Oakspear

Rascal: I can't find any posts where johniam blatantly defends the actions of abusers. I just skimmed the whole thread. Minimizing culpability is pretty much rampant to my eye though. Johniam: Why is it relevant what the mindset of the women was? A woman who believes (or has been convinced) that it is okay to "service" the MOG is just easier to abuse. Redirecting the attention away from the abuser to the abused may not seem like defending the abusers to you, but it is excusing them to a certain extent. Whatever your intentions, what you are actually communicating is a callous indifference to the victims and an identification with the abusers.

What evidence indicates that they are "kinder & gentler"? Why do you think doctrinal changes have been reversed and followers have been treated better?

Hey, just rejoice that she was healed! :D--> We can spend a lot of time wondering whether it was God, or coincidence, or George Aar telling her to get back to work ;)-->, or lighting a fire to the goddess Bridget, or Reiki, or what-have-you, but the important thing IMHO is that someone is no longer sick!

Pretty good quickie trailer...Maryjane & Peter having a heart-to-heart at a coffee shop when a car comes flying through the window; next we see Doc Ock at the broken store front. The actor does resemble the comic book Otto Octavius, much more than the movie Norman Osborne resembled comic Osborne. I'm looking forward to the release on June 30th. I've started hitting up salesfolk who call on my store for promotional material to add to the Spidey posters, watches, and action figures decorating my office :D-->

Isn't modern Greek considerably different than Classical and Biblical Greek?

ah...the "kinder, gentler" TWI

dmiller: What you presented was that Jesus was called a man. You then define a man in such a way that it eliminates God being incarnated as a man, or him being pre-existant. But does it say anywhere in the bible that your definition of man is the correct one? What definition in the bible eliminates the possibility that the messiah could have been a man who pre-existed? Or was an avatar of God? Just for the record, I don't think that the bible teaches that Jesus was God in any way shape or form, but there are a lot of verses that don't fit well into the "Jesus didn't exist before his birth in Bethlehem" mold. Another point that has been brought up by others is the fact that Jesus was, according to what we were taught, of perfect blood, and therefore without a "sin nature". In other words, while theoretically capable of sin, and tempted to engage in it, it was not in his nature to do so. So on one hand we have your opinion that the perfect blood and sinless nature did not disqualify him from being fully a "man", and on the other your opinion that being pre-existant did. (I would agree that being God disqualifies him as being a man, although one trinitarian formula describes him as "fully God and fully man".) But can you document your opinion? I don't think Weirwille did when he said "if Jesus Christ is God then we are not redeemed".

I saw the trailer, I saw the trailer! Do I really have to wait until next month?

Fred G was also in Way Prod in the mid-nineties. There was a regular group consisting of Dave L, Fred G (bass), Anthony H (long-haired drummer), and the current Vice Prez (guitar). Michael Martin played sometimes and the choir leadin' guy also played keyboards. Fred was tall, sandy-haired and bearded. Nice deep voice. I believe he ended up with CFF.

Where does the bible say that Christ had to be "one of us" in all particulars in order to have been our redeemer? I mean, say it to the extent that God or a pre-existant spirit being incarnated would not have fit the bill.

I just now got it after reading that three or four times :D-->

At this point, I doubt it would make a difference. IMHO TWI is run by an oligarchy, not by one supreme leader

I saw it today...loved it (cried too :o-->)

Happy Birthday and Happy Mothers' Day!

TWI-2: One drink for every reference to the "topic of the month" (Our focus this month is on "Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed") Two drinks for reference to "topic of the month" in prayer (...in the name of Jesus Christ, our Promised Seed) Three drinks for reference to the "topic of the month" that has nothing to do with the rest of the sentence. (Just like the magi overcame long distances and smelly camels to see the Jesus, our Way Disciples have likewise overcome by witnessing to "many" people" in their communities) Drain the bottle if the teacher refers to or quotes anyone other than Wierwille using the "topic of the month" (even John Calvin, the great reformer knew that JC was our promised seed)

A side topic on another thread involved the pronunciation of Greek words. I figure that you could go two ways: Either admit that you're not really sure of the correct pronunciation and do your best, or make the effort to get it right. Personally, I never knew how to determine where the accent went in a word, but could usually figure out the sounds by just looking at the original Greek spelling. Wierwille, and more so Martindale, seemed to pronounce Greek according to English rules of grammar, but would occassionally get adamant about pronouncing something a particular way. In the mid-nineties, all the local Corps were passing on Martindale's newly learned pronunciation of kratos. They were insisting that it be pronounced "krah-tahs", which was pretty much right, instead of krah-tohs (long "o"), the way folks had been pronouncing it. Which was weird since the accepted Way pronunciation of other Greek words that ended in the same two letters were still be pronounced with the long 'o' sound. I always thought it was pretty stupid the way Wierwille inserted the 'K' sound when there were two consecutive vowels: exogekomai, pleroko, for ex?geomai, plero?. WAlter Cummins came out with a guide to Greek in the seventies, with guidelines on pronunciation, but it never seemed to get followed.

Just because a person can theoretically walk out of an abusive situation doesn't mean that it's not abuse. The recipient of the abuse often has decided that what will be lost (marriage, children, job benefits, God's protection) is too important to lose even in exchange for getting away from or stopping the abuse. The abuser knows this. The husband who kicks the cr*p out of his wife knows that she is afraid to be out on her own; the loud-mouthed boss knows that the employee that he treats badly would be hard pressed to find another job elsewhere; the cult-leader knows that many followers have been convinced that death lies outside the cult walls. Sadistic Way leaders knew the power that they had.

2 drinks for every GSer who gets anal about rules and/or Greek pronunciation :D-->

Subject covered on Sunday Teaching Tape by main teacher Subject reviewed the following week by secondary teacher (in case you lost your f**kin* tape I guess) Subject taught in fellowship meeting Subject as taught on Sunday teaching tape reviewed in fellowship meeting Gee, is FOUR TIMES ENOUGH to cover one stupid subject? And as was mentioned before, it was often a chapter from a book or a class segment that was the subject anyway. AUGH!

I haven't seen any GSC nametags at any of the gatherings that I attended, but we did have a nifty "cast of characters" at the royal wedding: a "program", listing who was who among the GSers in the wedding party.

Any teaching by some pool soul who didn't know what he was talking about, but tried to mouth the line he had learned in TWI, but would shred the original intent...oh wait, that was The Way of Abundance and Power

When I was "in", I didn't mind the teachings themselves so much, but I didn't see the point of listening to Way productions, especially when they did something visual (but we still clapped) After Martindale left, they got even more boring. As much as Martindale was an idiot, he was entertaining at least.

Wayward: Check your Private Topics please

Hey no one minded if the pagans and atheists showed up last year...the more the merrier :D-->

I wish you could drink it in the original