johniam

Thanks for the input. I'm not surprised that others have expressed those thoughts. As I said, it's the first time I saw them presented as such and I knew nothing about Bill Gates. I'm not a big John Mellencamp fan, but I've heard interviews with him and he seemed OK. When I got my associates degree from STL community college our speaker was the channel 4 news lady. Right now I'm wondering how well John M would get along with Bob Knight.

quote: John, no insult intended and I am certain that you meant no disrespect to those that have been raped...but quite frankly unless you have been raped you have no idea how inadaquite that word truly is. Strong? Only to those who have no "ginosko" knowledge. Context. Rascal said 'hate' is a strong word, well, so is rape. First, it was rape because VP was a minister. Then, it was rape because he drugged them. Later, it was rape because he "pinned them down". This is never going to end. I think the word 'rape' really is too strong for the first example. Nowadays a woman can consent to sex and then wake up the next day ashamed and claim that she did not consent. Just for the record, I have been sexually assaulted twice, once at 18 and once at 20, so I 'ginosko' the feeling of shame and self loathing I felt.

quote: Johniam Do you honestly not see something amiss in the scenario you described involving the man who placed a young lady's hand on his genitals and proclaimed his sexual arousal? That's not "healing" John, that's sexual imposition. Waysider, you might as well have lived in the dark ages. First of all, I didn't say the man put her hand on his genitals; I said he put it on his pants. Second, I didn't say he was sexually aroused at the woman; I said he claimed to have not had an erection at ALL in 20 years. This means that, upon having one while sitting through the class, he felt that God healed and blessed him by showing him that his body still works. You inferred all that negative stuff...thinking evil are we? Think about it. Any doctor will tell you that a normal person can have sex into his/her 80s. So if this man couldn't have an erection from his 50s to his 70s, then something was wrong; first some kind of sin consciousness, then the medical aspect of it. But he sat through the class in that beautiful atmosphere that your dark ages mode can't comprehend, and God blessed him. He took the woman's hand and said what he did without thinking just cause he was blessed. It was perfectly innocent and the woman took it that way. As I said; NO BIG DEAL.

quote: Sorry for the rant. I just get sick of people taking a legitimate topic and derailing it to serve their own agenda which may or may not have a blasted thing to do with the topic at hand. Excuse me, Waysider, but Rascal is the one who did this. Reread the thread.

quote: Abi, would you not find in some college courses graphic depictions of sexual behavior? I'm just asking -- I've never been to college. Actually, I think there's more chance of graphic descriptions of sexual behavior happening at the student center than in a class. Abigail: So what was LCMs believer family class like? Did it show pictures? I thought CFS was beautiful. I took it 3 times. The first time was at a motel next to a Baptist convention with Donny Fugit running it. Primo! At the end of the class a 70 something man took the hand of a 35 year old family corps woman and placed it on his pants where was an erection and calmly said to her, "Ain't had one of these in 20 years." He got some personal healing during the class and shared it with her and IT WAS NO BIG DEAL!!! That's what was beautiful: the atmosphere, not the pictures or the slang terms for body parts. The 3rd time I took it was in somebody's basement and there were 3 sets of parent/child taking the class. All VP wanted was to address sexual issues in a bible related class without the oppressive heavy handed atmosphere that dominated most of Christianity and western culture for centuries. Comparing VP to a cockroach or to Jeffrey Dahmer is beyond absurd. Oldies was comparing Rascal's object of hate to a cockroach, not VP. Rascal's laid a lot of things at others' feet, Dooj. VP's true legacy is the accuracy of God's word. AND, there's been at least as much personal eyewitness testimony of that here as the other stuff. So what if he showed porno at a root locale. If you want to teach your own kids that sex and the human body are evil, then go ahead. Rape is a strong word, too

quote: He said he wasn't in TWI. He must have been in an offshoot. He said he wasn't in the way officially, but was a grad of piffle. He probably didn't hang around long enough to learn all the "correct terminology". I'm still curious as to when that was.

Well, the only thing I have to compare twi with is the dope culture and twi was better all around.

Come to think of it, the night we were commisioned as wows they gave us a stamped post card with instructions to send them to our parents telling them where we got sent.

Based on the information you've given, I'm wondering if your earthly family really WAS especially toxic and leadership knew it and told you personally to stay away from them for awhile until you got stronger in the word, NOT because that was what they told everybody, but because that advice was for you because of the specifics of your situation, and that ONLY for a temporary period of time. You took the same advanced class I did (Emp '84). Even if that wasn't your first one, they wouldn't have let you take it if they didn't feel you were strong enough for it. I just can't believe that every single leader you ever had was totally obsessive in laying down the law about communicating with family, reading books, etc.

quote: Before seeing any death certificates or anything else on the internet, did anyone here know that VPW died of cancer? Where I was, we were NEVER told what sickness caused his death. I was told that he died of cancer by a twig cordo in Grand Rapids, MI. This guy had been an accountant at HQ for 9 years, including at the time of VPs death. Can't remember exactly when he told us. It wasn't part of a fellowship; it was informal. The guy was talking and a few of us were in the room. He said that when VP had his eye removed in late 1983 that Fritz Weingarner told VP about the tumor and gave him max 5 years to live. quote: John -- Ok -- I can see how you might think that. And I ain't a'gonna argue. BUT ---- the *thrust* of this thread is STILL what Rascal asked in the first place. Why didn't twi get together prayer for docvic, when he needed it *the most*??? Just because they didn't have the whole ministry pray doesn't mean they didn't have select individuals pray. As I said, they probably handled it the way VP wanted them to handle it. It is speculation to infer that they only cared for themselves; we really don't know.

I don't know much about Bill Gates. I know he is the founder of microsoft, he is a very rich man, and that Bill Clinton went out of his way to hinder him. Then yesterday I'm in the break room at work and I see the following. BILL GATES SCHOOL OF ADVICE Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. Rule 1: Life is not fair -- get used to it. Rule 2: The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both. Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity. Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them. Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills,cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room. Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life. Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time. Rule 10: Television is NOT real life! In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. A lot of this rings true for me. Any thoughts?

I believe that the first person who ever had cancer probably WAS possessed and the spirits used his/her body as a laboratory and that this could happen today, but that's not how so many people get cancer. There has to be some combination of weakness in a person's body mixed with poison in food, water, and/or air that causes so many people to get it. This would not require direct input from a spirit.

quote: I know what I was told, I know what standard I was held to, I know whom I was allowed contact and what I was allowed to read, view, and participate in. I had no family members in... You must've been a real sucker. WHO held you to this standard? A twig leader? Branch leader? Really pushy brothers and sisters in Christ? NOBODY would have gotten away with telling me not to see my earthly family or gotten away with ordering me to get rid of albums or not see movies. I had no family members in either, but all 4 of us in my wow family had all living parents visit them (us) on the wow field. Just because you personally were too weak to stand up to some people you should've stood up to doesn't mean TWI made you that way. You were like that before. Oldies is right; you don't speak for all of us.

I still don't remember hearing VP say that cancer IS a devil spirit. Caused by devil spirits, yes. Makes sense. Steal kill and destroy. Yeah, cancer does that. In his tape THE HEALING WORD he said that at some point our believing stops and we die. He didn't say it was bad behavior on the part of the person, he said it was inevitable for everybody if the Lord tarries. Nobody knows what "they" were believing and not believing during VPs last days. I would be willing to bet that they did whatever he told them to do and didn't do what he told them not to do.

quote: Add all of that with eschewing of family and friends...we were sure isolated...the only input being ministry promoting doctrine ...no wonder twi became our entire existance Drag.

Outfield: When were you with TWI? Because it got really ugly in about 1994 and it was heading that way for the 5 years before.

Just went to a garage sale and got MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST by Oswald Chambers. It's a daily devotional. The author was a contemporary of Bullinger. Haven't read much yet but it's OK. Also got THE GETTING OF WISDOM by Henry Handel Richardson. In 70s/80s TWI they didn't discourage reading material from other authors. They just encouraged us to "separate truth from error". I remember Ralph D once saying he thanked God for people like Billy Graham and Orel Roberts.

The 1977 ROA was definitely in Sidney. That was the last ROA that wasn't at HQ. This idiot named Jed Smock was yelling stuff at us all week. He'd been at PFAL '77 too (heard some WC poured a bucket of s### on him there). I remember hearing that Elvis had died, but it just wasn't a big deal. In TWI all priorities were different.

quote: However, knowing what rape does to a woman, I am too biased in my heart to give any credit to VPW in regard to "his ministry." I am sure you are correct, the man must have had some redeeming qualities. But I cannot give him credit for having a godly ministry, in light of how he used that ministry to hurt women. Well, there you GO judge poop! Youth here doesn't seem to KNOW about the disappearance of the old school. Well, there you Go, Abigail. You just admitted that you can't compartmentalize. VP did good. VP did bad. Two separate things. You can't see this. If God doesn't credit people for anything they do then people are just robots; whatever they do is just part of God's plan. I don't care if you don't believe in my devil.

quote: So, while I can honestly say I was healed of certain things while in TWI, I would not give credit for that healing to anyone but God. If that's true then we're all robots. Abigail, in your case it wasn't VP, but it was people, not God, who witnessed to you, agape'd you, taught you the word face to face, etc. Same old double standard: give God the credit, not VP, but give VP the blame, not the devil. Well, I think God is going to give people credit for what they do that is good.

The difference depends on whom the pronoun 'him' is referring to. Is it referring to Larry having this hope in his (Larry's) heart or is it referring to Larry having this hope in Him (Christ)? It may be a difference that makes no difference, but another spot sparked my curiousity. Oops, I forgot to check who was signed in again. It's me, not John.

Naw I was just kidding about the constant threat part.

quote: I don't know any man that lives with the constant threat of being neutered.... I do. :) Actually, I got neutered in 1995 not long after our 3rd child was born. I've heard many LCM rants (not as WC) and I can't picture him saying this. But it reminds me of the character Douglass Brachman on the TV show LA Law. He was the second in command and acted like an authoritarian jerk a lot, but his sexual encounters were pathetic. He met a woman who was lover to his dad. Her name was 'Rusty'. He went to her place and she showed him film of her as a young stripper. Then she seduces him and the scene ends with his head in her chest while she says, "Don't worry; mommy will take care of everything." If LCM ever does read some of this stuff he might actually contemplate suicide.

Reminds me of that movie 'Day of the Triffids'.

Chatty Kathy, I'm a little confused. Did you really mean to post on this thread or 'the big things I learned from PFAL' thread? Just curious...