WordWolf

I thought we all were understanding that the phrasing in use in this thread was not LITERAL, but FIGURATIVE. Instead of saying "when did Jesus stop being God?" the literal would have been "When did vpw stop teaching that Jesus was God?" which is literally what he meant, but he wrote FIGURATIVELY to match vpw's book title "Jesus Christ is Not God." So, we write of when Jesus "started being God" or when Jesus "stopped being God" but mean when "teachings began declaring Jesus was God" or when "teachings at twi stopped teaching that and began teaching Jesus was not God." ================ It's obvious, reading vpw's really old stuff, that vpw was teaching the Trinity for some time. He was doing it long after his supposed 1943 promise which supposedly began twi (despite him working full-time at his church for several years following and not using "The Way" publickly for anything), and it seems he was using it all the way into the end of the 1960s, because he was claiming that when he suborned part of the House of Acts and hijacked the hippies. His taped version of pfal included that as well- end of the 1960s. As one poster pointed out, it was THE SUMMER OF 1970 when vpw started teaching this, because it was the Summer School of 1970 where vpw began to dwell on this, and speculate that Bullinger wasn't REALLY a Trinitarian, and so on- and research and writings followed that chronologically. So, in-house, vpw began teaching it that Summer, with more things to follow. Separate questions would include WHY he taught it, and what he meant to accomplish- with several answers all possibly being true at the same time, and some possibly being added as time went on and he discovered possible further benefits (i.e., hey, I can grab new converts among young people who actually disapprove of the Trinity doctrine.) ============================== A separate question was also raised: "When did Jesus START being God? From a historical writing standpoint, that is. I get that the bible says he was with God in the beginning. But there was a time before any people at all believed that to be the case." That was clarified right there- when, HISTORICALLY, did people start to teach that. I can SPECULATE as to where, when and why. The following is pure speculations and ruminations on my part, and if you don't like them, feel free to ignore them. I've noticed that human nature has not changed through all of history. People NOW think of themselves as more enlightened than previous centuries and millenia- while making new variations of the same old mistakes they would criticize of others from long ago. Among the RELEVANT issues that touch the current discussion is a tendency to INFLATE CLAIMS to match the Joneses, or to top the Joneses. I think there's a rather ham-handed and awkward instertion into the account of the moment of Jesus' death in Matthew. The text moves smoothly through the present, and remains consistent in doctrine, all until the earthquake. Then we suddenly have 2 verses saying that saints' graves opened up, the saints got up alive, and over the course of the next few days, a bunch of people saw them. Then we jump back to the moment of the crucifixion and an eyewitness account of a number of things. The idea of ONE guy out of his grave really is a big deal in the Gospels among the religious authority and the people. NOBODY later even MENTIONS that "MANY" saw a BUNCH of people were out of their graves a few days BEFORE that happened. (The idea of Jesus as the "first-fruits" from the dead, among other things, is all flagrantly violated by these 2 verses that are NEVER mentioned again.) Neither those who believe, nor those who don't know what to believe, nor those suppressing the accounts of Jesus' resurrection, ever bring it up, not from any perspective-and we know from Acts that a LOT of things were a big deal, and healing a blind man was a big scandal when Jesus did it. Ok, so, WHY in the world was such a ham-handed insertion done? That goes back to the contents, and a little knowledge of history- and keeping up with the Joneses. The added parts were of the dead wandering the streets and lots of people seeing them. WHY insert such an account? To keep up with the Joneses - or to top the Joneses. It's not beyond conception to see some early Christians MEANING WELL and hoping to TOP the religions of the time, even if it meant fudging something. In this case, what would they try to top? The Roman state religion. In addition to all the gods of the people- many of them Greek gods that were carried over to Rome, renamed, and worshipped afterwards, Rome had their own thing where THE EMPEROR WAS WORSHIPPED AS A GOD- coincidentally, by order of the Emperor. So, every emperor once that was established was seen to be both god and man-and was worshipped. We also can find that Julius Caesar's assassination was seen as a big deal by some Romans, and that later accounts of his assassination included claims that it was signaled by comet activity (traditional signaler of an ill omen) as well as THE DEAD RISING FROM THEIR GRAVES, wandering around in their graveclothes. (This was such a well-known report that it was taught in schools in England a millenium later. We know THAT because a student in those schools-William Shakespeare- later used what he learned in school in writing his plays- and this particular story was incorporated into his writing of the text of the play "HAMLET." I think the WHY of "why did Jesus START being God" is related both to this phenomenon, and to the audience who received it and dropped their own preconceived notions, whether or not they were there in the first place. This is ALSO human nature. Anecdote: The English word "changeling" has at least 2 usages that continue to the modern day. One is to refer to a shapechanger, something that can change its physical form (like Constable Odo of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and other characters that can suddenly become an animal and so on.) A different one is that of a baby who was exchanged in its cradle- kidnapped by faeries who left a faerie in its place so the parents wouldn't know their baby was kidnapped. (I can provide links for those, if anyone cares and can't find them for themselves.) Both usages are common-if you're talking to the right audience, they can all know exactly what you mean for one or the other. I bring this up because the word for the faerie-folk definition was used in a game which referred to (fictional) people who were part-human, part-faerie. Yes, yet another definition, but based on the folklore version of faeries. The characters can be played in their own stories, or interact with other stories in a shared setting- modern vampires, modern werewolves, modern ghosts, etc. I was explaining the shared setting to someone some time ago. He listened to me through a few seconds of describing the vampires and werewolves, but was disinterested in hearing a few seconds of the "faerie changelings" (the term I used). He interrupted me- insisting that he already knew what a "changeling" was and didn't need a description of them for the game. So, I insisted HE describe them to ME. Rather than a description of a faerie left in a crib, he began describing shapeshifters (using the Star Trek example, as both the term and the show were current.) The point of me bringing this up is that it's human nature that at least SOME people will STOP LISTENING when they hear something they THINK they know. They will STOP LISTENING and STOP LEARNING and rely on PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS when approaching something NEW that they DON'T UNDERSTAND, and insist it's something OLD that they UNDERSTAND WELL. (I've warned people about this when describing things to people, since it happens with different things when someone deals with something unusual but that uses terms that people THINK they understand.) What did all of that have to do with this discussion? We can see that people will approach any subject with preconceived notions, and at least some people won't bother to correct them. How does this affect the beliefs of the early Christians and their converts? Well, both BEFORE and AFTER Constantine made Christianity the state religion, there were plenty of Greeks and Romans who came along with Greek and Roman religious ideas. So, the Jews who followed the Torah for centuries had some notions, and the Christian Church that came later often had notions that clashed with them greatly- not in the sense of "this was fulfilled" but in the sense of "this was never true". There were Greco-Roman concepts of the dead persisting, semi-conscious, as shades in the land of the dead, and humans that became gods, and humans that were part-god, and so on. Let those people loose on a doctrine that says the opposite of what they say, and eventually SOME of them will insist it says exactly what they were used to. That's independent of Constantine's very deliberate attempts to merge Christianity with the Roman style of living by inserting all sort of connections he could manage. Human nature would do that- but he made it official and sped up the process considerably. ============================== All of that goes to say, there were people who taught some of these things in ignorance because they never bothered to correct their own preconceived notions. There were people who felt themselves in competition with Greek and Roman religions, and felt the need to top them even if it meant lying, and there were those who merged the religions for political advantage or because they were ordered to by those who sought political advantage. Looking back from now, I can't unsnarl exactly who was responsible for which. Perhaps some scholar with better resources and the skills to read the Latin and Greek of the time could do so, but I really don't care enough to pin down things more finely than that, certainly not so many centuries later.

Something with a lot of post-production and additional footage, probably. "Lord of the Rings-Return of the King"?

Yes, of course. Every single episode, in some seasons, introduced ANOTHER receptionist with their own little quirk. The payoff was seasons later. Scott Bakula's character is bowling with the FYI team, and chatting. "What? No, seriously-Murphy's had a lot of secretaries?" I channel-surfed, caught that, and went into hysterics.

Is this "the Lego Movie"?

You would mention "the Shoveler" while I was out of town....

I hope you guys will get this fast. I will be offline till the coming weekend. The title character sure had a lot of receptionists....

We did entirely different things, actually. Feel free to post more in the humor forum. The original thread was a decade old, so it's no surprise you missed it.

Sorry. I was under the impression it was not a new show when I saw episodes. And what I read made it sound like the finale was received with near apathy, especially once the ending was revealed. It sounded like the audience would be disinterested in seeing it air ever again.

Here was the old one, "twi Mad Libs."

Yes, we had twi Mad Libs Round 1 before. When I have time, I will do a second round. Give me at least a week.

Strictly speaking, vpw did not publish the ugly bronze statue or its collectible midget counterparts. He died in 1985. Sometime around 1991, they made the big, ugly statue and greenlit the little ones. AFAIK, there were never plastic ones for the dash or little hula dancers, just heavy, bronze statuettes.

With a broad topic, there's room for side-discussions that are still on-topic.

Is this the contrived "How I Met Your Mother" series? I'm glad they actually MET, but by the time they did, nobody cared anymore.

In case you missed it, TLC, that's a "brush-off." Apparently, he doesn't want to discuss any of that with you.

When we're talking vpw, of course there is. When he was young, he was a neighborhood bully, the son of a man known for yelling a lot. He co-opted the hippie movement, but in private, he taught them conspiracy tinhat stuff from the john Birch Society, and all that fear always includes a side-order of violence in response to the main-course of FEAR! vpw was fond of having ARMED bodyguards, and made comments to the corps like how this person should be shot or that one should be shot. One time, one military veteran heard this, and began packing to go off and shoot that person-one poster here talked him into unpacking and staying instead. As for lcm, his "style" largely consisted of yelling. vpw cursed in private a lot- but lcm did it in public a lot- parents reported their children having learned to curse specifically FROM lcm.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pigeonhole "3: a neat category which usually fails to reflect actual complexities" If I turn on the television at the perfect moment and gain insight from something broadcast at that instant, and someone comes along trying to explain that in terms of "gift ministries", I have to call "bushwah" on that because Not every blessing has to be the direct result of a "gift ministry." I really don't know how to make that any simpler.

That's why I said he "lifted things he didn't understand." When he taught it in pfal, he definitely didn't understand it, because he taught the opposite later. Naturally, this makes for an obvious error, since it can't be both true as one thing and completely true as its opposite at the same time. Not a problem for the sensible student-but for those who think that vpw was close to Jesus in understanding, or getting it direct from God Almighty, this is a problem and requires denial or enough fog to hide it completely.

Of course, just taking isolated quotes is no guarantee that they are FAIRLY represented. Cutting a quote from its context can be used to make it say the opposite of what it was meant to say. "There is no God" from "The fool says in his heart,'There is no God.'" It's certainly common enough in politics, even though it's dishonest. As for what vpw stole, I have no proof anything he stole was necessarily sound just because he felt it was worth stealing. He plagiarized the Word-Faith movement, with their "believe and deflect all bad events in your life" stuff- and that whole movement's based on a Christian voodoo. vpw claimed that "all the women in the kingdom belonged to the king" when Israel was a kingdom- but that was never true except in his delusions. vpw often lifted things he didn't even understand- which is why he sometimes made some remarkable mistakes or contradicted himself. ("'All' is always either 'all without exception' or 'all without distinction." "Now, was this 'all' 'all without exception', or 'all with a distinction'?") Just ASSUMING vpw's sources were sound and relatively error-free is a bad bet.

Even supposing your friend was joking, he was joking with a pattern of inflated claims like we'd heard lots of times before and after that. "In 1976 I attended my first ROA's in Sydney Ohio. I remember the WOW's with whom we travelled saying that VP does not sleep during this whole entire event. He was so 'spiritually' wired that he was awake for the whole 4 days, praying and teaching and meeting needs..." "It was TWI that caused the fall of the Soviet Union. If it had not been for Wierwille's stand on the Word countless countries would have fallen to communism, California would have slipped off into the Pacific Ocean, and we would all now be speaking Russian - That is, if the giant comet that was headed directly for the Earth has not been diverted by VPW's great believing." "When Squeaky From went to shoot the President and her gun did not fire, it was because VP had the foresight to send WOW's there that day. Because of the WOW's presence, under the direction of VP, our President was saved." "God told VP to put WOW's on the San Andres fault in California. This prevented the HUGE earthquake which otherwise would have happened. I recall someone in CA said something bad about TWI and VP said, "I should just take my WOW's off the fault and see what happens to them." "Did you know that TWI prevented the certain overthrow of the USA by all the witnessing we did and by the production and promotion of America Awakes? It was all going to happen by the bi-centennial in 1976. Heck, I still have my copy of "The Secret new Constitution" which had been drafted by the evil powers, the Catholic church being foremost among them! America Awakes drove back the spirit power. Our country was saved! Thank God all those WOW's signed up. Just in the nick of time. Their door to door and street witnessing changed destiny! A more recent example in TWI II was Y2K. Quote from LCM and other leaders: "It was the preparation on the household of The Way that kept anything from happening."

Not every blessing has to be the direct result of a "gift ministry." Trying to pigeonhole everything into one's pet theory is a good way to really sail off into left field- and was/is common in twi. I once heard someone on an STS tape teaching on his cutesy concept of "Recover, Resist, Rejoice." He began to read and expound. "*reading* 'Be sober, be vigilant' *expounding* That's like recovering." Uh, no it isn't-and it shouldn't have to be unless you're forcing EVERYTHING to fit into your framework, subordinating the communication of God Almighty to your religious construct.

"Censorship" is about silencing voices. Civil discourse, brother, DOES have limits. Generally, WE can manage OURSELVES and refrain from venting spleen or posting something coarse or truly insulting. Occasionally, a staffer has to remind us to manage ourselves. More rarely, a staffer needs to step in. Me, I prefer to manage myself before they need to step in. And I prefer that there is a limit after which is "going too far." Truly unmoderated messageboards are incoherent trollbait when they're not overrun by spambots and Nigerian princes looking for assistants. The Sun Sentinel, as a respectable newspaper, has a limit as to what it will allow in print-and an editor WILL step in if needed. That's S.O.P. for newspapers. ========================================== You caught that, too? And you beat me to it. It reminds me of all the other inflated, grandiose claims- and that reminds me of the thread where we discussed them... "vpw? Superman? Green Lantern?"

It's obvious his methods were all consistent with operating primarily as a business, because every single program was designed to operate AT A PROFIT. People never paid COST for anything-they paid RETAIL. He wanted money to come in, and after a certain point he became more interested in OBEDIENCE and BLIND LOYALTY than in simply raising numbers or even raising more money. It's really shocking to hear some of the stories-like vpw claiming to buy the furniture used to film pfal- then returned it and claimed he was unsatisfied so he could get a refund. Naturally, twi still recommends this type of strategy- "buy" a big TV for "the class" then return it when the class ends. Most people consider these "shameful" things for Christians to do-but vpw was big on never feeling guilt about things. Small wonder he was fine doing so many shameful things when he considered NOTHING to be truly shameful so long as you're not caught. Of course, vpw had no experience in managing, and absolutely no background in any type of leadership training program. That's why he claimed that a leader is someone who is followed blindly and never questioned. His view of leadership NEVER included the RESPONSIBILITIES for a leader, just the perks.

Mixed message: I'm not interested in insulting you, but let's talk about yo' mama for awhile... Think very carefully before hitting "add reply." To send insults that often means you really mean to insult, or you don't care enough that you're not thinking and reviewing before you post. Some days I refuse to reply because I'm not sure where my emotions would be, and posting angry or impulsive is a bad thing, as I see it.

The ugly bronze statue (and it is ugly) is in the Auditorium. The 3 graves on-site are together by the fountain, vpw's is one.

That's it.