johniam

I go to a fellowship. It's good. Not a twi fellowship, but similar. Last time I was at a twi fellowship was in Sept. of 1994. Wasn't good. They were mean to people. I know someone who regularly attends a current twi fellowship. He says he likes it. He let me listen to a couple of SNS tapes. The tapes are kinder and gentler than they were in 1994. Back then a typical SNS tape featured LCM teaching for 1 hour. Twenty minutes of scripture and teaching and 40 minutes of him screaming about whatever made him angry that week. I'd say go ahead and go, but if and when they figure out that you're not really interested in the class, their behavior will probably change dramatically. I'd go with the attitude that it's more of a privilege for them to have you come to the fellowship than it is for you to be at the fellowship.

Today was the victory parade. Started at 4PM probably lasted max 2 hours. Right after the parade Albert hosted a basketball game to support his charity for people with downs syndrome. Other celebrities were there, even Meadowlark Lemon. He has several charities like that. I heard that this year a poll was taken among just the players which included who was the meanest player in MLB and that Albert and Chris Carpenter were in the top 10, but in STL he's hard to hate.

Albert Pujols doesn't owe the Cardinals anything. He wasn't going to be on the opening day roster in 2001, his rookie year. Bobby Bonila had an injury 2 days before opening day which opened the door for Albert to be on the opening day roster. So he hits 37 HRs, 130 RBIs, and bats .330...and Jack Buck STILL didn't think he was for real. They signed Tino Martinez. He wasn't that bad, but 2 more years and Albert doesn't have a fixed position. Even last week an ESPN radio guy in STL said AP wasn't really a leader, just a good ball player. WTF? One thing for sure: The STL Cardinals brass know exactly what AP wants to hear. If they're not going to tell him what he wants to hear, then they might as well not say anything at all. As to where he might go? He liked playing for Manny Acta in the world games a few years back. He manages at Cleveland now. Hmm. If we can keep him we might have the makings of a dynasty.

quote: If no one goes beyond what they are taught then there is no real creativity. Not to mention countless inventors who went beyond what they were taught. To say the only mode of learning is a teacher is nuts. Nope. The inventor sees something in what he was taught that others don't see. Same for the creative person. What does "what they were taught" mean? We all have been taught things by parents, older siblings, teachers, ministers, Sunday school teachers, cartoon characters on TV, the list is endless. So, if I am taught something by a minister, and taught something else(separately) by an older sibling, then, without any "teacher" personally present, I can compare what I was taught by each one (minister and older sibling) and reach my own conclusions. And this is part of "what I was taught". The possibilities are endless. But it all started with......parents, older siblings, etc. No, you CAN'T go beyond "what you were taught". This is a no brainer when you remove the anti VP filter. Go Cardinals.

Go Cardinals!

Cara: I agree with you that the phrase 'old original self' could simply mean each individual's soul, but the way that phrase is used in the book reflects some form of "doctrine". I was saying that educated people's opinions can be manipulated as doctrine just as much as twi's. That the door swings both ways; kinda what Brokenarrow said.

quote: But you really don't know that. Jesus could have said that because he was dealing with a rich person and he simply wanted to put him to the test, so to speak. Why would he need revelation for that? Simply stated there is no proof he needed revelation to tell the guy that. I think it was revelation because Jesus didn't say that to EVERY rich person he spoke to. Zacchaeus was rich. Had a purer heart. Joseph of Aramathea was rich also. Being rich, in and of itself, is not evil. quote: Lots of problems with that explanation. First, there is a glaringly apparent contradiction presented in Jesus' answer. Here, when addressing the subject of eternal life, we find him telling the man to follow the commandments. (works) When the man says he has followed the commandments, he tells him to sell his possessions and give aid to the poor. (more works)......How does this fit with salvation by grace, as presented in the epistles?...Simple, we just treat the Gospels as a predecessor of the Epistles....The "mystery" was not yet known...Except, the Gospels were actually written quite some time AFTER the Epistles. Well, then, let's just say say Jesus was speaking in response to revelation....So, why would this revelation require that Jesus present something contrary to what had already been presented in the (written) epistles?....Oh, I suppose you could say that, even though it was written in a "post-Jesus" time, it was depicting an event that was concurrent with Jesus' presence....However, it's contrary to John 3:16, as well....As presented in Wierwille's Advanced Class, revelation can never be in opposition to the written word........Even if we say it was revelation to a specific incident, as was Wierwille's explanation in the Advanced Class, this would have Jesus using/speaking a misrepresentation of scripture...Would God, being all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present have to give revelation to Jesus to tell a lie/misrepresentation to get His point across? Maybe the honest thing to do with something like this is just say, "I don't know." instead of creating scenarios that would have Jesus getting special revelation to lie to someone. Lots of selective reasoning with this explanation. During the Christ administration salvation was not by grace, it was by believing that Jesus was the Christ. That rich guy didn't really believe that. As I said, he was being phony. What Jesus asked him to do was basically a litmus test, a shibboleth, to see if the rich guy's stated desire, to have eternal life, was genuine. Obviously, it wasn't. There's no contradiction here, apparent or otherwise. As for this supposed "lie", when the gospels were written is irrelevant to when they took place. It hadn't "already been presented" in actual fact at the time Jesus said this, therefore, it wasn't a "lie". Why were the gospels relevant after the epistles had been written? That's another question, and yes, much of what you posted on this page IS off topic.

quote: Just a question, who are "those people"? The people who wrote the NYT article. quote: (You do realize VPW wasn't really a "Dr.", don't you?) You remind me of a twi leader. He was the territory cordo. The event was an open fellowship. Some guy came in there and said he was catholic. The territory cordo says immediately "roman catholic". From there it went back and forth...catholic! roman catholic! catholic! Roman catholic!...for about a minute. WTF? The territory cordo just HAD to keep saying roman catholic. It was his duty. I guess. You are the same. You just HAVE to keep on saying he wasn't really a doctor! Whatever, dude. quote: I can't really figure it out but it seems to me that the authentic self is also included in our spiritual life, in how the spirit communicates with our minds, in whether our "gut feelings" are valid or it's more a cerebral awareness. I think if it's a woman we call it 'intuition', but if it's a man we call it 'gut feelings'. Sometimes it's Christ's gut feelings/intuition behind our's. It can be either one (cerebral or spiritual). Remember when the rich guy (Matt.19:16) said to Jesus "good master, how do I get eternal life"? Jesus was contrary to him. He (Jesus) didn't need revelation to know the guy was being a phony. Being human, Jesus had a BS meter like everybody else. That was cerebral. Jesus DID need revelation to tell the guy to sell all he had and give to the poor. That would be word of wisdom. If the guy had done that he either would have been blessed enough to absorb the loss of his goods and/or he would have gotten more earthly riches back. Not Jesus' problem the guy made the wrong choice.

I tend to agree with Brokenarrow. What I see is intolerence. Those people think their puny little educational degrees are the oracles of God. Reminds me of something in Kris' book. Everybody has a belief system. Belief systems are as individual as the person him/her self. Many align themselves with religions and social movements, but even in those, every individual has a different spin on whatever they label themselves. In TWI we were told that the real you is Christ in you, but just how much time did any of us actually live that? Even VP once said that the longest segment of time in which he walked with God and "didn't miss anything" was 2 weeks. Like he said, "some of us commit them before breakfast". It would be nice if while we were manifesting Christ in you there was a green glow which went out when we were walking by the flesh. OK, that's TWI; the real you is Christ in you. There are 3 references in Kris' book to an "original self". That everybody has an original self. Really? Where and when did we get this 'original self'? Conception? Birth? Puberty? Is it part of our DNA? How do we care for this 'original self'? Yoga? Therapy? Education? LSD? Different belief system, different "real you". In the forward, Lorna Goldberg MSW/LCSW (whatever that is) says her "old original self" (later called her 'creative authentic self') was suppressed.Her belief system includes where she got her education. In the therapy notes immediately before chapter 12 she is asked "so you ignored yourself?" There's that self again. On the back of the book, a Kathryn Harrison says she "denied and betrayed" her self. Her belief system no doubt includes some form of education/therapy. The 2 povs are no different. In TWI, believing that the real you is Christ in you caused some people to walk in love and caused other people to dangle a carrot in front of themself that would never be realized. In whatever education/therapy system Kris and her peers refer to, the real you is your old original creative authentic self, which causes some to think more spontaneously and dangles a carrot in front of others. Personally, I don't believe in Christ in you OR old original self as a constant reality. I believe in the old man nature which includes death, the equalizer. Christ in you DELIBERATELY deals with the old man nature until death. So does education/therapy, howbeit unwittingly. But neither belief system is morally superior to the other. The writers of the article are just as biased as any fundamentalist/evangelical they could name. They selectively reason and dismiss reason as they see fit just as much as the people they criticize. I call them the more intolerent.

quote: What you may or may not realize is that, in The Way, Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus were talked about as if they were almost two different people. Actually, in a manner of speaking, they WERE 2 different people. Jesus Christ was a mortal human whose biological father is God, who was without sin yet tempted in all points, and who offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, whosoever will may come. Christ Jesus is a resurrected eternal being who ever liveth to make intercession for us. LCM once did a teaching he called 'as he is, not as he was'. We're both. We're mortal right now (as he was) and we are guaranteed eternal life (as he is). I think VPs take was that Christ Jesus is more relevant today because none of us is ever going to live a perfect life like Jesus did. What WOULD Jesus do is irrelevant. What DID Jesus do is very relevant. Christ's accomplished works are what guarantees us eternal life and gives us access to God. Jesus hadn't accomplished them before his crucifixion and his crucifixion alone didn't even do it. You know this stuff.

Go Cardinals!

VP never called Jesus "wimpy". As usual several of you have to misrepresent VP to make your case.

WW: That makes sense. I once read that in the 2nd century BC someone in Egypt proved the world was round. There were sun shelters in the desert that all had the exact same dimensions and he compared 2 of them 25 miles apart on consecutive days in such a way that the sun's shadow's location at sunset was what revealed it. Something like that.

I don't get mad at God. I get mad at people and circumstances, but not at God. As for the devil, the first biblical evidence of a "devil" is in Genesis 3. What is he doing? He is manipulating someone into a bad choice. PLUS, once he succeeds in manipulating Eve, he can leave Adam alone. The damage has already been done. He doesn't like to get involved with humans any more than he has to. Jesus said he beheld satan as lightning fall from heaven. Jesus had disrupted the devil's kingdom so much that the devil had to come down on earth and direct traffic for a time. Why do bad things happen? People aren't perfect. People screw everything up eventually. About 600 years ago everyone believed the world was flat. Many erroneous conclusions were reached about why things happened based on the common belief that the world was flat. Then it was proven that the world was round. Back to the drawing board. In twi everybody believed that believing caused everything. Again, many erroneous conclusions were reached because of that. The funniest one IMO is still the one where whoever was doing all night bless patrol at Emporia wasn't believing sufficiently to prevent a car from jumping the curb and running over plants. If something bad happens to me for no apparent reason? It could be the devil, it could be just random, it could be my sloppy attention to details in my life. It's not God. It's not because I left twi. It's not because I got too drunk 2 weeks ago. When something like that happens I pray. What a concept. If I'm angry or frustrated I might raise my voice but that doesn't mean I'm angry at God. Even if I did get angry at God, He'd understand, but if I got angry at God I wouldn't be peaceful. We're all going to die someday if the Lord tarries. This may well be preceded by sickness, infirmity, pain, etc. I don't put much confidence in this life. It's all vanity.

In 1976, when Gibson guitars were still made in Kalamazoo, MI, I went on a tour of the factory. In my mind, Gibson guitars were almost holy. So many of my rock star heroes played them. It seemed strange seeing them put together step by step by ordinary working people like the ones in the Wilson video. During the 90s I worked in a factory that makes doors and, again, step by step, I was part of the process where the wood comes in and the door comes out. The yield for the trees they got the wood from was only 50%. There were those who thought using trees to make wooden doors was evil. I don't have a problem with wood doors, wood guitars, or animal skin footballs. That was an interesting video. I'm sure those workers are well taken care of, otherwise, why are they still working there for so long?

quote: I don't know who will win tonight's game 5 in Philadelphia. Very possibly the Phillies. Surprise, surprise! Hope Ryan Howard's OK. Cards are in a low pressure position; nobody expected them to be here, nobody expects them to win. Every game they play is borrowed time. Not knocking the Brewers team, they're really good, but if I was going to be at any of the STL games I'd think about holding a sign which said "Hey Nyger! Did you take your ritalin today?" Not hearing much in the way of comments from Brandon Phillips or Marty Brenneman these days.

I don't know who will win tonight's game 5 in Philadelphia. Very possibly the Phillies. I can't help but be impressed with how the Cards made the playoffs. In late August they got swept at home by the Dodgers and I'd all but given up on them. But they have matched the Phillies pretty well. The games have been close. Plus David Freese has stepped up. Everybody's always talking about Pujols, Holliday, and Berkman, but even in the regular season Freese has gotten some clutch hits. But Halliday is tough. He probably will get the job done. Going against Carp it should be a great game, though. quote: I don't follow baseball, but I do follow the playoffs. I looked up the last 7 World Series games and only once did the losing team win more than I game. No doubt due to some fine pitching and teams really playing in their zone. Out of the 7 series, 3 of them were sweeps. I want to see a series go 6 or 7 again. But, again, because of today's major league pitching that doesn't seem likely. Yeah, 7 game series' are always exciting. In the 50s there were 5 seven game series', in the 60s, 6 - 70s, 5 - 80s, 4 - but in the 90s and 2000s, 2 each. Hmm. Maybe it IS the pitching.

Ham: you should be ashamed of yourself. That's 2 days in a row now that you ran on the field at Busch stadium and disrupted play. Are you a Phillies fan? Stop that.

quote: Why did faithful and committed twig/branch leaders need to be corps? Why were the wierwille policies heavy-handed in replacing those who were established in those communities and committed to the local area? It is my opinion that wierwille's narcissism blurred his judgement and distorted the obvious. What is ironic about this is that in VPs dilemma of foreign missions, wasn't one of his pet peeves the fact that the missionaries weren't from those areas? That they just moved in there and executed the dictates of the denomination without really caring about the local communities? And look what twi became.

Psalm 133:1 - Behold how good and how pleasant it is for bretheren to dwell together in unity. I think this used to be the theme verse for way homes.

quote: So my question is... She and probably her husband know that TWI's top leadership LiED in that meeting... She knows it was not a ONE TIME affair. They are no longer active WC... Why stay? How do you justify that? As a matter of fact, I just happen to have a "one size fits all" easy answer right here! Humor me for a bit, please. There's a TV show my wife and I watch called 'Judging Amy'. It's your basic liberal socialist propaganda show. Amy and Jillian make for good eye candy, Donna is theatre of the absurd, the men in the show are all trying to keep jobs, stay in relationships, beat addictions, and stay in schools, all the while dodging the abuse the women constantly threw at them (and boy, did they). But the real mouthpiece of the show and its propaganda is Tyne Daly's character, uber militant socialist worker Maxine Gray, who routinely hijacks families for fun and profit. When she talks in that certain tone of voice, with that certain look on her face....it's GOSPEL, it's "right believing", it's "sound doctrine". THAT'S what you're supposed to get from watching the show. That format worked pretty well; the show lasted several years. Now to the point at hand, during one episode, Maxine Gray, the matriarch, all but forcefully coerced Amy, her daughter,into lying to her own 8 year old daughter about her (Amy's) past drug use. Maxine said "You just have to lie about things like that! There's no other way! Too many problems if you don't!" Sound doctrine, Amy. C'mon, get with the program! OK, the parallel is....TWIs top leadership "had to lie about things like that". Their consciences allowed them to sleep around like that. No problem there. Just like, in the TV show, Amy's conscience allowed her to be a happy drug user in HS and college, then go to law school and become part of the same system she rebelled against, and condemn the possibility of her daughter ever using drugs. She "had to lie", right? Same basic mindset. I'm aware that TV shows and movies often do not portray real people and real situations, but they do provide a common point of reference. Just like some of Jesus' parables. BTW, I personally, have been honest to my kids about my own past drug use. So far, they don't even drink. Where did I go wrong? :unsure:

Couple weeks ago there was a newspaper article about that all too common scenerio; priest molests boy, gets shuffled around from place to place. Their version of "the ministry not be blamed" I guess. The reporter interviewed other priests about it and one of them said he's afraid to go to soccer games anymore. Doesn't want people to think he has an inappropriate interest in children. That's sad. Most priests are not pedophiles. Just a few bad apples can do a lot of harm. quote: he had been passed around from parish to parish When John Hendricks was alive he said once that 75% of the clergy that surrounds the pope in Rome were priests who couldn't be trusted anywhere else. Don't know if THAT'S true, but there is a problem. From what I hear, Pope Benedict is at least giving lip service to being concerned about it. That's a start.

quote: does she(?) even have the Power to demote? I mean.. can't at least two vote her miserable hide off of "God's abundance" or some such? I have about 100 or more some such questions.. in the old days.. ermal and harry could have voted the victoid off the property.. aren't the same bylaws present to today? so we have two, or three, or four eunuchs, and da king(ess) ruling the kingdom.. It would not be the "fight" that they think it would be.. vote the grand(?) dam off.. what would she say.. ok fellas.. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- what are they afraid of? I mean.. if they want the organization to survive.. gotta do what you have to do. This reminds me of that movie 'Hannibal'. Kinda late in the movie that crippled guy who was plotting the whole time to capture and kill Hannibal had almost succeeded. Hannibal was down in a pit with wild animals approaching and the crippled guy was watching from 1 story higher. So Hannibal says to the crippled guy's servant, "Cordelle! Why don't you just push him down in here? The authorities will think I did it." It was done and it wasn't much of a fight.

Back in 1997 I visited an exway friend in Cincinnati. He had a street guide for the entire state of Ohio, can't remember exactly what the booklet was called. So I looked up the New Knoxville area, and all the streets on HQ property (Camping Blvd, R of A Blvd, etc.) that we walked on in tent city were listed as public streets. Weird. I always wondered why police cruisers seemed to be able to freely drive down those streets during the ROA. TWI had their own security. Why have local cops in there? Don't recall that there was ever an incident during a ROA, but did VP have to allow this to avoid other types of state harassment? Not long before 1997 I drove down Wierwille Rd. from Shelby Co. Rd. to Hwy 29 just to drive past it. Nobody followed me that I know of, but I read somewhere on here that there was some nosy reporter that was giving twi grief whom LCM called a snot nosed punk. Perhaps that element is why the heightened security.

I'm not sure who needs to get a life more: the twi security for following a car, or the locals for joyriding. Yeah, somebody in twi will say the fatal accident was for driving on twi property, but some locals were probably saying to each other "twi is an evil place. Stay away. See what can happen when you drive on an evil place?" Betcha I'll betcha.