Oakspear

The Mithra/Devil's Counterfeit is an interesting discussion, I have asked the mods to move it to it's own thread.

In looking back, the claim of TWI to being a "research ministry" rings the most false. I have no desire to get into arguments with my Christian brothers & sisters over the inerrancy of the bible, the existence of God or why the spell checker will accept no possible spelling of inerrancy, innerrancy, inerrency... Wierwille's "research", when it wasn't plagiarized, was simplistic in the extreme and depended heavily on faulty logic and outright falsehoods regarding translations of various Hebrew and Greek words as well as the creation of "shadow texts" that must exist or The Word (i.e. Wierwille's theology) would fall to pieces. While some of what Wierwille taught pointed out (apparent) contradictions between what most Christians believed and what most translations of the bible said, in many cases he avoided truly resolving the contradiction by mocking what he saw as an illogical conclusion and stacking the scriptural deck by emphasizing verses that backed up his own theology while discarding those that didn't by calling them forgeries, even when the evidence was lacking. (Apologies to all for the run-on sentence) While at one time I was dazzled by the b.s. and parroted the company line with the best of 'em, I cringe when I hear old friends talk about PFAL made more sense than anything else they ever heard...when know d*mn well that their choices have been [list1][*]The mainstream church (usually catholic)they were raised in which didn't teach any research principles[*]PFAL[*]Their offshoot which still reveres PFAL & Wierwille Nostalgia for the Good Ol' Way Days is usually a fondness for a time of ignorant innocence, when a genuine love among pals who were in the local twig overshadowed the b.s. that was coming down the doctrinal chute.

How about "Meetin' Fer Old Farts"?

Bullinger's "Word in the Stars" teaching, picked up by Wierwille & Martindale, included not only the zodiacal signs, but the polar constellations as well. At one time I thought (while under the TWI spell) that maybe there wasn't any people living in the southern hemisphere in those days! Ah...the good old days of not being required to think!Wierwille used to always say that "there are no stars in the North" in response to some obscure verse about hanging the empty places over the north or something. He never said what he meant by that since obviously there are stars in the North. Martindale "figured it out" to mean that there were no stars between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, which he thought represented 'The Mystery. He figured this out by looking at the star map in the back of "Witness of the Stars" where, sure enough, there aren't any stars between the two Ursas. The problem is, that while there are no stars on that quite simple map, and there are no constellation between them, any good stellar map will show plenty of stars, and even a peek at the night sky will show some stars in there, especially if you're away from big-city glow. Once, after listening to someone teach about this in fellowship, I brought it up. The person who I brought it up to, instead of just looking outside, asked the Region Coordinator, who told him that when the bible was written, telescopes hadn't been invented so that a lot of these stars were not visible then. <_< I was flabbergasted! I suggested that we all go out and look at the sky without a telescope and we'd see the stars! He wouldn't walk 10 feet to check it out, preferring to believe what the Manogawd told him.

I think you've articulated well what many people do without thinking as deeply as you do about it. I remember growing up in a very Catholic corner of southeast Queens and seeing the wide variety of Catholicisms practiced. Most of the people I knew sort of took the basics of Catholic doctrine as their starting point and built their own personal faith based on what worked for them. Then there was the "sub-cultural" influences: you could see a real difference between the Catholicism of the Italians and the Irish the 2 major ethnic groups in our neighborhood). I have memories of my parents, as religious as they come, pooh-poohing certain doctrines and practices that they felt didn't fit with the way they saw the world. I like the term "processed faith" that you are using. When you come right down to it, the faith that is deep inside you, whether it be straight from "the book", a set of axioms based on experience and observation and thought, or anywhere in between, is the one that is real to you and works for you. To a great extent your post, T-Bone, goes the farthest toward answering my initial question, people who claim to be Christians, yet are far off the "norm", are processing their faith just as everybody else is, they just aren't putting as much analysis into as some of us ex-cultists! Nonetheless, it still makes me chuckle when folks who are indistinguishable from non-Christians in practice are horrified that someone might claim the label of Buddhist, Pagan or even atheist!

Part of the problem comes from some folks' need to be led and others' need to lead. Sometimes the need or desire to lead morphs into a desire to dominate. Those who want to be led often just don't want to think. Maybe there's a critical mass where informal groups turn into organizations. Not sure, got to give it more thought. In the loosely affiliated bunch of people who I associate with for spiritual/philosophical reasons, there is no permanent leader. Several people open their homes for religious services, and the host often "leads" the services, but doesn't dictate to others how to run a ceremony when they do it. There are people who I look to as "teachers" in certain areas, but these people make no attempt to tell me what to do, nor do I expect them to; they're just sources of information. Many of the local people that I associate with have "longsuits" in some areas that I respect and defer to and I have "longsuits" that others defer to.

Cherubim and Seraphim are referred to as having wings as you said. Oftentime the wings were added in artwork to distinguish an angel from a human. But noooooo, TWI had to make a big deal about ot as if it meant something. :wacko:

In my opinion, Jesus' response to a situation that called for stoning, and what God supposedly mandated in the old Testament is good evidence that the OT God & NT God aren't the same deity, or the OT folks attributed to their God their own bloodthirsty leanings. There are acts of God in the Old Testament that we, if we didn't know it was the OT god who called for them, would condemn as horrific. I don't believe in judging certain acts as okay just because someone said that their god came up with them.

Bad advice!

1. Seniors = more than one senior (plural) 2. Senior's = relating or belonging to a senior (singular possessive) 3. Seniors' = relating or belonging to more than one senior (plural possessive) I believe that either #1 or #3 would be grammatically correct, but that #1 would follow popular usage.

It's not just the Christians either. We've got a fair number of pagans around here and some of them expect to be given a free pass by other pagans just because they're pagans. Although in the larger culture, people do expect that saying "I'm a Christian" translates as "I'm a moral, ethical person with whom you should do business".

I heartily agree with those who say to start with a clean slate, to question everything that was taught. I have run across many people who claim to have "checked out" what was taught in TWI, but have only done so wearing PFAL-colored glasses, i.e., reading scriptures in light of what Wierwille taught, using Wierwille's definitions and Wierwille's assumptions, including made-up definitions of Greek words, distinctions between words that were nonexistant and leaps of illogic. Tzaia mentioned reading the gospels as written to us, not just "for our learning. That's a great example right there. Wierwille taught (and he may have gotten this from Bullinger) that scripture was either "to us" or "for our learning" (i.e. not to us). When it says that that which was written aforetime was written for our learning, why should we assume that that's the opposite of "to us", or that "for our learning" and "to us" are mutually exclusive. That was a conclusion that Wierwille came to that I don't believe is warranted. Even if you want to believe that some scripture is not written to us, where do you draw the line at "aforetime"? Why Pentecost? Why not before Jesus' ministry? This isn't an agrument against or in favor of "not all scripture is to us", but a point to show that Wierwille's conclusions are not necessarily correct for all that he acted as if his take was the only logical and/or godly conclusion.

This isn't so much a story about stupid Way people, but it relates: When we were WOWs, we got a lot of opposition from the pastor of the local Foursquare Gospel Church; diatribes on his weekly radio show, public confrontations with his youth group, community forums with us as the topic... After a while though, we learned to take it in stride and Laleo & I invited him over for coffee when we found out that our WOW family was being moved mid-year. As he sat there sipping java he told us that it was no surprise to him and that "The Lord" had already told him about the move and would be miss the other two members of our WOW group when we left, thinking that 2 of us were going and two were staying. Laleo looks him and the eye and tells him, well, The Lord threw you a curve Jerry, we're all going. The look on his face; priceless.

We used to have a guy come to twig when I was a WOW who would come dressed up as a doctor (in scrubs) or a military officer. I remember driving him around on the 4th of July with flags attached to his car while he waved to "the crowds".

Ironically in the latter days of TWI all teachings had to be submitted ahead of time.

To a certain extent, I think that it's cultural conditioning and some mental laziness. For most people the existence of a being called "God" is a given, it's the "flow" that most of us go with, deciding to be an atheist, or a polytheist, or to have any non-standard belief system takes going against the flow; for that matter being a dyed-in-the-wool, fire-in-your-eyes, committed Christian takes going against the flow as well, albeit paddling to a different shore. For a person whose every thought and act goes against what this supposed God stands for, its usually not that they sit down and plan on being "ungodly", they're going with the cultural flow of acting irresponsibly; to put some thought into their actions, to activate a few brain cells and think "I act contrary to what everyone says is God's will because there isn't a God" is more work, more rowing against the current that our hypothetical person is up to.

:o

I agree that one can help another without a degree and without being an expert...but Hassan touts his degree and his 'expert' status, so i would think that its relevant. My apologies for the short, sharp response...I've been working overnights and am cranky - and that's my expert opinion

Why not? You post these videos, might we assume that you agree with Hassan? Garth asks some legitimate questions..and that's all you have to say? You don't know and you don't care. What was the point of posting these videos? Do you know or care? Kind of reminds me of responses to questions about someone else's credentials and doctorate.

I understand the atheist point of view and I understand the true blue flaming evangelist point of view, even though I'm not either. If you're an atheist, why pay attention to something said by a fictional character? If you're a true believer who believes that God created the universe and is a loving father, it only makes sense to follow the dictates in the book that you believe came from him. But what about the people who say that they believe in God, the biblical god, yet go out of their way to break all his rules? What's going on in their heads? I know a fair number of people who would be quite insulted, even shocked, if anyone called them an atheist, or even a non-Christian, but live their lives as if there is no God or gods, and even take a perverse pride in going against the prevailing standard for godliness; even some people who joke about how they're going to hell, which they say will be more interesting than heaven. I don't get it.

In an on-line, words-on-the-page community as this one is, it behooves us to think for more than a nanosecond before hitting the 'reply' button, but even then, misunderstandings and assumptions abound. One of my personal 'words of wisdom' is that I have the responsibility to express myself in a manner that is easy to understand and that isn't rude or abrasive while the person that I am addressing has the responsibility to refrain from thinking the worst or picking the most negative connotation when I am perceived as ambiguous. Wow! should write that down somewhere

In the late 90's they started doing reviews of the previous week's SNS as part of the SNS itself. then we had to devote one teaching a week at fellowship to teaching the same subject as was on the SNS, and doing a review at fellowship of the tape. So we had to hear the same crap 4 times: The tape itself The review on the next tape The teaching at fellowship and the review at fellowship

I agree, but there is a difference between choosing to believe something illogical, improbable or impossible to prove and browbeating others into believing it too.

Thought that this bore repeating :wacko:

Examining TWI materials using their own "research" methods and still finding errors was the first step for me. Not assuming that something is correct (or true) and trying to shoehorn the evidence into the predetermined path was another.