Oakspear

True, what looks like a "P" really has the "R" sound in Greek, for example Hah! I agree with you there! An overabundance of vowels and consonants that are pronounced differently depending on what vowels they are near...beautiful sounding language IMHO Something I just thought of, if he could quote Genesis then surely he knew that the first word in "the original" (as far as we know - Hebrew)wasn't God" but Beresheeth - "In the beginning", the second word barah and it was only the third word that was "God"

Yes, "Heart" was newspaper format on was done on newsprint, not glossy pages. It was around when I got involved in 1978...don't remember it much past '82 or '83 though

It sounds like you're talking about "Heart" magazine

Learning to read the Greek alphabet isn't that difficult in my opinion, most of the letters bear a resemblance to the letters that we use (is 'Roman' letters the correct term?), but Hebrew and Aramaic characters are a lot tougher, a lot more different. Most of the "research" that was promoted by Wierwille and The Way didn't really require an ability to even transliterate Greek characters, let alone read and understand the language. Just look up your word in a Young's concordance and there you go. I knew many people who owned interlinears, a study aid where you should at least be able to read the Greek letters, but just looked at the word-for-word English translation above the text. While there were folks who had some real research chops in The Way, nothing Wierwille ever did or said convinced me that he was one of them.

In case anyone doesn't already know, I am neither a Christian nor an atheist, but I do have some opinions about forgiveness. For day-to-day small stuff, I find that it's not worth the effort to think about it, hold it over anyone's head or hold a grudge. For the people that I know and love, I try to not assume the worst and ask for clarification if I think I am being hurt or offended. The vast majority of things that I could be mad about just aren't worth the trouble or are so insignificant compared to the relationship that I have with the "offender" that they don't even really hit the radar screen. For things that are a little more serious, after making the other person aware of how I feel about the situation, I generally move on as if it didn't happen, but file the information away in case it becomes a pattern. If it doesn't come up again then I chalk it up to a bad day, stress, toothache or whatever, and put it out of my mind, but if it keeps coming up then I take whatever action is appropriate to prevent it from happening again. For truly harmful situations I may decide to still interact with that person, but always watch out, always protect myself and those around me. For example, I have a family member with a history of anger issues, who I witnessed being abusive with a girlfriend some years ago; I have heard reliable testimony from other family of other incidents. While I still interact with him and have him in my home, I still don't fully trust him. Forgiveness is one of those concepts that mean different things to different people. To me, it's a two-way street: if you have wronged me, you vow to never wrong me in that manner again and demonstrate your sincerity by not wronging me in that manner again and I refrain from reminding you of your offense if you have truly changed. There are people from my past who, according to this definition, I have not forgiven, either because they continue to wrong me or because they refuse to acknowledge that their actions were in any way wrong. I don't spend much time thinking about these offenses, but neither do I interact with or otherwise trust these people. On the other hand I routinely act with other people as if previous offenses have not happened because they have changed their behavior toward me. Mainly, I "forgive", not because one of the gods, or a holy book tells me that I should, but because this is how I want to be treated, and because it makes life a lot less stressful. It's practical.

I usually volunteer for "Boo at the Zoo", a fundraiser for the children's zoo, each year. One year I went as a cow. Udders and everything. Had several attractive moms asking if they could rub my udders...seriously! Was Braveheart another year, complete with kilt, blue face paint and a sword. I was the devil a few years back, red face paint, rubber horns and a black cape. Oh yeah, black hair dye. I was the devil again this year, but used a mask instead. Several years I was a shaman, wizard or something. I have a long hooded cloak that I use for rituals; I've added feathers, rattles and skull necklaces.

Damn...I actually knew the answer to a couple of those!

I don't remember interest being the crucial factor in determining if something as debt or not. Rents, leases, things like that were not considered debt, while mortgages and loans were. I think that they rationalized leases and rent as that you were paying for temporary use or access and not claiming ownership of something when you hadn't fully paid for it. Although it seemed that this policy was full of contradictions and loopholes, so I'm sure someone will think of an exception!

Didn't really take any guts...starting with the announcement of the A<<en lawsuit in 2000 and through the ouster of Martindale later that year I had begun examining what Martindale had been teaching and by the time I was kicked out I had pretty well determined that what he was teaching had been pulled out of his @$$ and by that time a big chunk of Wierwille's stuff too. The only reason that I hadn't voluntarily walked was that I held out hope that I could take my wife and kids out with me. If I had known that 2 months after getting kicked out of The Way that I'd be kicked out of my marriage I may have done things differently.

Yup, that why I included the "maybe"...you could come back at any time...you just had to grovel a little first. Although at the twig level non-Corps, non-leaders came and went all the time without much fuss; at least that was my experience at the tail end of the 70's on Long Island. I recall people showing up at meetings who hadn't been heard from in several years, no questions asked and no reporting up the "Way Tree". I would bet that it wasn't so free and easy once you were in the Corps or were within Wierwille's circle of attention. I left once in the early 80's; just walked away due to disagreements with the local leader. I walked back in several years later and didn't receive any kind of interrogation, nor did I have to convince anyone that I was "worthy"; I didn't apologize for anything and nobody asked me to. I don't doubt that some discussion took place behind the scenes about me and mine. I was put on probation for six months in 1999 however and had to kiss but and grovel to get back in. When I finally was kicked out for good in 2001 the RC talked to me as if I had the intention of coming back eventually and began laying out hurdles for me to jump over and hoops to jump through to be allowed back in. I laughed and told him that he had abdicated any authority over me by kicking me out.

For all the hoohah about biblical research, very few people bothered to do any research on their own and fewer understood on even a basic level what they supposedly believed.

Maybe that was true at one time...maybe...but certainly not from the late 80's on.

We had a twig coordinator in our city who was held up as an example of how to own a home without going into debt, but they never pointed out that he owned the house because he inherited it when his parents died in a horrible car accident. He was always being asked to teach about ownership without debt, and no one was tactless enough to point out (although we all knew) how he came to own his house. Another recurring situation was the every-so-often person who got involved with TWI at that point where their home was paid or almost paid off. These people would also be held up as shining examples of living debt-free, even though their wealth, their home, their positions were gotten by going into debt. The practice of owning without really owning reminds me of the orthodox Jews who get around the many Sabbath restrictions by stretching definitions. Like stringing wires between dwellings for blocks and blocks so that they are considered "one dwelling" and they don't technically break whatever rule it is they're trying to get around. In Israel among the observant Jews it's not unheard of to involve non-Jews in financial transactions in order to bypass the rule that debts be forgiven and property revert to the original owner after 7 years

If any of these things had sprung out of nowhere, most people would have run for the hills, but all of the crazy sh!t crept in a little at a time so you hardly noticed it was coming.

I personally knew of many people who sold their homes and started renting due to this policy. One couple owned their home free & clear (possibly inherited) but owned several rental properties from which they derived a good income...sold 'em all. Car loans...debt...sin Home mortgages...debt...sin Student loans...debt...sin

In another thread someone mentioned a leader springing for a meal and paying by credit card and a discussion ensued about the hypocrisy of leaders and the debt policy. As one leader correctly stated, the debt teachings were not promulgated in the 80's and did not appear in force until the mid-90's. It did seem like, in the 90's, that what was good for the goose wasn't good for the gander, and also that the specific execution of the "no debt" policy varied due to differing interpretations of what constituted debt. One thing that I do remember was that credit cards were not specifically banned, but that it was not viewed as being in debt if you had the cash for the card purchase on hand and set aside for the express purpose of paying that bill. For example, if you were going to use a card to pay for hotel bills and fuel on a trip, it was debt if you did not have the money ahead of time saved up to pay it off, but not debt if the money was setting in the bank and designated for that purpose. One of the stupidest things that I ever heard regarding debt was when the Way Corps branch (or maybe Limb) leader told my son that he was in debt because he was going to have to pay the IRS at tax time rather than getting a refund (he worked several low-paying part-time jobs - anyone whose been in that position knows that it often causes you to have to pay rather than get a refund) - while just a year earlier Howard Allen stood up at the ROA and said that you should strive break even or pay in a little and not try to get a big refund since refund are generally just your own money being returned to you after the government used it interest-free all year.

To avoid derailing this thread further, I'm going to spin off a thread about debt rules..

Sorry...yup that's it...and I just don't check in here as often as aforetimes...

"I am sorry I have no vices for you to exploit." "A challenge!" *************************** "The Alpha Quadrant has too much down time" *************************** "I am _______" Is that your name, or your species?" "I am ______" filling in the blank would have given it away

No on Spock or Data. Let me see if I can find more context for the quote...it is DS9 though...

They didn't go back to TWI, but were involved in an offshoot that retained most TWI doctrine. My current faith is decidedly non-Christian, hence their holier-than-thou attitude. I have seen how many people who left TWI, the organization, have not left TWI the mindset and attitude and worldview.

Within the last year I apologized to a couple who I had treated badly about 20 years ago. They had the sense to get out of TWI while I stayed in. I made some nasty comments to them and regretted it years later. I came across them on Facebook and apologized. Their response was to accept my apology and then berate me for my religious choices and political leanings and let me know that they wanted nothing to do with me because I had "rejected the Word".

The only reason that i got it was I just read a novel based in part on that episode... "I am sorry I have no vices for you to exploit."

They made the change a few years ago.

the one with Edith Keeler...hmmm...City on the Edge of Forever?