WordWolf

"Reba"????

"In Your Wildest Dreams,", the Moody Blues. (Off "Sur la Mer".)

potato, I consider the last "real" ROA to be 1988, since the 1989 one was so heavily-monitored, and 80% of the people- including most of the ones that made it worthwhile- were gone. Of the ones that attended the 89 ROA, many of them attended it as their LAST ROA, as they came off the WOW field, hit the bookstore one last time, said their goodbyes, and so on. So, from 1990 on, you had brand-new people, establishment goons, good-hearted Kool-Aid Drinkers, and the stars on the mainstage. The new people and Kool-Aid Drinkers together weren't enough to float it as a worthwhile event any longer- especially with numbers down as much as they collapsed after lcm's "line in the sand." ======== And from what I've heard, 86-88 weren't as good as the ones that came before....

Bingo. And don't insult my intelligence by thinking I can't see that one.

"...One thing that bothered me, I guess in hindsight, was that the Church kept changing rules on me. This Law is Eternal-except for this weekend! SPECIAL DISPENSATION! Like, eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin- except for the people of Philadelphia-they were number one in our scrap iron drive! They'd give it out as a prize. If you donated the most money to the Bishop's Relief Fund- hamburgers on Friday! I've been out for a while. It's not even a sin any more to eat meat on Friday........ But I bet there's still guys in Hell doing time on a meat rap!!!! 'I thought it was retro-active! I had a boloney sandwich. This guy had a beef jerky.' How'd you like to do Eternity for a beef jerky?" Then he wondered about short-time clubs. (For those interested, I believe Sushi, because mine was also done from memory.) (Oh, Sush, the pictures they sometimes showed of Heaven- you'd sometimes find them in 'Treasure Chest', the comic with Chuck White. Whoever that was and whatever that was.)

Well, since you asked..... [WordWolf in brackets and boldface as usual.]

I am not going to fall for this one.

"I have the impression that we woke you about three-thirty this morning." "No, it was ten of four." "Did we say why?" "Uh, you said you wanted to sacrifice a virgin." "Did we?" "I was too sleepy." Beginning of one episode, the morning after Hawkeye and Trapper threw a BIG party. Radar showed up with the mail, and Hawkeye had a vague recollection. "Oh you...you..." "Who you calling a 'you-you'?" Frank Burns and Hawkeye, during "Yankee Doodle Doctor". " 'To the Far East Export Import Company, 27 Zapata Circle, Ti-joo-wana, Mexico.' " "Right, go on." " 'Mary had a little lamb. Stop. My dog has fleas. Stop.' " "Good, there's a bit more. 'Mairzy doats and dozey doats, and I'll be home for Christmas.' Got that?" "Uh..in just a moment. Uh, okay." "Sign it: 'Your loving son, Queen Victoria.' " Radar taking down a message for Colonel Flagg. He has "nothing to do with Intelligence." He's with the C.I.D. The REALLY memorable part was when Radar showed it to Hawkeye and Pratt, the OTHER spy. Radar:"You told me to keep you up on what he's doing." Hawkeye: "'Mary had a little lamb...'" Pratt: "He knows I'm here." Trapper: "How?" Pratt: "I'm Mary." Hawkeye: "I hate to tell you this, Mary, but your dog has fleas." Your turn, George.

Correct!

For me, I think most of what I honestly enjoyed were spontaneous, and not official. I really liked buying wares from the average "Joe Believer", and came away with a considerable haul back when. Without any real "official" status, I sat in on a number of teachings that were really good-with or without a podium. Just meeting other "Joe Believers" was often a LOT of fun. ========= I remember when stuff would come together and work before anyone had a chance to legislate God out of the picture. One year, a returning WOW was coming off the field, and flew back a day before the ROA begins, not sure how he was going to get there or spend the day before. But he prayed about it. There was precisely one other person going to that event on that plane. Their seating assignments put them next to each other. So he was promptly invited to attend the event, by someone who already had a ride, a place to stay for the night, dinner planned, and didn't mind sharing. I know this because I was the other person on that flight. (By even 1989, that was HISTORY, NOSTALGIA for me. Big and little things seemed over. Now it was all staged.)

It was 1989 if the attendance dropped by 80% since the previous year, it was the last one where Acts 29 played, lcm had that prop that cut up the theme on the podium (speaking the truth. In what?), and everyone who was vaguely related to vpw was trotted out on the mainstage at some point like they were the Kennedy clan or something. I don't remember a lunar eclipse. But I might not have even if it was there. I'd have noticed a SOLAR eclipse, but then, who wouldn't?

Giving a precise verse is a LOT trickier. If I was still operating under the misconception that the Bible was written specifically as a scientific textbook, then I might have a problem. I don't think God considers the nuts-and-bolts of the connections to be "need-to-know", and thus not needed in print at the present time. After Judgement Day, I'd expect something more in the line of a technical manual. I believe the current system is designed to operate under the limited understanding of humans across at least 2 millenia. If that is true, then I'd say it works pretty darn well. (Except for the people that insist on injecting their doctrine in it, and I don't think that can be corrected without doing something like having the book issue electric shocks whenever someone utters an error while holding it or something. "Classical conditioning" isn't God's style, it seems. He leaves that to Pavlov.

"I have the impression that we woke you about three-thirty this morning." "No, it was ten of four." "Did we say why?" "Uh, you said you wanted to sacrifice a virgin." "Did we?" "I was too sleepy." "Oh you...you..." "Who you calling a 'you-you'?" " 'To the Far East Export Import Company, 27 Zapata Circle, Ti-joo-wana, Mexico.' " "Right, go on." " 'Mary had a little lamb. Stop. My dog has fleas. Stop.' " "Good, there's a bit more. 'Mairzy doats and dozey doats, and I'll be home for Christmas.' Got that?" "Uh..in just a moment. Uh, okay." "Sign it: 'Your loving son, Queen Victoria.' "

No. And I'm glad it wasn't as easy as I thought.

Suda named it and said she didn't know the artist, then Dundat said "10cc" and that he was helping Suda and credited the answer to her. Waysider posted afterwards and did not correct her. I concluded Waysider implied agreement that was the correct song and we had moved on. Feel free to scroll to Suda's post and then Google title and artist Dundat gave.

I think it was Raf who I first saw carry the logic out on paper so that it was obvious what nagged one about that doctrine. By "that doctrine", I meant the one where "God can only speak to that which He is". The idea is that God, who is Spirit (and even vpw said, at other times "but He is other things too"), is unable to communicate directly with our minds, because He is Spirit, and Spirit can't communicate directly with flesh (and therefore, mind). So then God implanted spirit within us to overcome that impossibility. So God's Spirit interfaces directly with our spirit. Ok, no problems there. We have easier analogies now that we have the internet and related technologies, so I can follow all that easily. The NEXT step, however, is the problem. OUR spirit then communicates with our mind. HEY! You just said spirit and mind CAN'T COMMUNICATE! That's the whole idea behind the doctrine! So God's Great Big Spirit can't communicate with my mind (it's impossible), but my tiny-by-comparison spirit can do it easily anytime I want? Doesn't wash. ============= As to who and what God Almighty can communicate with, I think most of us monotheists here agree that God Almighty (being Almighty and all) can communicate with who or whatever He wants, whenever He wants. He's effectively got infinite variety in doing so. Download information directly into one's cerebral cortex? Why not? No verse says He cannot, no verse says He WOULD not. Burning bush? Disembodied voice? He's been there, done that, and got the t-shirts. I might say God MORE EFFICIENTLY communicates by interfacing Spirit-to-spirit. I could see logic in that and get behind it. ========= I think my problems with The Great Principle are not insurmountable, but would need to be addressed. First of all, this name. "The Great Principle"? If there is any one "Great Principle", I would say JESUS CHRIST gave it. "You shall love the Lord your God with everything you've got." The Second Greatest Principle, then, I would say JESUS CHRIST gave as well. "You shall love your neighbor like your own self." (From the context, this can be rephrased as the Golden Rule- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"- and the Silver Rule- "What you don't want others to do to you, don't do to them.") Compared to mLaSJC, any principle given by any man is a distant runner-up. So, I don't think this so-called "Great Principle" is that great. I think it's pretty good. So, let's see. How would I fix the Pretty Good Principle? "God is Spirit." I'm with you there. The idea behind it says God can only communicate with that which He is. No, with a little fine-tuning, we see God can communicate MORE EFFICIENTLY with spirit. "God, who is Spirit" I'm with you there. "Teaches His creation in you" Now I've got a problem again. This phrasing makes it sound as if the spirit in me is SENTIENT, as in "I can think, and my spirit can think, independently of each other." I can't get behind that one. I can accept God communicating with His creation in me, and that operating as a sort of "translator" (like a modem) to the rest of me. I can accept that "my" spirit has priorities hard-wired into it. Programming, so to speak. It can do anything it was programmed to do. (It has its own drivers, to use computer techspeak a bit more.) I don't think He TEACHES so much as COMMUNICATES, and the process is what teaches. The teaching is not confined to the step it's named in, but rather at the step where it reaches my thinking. And the teaching is not "my spirit to my mind", but "God who is Spirit" teaching my mind. Is there a step in-between where "my" spirit is involved? Yes, but that's besides the point, and is incidental to the teaching. Look, when I post here, I don't grab a pen and write on your screen. I type into my computer. My computer, which is technology, communicates my message to my ISP, and my ISP communicates to the GSC server, and that server communicates to your ISP, and thence to your computer. Neither your ISP nor mine is said to "write a post" or "read a post" here. They are part of the process, but incidental to the goals of posting and reading. So, Pretty-Good Principle. Nonsense? I would not say so. (Others may disagree.) Needs improvement? Definitely. (A few will swear it does not.) "God, who is Spirit, communicates with His creation in you, which is now your spirit, and then proceeds to instruct your mind." That's how I'd rephrase that. I find the rest of it a little idiosyncratic, but serviceable. "Then it becomes manifested in the senses realm as you act." Maybe something like "As you take action, then His Will is done. Or not, depending on your chosen action." I prefer to use terminology closer to what Jesus used ("Thy Will be done, as in Heaven, so on Earth") instead of more esoteric twi-speak ("manifested in the senses realm"). I also allowed for the possibility that God can tell you His will, and you can just blow it off and not carry it out. It seems self-evident to me that this need not be documented. Let me know if you need it broken down, though. There's examples in the Bible, and in the modern world.

Next one. "I have the impression that we woke you about three-thirty this morning." "No, it was ten of four." "Did we say why?" "Uh, you said you wanted to sacrifice a virgin." "Did we?" "I was too sleepy."

I was waiting for another quote. The one about the "BRILL-iant ideas" was the catchphrase for Blair on "Facts of Life." My comment was an exchange that happened more than once in one episode where Jo refused to tell how she got beer while underage. And, apparently, I'm not the only person across cyberspace that thought it was memorable. (I didn't check on the brilliant idea one, though.) I'm not SURE about his other quotes. The "greeting" MIGHT have been when one character was smashed. Or I may have made that up.

"Before I forget, here's the immunological data you asked for." "How sweet of you to put this together for me so quickly... I think I'll go look it over right now." Bashir and Leeta were flirting. Dax interrupted. Bashir began typing on his PADD. The screen read "GO AWAY" when he handed it to her. "Elizabeth Lense... I think she may have been in my class at Starfleet Medical." "Wasn't she the valedictorian?" "That's right..." "And you were... salutatorian?" "Second in my class..." "If I hadn't mistaken a pre-ganglionic fiber --" "For a post-ganglionic nerve, I know." "I would've been valedictorian." "Oh, well..." Bashir was second to Elizabeth Lense. As we later learned, Bashir "threw" the exam to draw less attention to himself due to his genetically-altered history. "You sound like a Cardassian... " "I beg your pardon? " "They've denied the possibility of ancient contact for decades because they can't stand the idea that Bajor had interstellar flight before they did." "With all due respect, Major... you're beginning to sound like a Romulan." "A Romulan?" "There's no piece of technology in existence that they don't claim they invented before everyone else..." O'Brien questioned whether this ship could fly. Kira challenged his position, and O'Brien challenged back. "I'm expecting a lumber shipment from Bajor this afternoon." "Okay... " "Which reminds me... I'll also need a saber saw." "A saber saw? " "You know... to cut wood." "Why not use a laser cutter? " "Because I want to use the same types of tools the Bajorans had." "A computer model could do that... why go to all the trouble?" "Why? Because it'll be fun!" "Except for the gravity net I installed in the floor... weightlessness makes me queasy... " Sisko made the ship the same way, and with the same specs, as the Bajorans claimed to use. Except for gravity. (Which is expensive to do away with on tv.) "I'm expecting a report from Starfleet Command. You'd better relay it to me aboard the Baraka as soon as it comes in." The ship was called "the Baraka." "If you recall, you thought the Celestial Temple was a Bajoran fairy tale... -- until we discovered the wormhole." Gul Dukat told Sisko he was chasing a fairy tale with this. "Listen..." "I don't hear anything..." "Exactly... not even the hum of an engine... It's almost like being on the deck of an old sailing ship... except the stars aren't just up in the sky, they're all around us..." The Baraka was a solar sailor. It was powered by solar winds pushing it. "Bring me my bow, of burn - ing gold... Bring me my ar - rows of de - sire... Bring me my spear! O clouds ? un-fold... Bring me my cha - ri-ots of fire! I will not cease, from men-tal fight... Nor shall my sword sleep in hand... Till we have built, Je-ru - sa - lem... In Eng-land's green and plea-sant land..." "That was beautiful, Chief... just beautiful. You know what we should do... ?" "What?" "Go to Quark's... and sing it for everyone there... " "Maybe we should switch to synthale... " O'Brien and Bashir getting smashed. Trivia note: Colm Meaney ("Chief Miles O'Brien") suggested this song after the producers were unable to get the rights to "Louie, Louie", "Rocket Man" or "Space Oddity". You're not an in-between kind of guy. People either love you or hate you." "Really?" "I mean, I hated you when I first met you." "I remember." "And now..." "And now?" "Well... Now, I don't." "That means a lot to me, chief." "And that is from the heart! I really do... not hate you." Hint: Does the name "Thor Heyerdahl" mean anything to you guys? Kon-Tiki? The hint was that this appears based on Thor Heyerdahl's voyage of his ship, the Kon-Tiki, to show that such a ship could have worked centuries earlier, before Columbus. Go, George!

Right.

Don't like the menu here, nobody's forcing you to eat here. Lurking and posting are done at your own risk. We set great store at freedom to think and freedom to discuss here. There are plenty of boards that do not. Feel free to seek them out for all the legalization and rules you see fit. Mind you, the pro-twi boards won't ALLOW you on, because you're not a current member, which is a REQUIREMENT of theirs. But you can find lots of OTHER boards with their own rules. Thousands upon thousands of them have never even HEARD of twi, vpw, pfal, etc. You could even post at some of them and come back here. (Lots of us post at non-twi-related boards ALL THE TIME.) Or was that meant intentionally to illustrate the topic, and twi's famous "if I'm in the room, I'm controlling the microphone and the discussions" stance, which some of us can't live without?

"Before I forget, here's the immunological data you asked for." "How sweet of you to put this together for me so quickly... I think I'll go look it over right now." "Elizabeth Lense... I think she may have been in my class at Starfleet Medical." "Wasn't she the valedictorian?" "That's right..." "And you were... salutatorian?" "Second in my class..." "If I hadn't mistaken a pre-ganglionic fiber --" "For a post-ganglionic nerve, I know." "I would've been valedictorian." "Oh, well..." "You sound like a Cardassian... " "I beg your pardon? " "They've denied the possibility of ancient contact for decades because they can't stand the idea that Bajor had interstellar flight before they did." "With all due respect, Major... you're beginning to sound like a Romulan." "A Romulan?" "There's no piece of technology in existence that they don't claim they invented before everyone else..." "I'm expecting a lumber shipment from Bajor this afternoon." "Okay... " "Which reminds me... I'll also need a saber saw." "A saber saw? " "You know... to cut wood." "Why not use a laser cutter? " "Because I want to use the same types of tools the Bajorans had." "A computer model could do that... why go to all the trouble?" "Why? Because it'll be fun!" "Except for the gravity net I installed in the floor... weightlessness makes me queasy... " "I'm expecting a report from Starfleet Command. You'd better relay it to me aboard the Baraka as soon as it comes in." "If you recall, you thought the Celestial Temple was a Bajoran fairy tale... -- until we discovered the wormhole." "Listen..." "I don't hear anything..." "Exactly... not even the hum of an engine... It's almost like being on the deck of an old sailing ship... except the stars aren't just up in the sky, they're all around us..." "Bring me my bow, of burn - ing gold... Bring me my ar - rows of de - sire... Bring me my spear! O clouds ? un-fold... Bring me my cha - ri-ots of fire! I will not cease, from men-tal fight... Nor shall my sword sleep in hand... Till we have built, Je-ru - sa - lem... In Eng-land's green and plea-sant land..." "That was beautiful, Chief... just beautiful. You know what we should do... ?" "What?" "Go to Quark's... and sing it for everyone there... " "Maybe we should switch to synthale... " Trivia note: Colm Meaney ("Chief Miles O'Brien") suggested this song after the producers were unable to get the rights to "Louie, Louie", "Rocket Man" or "Space Oddity". You're not an in-between kind of guy. People either love you or hate you." "Really?" "I mean, I hated you when I first met you." "I remember." "And now..." "And now?" "Well... Now, I don't." "That means a lot to me, chief." "And that is from the heart! I really do... not hate you." Hint: Does the name "Thor Heyerdahl" mean anything to you guys? Kon-Tiki?

BINGO.

Well, the people DO bear SOME responsibility. They went from ONE group that set themselves up as Lords Over God's Heritage, and ignored the warnings from those who said it would happen again sooner or later (like rascal and WordWolf), and got involved with a group of ex-LOGH types who started out supposedly open and honest in all dealings, and slowly, slowly set themselves up as messenger/leaders whose "suggestions" are tantamount to commands, whom disagreeing with is disagreeing with GOD ALMIGHTY, and eventually moved to pushing programs that misuse and mistreat people, and then make it policy that those at the top can slander anyone so long as it's called "prophecy", (plus whatever happens I don't know about). thus resulting in misusing and mistreating many people as a POLICY (while treating SOME nice, which helps obfuscate the mistreatments with counter-examples), and becoming OBVIOUSLY UNFIT LEADERS. The rank-and-file chose to be gullible after being warned the first time. The rank-and-file chose to suppose their "leaders" could be trusted. The rank-and-file chose to trust those in power. The rank-and-file, therefore, are partly to blame, in that they've acted partly as ENABLERS. If the rank-and-file had risen up to condemn Momentus, it would have been stopped (instead of just being recommended quietly). If the rank-and-file had risen up to condemn this "spiders-up-the-nose" so-called prophecying, these messages supposedly from God but appear to be from elsewhere, it would have been stopped. Instead, the rank-and-file have given over trust and power to those clearly unworthy of either. Therefore, it is up to the rank-and-file to WAKE UP, and REQUIRE ACCOUNTABILITY of those who have already demonstrated gross incompetence, and deny money, endorsement and support until accountability has been enacted, and to leave and find some other worthy endeavour if that is not enacted.

Seems pretty basic to me. And so many people seem quick to change the subject when this comes up, apparently to excuse an absence of humility to people claiming to represent God. Ok, he's swift to slap categorical labels on those of us who disagree with him, swift to accept KAG's a prophetess and endorse her pronouncements CATEGORICALLY, and slow to read anything that disagrees with any of his positions, regardless of which position it is. And people are still paying him to do this. Amazing. I'd ask "how do I get a piece of this easy money?" but my conscience won't even let me say it as a joke. I don't know how his allows him to actually DO it. Unless it's dulled down, asleep at the switch, too jaded to register real issues.