johniam

So far it's been the Bill Buckner WS. Who will be the best Bill Buckner in game 4???

I wanted the Red Sox instead of the Tigers. The Tigers got swept last year plus they'd want to get even for 2006. If it's the Red Sox then the Cards want to get even for 2004. But that was 9 years ago. Ortiz is the only player left from that team. Napoli lost to STL with Texas 2 years ago and Gomes played against the cardinals with the Reds. Those are factors. Matheny was on that cards team, but now he's the manager. Yadi played during the regular season but I DON'T think he was on the WS roster. Should make for some good baseball though whoever wins.

quote: The Bible never actually declares itself to be without error or contradiction. That's an assertion made by PFAL about the Bible, not an assertion made by the Bible itself. Luke 1:3 - It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto the in order, most excellent Theophilus. Where did he get that perfect understanding? Where's God in your suppositions? You're right back where VP was in the 40s. Didn't think the words 'holy bible' should be on the cover.

It seemed like when VP was still alive, that the anti cult pressure on us was super intense. That guy Jed Smock who protested us at pfal 77 and at the 77ROA. All the bad press at AC79. Some of those people were really venomous. That made it easy to circle the wagons and go into defense mode and shut out anybody who wasn't with us. But I remember in 83 or so Johnny Townsend saying hey the only people who know who we are are us and our enemies so quit being so paranoid OK. After VP died the pressure like that just seemed to stop. Since then the worst friction I've had with other Christians has been ex wafers, and I don't mean from GSC either.

That's funny. She's the one listening to hip hop. About 30 years or so ago I was witnessing in a bar and this guy told me about a group of men who met every month at a JoJo's restaurant, had breakfast, and did bible study. So me and 2 lightbearers went and checked it out. It was pretty good. Two of the men were associate pastors somewhere, one of whom led the bible study. Us 3 wafers, being bible geeks ourselves, were able to give some well received input to the discussion. We didn't tell them we were in a cult, but we sure didn't go there to get them all converted to twi. We just let the thing proceed as it would. It went fine. They liked us, we liked them. Fast forward to the present. I'm a window cleaner. Last week I left early to do Cracker Barrel. Gotta be there at 5:30AM. Nothing to do after that for a couple hours or so, so I went to McDonalds, took a cat nap, then went to Starbucks before doing the next job. Lo and behold, at both McDs and at Starbuck's there were groups of people praying together and talking about the word of God in a similar manner to what I saw at the JoJos 30 years earlier. I've even seen the same at the Cracker Barrel on occasion. I found this to be encouraging. I mean, during the course of any week I'll probably listen to the media some, or watch a typical liberal socialist propaganda show on TV, and those sources make Christianity look like a dinosaur at best, so I found it encouraging that 2 places I just happened to stop at had groups of Christians praying together. I'm sure there are meetings like that all over the country. We may not get much good press, but we're still lights in this world, eh? My next window cleaning job after this was one of those little Edward Jones offices in a shopping plaza. The receptionist there is a nice lady and I just KNEW she was a Christian, so I told her about how encouraged I felt and she totally concurred and seemed happy that God works in many situations. I guess I dispute the idea that twi puts their thumb over everything that attempts to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Even back in the day, even most way corps, once you get them out of the intense meetings and the agendas and the sell sell sell vibe, they were perfectly willing to see that the body of Christ exists outside of twi. Those lightbearers thought so. So does the fellowship I currently attend.

One thing that complicates workplace bullying is that a lot of people, especially those who aspire to be managers, vice presidents, etc., believe that they have to be aggressive and willing to be a serial bully in order to advance in the company. One cultural example of this is Demi Moore's character in the movie 'Disclosure'. All the press about that movie focused solely on the sexual angle, but her character was a classic serial bully. THAT was the real theme of the movie, not the sexual harassment. Her character was replaced by a woman who was not a bully and things got a whole lot better, not just for Michael Douglas' character, but for the whole company morale. It's probably true that men (at the workplace) are more likely to behave that way than women, but in most companies, the higher up you go, the more hostile the bullying environment is. I personally found that, in twi, the regular joe believers who were bullys tended to stick out like a sore thumb.

Weird. On the about the way first page it says chockfull posted at 10:34 pm on August 30th, yet when I click on go to last post...the last post I see is dated August 7th.

I can't believe it's not airplane glue.

quote: Do they now have 100 years of collective boat building acumen? Yes!

quote: I hear tell the current BOD has "over a hundred years of spiritual wisdom collectively" as stated by themselves. What? lol That is very laughable. Sometimes I'm watching a baseball game and the announcers will point out that maybe 3 of the players on one of the teams have a combined half century of major league service. So what? That's not going to guarantee any of them will get a clutch hit, but I guess it sounds impressive.

Well, THIS Saturday night a lot of folks must've gone out somewhere. I worked today plus other busy stuff so I slept through some TV and now I'm going to walk my dog. Partially buzzed here as well.

Remember, Adam and Eve's kids married their sisters (wink wink).

Cute.

You know a lot about running and hiding, don't you? The people who killed Jesus. They called him deceiver, heretic, sinner, not of God, one that perverteth the people, one who could save others but not himself, one who was born of fornication, one who blasphemes, and those were people who actually saw him. They were SURE they were right. They knew what was going on. They had the right religion. They had the right education. They had their worldly wisdom. They were sooooooo sure.

Luke 11:53,54 - and as he said these things unto them the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently and to provoke him to speak of many things - laying wait for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him. Have a nice day y'all.

quote: The firmament, an undeniably solid object, I deny it! God called the firmament heaven. It doesn't have to be solid. It's still firm enough to hold the stars in place and restrain the waters above the firmament. You assume many things to be true that I believe aren't. You talk like a natural man.

quote: We were taught that TIP and Prophesy all always forth telling and never fore telling of future events. What is the basis for that idea? Pfal! The first use of the word 'prophet' in scripture (Gen. 20:7) is referring to Abraham, who foretold nothing. As for the manifestations of interpretation of tongues and prophecy, they're by inspiration, not revelation. Foretelling the future would have to be by revelation. I have recently had my own thoughts about the word 'prophet/prophecy'. Also from pfal, we were taught that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, right? And that 'prophecy' meant anything foretold or forthtold. I question whether 'prophecy' in that verse means all scripture without exception, or a subset of all scripture. Is it possible that 'prophecy' in that verse means either foretelling the future or simply stating what God's will is? There are many narrative portions of scripture which do neither of those two. For instance... A few years ago it was Easter and someone was teaching from the gospels where Jesus was arrested and Peter cut the soldier's ear off with his sword. The person teaching pointed out that Peter wasn't trying to cut off the guy's ear, he was trying to cut off his HEAD! In Luke it says it was the right ear, so earlier that evening Jesus told Peter that Peter would deny him. Peter must certainly have felt his commitment was being questioned, so he acts impulsively and tries to cut off the man's head with a sideways motion. The soldier sees it coming and ducks to his left, thus exposing his right ear, which means that Peter was left handed. In Jesus Christ Our Passover VP points out that Peter's deed could have potentially set in motion a fray of violence, but Jesus handled the situation. Now back in the day in twi, someone would have riped up and said, "Aha! En garde! No PI, no PI!!!" But this is a narrative (historical) part of scripture documenting human generated facts, which lead to OTHER human generated facts. Whether from scripture or from what people write or say, it is intelligent, natural, normal for us to process what we hear daily, whatever comes our way. I just don't think it's wrong to try to read between the lines on those parts of scripture. However, when God said to Adam, "Ye shall surely die!" that is 'prophecy of the scripture', and for the serpent to say, "Ye shall not surely die!" is evil which did start with privately interpreting what God had said.

I worked someplace in the early 80s and one of my coworkers was a mid 20s attractive girl who was a single parent. So she marries a short, fat guy 10 years older. God did she get grief from the other coworkers, especially the females. This was not twi, but I mention this because IMO the same dynamic is in place either way. I only worked at that place for 2 years and I don't know what became of this girl's marriage, but you don't have to be in twi to have unwritten rules imposed on you about who you want to date or marry. I know of twi people who married non twi people with both results: it worked or it didn't. But, yes, I will concede that there was weird pressure about who dated who. I can easily see why some in twi kept their romance life secret for as long as possible, even if they dated other twi people.

Again, world wisdom is that which contradicts God's word. That's exactly what Paul meant when he said the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. quote: Left on its own, the Bible does give the impression that "night" and "day" preceded the origin of the sun. They did! So what? quote: Left on its own, the Bible does give the impression that the sky was a gigantic glass dome (the firmament) keeping "the waters above" from crashing down on us. Where do you see a glass dome? The firmament is heaven; above the earth. The devil spirits who caused the flood are now imprisoned by those waters above the firmament. Wonder if Lucifer or any of the other fallen angels ever visit those spirits. Somehow, I don't think it would help them very much if they gave them a cake with a hacksaw in it. quote: Left on its own, the Bible gives the impression that the stars are little lights IN the firmament. They are! Again, the firmament is heaven. quote: Left on its own, the Bible gives the impression that the earth does not move, but the sun moves relative to the earth. Joshua cries out "sun, stand still," not "earth, stop rotating." From Joshua's pov, it looked like the sun DID move around the earth. God doesn't care if His people don't know everything; He will still help us. One situation in twi which involved world wisdom is that our bigoted critics were always saying that anyone who would consent to listening to someone teach the bible for 34 hours over 3 weeks MUST be brainwashed. That's world wisdom. That's foolishness with God. Raf, if you believe that a bunch of egotistical scientists with manmade educations are more credible than those filled with holy spirit,,,enjoy.

Funny you should say all this. First, check engine lights are man made. Holy spirit isn't. My work truck has had the check engine light on for 3 years. My mechanic says there's over 300 different things that could cause the check engine light to come on. So yours doesn't work and mine is a false alarm. Sounds man made to me. Mankind is fickle; always has been. quote: I can't get past the fact that we were taught by a con man who employed a methodology indistinguishable from a fraud, producing results indistinguishable from fraud, yet somehow believe there's nothing fraudulent about what we did. That's entirely your opinion. I can't get past the truth that ever since I started asking God for His help, including an 18 year head start in twi, life is good. Way better than it was. No comparison. The difference? Gift of holy spirit in operation as taught by VPW. What exactly is "fraudulent" about getting prayers answered, even trivial ones? Where you stand seems to ignore any possibility of holy spirit in action.

Yes. remember that in pfal VP said he was dynamically concerned for the field of philosophy. That's world wisdom which doesn't always contradict scripture. God's word is totally pure, but us mortals have to individually use our brains to get to that conclusion. We all have the free will to conclude things other than God's word. The whole book of Ecclesiastes illustrates that journey. Nothing wrong with considering what world wisdom says; nothing wrong with concluding that THIS is God's word and THAT is not.

Hmm. Never saw this thread before. I met a guy at the 1986 ROA in tent city. He was from Philadelphia, PA and he called himself Stretch. He was harmless, but definitely a 'character'. He had a mannerism he used several times during my encounter with him. He'd be talking about something, either a person or the accompanying situation, and he'd stop and say, "C'mere" in a normal tone of voice. He'd come maybe 2 feet away from me. Then he'd say a few more sentences and again say, "C'mere", this time in a whisper, then he'd come almost face to face and give further lowdown info about whatever it was. It was kind of humorous, but, like I said, he was harmless.

quote: John's obviously trying to drag this thread off topic because he feels threatened by it. No, WW, you are the one who continues to drive this thread off topic. I think it is you who find ME "threatening". Until couple pages ago, I hadn't even posted on this thread since post #190 or so. So I've had what? 1800 posts to "drive this thread off topic" if that were my agenda. I posted 3 pages ago to bring Earl Burton's intermediate class into the mix and to state my dissatisfaction with timing the interpretation and the tongue, which some people concurred with. Then, as your manner is, it was you who took this thread off topic for the purpose of falsely accusing me of the same. You did this before 2008, when I stopped posting for almost 3 years, and then in late 2010, when I resumed posting, most people here at least welcomed me back just to be polite, but not you. You immediately started picking fights with me, your usual 'straining at a gnat' strategy, which created several 500 post threads which should have been 100 posts if not for your constant fault finding. Yes, IMO it is YOU who finds ME threatening.

Again, world wisdom is that which is contrary to God's wisdom. Evolution vs creation. Gay rights vs Romans 1. Once a "recognized authority" in the world reaches a conclusion which contradicts God's word, that's the wisdom that's bad. It's like love. There's God's love and there's brotherly love. Brotherly love isn't bad, it's just limited.

WW didn't say that; Chockfull did.