Oakspear

:D

WD, callous, drowning in his own righteousness? :huh: Sorry guys and gals, I don't see it. These days when I see posts by those who still agree with what they were taught in PFAL I see folks who have just made a decision to go a different route than I did. To them, there are parts that are worth hanging on to. I disagree, but I don't ahve to live their lives and they don't have to live mine. And Whitey, while, from an inerrant bible point of view, getting it right is important, and some might say crucial, I suspect that it was the "be right at the expense of the love of God" attitude that prevailed in some quarters that is the problem. Nothing wrong with being right, nothing wrong with shaking things up some of the time, but sometimes being right just isn't that important. An imperfect example might be that I believe that proper grammar facilitates good communication and that an extensive vocabulary enriches it. That doesn't mean that I'm going to correct my wife's grammar if she doesn't pronounce a word correctly. I think it's that level of nit picking that folks are talking about. One thing that I noticed during my time in TWI (or rather see in retrospect): if a person was strong enough to withstand the crap, they often had an influence on those around them, especially if those around them were of like mind. A personal committment to God or to love those around them put up a kind of wall about them. They were like islands in the river of muck. It was when the scales tipped the other way (boy I am mixing my metaphors :B) ) that things got too bad to take and people left. It's why we have GSers who left at all different periods of TWI history, and it all seemed like the right time to each.

Clout? What do you mean? Here's what I said: You said what you said, you're obviously not ashamed of what you said, so what's the problem? You and I disagree on most things on this board, not all, but most. I won't bring up your opinion about the appropriateness of "clocking" people, specifically women, if it has nothing to do with what you're talking about, but will if I believe that it is relevant. Yes, I feel "entitled" to do that. Any problem with that John?

Most of you guys know that I'm not a Christian, and don't celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus; I don't have a lot of patience for the faction that calls for boycotting stores that have "Holiday" sales instead of "Christmas" sales. There's a lot of holidays around this time of year, including Hanukah, and Midwinter (aka Yule, aka Winter Solstice)...but this is too much. Our company has always had a "Holiday" party for all employees, usually in mid-January, since, as a retail grocery chain, we're busiest in November & December. They've never made it a "Christmas" party per se, i.e. they've never made the small minority of non-Christians uncomfortable in the slightest, despite the owners being religious Christians. This year the name of the event was changed to the "Annual Party". One of the memos that went out bout it mentioned that it was not a religious-themed event, so no calling it a "Holiday" party. How freakin' ridiculous!

Bumpy, are you coming out of the closet?

Nathan, I forgive you

There's believing for you...the cookies arrived in the mail today!

Johniam: I for one am not going to attempt to convince you that you're wrong about "clocking" women who verbally get on your nerves. You've made up your mind. You've made it clear beyond any possibility of misunderstanding what your position is. However, I see nothing wrong with anyone on this board bringing it up. Heck, I'll bring it up if I feel so inclined. You asked for a solution in those "Harriet Oleson" situations: You think that there's one solution? It depends on the situation, the people involved, the subject matter...If the marriage is one that is salvageable, where the two still love each other, wouldn't waiting until the moment had passed and people had cooled down, and explaining the effect of the other's biting words be an option? If a loving approach is not an option, then perhaps a divorce is what the solution is. In my opinion, violence is at best a temporary solution; sure the missus may shut up while she's busy wiping up the blood from the newly removed front tooth, but that won't build resentment? Make things worse? Then you have to be willing to repeatedly use violence. Nice marriage. I don't expect you to accept my possible solution. If the past is any guide you'll find what you consider a loophole in my logic and continue to justify violence. Like I said, I'm not trying to convince you, but you asked. In case you're wondering, I'm not a pacifist and I don't feel that women are better or more frail then men. If physically attacked by a woman I'd defend myself just as if I was attacked by a man. I just don't believe that the proper response to biting words (from either gender) is a fist.

I thought that the biblical example that we were referring to had sets of cousins with the same name? Specifically, two cousins named Mary each with two sons named James & Joseph? I just went back and re-read your long post, at first I didn't catch that Mary and Mary are called sisters in the KJV...and I agree, there is nothing that indicates that parents gave their children the same first name, and the reasons that you mention why it would not occur are sound. Children of cousins with the same names? Why not? John the Baptist's family resisted his father naming him John because there were no other family members with that name, kind of points to there being a different pools of names that each family or clan drew from. I think most of my argument came from misunderstanding your whole point...carry on then

Well, yeah, the George Foreman example is just plain weird...especially in our culture, but my point is that what we might consider common sense is not necessarily what would be common sense in a completely alien society. Look at all the relatives of Johann Sebastian Bach with the first name "Johann", including two of his sons, one of his brothers, his father, his father's brother, two of his father's cousins (brothers) and JSB's cousin.

That's one of my favorite TSO songs. It's on The Lost Christmas Eve IIRC

I don't think the biblical & patristic writers would have thought it was important enough to satisfy my curiosity

That was great! I had almost forgotten the bad dance moves, the bad karate moves, the bad bible...

I doubt that those who use the term "Wierwille Worshippers" believe that those who they paint with the term are literally worshipping Wierwille, i.e. setting up an altar, or praying to, or viewing him as God. It's hyperbole, or exaggeration to make a point. That doesn't mean that it's not a personal attack...I'm just sayin'...

us witches take exception to that term

I don't know...do you? I agree that it's not common now...but then?

Sometimes the threshhold of what some consider personal attacks is ridiculously low.

IIRC it was to a family camp, not the Corps. There was a Way magazine article that they read extensively from.

Sorry...what are you referring to?

Forgive me ( ) if I don't come at this from a biblical perspective, but I think that forgiveness is at once situational and shades of grey, a continuum. There is also the aspect of forgiveness where you put the anger at the transgression out of your heart and the aspect where you absolve the one being forgiven of consequenses. Definitely not black and white in my view.

Martindale's take sounds wackier, but I think Wierwille had him beat on shear illogic and insistance on taking his word for it.

That "original sin = masturbation" thing was the most ridiculous, convoluted piece of illogic that I ever heard....something about trees figuratively representing people in the bible and the "fruit of the tree" supposedly representing the genitalia... :blink:

I think if you're going to determine whether Jesus had brothers & sisters or whether or not Mary remained a virgin you have to go with the only source that addresses these issues: the bible. What we think is common sense is not necessarily what the writers of the bible thought Whether or not it "makes sense" that Joseph would marry a woman and not have sex with her would be somewhat irrelevant if that's what the bible said. There are instances, rare as they are, of unconsumated marriages. I think it's pretty clear that "brothers" means "brothers". the only reason to interpret it as "cousins" or half-brothers or what have you is to make someone's doctrine "fit like a hand in a glove"

I guess if you really believed you were channelling a message from God, then you had to ahve been doing God's will, doing da werd, right? Now if you were making it up...

Abigail: "Two firsts"? I don't get it. Are you saying that the "be" in b e r e s h i t h means "2"? When I look up Genesis 1:1 in blueletterbible.com it lists " r e s h i t h" as the first word (with a slightly different spelling), although when you actually look at the Hebrew letter it is b'r'sh't (no written consonants) WearWord: Where did you come up with this? It doesn't seem to be based on anything. The verses that you reference don't seem to fit with what you're talking about, even if you squeeze them. Interesting how the first word of the bible in the oldest language that we have a text in doesn't have "God" as the first word. I wonder what language Wierwille thought "the original" was in?