WordWolf

As you can see, there's a variety of positions and opinions here, all the honest opinions of the posters. Some are no longer Christian, so think it was all bunk. Some are Christian, but think it was all so badly mangled, it's healthier to start from scratch. Some are Christian, but think it was mostly bathwater, and will keep a little. Some are Christian, but think it was mostly baby, and will keep a lot. One is Christian (supposedly) and asserts there is no bathwater, it was all baby. Depending on who you ask, each one is a perfectly-legitimate position.

Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa? No kidding. I think a couple of those guys have dabbled in occultism, but I don't know that any of them was 'hardcore'.

Yes. Our adversary, the fallen arch, loves to broadcast that he is equal to, but diametrically opposed to, the True God. Of course, he is a liar, and the father of lies, also. All his best efforts are cheap knockoffs of God's stuff. God rules "up" in Heaven. Satan, at one point, set his minions so as to claim rulership of the air, "up" to us. And so on. _______ Goey. thanks for the explanation. I knew that stuff was wrong, but I didn't have a verse handy.

Based on being able to "name that tune" in 2 notes, "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones and "Stairway to Heaven". (The theater version of Wayne's World had a scene where Wayne picks up a guitar in a store, plays 2 notes, and the clerk stops him, and points to a sign on the wall. "NO Stairway to Heaven". As one friend pointed out at the time, we all recognized the song when the clerk did. The video/tv versions of the movie don't have those 2 notes, & I don't like that.) For me, I'll add "Tall Cool One" by Robert Plant. For someone else, I'll add "We didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. (He id'ed it before the instruments kicked in.) One more for me: "Running Down a Dream", by Tom Petty.

The word "cult" isn't as useful as it used to be, since it's used so broadly. Yes-one type defines cults by their techniques- are they authoritative and insular? etc. Another type defines cults by their doctrines- do they teach what we teach? etc. ------------------- Those of you who've read thru "Angels of Light" (on the "recommended reading" list for the Advanced class, and not even nearly as good as "the Challenging Counterfeit") may recall that among the various things it listed as having evil origins was a denying of the trinity. I've seen lists like that, too. ------------ Yes, often, "cult" is the brush that larger groups use to tar and feather smaller groups.

Well, that answered the Stiles' ripoffs a LOT better than I could. (I just remembered previous threads had documented it.) ------------------------ I do know that the pictures in the Founders Hall numbered Eight. You named 7 of them. That's ok, I know 2 of them, and one of them is the one you left out: J.E. Stiles. That was the first time I ever remember running across Stiles' name. I was told those pictures were men vpw admired or learned from. (No mention that any of their work ended up in the classes.)

I'm with Dot Matrix. HE...STOLE....MAGGIE MUGGINS? AND THE BOLOCCO BROTHERS, HENRY AND HERMAN????? (Johnny Jumpup is a flower, but, apparently, its use as a name was the same source also.) That's just obscene. Anyone who reads thru EW Bullinger's "How to Enjoy the Bible" (and can stay awake thru it) will see that whole sessions were ripped off of it. (If anyone knows of an edition of that book that doesn't have tiny print, I'd like to hear it.) Similarly, EW's Companion Bible reiterates a lot of his points. I've also heard that J.E. Stiles' book(& class?) have points that were ripped off in "Recieving the Holy Spirit Today" (the white book), which vpw supposedly developed entirely on his own, not long after studying under Stiles. Some of the collaterals were ripped off E.W. Kenyon's books. It seems that, except for Clarence Larkin, it was a standing policy of his to rip off work from Christians who used initials and pass it off as his own.

Jerry, I agree. I think he didn't really think through the whole "sonship rights" thing before making it an official doctrine, either. Furthermore, nobody seemed to do so in twi since then. I've heard discussions among outies, but not innies. I have heard, while in, someone (lcm) making a big deal about it being a good thing something was a sonship RIGHT and not a sonship OBLIGATION. I ignored him because he wasn't making sense.

Last time I looked this up, I sat with the interlinear & lexicon for a bit, & concluded I thought the best translation would be "and two other with him on this side and on THIS side". I'll look it over again later and see if I end up with the same conclusion-it's been over 10 years. :)--> ------------------------- Jerry, I had to add that comment because of all the good lines I'd already missed in the thread. Plus, with someone asserting that the orange book was "incorrectly translated" (from ENGLISH to ENGLISH? HOW?), I was reminded of General Chang's comment. ------------------------ BTW, if you really want it, Hamlet can now be purchased "in the original Klingon". No, I'm not posting a link-I don't want to see it again myself. :)--> Besides, if Hamlet was a Klingon, it would have been over in Act 1. Hamlet hears from his father, then in the next scene, Hamlet kills Claudius. The end. :)-->

I finally got up to the actual list. Nice list. I have the following comments on the list. (Not corrections, more along the lines of "ruminations".) -I wish you had spent a line or 2 naming the 'droit de seigneur' (or however it's spelled), since the concept frames his state of mind, as spelled out in other threads. It's especially when you consider people's statements that the minister is equivalently "the king" nowadays. A full discussion of this, of course, would get hot & be a debate. However, I think a few words on the concept itself need not be. - For me, the easiest way to see the difference between allos and heteros is in the first 10 verses of Galatians. Paul marvelled that they had so soon moved to "another"(heteros-a different) gospel, "which is not another"(allo-another of the same). If I remember correctly, vpw used both this and the "made up" explanation (one means "other of only two") in his books, but never tried to explain why there are 2 meanings, or when to use which meaning. That was just something I was used to ignoring. ---------------------------------- BTW, Rafael, I distinctly do NOT remember you EVER teaching anything from 'the 13th Tribe', or referring to its contents in any way, at any time in my presence. In fact, the only time I ever heard you mention anything like that was once when I specifically ASKED you about the book (which I haven't read). Your response indicated that you weren't directly saying it was trash, however, it was obvious you were not endorsing it, and were not confident of its contents. You even shrugged at one point when I asked you if its premise was correct. Your response was in the same style as my responses to any questions about the CF & S class. (Slightly evasive, & obviously meant to close discussion on the subject as fast as possible.) If you ever taught it when I wasn't looking, or in the middle-to-late 90's, then I wouldn't know, of course. (I suspect you only got MORE skeptical by that time, not less.) That reminds me.... once we've had a break, does anyone want to pull out their CF & S syllabus and add a few pages to this thread? Imagine all the fun we could have! :)--> But of course, I forgot....... ...you haven't REALLY read the collateral books until you've read them in the original Klingon. :)--> This is WordWolf signing off and heading for the tub. Alert Ted Koppel.

Man! It took me most of the week to finally catch up to the end of the thread! -I don't remember vpw's comment about angels not singing as appearing in any of the books. (Doesn't mean it's NOT there-I just didn't note it.) He DID say it a number of times. Somewhere I have a tape where he mentioned it, during the songs. He said, of why he has people sing "..angels do NOT sing. SAINTS sing. That's why I have you people sing-because none of you are angels. *pause for obligatory audience laugh* Even you ladies.*pause form obligatory audience laugh* Unless someone's willing to pay me a lot of money, I'm not going to sit thru all the tapes to find it. ---- Rafael, I haven't looked at the list yet. If I made the list, please use my screen-name. ----- You did include the "droit de signeur", right? ("every woman in the kingdom belonged to the king") If memory serves, one of the ladies originally identified it by name, on its own thread. (I think she shud b asked about a mention, if you do include it.) ------ Thanks for the reminder you left me a few pages back. I'll doublecheck it, & post a reply as soon as I can (hopefully, 24 hours or less.) ------ Please warn us when you're going to post something that funny. My laugh produced a doppler echo back to me. :)--> Maybe you can post a picture of that river in Egypt. :)-->

I got that one last year for 2002. A few items were on that one that weren't here. Let's see.... -You check ingredients labels to see if your soup contains echinacea. -You page your son to come down to dinner. He e-mails back "what did you make?" -Clearing out the dining room involves throwing all the wrappers out of the backseat. -You receive a list like this and laugh. -Even worse, you're going to forward it to your friends.

Barrax, I remember you. I still haven't worked that business about the "outer darkness" yet, but I have it pencilled in for further study. If you've worked it in detail, I'd love a copy.

Well, that's a whole other story entirely. If someone's refusing to answer clear questions they know the answers to because they can't be bothered, then they're just asking for a pimp-slap. I can't communicate with someone like that.

If people who sit thru the Rocky Horror Picture Show week after week can recite all the words, and some people can recite all of "Alice's Restaurant" from memory, then after the first 7 times sitting thru piffle, I'm bound to remember something. Besides, that thing about saying "I don't know" rather than guessing was a major point to me. (I still use it.) Actually, I'm surprised I don't remember for sure who spoke after Johnny jumped up. Also, I forget which one said the seed meant what. I think Maggie was the 3rd, & she thought the good seed was the good works of man. I think one said it was the church, one said it was the Word. (I think.) I know it wasn't Snowball Peter or Herman B, because they were only mentioned once each. (Henry B was a different story.) Actually, it was only when I tried reciting the whole section from memory that I remembered just how pompous the followup to "it's no sin to be stupid" was. I would have stopped at his famous "that's right", & leave out the 'stupid' comment. Of course, some people still think of it as the greatness of God's Word in pfal. Not me, but some people. That's right. Bless your little heart.

Yes, Oldies, it was right in one of the early sessions. We were going over the parable of the sower. "What's the good seed?" And Maggie Muggins, Johnny Jumpup, and a 3rd person (Henry B? I forget) gave their opinions, having only heard that the sower sowed good seed. "Then I jump up & down & pull my hair out and say 'no, no, a thousand times no!' " (vpw never lacked for drama). ...He says "if you don't know, say you don't know! It's not wrong to say you don't know, it's wrong to indicate that you DO know when you do not know-when you guess. That's right. It's no sin to be stupid. It's a sin to stay stupid when the greatness of God's Word is available in Power for Abundant Living." ------------------------------------------ Really full of himself, wasn't he?

Even the Advanced class notes on PFAL pretty much repeat vpw's paraphrase from Bullinger. You remember something else being emphasized, Zix? I'm blanking-please pass it along. (Somebody might want to see what the Home Studies say about this. I'm pretty sure that either they, the Advanced class exam, or, more likely, both, asked a question about this very subject.)

I'm leaning towards what's been said about slandering Jesus by "tarring" him with the label "Samaritan". It would make a lot of sense-notably in that same chapter, by those "We're Children of ABRAHAM!" types.

Once again, Mike has successfully written another lengthy post, with complete disregard for addressing any errors of PFAL, while maintaining he doesn't have time to address even one in a small post. I suspect he didn't actually READ Rafael's post about Jesus at age 12. If he did, it sure didn't sink in. ------------------------------ "I said to her 'baby, ain't you got no shame?' She just looked at me Uncomprehendingly Like cows at a passing train."

Here's a little piece of obscure Tolkien trivia you may find interesting. (Or not.) The original version of "the Hobbit" (Bilbo's journey, during which he gets the ring) has that scene done differently. In the original, Bilbo and Gollum DO have the riddle game. However, Bilbo wins fair & square, and Gollum give him the ring as a present. Supposedly, Bilbo's talk of the ring as a "present" was one of the things that got Gandalf suspicious. (Gollum, somewhere in the trilogy, refers to the ring as his "birthday present"- why will become clear when the 3rd movie is released.) Supposedly, the current version of the book is what actually happened, the original is what Bilbo SAID happened. The current one has Bilbo stumble and slip the ring in his pocket unconsciously when he puts out his hands to get up. During the riddle game, Bilbo, trying to think of another riddle, puts his hands in his pockets. "What have I got in my pockets?" he mumbles absent-mindedly. Gollum claims that, since it's not a proper riddle, he should get 3 guesses. He misses, & goes away to get something. :)--> (He's had enough of this-he's going to get the ring, turn invisible, and kill Bilbo.) When he comes up blank, he realizes-too late-what "the Bagginnss" had in his pocket! He comes running back-and past Bilbo, whose finger had slipped into the ring. For those of you who wondered how Gollum knew the names "Baggins" and "Shire", Bilbo introduced himself properly when he met Gollum. I'll have to check the opening of "T2T" for that glow, Zix. Thanks for pointing it out. Anybody know how come the scene in Bree, in FotR was so different in the common room? I thought JRR's original version of what Merry & Pippin were saying, & Frodo vanishing, was a LOT more plausible than the movie version. They're running for their lives, & all day, Frodo doesn't think to mention he's travelling under an alias? Barleyman Butterbur, the innkeeper,doesn't have a note from Gandalf here. It would have helped, I thought. Then again, I thought that the idea of Strider carrying around the pieces of Narsil (in the book) was a stupid concept from the beginning. Guy travels light, & his main weapon is broken? Plus, he brings it on the road, where it can be lost? Anybody know if there's any plan to get special knives for Merry & Pippin, to replace the ones that they were supposed to get in the missing barrow-wight scene? (Sam, too, if I remember correctly.) It DID become an issue in the 3rd book, & I hope that scene stays intact. Frodo's barrow-knife, as you recall, was broken when the King of the Nazgul and Frodo faced off at the ford at the edge of Rivendell.

Rafael, Luke 14:33. Seems to me the CONNOTATION of "apostasia" (or the cognate thereof) is positive here-although the KJV has picked as negative a word to translate its DENOTATION into as possible. (Unless someone's ready to argue that being Christ's disciple is of equal or lesser value than all his earthy possessions.) Rafael, I still say that events falling under both a positive AND a negative connotation occur virtually simultaneously, and both right in the context of that verse. So, I still say that BOTH translations are correct in this instance, depending on which event you reference.

"So... ....does anyone know how to MADISON?" The Time Warp also occasionally shows up at dance events. Ever see 75 people on a dance floor all spiral to the floor as a song drains away? :)--> Those who love Yellow Submarine should make sure they see the blue edition. It has a few added lines, an entire missing scene (when the "goldfish bowl" is opened & we meet Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), and an entire musical sequence ("Hey Bulldog" aka "You Can Talk To Me") which I liked better than most of the other numbers. :)--> Man, Max Headroom was ahead of its time there on net-net-network 23. :)--> If you all will excuse me, I'm getting in line now for tickets to "Underworld", due out later this year "sometime". I don't care HOW much it's going to suck-I'm gonna see it.

About 'apostasia', I think the most literal translation would be "a moving away from". (Those of you who know your Greek, feel free to chime in & embarrass the hell out of me.) The word "apostasia" becoming "apostasy" is, to me, an example of the specialization of language. Over 2,000 years, some definitions drift. Another example is "katabole", which, nowadays, has given a few people the word "katabolism". That word has nothing to do with the meaning of 'katabole' at the time the Bible was written. (It MAY, however, have inspired someone to go into left field on the subject.) Anyway, 'a moving away from', as I see it. Since, at the time that verse is speaking of, both a positive and negative moving away from is current (the Rapture/Gathering Together/ Blessed Hope and the degeneration of society as the man of sins is revealed), I say they're BOTH right, since BOTH happen at the time. *waits for Greek scholars to ram him*

Rafael, Vertical Limit just reminded me of the famous "'in Christ' is a temporary position of the moment" (I forgot which was supposed to be 'standing' & which was 'state' also.) Remember that other fellow who pointed out the 'dead in Christ' rise first? So, those would be the corpses lying in harmony with Jesus, I take it?

Please share, Vertical Limit, as you have opportunity! :)-->