johniam

5% fact 95% hyperbole

Belle: Yeah, we, well...I passed the baton to you in a sense. I was in from 76-94 and you were in first in 93 but sold out in 95..did I get that right? No, VP was smooth as Southern Comfort. If he was abbrasive to people close to him then he was, but you'd have never guessed that from seeing him teach at ROAs and stuff. Day by day life in TWI was NOT terrifying from 76-89 for me. Even when we got forced out in 94 it was awkward for the people who forced us out too. We were torn between "loyalty to the ministry that taught you the word" and self respect, but those that forced us out were too. They were hesitant to have "sawdust in their veins" like LCM ordered them to. Yeah, 94 was a difference maker all right.

The only ones that jump out at me are 3 and maybe 7. Overwhelming service? To some people sitting through 15 minutes of teaching is "overwhelming". Of course, those of you who were in TWI from mid to late 90s......?

Wendy: I am a happy satisfied customer of TWI. Thirty years ago tomorrow I sat through session 12 of PFAL for the first time. Awesome; no regrets. Today and tomorrow I'll be sitting through a class about Oriental insights into the bible (taught by Bishop Pillai himself). Gonna be great. If someone wants to take a college class on the side nobody cares, but somehow if somebody wants to take a bible class they must be "brainwashed". As for your daughter, if she is really into it, you're going to have to let it run its course. I was into dope from ages 16-24. If my mom had done anything extreme like disowning me or kicking me to the curb at age 18 things could have gotten really ugly, but she did everything in her power to maintain our relationship without letting me run her life. But I was really into getting high and that had to run its course. Now, drugs are illegal. I never sold them, just used them, but why should my mom assume that? If I was ever caught selling drugs out of her house she could have lost ownership of it immediately. Many parents in that situation might have done anything to prevent the possibility of this. But, religion is not illegal. There is no looming legal danger by having a child in a "cult"; just the perceived violation of the love bond between you. Be careful what you do. If she is really really into this and you do something extreme like try to have her deprogrammed, you may lose her for life. While you're considering the tabloid material other posters have referred you to, also consider that in the 80s deprogrammers wanted 20Gs up front with no guaranteed results. They kidnap, tie and gag with ductape, sleep deprive, and otherwise abuse their "clients" until they verbally agree with them. One guy from TWI was treated like that for a week. Then when confronted by his mother and brothers he still would not renounce his TWI status so loving mom slapped and clawed his face and little brother punched him in the gut while he was tied up and couldn't defend himself. After 2 months or so he was put in a half way house from which he escaped and he NEVER respected his mom again. I'm not with TWI now, I'm with an offshoot, but I still have respect for what I was taught in TWI. AND I still get along with my siblings. My mom trusted me with her power of attorney during the last 5 yrs of her life. I'm sure I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while my mom and siblings talked together about me being in a "cult" but they didn't do anything extreme. Consider these words.

March 4th. Once LCM did a SNS teaching and called it that saying he got the joke from a Boy's Life mag when he was a kid.

This was from Orangecat few years ago, but... Abundant sharing - The act of giving financially to the ministry, which will cause God to spit in your direction.

I could spend all day on this. In fact, I WILL spend all day on this!

quote: So, how did the fire-engine red drapes and the woman who killed her child by believing a car to ram into him figure into this? The woman to VP was a product of the popular teaching. We err mentally before anything physically happens. What if the woman jumped out of a 10th story window? That act would be a manifestation of wrong thinking/believing. Especially if the woman thought God actually wanted her to think/act that way. VP wanted us to believe that God doesn't have anything to do with stupid stuff like that. The red drapes was just filling in the details. Remember when Saul's son Jonathan and his armour bearer took on all those Phillistine soldiers. His believing was that there was no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. And that's logical. If God is really involved in the situation, then He can protect Jonathan from a million soldiers as easily as He can protect him from 2, right? So, if God is really involved in helping the woman get an apartment, then why should red drapes be such an obstacle? One of Bob Dylan's songs on that 'Slow train coming' recording asks "You think He's (God) just some errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires?". People who "believe" with that kind of attitude may or may not get results, but IMO God is not involved. I think some people have this religious idea that it's not right to ask God for personal things like red drapes. At the '79 ROA VP said a local minister told him he's be ashamed to ask God for the things VP asks God for. VP came back with "if my God was as small as yours I'd think of getting me a new one". Once I was hitching from Columbia, MO to Fresno, CA. An all night ride got me to Amarillo, TX, still 1000 miles from my destination. So I freshened up in an IHOP and went out to the freeway. Having heard horror stories about police treatment of hitchers in Amarillo, I prayed with Jonathan in mind, God, if YOU are the one getting me the ride, then YOU could get me a ride all the way to Fresno just as easily as YOU could get me a ride 2 miles down the road, so THAT'S what I want, in the name of JC, amen. One hour later a van picked me up, 2 guys from Kansas. They were going to both LA and San Francisco, but were planning to go to LA first, which would have had them drop me off in Barstow, right in the middle of Death Valley. But they picked up 3 more hitchers in New Mexico who were more annoying than me, apparently. They decided to go to SF first dropping them off in Barstow and taking me one block away from where I was going in Fresno. Sounds like red drapes to me. In 1998 I lived in a house which had a motion detector porch light; you couldn't just turn it on and have it stay on/you had to be fairly close to the house before the porch light would come on. It was like that when we moved in. On halloween night nobody came trick or treating to our house because of this. My then 9 yr old daughter was upset and cried. I asked her to pray about it while I SIT. It was 9:30 by then and not much activity, so after 10 minutes of waiting we went inside. Not 5 minutes later somebody not only walked up to the house, but even with no light on (you could turn off the porch light so it wouldn't go on at all) they really made sure nobody was home. It caught us off guard but I called my daughter down and handed her the bowl of candy and she went outside and gave 'em candy. Then she accused me of calling somebody and staging it. (sigh) But that, too, sounds like red drapes, doesn't it. I related this incident before and one GSer ridiculed me. My answer is the same as VPs to the local minister.

I've often wondered if Saturday Night Live requires their hosts and possibly their cast members to undergo a psychological profile, then crafts skits accordingly. They did one 20 yrs ago with Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall as hosts and John Lovitz pretended to be a pathological liar. It was hilarious. Then later Dana Carvey had a character named 'massive headwound Harry', a man who had an open bleeding wound that everybody else could see, but Harry was oblivious to. He'd go to parties and everything he touched had blood on it and other people were appalled but Harry was totally unaware that anything was amiss. I wondered if the skit was an absurd parody of someone with an annoying trait that everyone else can see but not the person with the trait. I thought that some pathological liars may feel their "ordinary" life is not "legitimate" and they need to constantly lie to beef it up, but I suppose it's possible that some others do it unconsciously as well.

The main motivation VP had for teaching the law of believing was to counter the popular teaching of his day that it was sinful to want to have nice stuff or to be affluent. Or that you had to wish upon a star if you wanted certain results. Rather, that God was very willing to help people realize personal goals. IMO it was not loving to criticize people for not believing. Such criticism doesn't help the person do better.

Not to downplay what you're saying, but I think John Townsend taught way tree and Donnie taught witnessing and undershepherding. They do both kinda go together.

I'm guessing that the lying is a defense mechanism.

I have no problem calling it a law. I think what VP taught and what some leaders practiced were inconsistent.

I quit cold turkey, but it probably doesn't count. I was 17 and had smoked for only 2 years. But it was a Friday night, I was in a car with some of the guys, I had a pack with 19 cigs in it, and I thought to myself, wow, I wonder if I could quit. So I kept the pack in my pocket without smoking any for 3 more days just to make sure I really wanted to quit. On Sunday morning while delivering newspapers I pulled the pack out of my pocket and had a cigarrette barely out of the pack before even realizing what I'd done. Back in the pack it went. On Monday night I decided I really did want to quit so I told my friends and gave the cigarrettes to one of them. The 5th day was the closest I came to smoking again; I was so close to smoking again, but I was able to resist and never really looked back. On the 84th day I took a drag off a cigarrette. Didn't make me want to start again. I don't even remember the last time I longed for one. My wife smoked from ages 15 - 38. Her situation is closer to many of yours'. She had a pack and a half per day habit and she reduced the number of cigarrettes she smoked per day by 2 every day until the total was zero. Today, 11 yrs later, she says she occasionally likes being down wind from someone who's smoking, but has no desire to start again, and recently 2 of our acquaintences died 12 days apart from smoking related stuff and my wife told me how glad she was that she had quit. Congratulations, Linda.

Hey Belle. Since you live in Fla. do you know J and K C*x from Jacksonville? They used to be in STL and were really cool, but after TWI split...not so much. In 1997 I called and talked to K. I kind of snuck up on her. First I mentioned that I'd drove past HQ recently. Then I told her that JP and Sara hadn't been with TWI for 2 yrs. When it finally dawned on her that I wasn't interested in being back in TWI she says, "Why did you call me!!!???". I said I wondered if she was still in TWI. She says, "Yes, and HAPPILY so!!!" Well. What do you do with a fellow like that? Pretty much everybody I've called like that was still in.

I have 3 tomato crates full of SNS tapes. Many are from the 80s and we left in the mid 90s so let me hunt through them a bit.

Even a pedophile catholic priest can get somebody born again.

quote: How did this thread get derailed from "who you are", to attacks on Juedes, plagiarism and the trinity? The thread used Juedes as a role model for who to be. I wanted to explore that.

As to the title of this thread (who you are is more important than what you know), why is it one at the exclusion of the other? It says in Corinthians that knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. We all have both on our 'menus'. WW I wasn't accusing Moses of plagiarism; back in his time it wasn't possible to mass produce written works and get a copyright was it? I was showing that an accusation of plagiarism against VP is as ridiculous as one against Moses. Solomon copied down much of Proverbs. Those proverbs were known to that part of the world for years before Solomon's time. Moses, being both a grandson AND a great grandson of Levi could very well have had access to handed down writings not seen by the average Israelite. SOMEBODY informed him about his heritage for him to up and kill that Egyptian who abused an Israelite. That doesn't mean God didn't work with him to write/compile Genesis through Deuteronomy. Still God breathed. quote: Seriously, though, Johniam, you're totally discounting anything JJ says merely because he's a trinitarian? Do you think that PFAL is perfect and solid material? That there's no errors in PFAL at all? VP said during AC '79 that anyone who is ADAMANT about the trinity is possessed. He didn't say anyone who believes in the trinity, just adamant about it. I have witnessed to many trinitarians and some of them, when they realize that I don't believe Jesus is God, become very unpleasant. Yet, I've posted before of my experience in a Presbyterian church during the late 90s where a minister's sermon included that verse in Luke where Jesus prayed to God asking Him "not my will but thine be done"; the minister used that as an example that even Jesus was hesitant to trust and obey God. Now that minister is trinitarian, but somewhere in his mind he knows that Jesus was tempted like the rest of us mortals and that he wasn't really God the creator of heaven and earth. So, to answer your questions; yes, I'm prejudiced against JJ. I've read enough of his stuff that I think he DOES have venom toward VP that clouds his judgement. Not simply because he's trinitarian, but as I said he's a SERIOUS trinitarian and the venom is a symptom of it, IMO. And, no not everything in PFAL is 100% right on, but it deserves a lot more appreciation than to just be written off as "deception".

quote: I know for a FACT that someone in the "PENTAGON" in Washington lurkes here. Do you mean "lurks here" as part of his/her job? or just someone you know whose interest is piqued?

Speaking of "plagiarism" I noticed that in Genesis 5:1 it says this is the book of the generations of Adam and then in chapter 37 verse 2 says these are the generations of Jacob. There are 2500 years covered in the book of Genesis alone, none of which were contemporary with Moses, who is credited with writing it. Could it be...that Moses had to read much material written by other people and then decide which writings were the word of God and which weren't and then crank out a final product? Yet Moses is the one who gets the credit with writing Genesis through Deuteronomy. If it was anything other than the word of God, then what VP did would be unethical, but from God's view, it's irrelevant.

or they loved civility into them

I don't like that guy. I listened to a few minutes of part 1 and I've read several of his articles. He is a SERIOUS trinitarian, not casual. That alone is what has always fueled his venom toward VP. He said that he read the PFAL book and couldn't believe how much "deception" was in the book. He didn't elaborate on what constituted "deception". I thought about that and the first thing that came to my mind was the part of PFAL where VP said that by sheer logic the first and great sin is to break the first and great commandment. So we're supposed to use logic when reading scripture. Trinitarians put logic in the shredder. That must be what Dr. Juedes calls "deception". IMO that was what convinced many of us to stay with TWI. That God's word is logical; it makes sense. VP sold it. That's not deception. The trinity misrepresents God. THAT'S deception. He talked about how his name is pronounced. I worked with someone whose name is spelled like his without the 's'. She pronounced it yai-dee.

I found the way/cult posts offensive. It was the same misrepresentation regurgitation that polluted all the anti cult books from the 70s (mindbenders, youth brainwashing and the extremist cults, kingdom of the cults, etc.). I can see the TWI people not wanting outsiders raining on their parade. There was a poster here on GSC a year or so ago who had nothing but scathing posts against GSC and the mods and certain posters. Guess what? He got kicked off. But myspace probably can't take sides. The TWI people will have to get their own website, just like Landoverbaptist. That site is wacko.

Aside re: ship of fools. In 1974 shortly after that song was released, our area (Grand Rapids, MI) heard that the Dead would be performing in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on July 4th. So I hitched up to Ludington, MI where a ferry would take me across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, WI, roughly 40 miles from Oshkosh. While hitching I met up with a woman and her 4 yr old son also going to Ludington. At the boat we met 3 other Deadheads from Detroit. These people were insane; they lit up joints right out in the open on the boat before it left Ludington. Turned out that the concert was cancelled by order of a judge at the behest of torch carrying townspeople who didn't want the Dead "monster" coming to THEIR town. We didn't find this out until we were half way across the lake. Get it? Ship of fools? Ha ha ha ha. Then to add insult to injury the Dead played that song in Chicago later that month. Also, John Shroyer is definitely NOT the "strangest captain you could find".