Oakspear

Sorry too! I didn't get the humor. My bad, as the Jesus-loving high school kids say.

In checking back I did see references to Z turning away "from his captors" as he was carried out on a stretcher. No reference to "Jesus-loving" Marines, or an opportunity to "get saved".

If you have the information, great, post it or a link. Of course, that doesn't mean that Sir Guess or anyone else here believes everything in those creeds, but it might be some relevant information. Better than your usual attacks-without-substance. However, not everyone is as shocked as you are at beliefs that fall outside the PFAL pale, or even outside the Christian norm (whatever that is ). You deride certain posters for their beliefs, but you seldom if ever explain why you find these beliefs laughable, or lay out what specifically is wrong with them. What does that mean?

Not a bad idea. I was steered toward the others in this unofficial group by other posters. It would be great bto have a sacntuary of sorts for those in this situation.

There are certain physical types which will get my attention, and are easy on the eyes, for sure. For me, what makes a woman sexy is the attitude that she's sexy, and her thinking that I'm sexy. In other words it's the mutual chemistry. When I met my first wife I thought she was very sexy. In the several years before we divorced I thought otherwise, although she didn't look very different. the difference was that we hated each others' guts!

Martindale would always claim that we peons misunderstood Wierwille's "heart" regarding the things that he changed, and that what he was changing was not what Wierwille taught, but our misunderstanding and misapplication of it. When he did change something that was too obvious to explain away in that manner, he told us that we were a research minsitry and we should expect to change when we got "new light". A lot of the events that were eliminated, as well as landmarks like the House of His Healing Presence, were done away with because he accused us of making idols of them. Toward the end there was a real hostility on the local level toward the "old grads", people who remembered the "old days" because they were there. I'm sure that this came from the top. Despite the public recognition of people who had "stood" for 20, 25, 30 + years, the collective wisdom of people who had been around the ministry block a few times was derided.

Scrappy was a cool dog. Among the few who I have allowed to lick my face! (when i was sleeping on Abi & Sushi's floor!)

Actually, pride cometh before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall

...just that Karl's book has the best description that I've seen around here. Anderson and Doop both post here on occassion. I don't believe that Doop and Heefner were booted out, but that their independent, yet affiliated, organizations, The Way East and The Way West were taken over by Wierwille and folded into The Way International

No offense taken, I was just expressing my admiration of your use of a usually offensive word in a different context...well done! Regarding the rest of your post, while I can't argue with the math, I disagree that your analogy is valid. Arguing from analogy can be tricky sometimes. ...and I can't speak for the others, but I'm not an atheist

Why is this "apparent"? What have you heard or read? Sounds like an urban legend to me.

A fair enough definition, although there are religions that have more than one god, or do not have a God or gods at all. But workable enough for this discussion, IMHO No...first of all, from an atheists point of view, he (or she) is not "denying God", but denying that there is a God...if you meant those two statements to be synonymous, okay...to me "denying God" is to actually believe in his existance, but rejecting his authority and power. Which is different, IMHO, than saying "there is no God"You cannot have a relationship with something or someone who doesn't exist. You're looking at it from the believers' point of view: There is a god, but this foolish atheist doesn't believe in him, therefore the realtionship is one of rejection. The atheists point of view is that there is nothing to have a relationship with. Perhaps, but not because of the points that you made.

I didn't know what the mathematical definition of "degenerate" was, so I looked it up "being mathematically simpler (as by having a factor or constant equal to zero) than the typical case <a degenerate hyperbola>" I learned sumpin' today! The rhetorical use of "degenerate" was masterful, using a word which has a common meaning of "having declined (as in nature, character, structure, or function) from an ancestral or former state" or "having sunk to a condition below that which is normal to a type; especially,having sunk to a lower and usually corrupt and vicious state", or "degraded" - which would inflame (or at least irritate) those who did not know the less common definition - and give Zix an opportunity to appear more intelligent than the rest of us. Brilliant! The number analogy, as Garth stated, is valid only insofar as religion being defined as a worship of a number of gods, zero being a number, therefore t6he worship of zero gods is a religion :huh: The argument using the First Ammendment...what can I say? Free speech is not dependent upon religion. Too funny is right.

I disagree that atheism should be considered a religion. But I suppose that it depends on your definition of religion where you come down on this one. It seems that one of the key components of "faith", which is a key portion of "religion", is a belief in that which cannot be proven or demonstrated objectively. Atheists generally hold their position not because of faith, but because they require more than simply faith to believe in something. All depends on what we consider overwhelming evidence...

we recorded it tonight...look for epidode 7, part 1 coming soon

...and it's not just the Christians who can cop this attitude, by the way, I've seen it in more than a few pagans in the last few years; they get some kind of vision or intuition, and voila!, there's the truth that everybody is supposed to accept.

Well put Bramble!

There actually is more. Even though skipping episode 6 and going straight to 7 was our attempt at humor, there is a Part 1 that needs a little cleaning up and re-doing.

WordWolf: Good answers bro' One of the things that I like about you (or at least your GS persona) is that you lay out what TWI says, compare it to what the bible says and let folks draw the obvious conclusions. Heck, sometimes you compare what TWI says to what TWI says, and spotlight the contradictions. A lot of this stuff makes little difference in how we live life...BUT it points out how the supposed ministry where "the Word" is taught "like it hasn't been taught since the 1st century" ISN't! True, people will not hear until they're ready to hear, but they've got to have something to hear.

Well Goey, some folks use their brains and apply valid biblical resarch skills to come up with answers...and some don't

I am quite entertained at the expense of the metally disturbed! -_- But you're right, many of them are fabricated.

I've never seen any of the phenomena that he mentions in his book, nor have I ever spoken to anyone who claims that they have. I think the point of having us read the book was to impress upon us how powerful "the adversary" was.

dmiller, it's just an example of biblical literalists taking one literally and the other figuratively. mark is looking for an explanation of why.

Or a tricycle!

Mark: I think that you'll find that folks of all denominations will decide what is figurative and what is literal based on what fits best into their overall doctrine. I doubt that you'll find "the answer" anywhere. Of course, since this is just my opinion, other, smarter folks may disagree. :blink: Allan: It would be interesting to see if Wierwille's explanation of "a day and a night" always referring to a literal 24 hour period holds up to scrutiny.