WordWolf

The die-hards will ALWAYS find a way to rationalize it to themselves. They get angry that someone will SPEAK about the evils a person does- rape, plagiarism, and so on- but never shed a single tear over the actual evils- and the lives destroyed or afflicted thereby. I find it comforting that the Internet Age means that vpw supporters and partisans and twi itself are quaint reminders of a bygone age, as dates as people who insist that Woodstock or Altamont was THE critical moment of history and dedicate their lives to being diehard hippies thereby. In fact, I think there's more young people claiming to be hippies now than are claiming vpw was the shiznit, or that twi has The Truth. Frankly, humanity's harmed less by Deadheads, IMHO, than by the partisans and flagwavers I mentioned.

That's him. You can tell a character's been used a lot when there's been so many characters based on him that spelling his name backwards on purpose results in a famous name.

Here's one of my "stealth" triples, where you could technically make it a double, but I sneak in an overlapped title in the middle. (2 movies, 1 show.) In this sci-fi romp, a quiet, brilliant youngster is recruited and trained to play a critical part in saving the Earth from the second wave of attacks by aliens bent on destroying the Earth. Saving Earth is just the beginning, though.... Thinking his life post-war is boring, his brother drags him into a live-action adventure with unspoken rules, an unspoken "board" and so on, where winning is surviving. Making it through that, he eventually becomes a major player in the struggle among the surviving low-tech humans to become the ruler of what's left of the Earth, its surviving tribes/houses, and the cooler weather (obviously the result of a minor "nuclear winter" scenario blocking sunlight and making everything cooler after the planetwide attacks decades earlier.

Supposedly, one character has had the most movies based on him. (If we only count feature films, that's probably right.) That character has also had 2 television shows based on him, each lasting 1 season. Name him and you name either series. What's the name?

Arnold Schwarzenegger the Expendables Sylvester Stallone

You are correct, sir! I named all the top actors in it except Bogey.

John Qualen Joy Page Dooley Wilson S.Z. Sakall Peter Lorre Sydney Greenstreet Conrad Veidt Claude Rains Paul Henreid Ingrid Bergman Dooley Wilson sings and plays an instrument in "his scene".

BZZT! You didn't do the link properly. If you're redoing the actor from "A Walk In The Clouds" (swapping Debra for Keanu), then that link goes Anthony Quinn A Walk In The Clouds Keanu Reeves and ENDS THERE. You proceeded to then do PART of the next triple, adding 2 more names: Devil's Advocate Charlize Theron Probably the best way to fix that is to truncate the turn where it would have ended- with Keanu.

John Qualen Joy Page Dooley Wilson S.Z. Sakall Peter Lorre Sydney Greenstreet Conrad Veidt Claude Rains Paul Henreid

That's being generous. If teaching is simply the MEANS TO THE END, and the "end"/goal is "a steady income", then what is taught is compromised to what will bring in the money. In this case, serving God gets sidelined and talking about serving God but nothing practical about ever doing it, that becomes the Main Course on the teaching plate.

It was called "sharing" because we were supposed to THINK we weren't just handing over money to vpw and twi. The idea was, we handed over money to them, and God Almighty (not financially accountable to twi) would reimburse us in financial ways and possibly other ways. So, they took, and someone else was supposed to reimburse. As for whether or not we were to give of "our livelihood", that's a matter of SEMANTICS. The "ABS" was a tenth/tithe that was called something else but was exactly that anyway. By not limiting the name to a "tenth", he set it up so that the tenth was MANDATORY and EXPECTED in twi, and MORE THAN A TENTH was expected but not ENFORCED the way the tenth was. "If you really are thankful to God, you'll give more." Who wanted to see themselves as unthankful to God-yet remain in twi? So, people were convinced to give more. lcm just codified a practice he'd seen vpw do off-the-record when he bumped the ABS requirement to 15%, to 20%, then "the revelation changed" and it was 15% again. (With social pressure to give more.) However, twi asked something respectable religious groups don't ask- they asked for everything that would go towards savings. Naturally, they made up a term for it. Based on a single account of a single incident that had nothing to do with it (of course), vpw coined "plurality giving." The concept was simple. Cover all your current expenses. ALL the money left over at the end of the pay cycle? HAND THAT OVER TO TWI. In a technical sense, that's not "giving of your livelihood" nor "giving until it hurts." However, it is still hurtful and harmful to the giver if done the way they did it (totally different from the Biblical account). Why is it hurtful and harmful? For the benefit of those unaccustomed to thinking about how vpw's policies were harmful, I'll spell out SOME of it. It allowed for NO SAVINGS. What's wrong with that? 1) EMERGENCIES. When there's an emergency, a normal person goes into the money they save for emergencies, and they have something to cover that. It can go for some medical expense, loss of work, damage to a car or other needed item that needs immediate repair or replacement, and so on. The faithful "plurality giver" has NOTHING where others have SOMETHING for emergencies. That's poor stewardship of funds. So, what did the faithful "plurality giver" do in an emergency? He was told God was supposed to supply it, and sometimes local twi Christians would voluntarily help. Naturally, someone's going to twist what I say and claim I said we aren't supposed to help each other nor trust God. So, I shall explain why THAT was wrong. twi was taking the money, and claiming it would be reimbursed if needed by God Almighty. He's not accountable to them,is not required to match THEIR promises (which weren't HIS promises), He never signed off on their promise, and He can't be held accountable if the money doesn't appear. It is good to trust God, it is foolish to remove prudent precautions and trust God for every type of protection. That's why we wear seat-belts and drive carefully, for that matter. Financially, it's no different. 2) Investment. Where's the money for retirement? twi veterans are SUPPOSED TO "work until they die." That's a quote from one of the higher-ups. Other people (smarter Christians, non-Christians) set aside some money so they have something for later. Not the "plurality giver." When he retires, the money to put aside, whether large or small, isn't with him, it's in a big pile twi accumulated from him. What did twi do with that money? They invested it so that when there's less money coming in, they still have money. In other words, twi convinces its people to take the money for retirement, send it in to twi, then refuse to retire because they have no money to retire- then twi made a Retirement Fund out of it and twi's living off of that now-while telling older Christians to just trust God for the money- or live off non-twi family they were told to spurn for decades for not being twi. 3) Nice things. EVER treat your family to something nice? Yes? Well, under vpw's system, that's a violation- since that wasn't a "need", you were supposed to send that money in as "plurality giving." If you're saying you NEVER treated your family, I'm calling shenanigans on that. Never had a nice dinner, gave a present for a birthday/graduation/Ho-Ho, never took them to a movie, bought a DVD, video game, never got cable TV, bought a nice toy, a piece of jewelry? If you're insisting that, you're not being honest. Anyone who was faithful to vpw's "plurality giving" was hurting themselves and their family in the ways I just explained. So, they did indeed "give till it hurt." vpw was fond of relabeling things so people did things while criticizing others for doing it- and he got away with it because people trusted him and didn't look closely enough to see he made cosmetic changes and otherwise left in practice what benefited him- when he wasn't instituting more practices like "plurality giving." It's interesting that vpw would say things against gambling, but had no problem himself visiting the racetracks. Perhaps we're supposed to believe he visited them because he liked horses and the ambiance. One standard for vpw, one standard for everyone else. Although what he said, if you're reporting it truthfully, was all technically correct. There's no Biblical pressure to "give till it hurts" nor for giving "of necessity." II Corinthians 9:7 (KJV) 7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. This says BECAUSE God wants us to give cheerfully, we should neither give with reluctance NOR OUT OF REQUIREMENT. Why only cite part of a verse and not post it? The entire concept of a required giving, a required Tithe/Tenth/ABS for Christians contradicts this verse-when the entire verse is read. If lcm said once not to give with guilt, he certainly was a hypocrite, because he SCREAMED AND YELLED about people who were not choosing to give 15%, 20%, and berated them for not "plurality giving." He absolutely required people to give. Since vpw had a required 10% in practice as well as the "above 10%", I'd say both the Tithe/Tenth and the giving money to the ministry above that are both direct subjects of this thread.

It's a beautiful place. No version of twi nor any splinter group own it now. The details are both on its website and on its wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartmore_House http://www.gartmorehouse.com/about_us/history.html According to their own site, twi in GB bought it in 1987, according to the wikipedia page, it was 1985. If it is taken as a given that vpw actually did spend some of his final year of life on-site, he would have done so in 1985, which means it had to have been used either at the end of 1984 or the beginning of 1985 as cg moved in and began to renovate the site having refused all outside assistance. According to both sites, as of 1995, it was vacated by the splinter group, and the history of the site moved on.

A TEACHING MINISTRY was unprepared with the teachers and teaching materials despite the curriculum having been determined years before. A TEACHING MINISTRY was unprepared with their teaching venue despite having had the venue ahead of time and it being obvious they either needed more time, much more onsite workers, or both. This wasn't the first time twi'd run classes onsite. Since this was an insider to vpw, his complete ineptitude in finding and securing a site, in rushing and selecting an inappropriate site, in working with the available personnel to prepare the site, and inability to work with outsiders (not to mention poor incremental decisions along the way like "buy old and used and not new and functional" make it obvious they- and especially he- had no business TRYING to run things.

If your image is controlled carefully enough, and your exposure is limited, anyone can put forth an impressive facade. For those of us not allowed behind the curtain, he could look pretty together. Even with limited face-time with him and looking for flaws.

It's amazing that it's that simple, and there's people unable or unwilling to see it. [Portion deleted]

It is.

So, was the title "the Incredible Hulk"?

It seemed they lacked both sufficient Divine Revelation to avoid making monumentally-bad decisions, and capped that with poor business experience and poor decision-making skills. That all caught up to them in spades with the Gartmore acquisition and attempts to make the location work. It was a beautiful location, but one very poorly-suited for the tasks for which it was intended.

Here's one we haven't done. It qualifies and I'm NOT actually posting the title no matter what anyone thinks. :) "Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer Now's the time to roll the barrel, for the gang's all here."

In virtually every instance, I've been refuting his positions and pointing out error. I have NOT been making it personal. John's going out of his way to make it personal. You think I'M the one that needs to be nicer here, the one actually going on the attack? I know he's entitled to his viewpoint. But if he's posting here with obvious pro-vpw error, I WILL call him on it. He's got a right to be wrong- but I have a right to point out he's wrong, as well. Moderator's Note: WordWolf is correct in what he's pointed out. He is also referring to posts that have since been deleted.

You're talking about David....something with a 'B', I'm sure about that...

Since it was obscure, I'm taking as a given it wasn't "Cagney and Lacey."

The "9/10 will go farther" was DEFINITELY a doctrine. That's why we can all quote the thing decades later, and so can you. "If God is really involved" is a very big IF- and switches "this is what God Almighty said to do, so He will back it up" - and He did NOT say to do this, therefore He will not back it up- with "If God is really involved", then He will back it up- which is the same mistake you keep making. God is REQUIRED to follow doctrines He never made but YOU assigned to Him. YOUR will be done. John: "Faith as a grain of mustard seed, remember? If God is really involved, everything is better." Luke 17:5-6 King James Version (KJV) 5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. 6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. This has nothing to do with a doctrine of giving 1/10 of your income, nor is this a promise that, if you do, the remaining 9/10 will prosper further than if you used all 10/10ths. That was a doctrine taught by vpw in twi, and nobody can find it in the Bible because it isn't there. But it was a required practice of twi, a mandatory practice set out by the doctrine. "This doesn't compute for you because you no longer believe in God." This doesn't compute for the devout Christians either, because A) this doesn't follow logically from the verses you mentioned- which is probably why you keep mentioning them BUT NOT POSTING THEM B) this was never mandated by God Almighty, but by vpw and enforced all through twi accordingly

Still doing it even after being called on it- in this case, by melding your comments with Raf's comments. Raf: "Anyone who gives out of free will, whether it's one percent or 50 percent or more or less, is Biblically justified in doing so. The standard for giving in the New Testament for Christians is not a percentage, but a personal consideration based on faith, speech, knowledge, diligence and love. (Read ii Corinthians 8 for the build up to and follow through on this instruction)." John: "*Agreed! VP said in 'Lifestyle of a believer' that there are 3 things which justify one person giving money to another person. 1) for merchandise, 2) for service, and 3) out of love, which can only be opened from the inside, as I said in my first post, not out of coercion." And we are all personally aware, by experience, that he often said ONE THING on paper in one place that looked pious, and ANOTHER THING in person or on tape that was self-serving. All of us who were in twi were all fully aware that the Tenth/Tithe/ABS was a REQUIRED 10%, required BY vpw, and "his" book that was used to enforce this was REQUIRED reading at pfal, often required as homework between Session 1 and 2 of pfal. vpw made it clear, and that was consistently carried through the rank and file, that it was mandatory. So, then, are you now REPUDIATING THAT TWI PRACTICE INSTITUTED BY VPW? Are you now saying that the MANDATORY Tenth/Tithe/ABS vpw REQUIRED while saying we should give out of love (but demanding we give no matter what) was ERROR? It's a simple yes-no question as to whether you're saying that. If you're NOT saying that, then it's hypocritical to claim this is all voluntary while signing off on vpw's "it's voluntary on paper but in practice it's mandatory" thing. But you're sending mixed signals and being unclear- possibly deliberately to fog the issues, possibly accidentally because you refuse to admit what we all knew THEN-that it was MANDATORY in twi and still is to this day no matter what rhetoric says it is not. Raf: "Using someone's level of giving as a basis for criticizing him or her for not believing enough or not loving enough is an intrusion on that person's privacy. The Bible never instructs Christians to evaluate someone else's practice of giving. Only your own." John: "*I'll dispute you a bit on this one. Jesus told his disciples that a poor woman who gave 2 mites gave more than the pharissees, because she gave all her living while they only gave of their abundance. Maybe he wasn't "criticizing" their giving, but he definitely made a distinction." *checks the account* He made a distinction, but that was hardly the institution of a doctrine. He did not "use her level of giving" or "use the rich's level of giving" "as a basis for criticizing" either her or the rich. There was no comment about how the rich didn't give enough, none about how the rich weren't believing enough which is why they gave less, no CONFRONTATION nor CRITICISM of ANY of the rich about what they didn't do. Mark 12:41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. There was no intrusion into their privacy. There was no instruction by Jesus of "And you shall examine the rich and how much they give", no instruction of a procedure to evaluate the giving of the widow OR the rich. So, this account has nothing to do with what was said-and therefore is irrelevant when trying to dispute it. ================================== John: "ABS is between individuals and God. I never heard VP blur this." We did! vpw told the insiders-and thus, taped recordings of meetings for the Corps and so on mentioned it- and vpw set the policy which his rank-and-file were required to follow. Coordinators were instructed to address if ABS was absent or under 10% with the locals-and they did. Doing it that way insulated vpw from being the obvious face passing the orders. This made it a little less obvious- but most people were smart enough to know that orders were INSTITUTED by vpw so those policies were HIS. Under vpw, ABS was between individuals and twi. John: "LCM didn't just threaten people with catastrophe about ABS, he once ranted about people not renewing their way mag subscriptions after the free one year subscription after taking pfal. He says you have money for HBO and Cinemax, but not for the way mag. He was mad, too. It's almost comical to think about now. The only bad consequences I, personally, have ever heard about coming to people regarding ABS are leaders spending ABS money on personal stuff. Makes me wonder about the current state of twi." lcm took bad practices HE WAS TAUGHT BY VPW and made them more overt, more obvious, more obnoxious. vpw knew when to whisper something because he didn't want to get caught saying or doing it. vpw knew when he was doing something he should be embarrassed about, or would get criticism if caught doing- but lcm thought vpw's doctrines were Divine, so he had no problems with making ANY of them overt- which, in this case, made him TWICE the money-grubber vpw was. And hearing that anyone in twi was caught embezzling money really should come as no surprise by now. John: "In the fellowship I now attend, we got some financial help in 2006, when much of St. Louis was without power for 8 days, to cover the cost of staying in motels. I'm sure we weren't the only ones, too. Also, in twi, I'm told that 85% of ABS went to HQ and 15% stayed in the limb. Other way around in the current fellowship. Nothing wrong with using ABS money to help people who have a need." So, then, you're saying your current system is much better than the system whose use vpw MANDATED? I just want to be clear. You've endorsed both systems in the past, and by definition, both can't be "the best" since one must be better than the other, and in this case, one practice is VERY different than the other. This is NOT a hard question. John: "I like that you say, "Maybe I'm blessed for that, and maybe I'm not." In other words you trust God and you trust the people and organizations you give to and that's all you need to know and that's all anyone else needs to know. " There's something you might be on your own about. We learned-the hard way- that placing trust in the people and the organizations was a setup for abused trust. So, trusting the people-and making that "ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW" is a setup for making the same mistakes ad infinitum.

Your point was correct, but you made a factual error in your post. You confused the "primary choice in England"-the supposedly advantageous location- with "the final Way Corps location" in Scotland- which lacked all the advantages cited for the "primary choice" and offered a beautiful location. Geer claimed that the reason they didn't get the "primary choice in England" was "We had lost the original location in England that we had selected because our own Way Corps graduates were not capable of handling things involved in getting a location. They just collapsed under the pressure." It's a typical, vague excuse for an explanation just like vpw used to do. When the first way corps refused to fully worship and kow-tow to vpw, he kicked them all out and claimed they didn't get it together, either. Getting back to the main point, it was very poor planning, and bad business, for vpw or geer to sign off on a location with even HALF the liabilities this one was said to offer, without any easy method to correct them. It's obvious that business went on as usual from their previous location, while geer went off by himself, to a remote location, with a need for complete refurbishment of the infrastructure and upgrades for insufficient systems- for water, for heating, for telephone service. He proceeded to try to do it all with insufficient support, insufficient personnel, and insufficient time, and had the nerve to try to use the UNFINISHED, UNDERSTAFFED facility for all sorts of events, and was stressed because he had to do it all himself. "When we lost our initial location, time was short, so it required extreme effort to locate and evaluate other available properties. Even though we needed to move quickly, careful evaluation was required so that we would not find ourselves in a bind legally or caught in a bad business deal. This meant learning the legal considerations which differed from England to Scotland after having recently learned the English. Once acquisition was made, there was a voluminous amount of work to do in stocking the location so that we could begin to operate." All of that was POOR PLANNING. Would the entire ministry collapse if they'd done things as they'd been doing them for another year or so while they actually found a satisfactory location and worked on THAT with sufficient numbers of people? I suspect it might have been fully ready much sooner despite being acquired later. They WANTED to move quickly, and CHOSE to move quickly rather than act when the time was right and not just because they wanted to act NOW. It's obvious that rushing into this meant roadblock after roadblock, and, frankly, it was his own fault that it went that way. "Once we had done that, we had another problem, that of the platemaker. The platemaker that we had been using in Altrincham had broken just prior to our coming to Scotland. It was, in fact, an old, very slow platemaker that we had gotten secondhand, so we took in a photocopier that was meant to make direct-image offset masters. This deal on the photocopier which we entered into very shortly after the New Year's period turned out to be the one that taught us how difficult it is to trade in Scotland, and especially how difficult it is being an American. The issue of the photocopier/platemaker never really did get resolved and in the end we had to buy an Addressograph Multigraph platemaker which worked very well. " twi's poor business practices are on display here. Rush into things, and-especially- get the least expensive, second-hand version you can find of things, because it's smarter business to try to keep it running and save money on the purchase than to buy something new and maintain it when in use. Again, the problem of rushing into a location-in this case, in Scotland where all the rules were different and they'd prepared for one in England- makes things difficult again. It was AVOIDABLE. "One of the additional disadvantages to having to have a Corps location in Scotland as opposed to England was the need to re-establish business contacts. Every time you have to start over in business it takes time and work to develop good business relations. We had had quite a good reputation among the firms that we traded with regularly in England. When we started over in Scotland, it seemed to be a very challenging adventure because we seemed to be besieged by business "cowboys' out to take advantage of us, and we still had to rely quite heavily on our English contacts to fulfill our needs. " Need I say it again? They rushed into a bad business decision so they could brag about having MADE a business decision, and the results made problem after problem. Geer never had the intellectual honesty to admit he invited these problems by rushing into selecting a location that failed to meet their needs, then exacerbated the problem by rushing everything rather than having all the work done at a reasonable pace and declaring the place "under construction" until it was truly ready for use. " However, during the course of the class it became more and more evident that the quality of the translated works was dubious. The French was clearly deficient and in places quite misleading. The Spanish was not laid out at all in the way that I had seen Dr. Wierwille lay classes out with the attention to detail that he paid. We discovered linguistic problems in both classes as well as inconsistencies in the class layouts, and it took an enormous amount of work to try to keep the classes as a whole on an even keel." "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Why weren't the translations gone over in great detail years before this class, and corrected as needed long before this setup was being prepared. If it was really 100% ready, they could have had each language's primary sessions taped ahead of time, and corrected and re-taped as necessary until each session was satisfactory, then host those sessions and have live teachers for the small groups? Too much rushing, too little planning, and small wonder it became an ordeal to run rather than something that went fairly smoothly. The advance planning was woefully deficient, and that meant DAMAGE CONTROL at the last minute to cover for it. That meant a lot of work, and it was the fault of those at the top who failed to plan sufficiently. What's worse is that this was all predictable- this was for a group whose primary function is to RUN CLASSES. That they failed to plan these classes correctly is a serious indictment of people who think they know how to RUN CLASSES. [quote name='skyrider' date='16 November 2014 - 04:47 PM' timestamp='1416174453' post='563025'Read this paragraph from Geer's writings..... (snip) In other words, where was that super-duper believing by geer and vpw? .....far removed from accessible transportation [sTUPID DECISION] .....difficult to facilitate business needs [sTUPID DECISION] .....isolated from any large groups of believers [sTUPID DECISION] (snip) It seemed they lacked both sufficient Divine Revelation to avoid making monumentally-bad decisions, and capped that with poor business experience and poor decision-making skills. That all caught up to them in spades with the Gartmore acquisition and attempts to make the location work. It was a beautiful location, but one very poorly-suited for the tasks for which it was intended.