soul searcher

Interesting post. Reading the attached op-ed piece in today's New York Times reminded me of it -- not for the political, but for the moral implications. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/opinion/15brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Forgive me, but I'm relatively new to the Bible and I haven't studied Romans 8 yet. I went ahead and read the chapter anyway in my NIV. Verses 20-21 read: For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. I'm having difficulty understanding these verses. Can any of you Bible experts give me a quick interpretation? Thank you. I think Hemingway must have quoted it on one of his stories. I've never Marx.

I don't necessarily think faith in God is a delusion. Faith itself is a healing force -- it's been demonstrated scientifically. Even the so-called "placebo effect" in experimental studies is direct evidence of the power of faith. Simply believing that a treatment will have a specific beneficial effect can result in that benefit being manifested in some subjects, even if those subjects weren't really given the treatment. This is seen even after controlling for confounding effects such as spontaneous remission and random variation. The placebo effect is one of the great mysteries of science. And it's one of the reasons that clinical trials of new pharmaceuticals are "double-blind" -- neither the researcher nor the subject knows if the treatment is actually being administered. There is an experimental "effect" for believing. Aside from all that, there is a force, which I like to call God, that is responsible for the creation of new life, cell reproduction, and healing. Maybe this force created the universe, too. Who knows? I don't. As far as "religion" goes: was it Hemingway that said "religion is the opiate of the people"?

I love Johnny Cash, but I like the original version of that song better: This is my favorite Johnny Cash song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10O9kUCAv40&feature=PlayList&p=876A54DF41DD9C00&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=35 (How many Bible quotes and references can everybody recognize?)

Great song!

Not to mention gathering wood on the Sabbath day... Numbers 15:32-36 (NIV) While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses. Sorry to go off-topic.

Jeff, great posts. Sounds like you've been through a lot. But I can tell that you have a lot of heart. Hang in there. And thanks for sharing.

So I'm listening to this class from CFFM, "Living in God's Power" and on comes a section featuring Kevin Guigou. Within a minute he's praising VPW as some sort of great spiritual leader. He lost 99% of his credibility right there. I continued to listen though, because I have never been one to shut out other voices. But by the time he was done I realized he was no longer talking to me. His is not a theology I accept. In fact, I'm through with the class. It seems to me that he, along with dozens of others (Schroyer, Clapp, Schoenheit, etc.) are keeping alive VPW's misguided and fraudulent theology.

From what I've read on this forum, the man was clearly a plagiarist, sloppy if not fraudulent researcher, and a sexual predator. Taken together these attributes equal a man zero credibilty. And I'm being nice. [Full disclosure: I only learned of VPW's existence and TWI's history about 3 months ago. Everything I know about him was either told to me by my ex-Way friend, or I read about here on these boards or various other web sites.] My ex-Way friend thinks of him as a "great MOG who let his d*ck get in the way." Of course, she also thinks of Jimmy Swaggart in the same terms. (And, truth be told, I always kinda liked JS myself. He was a colorful guy. I'm not gonna hate him for patronizing a prostitute.) However, I think my friend is deluding herself about VPW. He sounds like a monster. Preach it brother. Would it be fair to say that the Way offshoot organizations are like TWI but without the abusive or sexual predation aspect?

Currently in my car's CD player: Allman Brothers - Eat a Peach Beatles - Let It Be Pete Townshend - Lifehouse Elements Steely Dan - Citizen (disc 2) Tom Petty - Wildflowers Various Artists - The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles (disc 6)

Thanks, Jeff. You're absolutely right. The harsh judgement and condemnation offered by many extremist groups is certainly not going to attract many followers. Not around here, anyway. Recently, some hate group from Kansas (they called themselves Christian something-or-other) came here to demonstrate at a local high school. Why they came here, and what exactly they were demonstrating against I'm not exactly sure of, but I did hear that they were carrying signs that read, "God hates fags." And I have to wonder how many converts they expected to gain with rhetoric like that. Certainly nobody I know. Anyway, happy ending to the story: they were virtually ignored by the community, the high school canceled classes so as not to give them an audience (ha-ha!) and they received very little news coverage.

Waysider, I'm curious: being the intelligent, insightful individual that you obviously are, when did you discover that you were being sold a bill of goods by TWI? Was there a specific event that opened your eyes? If you posted your story somewhere, send me a link. Thanks.

My friend's response: "It's not ME judging, it's God."

I haven't read this entire thread but here goes anyway... One change I noticed in my ex-Way friend during her 20+ year absence (along with the acquisition of a variety of kooky beliefs) was a new-found hatred of gays and a belief that homosexuality is some kind of sin against God. It's so disappointing -- there's no talking to her on this subject. I try to look past it because I like her and I generally don't hold friends' racist, sexist or homophobic beliefs against them. I guess I'm tolerant that way. (For the record, I'm not gay and don't have any loved ones who are. But I can tell you that if any of my kids grew up to be homosexual I would not judge them or condemn them about it, and I certainly wouldn't love them any less.) Recently, gay marriage was on the table in NY State (it was voted down) and it's coming up for a vote by the state legislature in NJ. Maybe it's because I don't have a dog in this race but I could not care less if gay couples have the right to marry or not. It is a non-issue to me, personally. However, I can't figure out why it does bother certain people so much. Why is it a "threat"? Why do they think it's a sin against God? (Please don't point me to Romans or Corinthians, I've already read it.) And why are they so concerned about what consenting adults do behind closed doors? I actually know a colleague -- a decent, professional, educated man -- who is considering enrolling his child in a parochial school because of some perceived risk that his child might "contract homosexuality" (my term, coined sarcastically) from some other public school kid. Even if exposure to homosexuality was enough to convert a heterosexual into a homosexual, what makes him (or anybody) think that private or parochial schools are devoid of gays? I guess ignorance and stupidity know no bounds. It's sad.

Oh yeah, I've noticed.... I guess I'm reading the Bible to "get another aspect" on God. I've always had my own ideas of what God is and it had little to do with the stuff I was taught in Sunday school. Also, when I talk to other Christians about God I want to be on the same page. If I'm going to debate a point I want to be familiar with the entire text. I also want to learn what it is that God, via the Bible, represents to many Christians, though I realize that most peoples' beliefs about God are mostly unrelated to what is written in the Bible. Also, I want to make my own interpretations -- yes, even my own private interpretations (with all due respect to Bullinger, TWI and its offshoots). Because I may not know every word of the Bible as well as a theologian or minister but I can read just as well as they can and, after all, I do have critical thinking skills. :-)

Okay, I probably shouldn't be posting in this thread because a) I was never in TWI and b) my critical thinking skills have never been impaired in any way but... When my girlfiend left me 25 years ago to join some religious organization, I assumed that one of the reasons she was leaving was that her critical thinking skills had gone kaput -- and who needed someone like that? (It was a useful strategy that I used to help to soften the blow of losing her.) Nowadays when I talk to her I realize that her critical thinking skills are not lacking at all -- she's bright, articulate and teaches at a major university. She still clings to certain TWI dogma but realizes that a lot of what she learned is faulty. That realization is a huge first step. The rest is a matter of re-educating yourself, talking to people that do not necessarily share your beliefs and perhaps trying to figure out why you believe certain things. Personally, my critical thinking hampers my ability to accept much of the Bible as the "word of God." I especially have trouble reconciling the God of the OT with the God of the NT. My critical thinking tells me that the "idiom of permission" does not work in explaining God's actions in the OT. Why? Because to me, "doing something" and "allowing something to happen" are virtually the same thing. So, if God is light (and if God didn't change) then why was the OT God so snarky? P.S. I don't beleive that faith requires critical thinking. Either you believe something, or you don't. For example, was Jesus the messiah? It seems to me that no amount of critical thinking will answer that question for non-Christians. If you are a Christian, then presumably you believe that he was. Anyway, sorry to interrupt. Carry on.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872-1970)

How creepy...weird people into all your business...shades of "Rosemary's Baby."

In fairness to my friend, she does recognize that many of the things she was taught at TWI are faulty or misguided. She sees herself as being in a "transitional phase" in terms of her beliefs but says that it's hard to reject beliefs that have been ingrained into her for so long. And I can understand that. However, one frustrating aspect of trying to help her is that she still insists that the Christian Holy Bible is perfect, that the Bible never contradicts itself and posesses a Bullinger-like "mathematical precision." How does one deal with that? One advantage that I have is that I have never read the Bible before and was taught very little of it, even after nine years of Catholic catechism. There's a very liberating aspect to reading the Bible for the first time as a married, educated, middle-aged adult with kids. I see things that I could not possibly have understood as an adolescent or even as young college student. I have to say, though, that it's very useful to have the tools that my friend introduced me to: interlinear/parallel reading, Strong's concordance, various commentaries, etc. Plus, the online versions that can be found at BibleGateway.com and Biblos.com make researching the Bible so much easier.

Necro-destiny? LOL Did you coin that term? Anyway, it appears that there are a few agnostics, atheists and non-believers among you ex-Wayers. Interesting. My ex-Way friend still clings to all the tired Way doctrine she absorbed over 25 years.

I guess that depends somewhat on the direction one's life takes. I didn't give God much thought until recently, but at this point in my life I want to "get right with God" (to quote Lucinda Williams).

Interesting. Is that what was revealed to you? That everything you believed was wrong? From a philosophical perspective, one might say that the negation or correction of an error (or errors) does not really yield a positive. It yields a neutral, i.e. zero. It would seem to me that the revelation of a "real" truth results in a positive. I'm just thinking out loud.

Well, it was interesting to a noob like me, anyway. I guess one of the concepts that intrigued me the most was that the "dead are dead." They cite several verses that seem to support that belief and it goes completely against what I and most other Christians were taught.

Thank you. You're implication seems to be that STF is harmful or virulent. Can you please elaborate, or point me to a topic where this is discussed? I don't know that much about STF other than it is a TWI splinter group. Incidentally, I found the CES/STF class "New Life in Christ" to be very interesting. I don't agree with everything that was taught but I learned some things just the same.

That is so true. And it's what turned me off to religion for many years. According the beliefs of a fundamentalist friend of mine, about 2/3 of the human race (all non-Christians) will not make it to heaven simply because they don't accept Jesus as their savior. How true. The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. "All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:40). It's right there in the gospels, but my guess is that about 2/3 of all Christians aren't even aware of this (including my wife, who is a devout Catholic). One quick example that comes to mind is from J.D. Salinger's short story "Franny", in which the protaginist describes the similarities between "praying incessantly" and the concept of nirvana in Zen Buddhism. She talks about the book, The Way of the Pilgrim and how a Russian peasant is on a quest to discover what the Bible means when it says to "pray incessantly". He learns that one way is to simply repeat the basic Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me") over and over in your head until it becomes internalized. After a while you don't have to think about it anymore and becomes "synchronized" with your heartbeat. Of course, it doesn't have to be that specific prayer. (And whether one should be praying to Jesus or to God is whole other discussion.) Anyway, nice post, Pen.