Oakspear

I'm in the phone book and also in a magazine that advertises and rates local businesses.

You assume correctly. ULC Ministers are considered legal. No registration is necessary. Regulations vary from state to state. Actually all it takes for a marriage to be legal is my signature and the signatures of two witnesses on a marriage license issued by the State of Nebraska. Technically, no ceremony is even needed. IMHO, even requiring someone to be "ordained" is an anachronism. Why not allow anyone to perform a wedding ceremony? In effect, that's what they do, since I've certianly not had any training or schooling, but I need the piece of paper to be legal.

Maybe Gawd changed the lights for you...

The seed of the idea may have been planted when Raf officiated at Steve! and Cindy!'s wedding a few years ago. My wife mentioned soon afterward that she thought that I would be good at performing weddings. Just for fun I got an on-line ordination through the Universal Life Church and put an ad in the phone book as a wedding officiant. I've done 4 weddings so far this year and have a fifth lined up. There are a lot of folks out there who don't belong to churches yet don't want to go the courthouse route. My first ceremony was for a couple where the guy was an inactive Jehovah's Witness. They wanted a JW ceremony, but they couldn't get married at the Kingdom Hall due to his status and the fact that his fiancee wasn't a JW. I did a little research into JW vows and did a great ceremony. Last month I was called at my regular job by a couple where the man had cancer and had to be at the Mayo Clinic the next day. I did a ceremony on their lawn at 11:00PM at night. What a rush!

I'll be on Long Island from Wednesday night through Friday evening next week (6/20-22) visiting my parents. Unfortunately I don't envision having the time to visit any of you New York Grease Spotters while there, maybe next time I'll have more vacation time to burn! Mom & Dad live out in Port Jefferson Station, which if I remember correctly is a long way from any of youse. Funny coincidence, my oldest son and his girlfriend are going to be driving out on Tuesday to be in a wedding, he didn't know I was going to be there at the same time until he called me for his grandparents' phone number

Right you are dm How about a slight change: Jonny found sincere provocation, at the liquor store's check out station. Seeing *Made in Vagina*, on a t-shirt it kinda, Made him want to start pontificatin' Yeah, I know...picky, picky

I regularly attend Wiccan rituals now, but most of them are attended by people that shouldn't be naked, including me...

I like to think that I learned my lesson. I'm probably a bit too skeptical these days, and have ticked of a speaker or two for asking pointed questions about their "special knowledge". While I still read and listen to others' opinions, I no longer am "hungry for God" or looking for answers.

Just wanted to separate that from the rest of the wind... Yup!

Back when I was first involved, some folks thought TWI was a cult because of the doctrine, some because of the alleged behavior. In my opinion most anti-cult, anti-TWI people back in those days undermined their credibility by getting the doctrine wrong, and in most cases getting the behavior wrong. No, it demonstrates how kooky and extreme ant-cult people can be when they are ignorant of the facts. Being a trinitarian doesn't make one kooky (yes I know you said "some") nor is kookiness in this field limited to those who doctrinally disagree. In my opinion, Wierwille enjoyed the attention of anti-cult fanatics. It helped fuel his contention that it was us against the (evil) world.

I imagine that if he had presented the same material and admitted right off the bat that he had compiled it word-for-word in some cases from other authors, but giving due crdit to those authors, he probably still would have gotten the following that he did. If he had presented himself consistantly as a compiler of existing material (consistantly...not just an offhand reference in TW:LIL) than I doubt that anyone would have held it against him. But part of the mystique that he built around himself was the "God taught me", "The Word like it hasn't been taught since the First Century", and "I threw out all my books and commentaries" crap that we all sucked up. I submit that if before we had taken PFAL someone had shown us evidence that he lied about so many key things and plagiarized his central works, we wouldn't have given him a second glance.

I no longer have ready access to any "research" tools, but i think it would depend on what parts of speech 'confess" and "believe" are.There is one tense that describes a one-time action, another that indicates continuing action. If the tense of "confess" and "believe" is the one that shows one-time action, then it wouldn't matter whether A or B remained true for C to be true, on the other hand, if the tense describes continuing action, then it would be as you said, if A and B did not remain true, then C waould not be true.

Starting with a clean slate isn't the same as not listening to anyone else's opinion or explanation (it could be, but not necessarily). I agree that it would be difficult, what with everything that you ever learned and heard about still floating around in your brain, but not impossible. In my opinion, what hampers many ex-TWI folks is that they still use PFAL as a starting point for determining what they believe. It's a lot of work, but starting with as clean a slate as one can is an important part of moving beyond TWI. I don't think one can ever get past depending on others for part of youyr knowledge. After all, even if you are fluent in Greek or Hebrew, who taught you Greek and Hebrew? One has to have a basis for determining what is dependable information. Part of the problem for us ex-TWI folks is that we thought Wierwille was a dependable source and it turned out that he wasn't. Much of what GSers do for each other is question assumptions. If one can get past the defensiveness that comes with being questioned, a lot can be learned. For example, a poster might say something like "we all know that Corinthians is a reproof epistle". Another poster might question that position. The first poster may at the end of the day still believe that the epistles are divided into doctrinal, reproof and correction, but he will generally understand why after explaining it to someone else, or he may change his mind completely.

Originally, the commercials had one of the cowboys claiming that the rival picante sauce was made in New Jersey. If I remember correctly, there was actually a picante sauce made in New Jersey, the makers threatened legal action, it got changed to NYC...

Yeah, maybe, but I'm not talking so much about the Wierwille "worship", which certainly went on, or the lack of paying attention, which also went on, but how Wierwille did an excellent job at getting us to trust him and what he said. Unless one came out of PFAL still skeptical about what was taught there was necessarily a taking of Wierwille's word for it.

Why the plagiarism matters (in my oh-so-humble opinion ) Most people who took PFAL, in my observation a large majority, took PFAL because they were unsatisfied with what they were learning in their churches. Hardly any had any background in biblical research of any kind. For these people, Wierwille (or his representatives or adherants) was the first person who even attempted to amke sense out of the bible. Not having any real research to compare to, PFAL students accepted much of what Wierwille said based on their trust of Wierwille, because they were convinced of his credibility and trustworthiness. I'm not talking about going to the bible or a concordance or an interlinear to "check out" what Wierwille taught, I'm talking about accepting many of the assumptions and premises that his teachings were based on without any evidence whatsoever. For example: the "old piece of literature" that Wierwille claimed said that bar-mitzvahs took place at age 12 for illegitimate sons; that "God" was the first word in the "original" text; the explanations of dechomai vs. lambano, allos vs. heteros and various other definitions; even the significance of various research "keys". How did we know that any of that stuff was true? (and some of it we know isn't true) We took Wierwille's word for it. Why did we take Wierwille's word for it? Because we trusted him, we believed him. If we had know from day 1 that he was a liar, a plagiarist and any of the other things, who would have given him the time of day? It's only from the point of view of someone who had heard and internalized PFAL and Wierwille's teachings in general that we want to reatin anything that he taught as "truth".

I still have that diagram; just checked it. Even though Wierwille defined pros as "together with, yet distinctly indpendent of", the diagram just says "toward" for pros. Yeah, I know, "so what?"

Whoa! I thought that Wierwille came up with it all on his own, independently of Bullinger ;) I don't understand your post if it is intended to be a reply to mine. Can you expand on your remark?

Something to consider is whether "for our learning" necessarily excludes being written "to us" as well.

Ah, yer one o' 'dem "Jehovah's Frisbees"

Socks: I was just thinking through the idea that phileo and agapao weren't really any different when your post appeared as if by magic Checking out the number of uses of both words (not as easy as it sounds since different forms of both are used) there are well over 300 uses of forms of agapao and less than 20 of phileo, including compound words like philadelphia. It didn't have some special inner circle meaning, either in the culture, or to the biblical writers, and still doesn't. It's just the normal, ordinary word for "love", used of about 95% of the time when the word is translated "love" in the KJV. I think back to TWI teachings, where the teacher would pretend to have great research skills, pointing out the word "love" in a verse and intone solemnly that it's "agape", as if the word was a biblical rarity! The deeper meaning of agapao comes from the context and the usage. Is it love from God?, love toward God?, love of the brethren, or is it says in one place, love of the world (I John 2:15) or darkness? (John 3:19)

Well bud, I like George, but I ain't him. First of all, I'm not an atheist, and I don't attempt to prove, or even suggest that you're wrong. I will sometimes ask questions that question another's beliefs, not in some impossible attempt to "disprove" those beliefs, but only to point out that they're beliefs, not undeniable truths or facts, just like everyone else's. Anyway, have an enjoyable weeknd, I'm off to perform a wedding.

No prob...

We're also supposed to thinkAnd if i don't know, then I don't know

Okay (this is Jean, not John, right?) - I'm not tring to bait you, just debate you I didn't say that bible believers don't have any way, but that they didn't have any way to know any more than non-believers. If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not derail the derailment into an evolution discussion, but faith (whether by bible believers or not) is not an objective "way to know", but a decision to accept a premise. It sounds like we're saying the same thing, but I still get a whiff of "but what I believe is right" from you...correct me if I misunderstand. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong, that my beliefs are superior to yours, just that yours don't haver any more liklihood of being right than mine, just as mine are not necessarily ny more correct than yours.