so. I'd hope he could have at least a few years as an adult, relatively free of twi, than spend all of it as its thrall, down to his final hours.

"Is this actor the guy who played the priest (Bishop, Pastor,) in There Will Be Blood?" No. He did, however, wear glasses and a forehead scar for 8 movies. "I assume it's the young man who has played Harry Potter in the recent series. As I have seen none of them, I do not know his name." Yes. BTW, in "Victor Frankenstein", one character has no name, but is assigned the name of someone who is never around, so he later called "Igor Straussman." That's why it's not the character's actual name, but what he's called.

I totally went in the wrong direction on the "buddy film" clue.

Any of those 3 is SO a giveaway.. That was when Peter Cushing decided he could act while wearing slippers. And he was right,

Black Snake Moan Christina Ricci Addams Family Values

Wild swing- "Legends of the Fall"? I'm trying to picture what Brad Pitt was in and possibly one other. No, wait- "FIGHT CLUB", right?

Yes, and seriously, anyone who wants to can take the next round. FREE POST! Just read the rules on page 1 and post accordingly.

Wild swing- "The Beast Must Die"? I know Cushing was in that one.

Is this "King of Kingsman-the Secret Service"?

I do, but would prefer to add "unable to rot" to that, and change "liable" (awkward word) to either "not ABLE to decay" or "not SUBJECT to decay" or "not ELIGIBLE to decay." I can easily see someone stumbling over "liable" and vpw would certainly have gone off on how that meant it was LEGAL to decay or something. (Thank you for not going the lazy route and saying "unable to corrupt" and calling it a day.) Anyone else on "incorruptible"?

As for lcm, his background has him as a "dumb jock" who was of insufficient skill to make it to the big leagues after college, who also was a Christian in college. From there, he went straight into twi full-time, with no pauses for a normal job or life like any normal adult. (That's why it was so hypocritical when he and vpw complained about other people who didn't show up for MORE time at twi and work MORE for free than they already did. Neither had any experience with real jobs and real lives, so didn't realize how unrealistic that was for people who want to keep a real job- and how unrealistic it would be to quit a job every 50 weeks to work for free at twi, then return home and look for a whole new job every year just to satisfy their unrealistic expectations.) Anyway, despite having a Bachelors, lcm neither understood Psychology nor people. (Someone falling down and becoming incoherent isn't someone "going gooney-bird", and most laymen could at least give a BIT more accurate descriptions than that.) Lacking life experience outside college and twi, it would come as no surprise if he never matured past the varsity team in socialization- and it seems to me he did not. (Hey, just remembered, since he played on his college's varsity team, he exceeded vpw's athletics accomplishments ALSO.) So, where an athlete might have knee-jerk reactions to homosexuals and call them names and criticize them to other athletes, he would do exactly the same- and to twi, since he controlled the microphone there and had captive audiences every time he wanted to just monopolize free time for others. Add to that how he was replaced in his marriage that way, and there's plenty to make lcm feel insecure about homosexuality right there. Rather than deal with that, he turned around and "kicked the dog" to make himself feel better. With continual reminders facing him, he kept lashing out and obsessing over homosexuality. Other than the above, there's nothing that he HIMSELF ever said or showed that said he was interested in other guys "that way". In the absence of any reason, it's possible to speculate without cause- but I'm more honest than that and won't do it. (I've seen others who won't stop there, though, although not as posters at the GSC that I know of.) I know it's considered "de rigeur" to accuse guys who freak out about homosexuality to all do so solely because they're closet homosexuals or homosexuals in denial, but really, there's other possible reasons they may freak out as well. I'm not saying anyone's right to freak out, but those freaking out have reasons, whether or not anyone else would consider them GOOD reasons or any justification for freaking out.

"I was just wondering if the Fellow-Laborers program had any military style training? " Hey, Waysider! This one's apparently for you. IIRC, you were the FL survivor here.

Welcome back to posting here! I can't say I've made the same choices as you, but then I don't have your reasons for making them. If it's working for you, then fine. I also think Pope Francis is tops. (Frankly, I would have rather he gotten the Papacy rather than Benedict last time.) I think he's just what the RCC needs.

Right. We expect there to be a difference between murder (he tried to kill him and succeeded) and manslaughter (he didn't mean to kill him, but it happened anyway.) But twi never looked close enough-it saw what it wanted to see, The End.

My best example of that was the pro-abortion doctrine. Until we "take our first breath", we're not born, and we die when we "take our last breath" (ZERO VERSES SO FAR.) The one verse that comes up is when Gabriel spoke to Mary and said that "the holy thing" that would be born of her would be called The Son of God. So, before Jesus' birth, he was a "thing." But that's only in the KJV. The other versions render that 'holy one" or "holy child" or otherwise. A quick check of the Greek shows that this "THING" thing only occurs here, and the same word for "holy thing" here is translated either "holy one" or "saint" EVERYWHERE ELSE. For consistency, read them all as "holy one/s". Then twi's sole verse for "not a person" vanishes. Worse, we see that other verses show a 3rd trimester kid can react and show emotion. (Elizabeth about John, when Mary arrived.) AND he was called a "baby." At 6 months. We don't know when that all applied, but it was true by that time, which is 3 months earlier than twi said. And this is not hard to find if one is looking. And even after I posted all the verses that said that, vpw fans still posted right after that saying the "thing" thing.

Ok, can we start trying to get some definitions going, or does everyone want another few rounds before we start?

Both are wrong. They're both victims of their own methodology. They got out of twi, but twi has not gotten out of them. They can't help but use the same techniques that damaged themselves and others in twi- but made them both feel special. I think that one antidote to twi is HUMILITY. Otherwise, one is subject to being lifted up with pride...

twi did that quite a bit. My usual rule is that- if twi based a doctrine on one verse or no verses, the doctrine should be presumed error until proved otherwise. So far, it's worked. I had a thread somewhere about doctrines entirely built from one verse, I think.

Interestingly enough, both vpw and Bullinger said there were 7 of those things (EWB-:"dispensations", vpw- "administrations") but disagreed on which where the 7. Bullinger began with the original Paradise, then the Patriarchal, then the Law (1,2,3.) twi agreed, then said the 1 year of JC's ministry was one. This struck me as odd, since Jesus said that not one jot or tittle of The Law would pass away until all would be fulfilled, and that was done at Calvary. But it allowed them to put us in #5- "Grace." EWB said #3 LAW continued until Pentecost, when #4 GRACE began. Both said the next one was basically the Tribulation. vpw said the next and last one was #7, Final Paradise, or GLORY. EWB said that #6 was the Mllenial Reign of JC in Revelation 20. So, vpw said the 1 year of JC was an administration but not the 1000 years of the Millenial reign, and EWB said the reverse, I know there's lots of verses in the Gospels, but I think a millenium is a much more viable candidate than any single year, if it comes to that. Then again, I didn't render "oikonomia" as "dispensation" NOR "administration." I render it "stewardship", and consider who's in charge of stewarding God's Word at that time, and in what form it's stewarded. All of that makes it look more like "Covenant Theology" than anyone's form of "administrations."

That subject is rather vague in Scripture. "Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" is never defined. Therefore, must not be that important, at least for the Christian. As a subject, it seems more like an inkblot. I once tried to find out, definitively, what "pulse" was in the OT. Every online result was "It was a mixture of x, y and z, and we're selling it if you're interested." Or the infamous "thorn in the flesh". where each speaker had a different problem, and it was the same one Paul complained about, by amazing coincidence. This subject, also, lends itself to lots of wild speculation with people certain of something nebulous.

*reads* It's shorter if you skip over JAL reminding everyone who he is, and skipping over a few pages asking why DG got a golden parachute and everything short of an office party when he said he was leaving because they're all wrong. It's a good question, but a distraction from the actual substance of the discussion. That's the beginning and part of the end, respectively.

WordWolf: " There was an episode of "Gilligan's Island" where the Professor did "word association" with Thurston Howell III. At every word, the first thing that came to Thurston's mind was "money." "Hot." "Money." "Cold." "Money." (Until he finally gave a different answer...) "Child." "Tax deduction." lcm had this fixation that became an obsession with homosexuality. Eventually he started seeing it everywhere. So, "What was the original sin?" "Homosexuality/" "What is the worst sin?" "Homosexuality." "Why did we have problems with this program that's tanking?" "Homosexuality." "How can we make twi better?" "Remove homosexuality." "What's twi's biggest problem right now?" "Homosexuality." "What's the capital of Paraguay?" "Homosexuality." "Who was the 16th US President?" "Homosexuality." "What do you see when you look at art?" "Homosexuality." I don't think it was a matter of plagiarism, as much as it was playing a piano that only had one key." shortfuse: "Yeah, I suppose you are right. I remember him saying how he put it together because VPW thought it was masturbation. So that got him to sexuality. What is sexually immoral? (Adultery? no, that can't be right.) Homosexuality! " Taxidev: "I wasn't at HQ, but my understanding was that because Craig was extremely homophobic, he may have determined that himself, as a way of fending off potential homosexuals from entering the ranks - let it be known right up front TWI doesn't accept that stuff. As many resources as I have looked at over the years, I have never seen even a hint of this interpretation of Gen 3 anywhere. And what we on the field were told as to why it was removed from the next version of the class was that it was too much for new people to handle. But I suspect it was because Rosie and her girlfriend didn't want it there." Rocky: "Perhaps Loy was freaking out because, right under his nose, his wife and his chief rival for the power of the purse in TWI were doing the nasty. The connection is plausible. " I think we're all saying the same thing from different directions. I think that why lcm BECAME so obsessed with homosexuality was only secondarily the stereotypical "jock" stuff and primarily because it was causing him to be benched for other women (to continue the sports metaphor.) Besides, lcm didn't really play sports around twi like a life-long jock. People who played sports there reported that he was not one of the guys, and when he DID play, he had to be in charge (vpw forbid his side lose a game, too...) So, the more PERSONAL reason it bothered him...

Nice list. I suspect that both "sides" are making a fundamental mistake. Stipulating to that list, it appears that there's a number of verses saying "conditional", and a number of verses saying "unconditional." This points towards one of 2 conclusions: A) the Bible is contradictory in major ways and thus is unreliable for doctrine like this B) the verses saying "conditional" are addressing one thing consistently, and the verses saying "unconditional" are addressing something else consistently. That's my thinking, you're welcome to draw your own conclusions. Then again, we're still beginning this discussion, so who knows where we will end up before it's over?

The new book is probably Martin's best work on the subject. However, if someone's trying to retrace exactly all vpw's steps, they'd probably want to read the article, not the completed book. That's why I brought it up.

There was an episode of "Gilligan's Island" where the Professor did "word association" with Thurston Howell III. At every word, the first thing that came to Thurston's mind was "money." "Hot." "Money." "Cold." "Money." (Until he finally gave a different answer...) "Child." "Tax deduction." lcm had this fixation that became an obsession with homosexuality. Eventually he started seeing it everywhere. So, "What was the original sin?" "Homosexuality/" "What is the worst sin?" "Homosexuality." "Why did we have problems with this program that's tanking?" "Homosexuality." "How can we make twi better?" "Remove homosexuality." "What's twi's biggest problem right now?" "Homosexuality." "What's the capital of Paraguay?" "Homosexuality." "Who was the 16th US President?" "Homosexuality." "What do you see when you look at art?" "Homosexuality." I don't think it was a matter of plagiarism, as much as it was playing a piano that only had one key.