WordWolf

I just hope you didn't stop your rethinking once you read Ehrman. It's not uncommon- especially among people who more recently left groups like twi, or among young people exposed to few ideas- to come across a very different set of ideas, expressed cleverly, then dogmatically embrace those with all the fervor of the previous ones. That's just trading one set of dogmatic beliefs for another. None of this means YOU did that, but it is possible, so I hope for your sake you're putting more thought into this.

This is based on a fairly old security problem. So long as there are people who will just open any old attachment they get, there will be people exploiting that to install malware on their computers.

Depends on the goals of the one designing the system. If the goal is lives that separate distinctly in quality, like substances in a centrifuge, then that system makes a great deal of sense. If the goal is perpetual homeostasis of the planet, then reincarnation makes the most sense. That has other problems, however. First of all, the planet is not designed for perpetual homeostasis, and neither is the Universe. Each had a definite beginning in space and time and each proceeds to a definite end in space and time. Reincarnation would work with a "steady state" model of the universe. However, that's been completely discredited because it contradicts all the evidence. This should be less of a shock to those people who learned that "steady state" was embraced dogmatically ("religiously") by certain atheistic scientists because it said what they wanted it to say- it denied an origin. So, they pretended there was evidence for it and embraced it dogmatically ("religiously") after making a leap of faith. Second of all, everything I've read states that the goals of reincarnation are to perfect the individual- that people progress up from lower life forms, return as slightly more enlightened humans for several cycles, then finally graduate out as above human. But statistics wouldn't bear that out. Some people, right now, are fine, upstanding individuals who enrich the lives of others whenever they can. Some people, right now, are embarrassments to the human race, exploiting others and disregarding the cost to others and living off them one way or another. The larger the sample size of lives, the more likely a person would simply end up circling as a human, and periodically coming back as more or less enlightened, with poor choices in one life cancelling out excellent choices in another. Or to put it another way, Mafiosos would have to spend several lifetimes as nuns just to break even, making up for all the harm they did. It's just applying the rather fundamental principle of Statistics called "regression towards the mean."

So, no matter what it's called, "free vocalization" is a normal, human ability that children can use, and adults can use-as long as they can disregard their adult hangups over looking silly. Theater students and acting students learn to do it all the time, and any poster or lurker hear can learn to do it as well. It is neither exotic nor unusual.

Looks like we found the fourth of the three friends. Job 32:3 (NIV) 3 He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him. We invoked history pointed out the original premise was weak, and had easy-to-find flaws. So, someone could look it over and change their mind and reject the original premise. Or SOMEHOW find a way to refute the refutations (I won't hold my breath.) Or just let it go. What did we get? "Hey, be cool, you ignoramuses and never grow." Found no way to refute us, and yet had condemned us. Really, the problem was in embracing something so silly and then publicizing it. What you do on your own time is your own business, but if it's here, it's open to discussion- and disagreement and attempted refutation. If it's flawed, that's likely.

"Now is the time For you and I to cuddle close together, yeah. All through the night I'll save you from the terror on the screen. I'll make you see" "There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time. They're open wide."

It seems that anyone who never evaluated what was wrong with twi and what is right by contrast other places is like a "sleeper agent" in that decades later they can lash out and defend things they never examined but were taught and just swallowed.

I was waiting for you to confirm I was right. Which you haven't done yet, technically....but I'll move on. "There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time. They're open wide."

It is, and it did. It is the only line some of us know from this particular movie.

Any chance this is "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"?

On a good day, I can get it just from that. And last week, I was listening to "She Runs Away", so this song wasn't too far from my thoughts. This is Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing."

Christian Slater Heathers Winona Ryder

"Every time I think I'm OUT- they pull me back in!"

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Roy Kinnear Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (Yes, there's a few famous actors in that movie.)

You'd be shocked how many people have quoted that line in different contexts. ================= In other news, both of those were Heath Ledger in "the Dark Knight".

That's it. Apparently, it was easier than I thought it might be....

This might be very easy, very hard, or somewhere in between. ;) This current (70s) television show features a team of operatives sent to investigate and resolve incidents around the US and around the world. The team's most prominent menbers are a pair of mimes, a man and a woman.

If you really want people to get this movie from one line, go with its most famous line: "Why so serious?"

The reasons all stem from one root reason and spread out from there: They want to rehabilitate victor paul wierwille's reputation and "rescue" it from the proven track record of rampant plagiarism, from the doctrinal errors stemming from his misunderstanding of Scripture and cobbling together doctrines of things he never understood but just copied over, from the eyewitness accounts of all the abuses of God's people he did of all sorts, from the eyewitness accounts of all the luxuries he wasted ministry money on, from eyewitness accounts of his all-day satisfying of vices like alcohol and tobacco while he told others to abstain, etc. vpw was a hypocrite, a liar, a thief, a plagiarist, a simonist, a rapist, a molester, and other things which escape me now. These people consider it critically important to bury all that. Exposing his evil deeds become secondary at best- they want a legend they can tap. Why do they want a legend they can tap? Some are doing some of the same he did- plagiarizing his materials and using it to make a comfortable living while saying, "Hey, everybody, listen to me!" Some of them are basing their entire private spiritual life on vpw and what he put forth, and they'd rather maintain an illusion that they were right all their time in twi- and the decades since, while maintaining the illusion- than to start over and seek genuine Christian experience and genuine Christians who don't have vpw's sinful baggage attached to their doctrine. It's uncomfortable and scary to go out there. In its own way, it's a spiritual version of something that's happening in much of the modern world with some young people, and most famously in Japan- the hikkomori phenomenon. It was seen in a more general way with "basement dwellers", but is a bit more refined now and studied in all our modern detail. The odd thing for outsiders is that hikkomori are generally all YOUNG people- people who faced life outside college and ran from it, hiding in the familiar at home and not going out to experience life anew. It's not a surprise for twi survivors because it's not news anymore that escaping twi's hold on one's thought patterns means one usually picks up IN MATURITY and EMOTIONALLY where they were before twi- and for most people, that's around college age. So, this is a delayed step in maturing and facing life. For some ex-twiers, it's a step that scares them too much to take. So, they enshrine their twi experience and teachings and associate only with others who do the same, which means they enshrine a career criminal and laud him to the skies as some sort of spiritual man instead of reject him as some sort of huckster and conman. All of that means they react with hostility whenever someone brings up how evil vpw was, and how they were victimized by him in small ways (or large ones.) They fear the truth, the outside world, so much that, even though far greater Christian experiences are out there surpassing what they started with, they'd rather chase off the rest of the world- and the rest of the Christians- and stay where they are. Ever see a small child so taken with how good Farina cereal is that they spend the next 10 years rejecting all real food because they don't want to lose what they've got instead of exploring all the superior food that the family is trying to feed him? No? Me neither. Small children have more sense than that as they grow up.

If that one is "Peggy Sue Got Married With Children", then the Title Order Police will want to speak with you. :)

Really, let's be honest. In one corner, we have victor paul wierwille- plagiarist, conman, molester, rapist. In one corner, we have people exposing victor paul wierwille as a plagiarist, conman, molester, and rapist. Some people consider it an outrage for a religious leader to plagiarize, con, molest, and rape. Other people consider it an outrage for people to expose victor paul wierwille as a plagiarist, conman, molester, and rapist.

Well, they've invested too much into it to decide to change. If they've been wrong until now, they'll be content to be wrong so long as there's less change and more moral certainties. Being right is less important than being certain. We all MEANT well, but when the lies were exposed, that changed things for most of us. It's ok to survive being young and naive-we were TRYING to do the right thing. We were conned, and we know better now.

Right- capital I was used instead of a letter that was invented later- J. So, Iulius or Iesus, and so on.

Richard Griffiths King Ralph John Hurt

I didn't even get into that. This one really has to reach to get there, and probably took some fascinatingly silly twists worthy of a Da Vinci Code or something. I mean, it's one thing to claim it's all made up, but the early Christian Church was crushed under the collective heel of the Roman emperors. To turn around and say it was all BASED on a Roman emperor? There's conjecture, there's wild guesses, and then there's stuff like that. Within years or a few decades, this will be another idea forgotten by all except a few more tinfoil hat-wearers. There's been no lack of those.