WordWolf

"Who Watches the Watchers." But your description is otherwise correct. One of the more interesting things about the episode is the writing slant. To have ANY religious beliefs is equated with human sacrifice (killing Deanna), fear, superstition, the Dark Ages, inquisitions, and holy wars. Furthermore, Picard's FINE with a local just dying if it means the Prime Directive is upheld. (Funny how the Bajorans' beliefs weren't this problematic, nor Chakotay's....)

"It was bring him aboard or let him die." "Then why didn't you let him die?" "Because we were responsible for his injuries!" "You're saying that belief will eventually develop into a religion." "It's inevitable. And without guidance, that religion could degenerate into inquisitions... holy wars... chaos." "Your own reports describe how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned all belief in the supernatural. And now you're asking me to sabotage that achievement... send them back into the Dark Ages of fear and superstition." "It's not the season for lightning. It must be a warning..." "We've had storms at this time of year before." "Not like this one..." "It must mean something!" "I was sure you were dead." "I think I was... but I was brought back to life. I awoke in an incredible place -- and my wounds were gone. I had been healed." "How is that possible? " "Long ago, our people believed in beings with great powers. These beings made the rains come, told the sun when to rise, and caused all life to be born, to grow, to die." "But those are just tales -- old superstitions." "Perhaps the beliefs of our ancestors are true. Nothing else can explain what's happened. Everything's changed now, Oji. We must tell the others."

twi used an extended analogy of a TREE when referring to itself- with Root locales, Trunks, Limbs, Branches, Twigs and so on. When groups break away- or broke away from twi, they're referred to as "splinter" groups. Despite having a lot of variety in what they stressed as they left twi, there are amazing similarities between them that most of Christianity does not share. So, it's a general term.

A tired piece of fiction trotted out to salve the conscience of a few. Some people here have had positive reminisces about vpw and lcm. (I REQUESTED those at one point.) Nobody has any about rfr, which says something about rfr.

"It was bring him aboard or let him die." "Then why didn't you let him die?" "Because we were responsible for his injuries!" "You're saying that belief will eventually develop into a religion." "It's inevitable. And without guidance, that religion could degenerate into inquisitions... holy wars... chaos." "Your own reports describe how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned all belief in the supernatural. And now you're asking me to sabotage that achievement... send them back into the Dark Ages of fear and superstition."

Ok, NOW I see some of my favorite quotes. Is this when the Klingons declared war on Cardassia, and the Defiant went to Cardassia Prime to rescue the Detapa Council. And DS9 faces a Klingon invasion force of its own. Quark dragged a briefcase of latinum all over the station....

I'm pretty sure that's not it.

What should you expect? Coverups of "Momentus" and "personal prophecy." Check out our subforum for specifics. They're the "high-pressure salesmen" of the ex-twi "family."

Correct! And, as you can tell from the quotes, it's no typical "werewolf" movie.

I WASN'T a minor, but I took it WITH minors. Dirty pictures and all.

"She's obligated to one more book, and then we get a first-look at her next two." "One more book. Good. How about an 80-page reminiscence of all the restaurants I've loved?" "Well, whatever you say-there are no specifications in the contract." "All right. I'll start eating out right now. You are a rarity, Mr Swinton- a lying man with a great taste in authors." "Gary? Don't tell people you had a drop of tequila in your coffee this morning. You didn't HAVE coffee this morning." "I've never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought, 'if civilization fails, if the world ends, I'll still understand what God meant.' " " 'Demoted', I think, is the word. I've been offered a choice between no job and a job no one would want." "Tell them that we're leaving McCleesh House because we've heard that the new unofficial policy is to push everything that sells, and-this will get them- bury anything that doesn't take off like a rocket. Tell them we've got enough investors to get it off the ground." "Two things." "Go." "How many investors do we have?" "I don't know-I haven't called anybody yet." "But you want me to say it anyway." "Yes." "Second thing-is any of this true?" "Not yet." "You're my god." "Life IS mystical. It's just that we are, we are USED to it." "You'd rather be damned than die?" "Damnation is not part of my system of beliefs." "Power without guilt, love without doubt." "I never loved Stewart. It was a mistake Will. I'm going to talk to him. Stewart, never for one moment, mentioned he loved me." "You think that makes it better? To betray me over and over again with a man that meant nothing to you? To know you betrayed me for nothing?" "Don't be a smug..." "Don't touch me! And Keep Away."

I'm confident the word "werewolf" does not appear in this movie. It certainly does not appear in the title. You'd think a movie with supporting cast like James Spader and Michelle Pfeiffer would be easier to remember....

"She's obligated to one more book, and then we get a first-look at her next two." "One more book. Good. How about an 8-page remeniscence of all the restaurants I've loved?" "Well, whatever you say-there are no specifications in the contract." "All right. I'll start eating out right now. You are a rarity, Mr Swinton- a lying man with a great taste in authors." "Gary? Don't tell people you had a drop of tequila in your coffee this morning. You didn't HAVE coffee this morning." "I've never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought, 'if civilization fails, if the world ends, I'll still understand what God meant.' " " 'Demoted', I think, is the word. I've been offered a choice between no job and a job no one would want." "I never loved Stewart. It was a mistake Will. I'm going to talk to him. Stewart, never for one moment, mentioned he loved me." "You think that makes it better? To betray me over and over again with a man that meant nothing to you? To know you betrayed me for nothing?" "Don't be a smug..." "Don't touch me! And Keep Away."

"I've never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought, 'if civilization fails, if the world ends, I'll still understand what God meant.' " " I've been offered a choice between NO job and a job no one would want." "I never loved Stewart. It was a mistake Will. I'm going to talk to him. Stewart, never for one moment, mentioned he loved me." "You think that makes it better? To betray me over and over again with a man that meant nothing to you? To know you betrayed me for nothing?" "Don't be a smug..." "Don't touch me! And Keep Away."

I lost track of the original question on the table. None of us COULD have earned eternal life, or "disciplined" ourselves unto it. As I said before, Christians are often MORE vulnerable to "the pride of life", not LESS. Then again, religious folk have been seen as self-righteous before there were Christians- Jesus' parable of the "good Samaritan" had a priest and a Levite ignore the victim. We walk, we slip, we walk, we pray for guidance. What we DO know to do, we should do. That includes "watch for traffic" as much as "avoid places that make you want to sin." A balanced walk is as much a matter of "listening to God" and heeding His will" as anything else, and it's certainly not a matter of "direct Green Lantern's ring to destroy sin."

Having examined everything, especially when lcm spoke for himself, I'm convinced vpw was quite aware, but lcm was NEVER aware it was all a scam, and thus never considered there to be a need to lighten up on a "mark", or a time to lull a "pigeon" into a sense of false-security.

"I've never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought, 'if civilization fails, if the world ends, I'll still understand what God meant.' " " I've been offered a choice between NO job and a job no one would want."

"Us people you've never actually met are announcing that the people you've worked alongside and have earned some of your respect are all evil. We're firing them and you'd better forget about them and look to us as your leaders." What did Martindale THINK? He DIDN'T think! lcm could only draw on what he'd learned. Unlike most of us at the same age, that was extremely limited. Anything he learned in college (athletics) or in twi (the "lessons" vpw "taught" him by example) where what he had to draw from. vpw had previously fired a whole class of Corps (aka the Zero Corps), and later fired ANOTHER Corps class, but allowed them to come crawling back, swearing allegiance to vpw. THAT is what lcm learned from vpw. lcm kept thinking this would work on MOST people-not just those Kool-Aid drinkers who were on staff or Corps. lcm almost certainly EXPECTED everyone else to genuflect toward New Knoxville whenever the band played. That they would stick with the people who had earned their PERSONAL respect, the non-STRANGERS, never occurred to him. As it was, yes, he facilitated the biggest mass migration twi ever had. He gave them frameworks, staff, parishoners, and MOTIVE. If the ex-twi staffers were trained as well as other Christian groups trained, he would REALLY have been in trouble. As it is, the internet only makes moves like this even EASIER now, so it would not surprise me if ANOTHER migration happened with the few people left, without warning.

I've got Quark and Garak chatting about a pitcher of root beer, and Worf returning some Klingon hotspur's knife to his Dad, but other than that...

In NY (state and city), almost everyone left SPECIFICALLY when lcm sent out his loy-alty letter early 1989. That was a form letter that said "We fired the following people in your state (names of almost all the leaders in NY State) because they refused to serve God." Having taken the opportunity to evaluate PERSONALLY THEIR performance, and lcm's performance, I had few misgivings about leaving WITH them, along with almost everyone in the state. It sounds like sending the same form letter to Californians (differing only in the names of the fired people) had much the same result it had in NY. Since he fired all of them TOGETHER, he did us all the favor of giving us an entire communications framework already in place to operate among the people who were fired.

As for a PRO-active approach, yes, beginning with HEALTHIER "diets" for your mind are better. Watching television? Some channels will depress you, some can educate you while holding your attention. Going online? The same applies. Start with what's good for you- same as a healthy FOOD diet. Then, if you want to add a "dessert", you can add one- IN MODERATION. If you have no idea where to start, you're just a mouse-click away from hundreds of daily devotionals online. Here's a few links. http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/ http://www.rbc.org/odb/odb.shtml http://www.upperroom.org/Devotional/ http://www.harvest.org/devotional/ http://www.myutmost.org/ http://www.bible.com/daily-devotional.php http://www.devotions.net/ http://www.lhm.org/dailydevotions.asp http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Bi...-Devotions.html http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/online-da...ible-study.html http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm http://www.dailydevotional.org/ http://netministries.org/webdev.html If nothing else, I doubt they could hurt.....

This is a very touchy subject. It's ESPECIALLY touchy HERE because everyone HERE was exposed to some very BAD and CONTRADICTORY material on the subject. Responses can vary from "I embrace what was taught in twi without reservation" to "I fled all conventional positions for New Age positions" to "I embrace the orthodox positions" or any of dozens and dozens of other positions. When it comes to sin, the most basic information is actually pretty simple. (This should not be a surprise- there are a handful of notes that represent all music, and a limited number of sounds or letters for an entire language.) (As always, I'm taking a Sola Scriptura approach. Those of you who don't care for it, feel free to scroll past my post.) 1 John 2:15-17 (King James Version) 15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. =============================== 1 John 2:15-17 (New American Standard Bible) 15Do not love the world nor the things in the world If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. =========================== I've heard people give numbers for sins, "Seven Deadly Sins" (or Seven Deadly Enemies of Man), and so on. However, Biblically, I see 3 categories. I expect they can overlap, but fundamentally, this is how sin works. There's the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life. Let's look at each for a moment. A) Little needs to be explained about the lusts of the flesh. We all want affection, we all like food and drink-which we need!- but what is HEALTHY can easily be EXCEEDED into a gluttony of any sense. Moreover, they can become ends in themselves. Some people find they put too much importance into affection of some form or other (the modern world gives us new, innovative ways to do this), a few live for a good meal, and many people end up addicted to alcohol or drugs. Anything can become addictive, becoming an end to itself- stopping for a drink to relax after work becomes stopping for a drink because it's done, which becomes stopping for a drink because you HAVE to stop for a drink. Just about any behavior can become addictive that way. (Even exercise- but it's pretty rare someone over-exercises compared to people who overindulge any other lust.) Anyone, I'm sure, who lives in the US, has already received an education in the lusts of the flesh. (If not, and you're reading this, you have internest access and probably WILL get an education in this very soon.) Moderation in all things, care to keep them in their place- or non-existent- make these less of an issue. Each such lust, ultimately, means the person has a problem which the sin is COVERING. Address what the person feels they need or are missing, and it's easier to remove the "dysfunctional behavior." The lustful action is a COPING MECHANISM. B) The Lusts of the Eyes are also easy to understand. It's not wrong to have nice things, although dependence upon them can be a problem. And wanting what you don't need and can't have can be unhealthy. "Hannibal Lecter: No, he covets. That's his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer. Clarice Starling: No. We just-- Hannibal Lecter: No. Precisely. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? I hardly see how you couldn't. And don't your eyes move over the things you want?" It's almost a virtue, in our society, to have something, and to immediately want something "bigger and better", whether it's a car, computer, house, television, "home theater system".... "I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket, It's my bar of chocolate. Give it to me, now! I want today. I want tomorrow. I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair And I don't want to share 'em! I want a party with room fulls of laughter. Ten thousand tons of ice cream. And if I don't get the things I am after, I'm going to scream! I want the works. I want the whole works. Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises Of all shapes and sizes And now Don't care how I want it now! Don't care how I want it now!" Again, it's easy to see this one operate. If one can keep a sense of perspective, and actually care about others, this fades as a concern. If you care about others, what they own is of lesser importance. C) The Pride of Life. This one, actually, is harder for the modern Christian to catch. Every time you hear the words "who do you think you're talking to?", you're probably hearing someone under its effect. We all would like special treatment, preferential treatment. However, we all take our turns as necessary. Again, other people MATTER. If other people are insignificant insects, it becomes easy to justify feeling more important than others. When you pass a homeless person, do you ever feel superior to them? WHY? Didn't this person have a job, nice clothes, a loving family? Didn't something happen to change that? Couldn't that happen to you? I'm not saying you're not important- your family, your loved ones, may consider you their whole world- but, ultimately, there are many people less fortunate than you- which doesn't make them LESS WORTHY than you. There are people who don't own shoes, who walk miles to get to a school that may close tomorrow- because it's their only hope to get an education. How well do you think you'd survive in THEIR world? They are people, just as you are. It's harder to see that when you're faced with people who grew up IN a modern society like the US and wasted their chance at an education and use words like "conversate" and think they know how things work when they don't have a clue. But, after all, they're people as well. Even STUPID people are human beings. It's the INability to see that other matter, the INability to see anything other than themselves as the center of the universe, that allows people like Bernard Madoff to cheat thousands of people out of their life savings, and religious charities of their money. ================================ So, there's RIGHT ways and WRONG ways to deal with TEMPTATION. James 1:14-15 (New American Standard Bible) 14But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. If the temptation is overcome, the sin is overcome-the sin doesn't have a chance to become an issue. Genesis 3:1-6. 1Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" 4The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! 5"For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Let's look at that last verse again. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." "Good for food"- lust of the flesh. "Delight to the eyes"- lust of the eyes "desirable to make one wise"- pride of life Eve was tempted-in each category- and made the decision to sin. ===================== Luke 4:1-13 (New American Standard Bible) 1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness 2for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry. 3And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." 4And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.'" 5And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said to Him, "I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7"Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours." 8Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'" 9And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; 10for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,' 11and, 'ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'" 12And Jesus answered and said to him, "It is said, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'" 13When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time. Let's look at this a bit more closely. "And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry. 3And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." 4And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.'" Jesus was tempted with the lusts of the flesh. Jesus overcame that lust- "It is Written." "And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said to Him, "I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7"Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours." 8Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'" Jesus was tempted with the lusts of the eyes. Jesus overcame that lust- "It is Written." "And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; 10for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,' 11and, 'ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'" 12And Jesus answered and said to him, "It is said, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'" Jesus was tempted with the pride of life. Jesus overcame that lust- "It is Written." ============== Sin does "easily beset us." If we are not careful, we INVITE sin into our lives- but we can find the underlying problems, fix them, and UNinvite sin from our lives, too. This is a lifelong process- I didn't see it as automatic for JESUS even-but he did show us how it's done. Ok, what was the question again?

Yes- We mentioned this technique earlier- it's called "hot reading." We demonstrated it, but we didn't give an example specifically from Karen like you did. http://skepdic.com/hotreading.html "Hot reading is a technique used by psychics, mediums, palm readers, and the like that involves surreptitiously gaining information from clients. For example, a medium who claims to get messages from the dead will chat up the audience members before a performance and gather information from them. Later, when the psychic does a reading and seems to make contact with a young man's mother, even the young man won't remember that he told the psychic before the show that he wanted to connect with his mother." "At least one faith healer, Peter Popoff, has pretended to get messages from God when he was really getting messages from his wife via an earpiece (Randi 1989: ch. 9; "Secrets of the Psychics"). Mrs. Popoff got her information from cards that the believers fill out when they attend the faith healing exhibition." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Hot_Reading http://www.lostaddress.org/2009/01/13/what-is-hot-reading/ "This is used to best effect by faith healers. In a very well known episode, noted sceptic James Randi put a small team together to work out how famous faith healer Peter Popoff did what he did. By chance, one of the team happened to tune into the same frequency that was being used by Popoff’s wife to transmit details of the audiences ailments. You can view the action here on YouTube. What Popoff did was reprehensible, he took people, many of whom were terminally ill, and he convinced them that he had the power of God flowing through him and with this could diagnose and cure their illnesses. Many of these people stopped their regular medications and treatments and subsequently died. When someone asks “What’s the harm in doing these fake sessions?” remind them of Popoff. In the meantime, Popoff and similar fraudsters have moved onto another town or city and never have to be confronted with the harm they have caused. This is harder to defend against than cold reading as gaining prior knowledge can be done in many ways: they can question you directly, they can ask your friends and family in “normal” conversation or other sessions, they may see inside your home and get an idea of your tastes, likes and dislikes, or if you are famous enough just hit you up on Google. However, you are now aware of more of the tools of the trade and you should be able to notice when these things are being used against you - particularly if their investigations throws up incorrect information."

SUPPOSING THOSE NUMBERS ARE ACCURATE- and twi was always fond of stacking numbers of people who NEVER EXISTED- it doesn't mean "that many people were corps on-site there." It means "that many people were on-site either as STAFF or AS STUDENTS." "STUDENTS" doesn't mean "corps". It also includes anyone who visited the site for a long weekend, for the Advanced class, etc. The same site says "Many accelerated biblical research seminars and advanced classes were held at the campus from 1979-1996," which is NOT the same as saying "corps." The main corps training facility started as hq, then as the Emporia location. The Rome City location was never the PRIMARY corps facility. (In each case, all sites hosted different events, not just corps.)