WordWolf

That would indeed be strange if it was. ESPECIALLY coming from me.

I don't know about the culture, but one particular activity shared by Donna & Rosa-lie in particular strikes me as, at the very least, highly unusual. Ever share a hotel room with someone else of the same gender? I have, a number of times. (In different hotels, with different people, actually. Funny how that's worked out.) In each case, we were in the same location for the same event, and split a room to split expenses. In each case, we reserved a quad room for 2 of us, so that each of us had our own bed. In the case of Donna and Rozilla, they've shared the same hotel room plenty of times on the twi dime. In rooms with one bed. That, all by itself, would be enough to get me thinking. After all, money wasn't the issue, and neither was room availability (they could have gotten 2 rooms or 1 quad instead.) That's just one of the things reported about those 2. In the case of Ramona, not only was she a "procuress" for lcm, but she was perfectly fine with lcm slipping her the old you-know-what whenever he wanted- and she was married at the time. Her husband insisted they leave grounds- lcm insisted SHE stay (didn't care about the husband.) Her husband (T0m M) later shouted that he couldn't compete with craig in her life, then went off and blew his own brains out. (Should have shot craig first.) Me, I consider both of them complicit in T0m M's death.

"Dress uniform?" "I haven't worn this in almost three years... I must've lost some weight... it feels... kinda baggy..." "First contact isn't what it used to be." "Klon peags. Highly sought in our culture. They have many different uses." "Ah. I'm sorry. I have enough sticks right now." "McCoullough's the one who wrote the revised First Contact procedures for Starfleet..." "That right... ?" "I wish McCoullough were here right now instead of me." "Well, with all due respect to the procedures and to McCoullough, I've had it. This is as far as duty calls me. Just keep 'em happy."

"Dress uniform?" "I haven't worn this in almost three years... I must've lost some weight... it feels... kinda baggy..." "First contact isn't what it used to be."

New in town? From the beginning, Harry was part of vpw's little cadre, his little criminal operation. Here and there, he covered for vpw, and from time to time committed acts of lechery in public when he was confident he could get away with them- which he did. Someone mentioned once about Harry recommending shiny shoes shiny enough to have a reflection so he could look up women's dresses.

Actually, I remember it well- and giving as good as I got! Quite a few posters periodically characterize my posts as just rehashing things like that and vpw's criminal actions. It's a little odd you'd even SUGGEST that I'd forgotten that. I also remember being brought up Roman Catholic-where I was taught to swallow and regurgitate someone else's opinions about what constitutes "truth" - and from which I bailed out just before I became a teenager, since they lacked the answers I really needed and lacked the means to get them. I also remember what I believed after that. To think the ONLY options are "conform or be cast out" or "everything is of equal value and there is no objective truth" is rather silly, short-sighted, and a different variation of the "black-and-white" thinking symptomatic of both twi and people who never got twi out of their system. In other news, why go off-topic on this at all? Someone asked who the Unitarian Universalists are. I replied in few words and without a nasty shot. You took my reply, decided I'd taken a shot at the group, then took a shot at me. Really, there was no need for either. Next time, may I recommend a brisk walk around the block and considering maybe to just let a post slide, at least a day or 2, then seeing if it still had whatever nasty shot you perceived in it?

George, I'll tell you this much and then I'll step aside. You can choose to disbelieve me, discard what I say, whatever, but I'm neither inviting a discussion on this nor accepting an invitation to the same. When I was a teenager, I had dismissed the Bible categorically as a source of accurate information, or even relevant information. To even get me to "open the door" on discussion took a lot more than simply sunny personalities, "manifestations" and talking a good talk. vpw himself would not have succeeded, and wouldn't have even held my attention. I saw sufficient proof to warrant paying attention, and have seen sufficient proof since then to form consistent beliefs and conclusions, and they've remained intact down the decades. If you haven't, then it's small wonder you currently have the Bible dismissed categorically as a source of accurate or relevant information. Extraordinary claims have been made, and if you haven't seen extraordinary proof, then there's little logical reason to respect the Bible, let alone believe it.

Correct! Your turn.

Ah, no, Pax, you don't get to casually redefine what I said so that it matches your theology. You dismissed all sorts of verses of Scripture on the grounds that they lay out miraculous events. I countered that those who've seen miraculous events NOW are less likely to dismiss the possible claims of miraculous events THEN. What kind did I say? " Hey, if your Christian walk is so scrawny that you've never seen a divine healing, never gotten divine revelation, never seen a miracle, that's your business. Those of us who HAVE seen some are a bit harder to convince that God's people thousands of years ago never saw them." So I said Divine healing Divine revelation a miracle To those who actually want to see what I'm saying, it's not difficult. However, first you downgraded miraculous accounts in Scripture to cunningly-devised fables, then you downgraded MODERN miraculous events I said- including divine healing and revelation- to an athlete performing an excellent jump speaking in tongues/glossalalia, which is largely debated Looks like your internal filter is set to "scrawny". First, the Bible accounts are fiction, then the modern miracles don't even exist beyond "people excelling at physical stunts." Yeesh, if you rewrite me so radically in one paragraph, how reliable is your understanding of pages of Scripture?

Opinions vary with the posters. Some avoid Christianity completely, having been "burned" too much. Some avoid offshoots, some embrace THEIR offshoot. Some still consider themselves Christian.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and that's true regardless of the source.

"Listen, boy- I don't want to see you let a good thing slip away. You know I don't like watching anybody make the same mistakes I made. She's a real nice girl and she's always there for you, But a nice girl wouldn't tell you what you should do. Listen boy I'm sure that you think you got it all under control. You don't want somebody telling you the way to stay in someone's soul. You're a big boy now and you'll never let her go- But that's just the kind of thing she ought to know." " 'cause now and then,she'll get to worrying, Just because you haven't spoken for so long. And though you may not have done anything, Will that be a consolation when she's gone? Listen, boy-it's good information from a man who's made mistakes... Just a word or two that she gets from you could be the difference that it takes. She's a trusting soul, she's put her trust in you But a girl like that won't tell you what you should do." I'm a little surprised. This song was hardly a "niche" release....

Oops. I was traveling, and checked quickly, and missed this thread. Let's see.... "Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?"

Correct artist, but you have not correctly identified this song..... *looks for the other thread*

It COULD be. It could ALSO be that these aspect of the Synoptic Gospels are historically accurate. Just because other people lie about their golf game doesn't mean YOU lie about YOUR golf game. Then it goes to evidence. The people who wrote these things, reported these things were willing to put the remainder of their lives in jeopardy, and many of the early disciples were killed in horrific executions. They went to slow, painful deaths rather than say "I lied." Personally, I suspect they had supremely strong convictions that what they reported was all correct- for there is little that a man would sacrifice his life for- except the salvation OF that life. How did you get from "is it POSSIBLE that wasn't true?" to "ADMIT it was NOT true?" with no intermediary steps? Looks like a leap of non-faith. It's not intellectually honest. A good walk of faith doesn't insist that one call truth a lie, nor insist that one call lies the truth. Those who would, they're not intellectually honest, and poor witnesses to their faith. Who would want to join them? And you STILL made another leap. You've decided unilaterally to disbelieve parts of the Bible, and call them fables. Then you've decided unilaterally that to skip a process of inquiry to get to that conclusion (working it out to see if the evidence really, really supports your leap of non-faith) is "intellectually honest"-when it's the opposite. Then you decided that those who disagree with you are "soft-headed. What's next- a non-miraculous snowstorm and a new class you're teaching for pay? Depends on if there actually ARE 'legendary portions' like you decided all by yourself. Looks like you've not only declared some Scripture is "legendary" (fiction, lies, myths, cunningly-devised fables), and that your dissenters are "soft-headed", but you even worked out exactly how God wants you to read them. You're a regular one-stop-shop for another(heteros) gospel, aren't you? If it was all about powerful messages of compassion, tolerance, and so on, then why adulterate it with cunningly-devised fables? Hey, if your Christian walk is so scrawny that you've never seen a divine healing, never gotten divine revelation, never seen a miracle, that's your business. Those of us who HAVE seen some are a bit harder to convince that God's people thousands of years ago never saw them. "Do not pass Go. Do not collect 10% of my income."

"'cause now and then,she'll get to worrying, Just because you haven't spoken for so long. And though you may not have done anything, Will that be a consolation when she's gone? Listen, boy-it's good information from a man who's made mistakes... Just a word or two that she gets from you could be the difference that it makes."

A non-Christian once summed it up in one sentence: "We don't care what you believe, just come to church."

From what I see, there's no "Christianity" in the so-called "Center for Progressive Christianity." There's no sin, no need for a "savior", thus there's no Messiah, no specially Anointed One of God, no "The Son of God" and no Redeemer. Since it's all relative, there's also no "Truth", so there's no "True Religion", which means claiming it has anything to do with a concept it REJECTS is either ignorance, lies, or deliberate attempts to deceive the other posters here. ============== If you're going to be a Unitarian Universalist, just go ahead and be that and don't hide behind some label that conceals that.

"Listen, boy-it's good information from a man who's made mistakes... Just a word or two that she gets from you could be the difference that it makes."

Sorry to respond so slowly-I was traveling. RumRunner and I were not the closest friends, but I'll miss him. Those of you were were his nearest and dearest will miss him so much more. Nothing I can say or do would change that, but nothing can steal all your memories of him, and nothing will stop your reunion with him again someday in the future, be it sooner or later, when there will be an end to tears, suffering, and loss. My saying so is small, but I hope it helps at all.

You're several years late for the main discussion. This thread had a specific purpose. There were claims- by certain wearers of tinfoil hats- that the Bible was REPLACED by the "works" of vpw (the various books he plagiarized from others), that those books are "God-breathed", and so on. This thread took the definitions IN pfal of "God-breathed" to demonstrate that pfal was never "God-breathed." To reasonable readers, this was never necessary. Even those who thought they were insightful and so on never seriously entertained such a ridiculous claim, so they never needed it refuted. Since the claim was raised, this thread was written to refute it.

*snickers* Actually, you're right- some of them were monsters with some human parts, and some animal parts. Most of the time, however, it was more, you know, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump." They were homogenized beings.

Pax, you missed this question. Are you Goetz, the author of the book, or are you an aficionado of his?

"Listen, boy-it's good information from a man who's made mistakes...."

Shouldn't this part pretty much be common knowledge? I kept running into this all through high school. Hercules was the demi-god representing the Spartan ideals, Theseus ("his cousin) was the tip-top mortal who represented the Athenian ideals. The Olympian gods supposedly had all sorts of children, both gods and mortals, plus monsters and a few demi-gods. Phaeton's fate was a cautionary tale of being careful what you ask for, and not to overreach your grasp, etc. Anybody who thumbed through Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" should know this. A good websearch would show the same.