WordWolf

Ironic how "the Exorcist" was wildly exaggerated from what was supposedly the true account, but to hear the official twi line, you'd think it UNDERSTATED the case....

No, the one I'm thinking of aired in November 1978 in the US on tv, and that was it for US airings in any format.

I'll offer my own attempts, humble as they are. I shall say "I don't know" where applicable, and offer speculation and opinion as it is relevant. I lack any information from before "in the beginning", so I can't even make a guess or a speculation. It's often said God created so that He'd have someone to love, or to love Him back. I think the answer to "why" is along these lines. I don't think He was bored, but there's something like "lonely" that may apply. Then again, I'm speculating crudely about a being wildly more intelligent than me and transcendant, so my best guesses are the vaguest ones. For myself, I have one answer to all those questions together.It involves two concepts. 1) Free will. I believe God considers His gift to us of free will to be far more important than most people ever consider. I saw a man illustrate this. He played a recording that said what a great guy he was. However, it was MEANINGLESS because the thing had no FREE WILL. It was programmed to say that and had NO CHOICE in the matter. Does God want machines that are PROGRAMMED to claim to love Him? I don't think so-even though the alternative is grossly inefficient. Then again, I think any parent who's on speaking terms with their child can understand the feelings of frustration and pride, and receive the love FROM that child. 2) TIME. God operates on a scale that is inconceivable to the rest of us. Decisions made in one decade (show Joseph visions of him ruling over his brothers) have consequences decades later (Joseph saves Israel from the famine.) Decisions made in one century (Daniel teaches the precursors to the Magi) have consequences centuries later (their successors appear, give Joseph and Mary valuable gifts just in time for Joseph to grab Mary and Jesus, then leave. I see the allowing of suffering to be the result of 2 things. A) God allows free-will decisions to have their results. Poor drivers will hit things-and people. B) In the long run, the sum of ALL the results will be what God wants. I see that in how Joseph responded to everything that happened to him. He said his brothers meant their actions for evil, but God meant their actions for good. My opinion, make of it what you will.

Odd coincidence, but I was discussing them briefly last week. Ever see the movie they were in?

We all know you're still claiming this. But you were claiming this over 4 years ago, and it was refuted back then, and you're still claiming it. Your straining at a gnat didn't invalidate his point to anyone except you. Right. vpw's last commercial was to say to spend more time in pfal, and the best thing we could do for people was to put them thru the class. Hardly an earth-shattering announcement- it was pretty much the message for us for the 70s and 80s. And here's where the Mikean pfal doctrine comes in.pfal="Scriptures", and "pfal> any Bible". For those who missed it, that's pretty much the linchpin of Mikean pfal. Feel free to review it. And see why he gets so few converts. Sure looks like Mike saw vpw say "memorize the White Book", and Mike read that as "Search the Scriptures." "Master" and "search", of course, being Mike's "private interpretation" and additions. especially when it's phrases like "PFAL SCRIPTURES", which does not appear anywhere in pfal. And the idea that SOME of what vpw wrote being God-breathed? Mike believes this. Mike believes vpw said this, and Mike believes this is true. And Mike believes that our NOT embracing this silly thing is wrong of us.

WTH tends to oversimplify anything he doesn't like. For example, one person's eyewitness testimony is one thing, but when dozens of people step forward, and a consistent picture is presented from all their testimony, that's entirely another. That's why GOD'S WORD mentions the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses to establish things, but WTH's not convinced with dozens if he dislikes their testimony. WTH also tends to have a problem with people whom he disagrees.

Different subcultures have their terms- but cults use words to CONTROL IDEAS. If you control the words used to represent ideas, you control the ideas. Cults are about CONTROL. Subcultures rarely try to control the terms, and especially don't try to control ideas. They're certainly not centrally-controlled, themselves. Consistent translation is an issue with Bibles. If one word's translated into DIFFERENT words,then the translator's controlling the ideas. Then people get MISIMPRESSIONS based on his translational choices. For example, if he translates "fill" into "replenish", we get people saying something was DEPLETED and needs REPLENISHING. (vpw on a poor translation in Genesis.) If he translates "thoroughly" into "throughly one place, we get people explaining how "throughly" is more extreme than "thoroughly" (vpw on a poor translation in Genesis.) If he translated "foreknow" into "foreordain", then entire doctrines can be formed about the difference between the two words (cg did that one...) That's why one Greek word should be one English word. I don't want any translator foreordaining my doctrine. Agreed. I don't get what's so difficult about this. Agreed. God doesn't fit in formulas-He's our Father! Agreed. But I'm reluctant to make 1 Greek word 2 English words, for reasons I gave above. Especially when people claim distinctions between the 2 are Biblical, when they're identical Biblically.

Raf checked in sooner than I expected. For the curious, the song's about chess tournaments, which the singer considers superior to touring the cities on the circuit. In the song, Murray's lines are spoken, the choruses are sung, and there's occasional responses sung to him from the chorus. Anyway, here's the lyrics, for the curious: ========== Bangkok, oriental setting But the city don't know that the city is getting- The creme de la creme of the chess world In a show with everything but Yul Brenner. Time flies, doesn't seem a minute Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it. All change, don't you know That when you play at this level there's no ordinary venue? It's Iceland, or the Philippines, or Hastings, Or...or this place! One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free You'll find a God in every golden cloister And if you're lucky then the God's a she I can feel an angel sliding up to me One town's very like another When your head's down over your pieces, brother. It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity To be looking at the board, not looking at the city. WAIT A MINUTE! You've seen ONE crowded, polluted, stinking town- Tea, girls, warm and sweet, sweet Some are set up in the Somerset Vaughan suite Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist whose every move's among the purest. I get my kicks ABOVE the waistline, Sunshine! One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble Not much between despair and ecstasy One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble Can't be too careful with your company I can feel the devil walking next to me Siam's gonna be the witness To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness This grips me more than would A muddy old river or reclining Buddha. Thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it! I don't see you guys rating The kind of 'Mate' I'm contemplating. I'd let you watch, I would invite you But the Queens we use would not excite you. So you better go back to your bars, your temples, Your MASSAGE PARLORS... One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free You'll find a God in every golden cloister A little flesh, a little history I can feel an angel sliding up to me One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble Not much between despair and ecstasy One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble Can't be too careful with your company I can feel the devil walking next to me ============= Hey, Raf! Murray Head's not a stage name- it's the guy's real name. His younger brother's Anthony Head, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (tv show.) How about that?

You're claiming that since YOU didn't see something, it didn't exist. That's called "trying to prove a negative." It's also a common fallacy. You can't "prove a negative"- you prove something happened or you don't. (Or you provide evidence supporting it happened, which amounts to the same thing. Did you ever see a terrorist kill someone? (Actually see it, not see video.) If not, you might just as easily say no terrorist has ever killed anyone, since you never saw that. (Video can be faked-plenty of Hollywood movies show people dying who are still perfectly healthy once the cameras stop rolling...) ===== Since others DID see him teach this, you have 2 choices. A) Accept that he did this, at least SOME of the time. B) Call all the eyewitnesses liars, cover your ears, and insist that you know THE Truth on vpw no matter what anyone else saw or heard from him. It's your choice.

Here's a recap on this "Keys" thing Mike tried to pass off.... =========== cinderpelt, 6:10am, 11/11/07: rascal, 9:40a, 11/11/07: Mike, 12:28pm, 11/11/07: Mr Hammeroni,12:57pm, 11/11/07: waysider, 1:40pm, 11/11/07: doojable,9pm, 11/11/07: Mike, 11:46pm. 11/11/07: doojable,11:55pm, 11/11/07: Mike, 11:59pm, 11/11/07: doojable,12:05am, 11/12/07: one can feel free to compare and contrast what everyone else said (like cinderpelt not confusing a tool with a relationship) with Mike trying to defend his "keys are crucial" doctrine, even to the point of changing the subject and jumping from the subject to the Garden of Eden, hoping nobody noticed the subject changed.

Looks great on a bumper sticker, and vpw said it, but it's not true. Anyone's "word" is their communication to another- but it is not THEMSELF, nor their PERSON. Even vpw later made this same point, when discussing "the Giver and the Gift." He held up one of "his" books, and said that if he gave someone this book he wrote, would they get the book-the gift- or would they get the giver-himself? "Of course you wouldn't get the giver-how lucky could you get?" So, vpw's word is not vpw, just as God's Word isn't God HIMSELF. This is not a problem for nearly all Christians, but those with a bibliolatry problem (ex-twi and their students, mostly), this may seem to be a deep manner. Might as well say "WordWolf's posts are as much WordWolf as WordWolf is WordWolf." It's just as much an error

Here's another example of Mike creatively reinterpreting what happened. See, first of all, vpw contrasted his own writings, as well as the writings of Martin Luther and others- with the Scriptures, saying that the Scriptures were "God-Breathed", but with anyone else's works- like his own, or Martin Luther's writings, you have no such guarantee, it is hit-or-miss with truth or error. Here's what vpw said, pg 83 of the Orange Book: "The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or ideology. This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures...." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination. No, it says, "Search the scriptures..." because all scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not what Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures - they are God-breathed." For the benefit of those in the cheap seats, here's how Goey explained that passage, June 1, 2003, back when Mike was claiming that passage meant vpw was saying that part of his own books would NECESSARILY be "God-breathed.".... ========== Similarly, there were any number of places where vpw claimed what he was saying was in agreement with the Bible, and would say something like "Don't blame me-I didn't write the book", and Mike would reinterpret that as "Here vpw's saying he didn't write the Orange Book, and it was from God." NOW, Mike's remembering the incidents as: A) he said definitive, unambiguous quotes existed where vpw said God wrote the Orange Book and the others B) people here laughed long and loud about it C) Mike produced definitive, unambiguous quotes where vpw said God wrote the Orange Book and the others. For the record, that was zero for zero. However, Mike's creative reinterpretation process doesn't pause for little things like "What actually happened" when it's manufacturing victories for Mike, it will take whatever it gets- and that usually means it needs to completely rewrite history or whatever Mike's reading. Happens a lot, if the GSC posts are any indication. He's also claimed that he rode in here, and befuddled us, outsmarting us all and baffling us, a few months after he was (in effect) spanked with a paddle on all his claims. So, this is old news, just variations on the same old hallucinations. Mike means he says the PFAL BOOK, not any BIBLE, is "God-Breathed", for those whomissed it since he's being unclear, probably intentionally. He's claiming it was, and he later agreed it was. The rest of you can make up your own mind on the subject. *** And we reject your phony doctrines, Mike, as always. Old news.

Here was the original post, with some emphases from me on the speaking for themself part. Odd how the post was trimmed so it didn't link back properly, nor was the poster's name given, and it was on another page. It's almost as if one didn't want the original post checked for accuracy. BTW, I disagree partly about the recovering addicts, since some of us don't seem interested in trying to understand, make sense of it, learn so it never happens again, refrain from the addictive experience. Some of us, yes, but not all of us.

No, but it's been demonstrated beyond a REASONABLE doubt that whether or not God had ANYTHING to do with pfal, it was designed as a revenue source, a membership source, and a respect source for vpw, BY vpw. Which, apparently, worked so well that decades after he died, people are still lavishing praise on him for ripping off the work of others and so on. Yeah-if they were speaking for themself, they would have said things like "I felt like" instead of -wait, they DID speak for themself. John just didn't like what they said for themself.... That's an acceptable premise UNTIL LOOKING into the WHOLE picture. I started from that position, but when all the news of what happened at the top had reached me-and I've only heard SOME of it- then the aggregate picture is of an organization with many loving Christians, which CLAIMS to be about God, but is actually organized to the benefit of the founder, with the "God" part being more of a PRODUCT, MERCHANDISE, to which all the Christians were REGULAR SUBSCRIBERS and CUSTOMERS.

Indeed it is. The Thriller quote I did recently (spoken by Vincent Price) was also a song lyric, remember.

And a Muslim would say "If the Koran is not God-breathed then nothing is, and the Father eludes us." And a Christian Scientist would say "If Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is not God-breathed then nothing is, and the Father eludes us." And a Mormon would say "If the Book of Mormon is not God-breathed then nothing is, and the Father eludes us." And so on. None of those statements, no matter how glibly tossed off, has ANY EFFECT on any book.

Well, this falls within my usual limits. Technically. "I get my kicks ABOVE the waistline, Sunshine."

Ah, no. That's because: 1) The preceeding sentence gave the context before someone removed it to remove part of the meaning- leaving it only about people lined up in stringed chairs, which is NOT what the sentence BEFORE nor the sentence AFTER said. "IT REDUCES THE GOSPEL FROM BEING TRUTH TO BEING A SALES TOOL." 2) Having said that, concerts and sporting events don"t reduce people to anything. The attendees are at an event to be entertained, and accept that this entertainment depends partly on them not ruining the entertainment of others-which means they can't drown EVERYTHING out, and should stay to their seats. And based on the average concert, that doesn't work very well.... School classes involve similar principles, but also reinforce conformity on the young, depending on who you ask. Some people WOULD say the imposed groupthink in a class is related to the groupthink in pfal. Those people would complain EQUALLY. I'm glad I took it, too. But I think now the idea that it was "the second greatest thing God ever did" is silly. If you'd have asked me THEN, I would have said that was overstating the case. And I was a fan of it then. Were you trying to suggest that statement was correct? If not, that's definitely the relation you posted.

Nice pictures. Nice pictures, however, captions, and cartoons are not authoritative, neither for Scripture nor for pfal. I had a different set of cartoons at one point for the same keys, and they were neat, but not authoritative either.

Well, I gave the casual readers a chance to answer this one. This is "Pink Cadillac", and I'm familiar with Bruce Springsteen's version.

The movie "King Ralph" had a LOT of fun with that. This American is trying to immerse himself in British culture, history, etc, at one point, and this included sampling all sorts of traditional foods. When he was introduced to "spotted dick", he winced and didn't look right at it. Later, when he was offering someone dessert, he couldn't finish the name. ===== I also saw one comedienne who brought back a menu from Great Britain, where one dessert was big enough to share. She held up the menu so people in the front could read it. "Great Big Spotted Dick." She continued reading. "'A feast for one, plenty for two, enough for three or four to share.' *closes menu* Now THAT, my friends, is a lot of Dick." ========= Sidenote for the trivia fans. Alan Moore refused to accept any credit-or blame- for "V for Vendetta." He wrote the comic book the movie was supposedly based on, and took his money, but he disconnected himself from the adaptation process, since it generally means a lot of departures from the original work. (IMHO, that was an improvement with "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," but a problem with "V".) I'll skip the theatrics, but one thing that came up was how poorly they worked the script, not making sure the expressions, the colloquialisms, matched. The expression that keeps getting mentioned involved "eggs in a basket." Apparently, they don't have that name, and probably not that food at all. However, the character not only used the name, but used a made-up pseudo-British version, "Eggy in a basket". That phrase has gotten a LOT of mileage in spoofing the movie. (A spoof I saw had him saying "Are you surprised I made you Eggy in a Basket?" and her replying "No, I'm surprised you think British people use the word "Eggy.")

It's my opinion that the "some of them were great" "some of them were horrible" hit-and-miss results of the corps was primarily the result of the "screening process", that is, "If you have the money, you can enter the corps" and "you can stay as long as your money holds". The latter was a direct quote, lcm said vpw told him that when lcm was in the corps. With no REAL screening process, we had dedicated Christians and unfit leaders line up, and BOTH were given responsibilities over people. Which served vpw well often, since the former legitimized the ministry, and the latter often were willing to do what HE wanted, which facilitated his evil deeds. Either way, they paid for the entire course, and performed manual labour while in it. This was a financial winner for him all the way through.

If SIT was the be-all and end-all we were told it was, why were so few verses written to address it?