Bramble

Rascal, anyone who has read these forums for a length of time knows how you have been stalked, and has had a glimpse into the character of the stalker. I think such posters reveal themselves, and while they think they are defending the True word and man of God, they are actualy showing by their actions and attitudes how lacking that doctrine was in wisdom or kindness.

Wow, you make your god sound pretty selfish and ugly. Raping and murdering the innocent is not as evil as blasphemy. So Pawtucket must be one of the most evil men around??? Shame on him, allowing a forum that is not pro PFAL. And Rascal, omg, no wonder you stalk her, with her petty ideas about standards of conduct. Whew, thank goodness you are here johnieur, to point these dangerous folk out to us.

??? I quoted sky4it, my replies are in a different color.

My opinion. The health and wealth ministries use their wealth and good health and big numbers as proof that they are the right way. But since not everyone winds up healthy and or wealthy, then they have to have plan B--"That person is not walking right in their believing." Condemnation moves in, compassion goes out the window. People who are poor or ill deserve it due to their lack of faith etc. People start pretending they have health and wealth they don't really have. Appearance--great clothes, cars etc, becomes important. Charitable causes then suffer, because followers are spending tons to keep up with the Jones Believers. Then they can no longer have real friends, because a friend will know the truth...so they have to have a pedestal of godly leadership authority to stand upon, where they breathe higher aire then the rest of the peons... Brides website had more pleas for money than does my writing business website. I just have a sale page link!

I live in a small town, the countryside isn't far away. But I remember feeling paranoid when I lived in a big city. Getting anywhere took time due to traffic, lines at the grocery store were always long--nothing happened fast. I remember discussing what we would do if a Red Dawn( the invasion movie)situation happened. Heck, we wouldn't even be able to get out of town for hours! That was the first thing I thought about after Craigs Y2K video--If the world as we know it is going to end, then we need to be in the NW with my hunting, fishing, wood chopping family! Not smack in the middle of a big city where people own lots of guns for protection, not hunting.

quote( Bride) Again, how do you know they will be spit out? What if you are? My Bible says that the ones that will be spit out are the Christians who are lukewarm. What are you doing for the Lord, if I may ask? Wow, your God is going to spit out his own family members? Niiice. And people don't get why the wicked unbelievers don't see the all powerful love of God.

Sky4it, there are plenty of nutcase Wiccans and pagans. There are destructive groups that have leaders that are to be obeyed etc, though I haven't met any. The nutcases I have met have been pretty obvious and not in areas of authority over my life, unlike in TWI, and are easy to avoid in my small area. Mostly I know people who are busy making their own homes sacred, their lives an act of worship. Following a charismatic leader and obeying religious authorities is not something I have seen personally outside of Christianity. I have made pagan friends, middle aged women like myself, with jobs and families, mortgages, aging parents, ups and downs of life. Conscious thought and decision and personal responsibility are big spiritual concerns of those I consider friends, and sometimes we do group together for something. Glamorous life styles of the very wealthy seem unclean to me, considering the needs all around I have no real desire to be involved in group things much larger than a group of friends at a campground, though I have attended a few. I do not feel they are necessary to spiritual growth. To me the large gatherings seem like a form of entertainment. Or a favorite sports team. Not that there is anything wrong with that--just not for me.

Threads like this reinforce for me reasons why leaving Chrisitnanity for a pagan faith was so appealing to me. Money, power, big groups...I pefer the quiet of my own hearth and home, the quietness of a simple meditiaion, a lit candle, a personal communion...

"Small Gods" by TP is also good. Perhaps an alternative read?

Mike, if you right click the picture you can scroll down to Properties. Click that and it will open a window with info including the URL. Then copy and paste the URL into the image line. Word wolf is right--if you need the URL then you need to have the picture uploaded on the net somewhere, like photobucket or a blog or something first, before getting the URL.

If you make this thread sound sexy you'll attrack a certain crowd, Garth.

"Belle, this is a new kind of attack. I have never heard that if tax-exempt property of any religious organization, had to have services held to qualify. Is this some liberal guys pet project, to attack Christian organizations?" Quote This is not a new requirement. This is why TWI had to have weekend activities at Emporia prior to selling it( early ninties), when it was essentially empty. This probably why the Sunday Services at HQ are mandatory for the neighboring Way folk, and why there are a few activities at Gunnison.. If all you have are administrative buildings and a traveling speaker, you are not a church, and the if the administrative duties revolve around marketing the traveling speaker, you are not a church. Many pagan groups do not have tax free status because they do not own property that is used for services.

Modern Wiccan and pagans often do believe in the old pagan gods, Native American spirits etc, and some Christians do think it is false and deluded etc. There is a thread on this forum right now that shows that( The Wright article thread.) And some pagans think that Santa Claus is a modern representation of Odin, the All father etc. Yule is a sacred time for them. As far as Sunesis post-- I was in TWI for twenty years. I was never taught it was okay to 'talk to Jesus' we prayed to God in the name of Jesus Christ, the type of relationship she describes was not part of my Chrisitian experience. There was no 'I reject you Jesus' type thought/action etc. Things evolved.

??? A child is not responsible for getting its own needs met. That is the adult's job A child rarely asks for what it needs? Really? Not my experience. Though sometimes, depending on the age, it might express need with crying. Sometimes a child doesn't verbalize what it needs, but an adult knows the crankiness is due to needing rest...and long term unmet needs can be of a nature that a child cannot understand...but they will certainly impact the child's life. Sounds like you have a very low opinion of people! They just don't measure up.

My feelings aren't all that hurt, JBarrax. To paraphrase you, I would say that not all Christians are knowingly evil. A Statement to make a point, I do not personally attribute evil to an entire religion. But I've certainly seen enough of the Bible quoting evil ones to know that evil can wear a Christian face, speak in tongues, witness, teach the Bible. So even when they say they worship the True Almighty God of Love, it isn't necessarily so. You look at the person, how they act, how they treat poeple... I think the non-like-me's-are-worshipping-devils-and-the-evil-will-sooner-or-later-show-up view of other is destructive to families, communities, nations. We did practice a form of that in TWI, so I have seen it in practical application. It did keep us tight with our little group though, because we were afraid of the evil on the outside. Fear motivation not Love. I think there is enough sorrow to address in the world to keep anyone busy for a life time, without ever having to speculate about the 'evil unbelievers'; that true joy does not need a 'smear campaign' type of viewpoint toward others to be obvious...if it is really there.

I'm not an athiest and don't attend church regularly, but my kids have been involved in a few church programs in the past, and I often went to support their activities. The big food bank here is run by a combination of churches and does alot of good for families who find themselves between paychecks and in a bad situation, or single moms who missed a support check(which happens all the time) or seniors and disabled people on very limited incomes. It provides emergency assistence to those who are not necessarily already covered by food stamps etc. I give to them regulalry and volunteer now and then because I don't believe there is any reason for people in the USA to go hungry. One person who volunteers many hours is a local PSUSA minister. I admire the congregation's commitment to serve the food bank and would have no problem attending if my family was involved.

Too bad evangelical Christianity can't find a way to have joy in their faith without the demonization of the beliefs of others. Your God seems to care more about who and how one worships than how one lives. As long as you're on the right team in the spiritual competition... Sad that strife with others seems to be built into your doctrine.

You would think that if non Chrisrtans are mistakenly worshipping demons, then it would eventually show in the evil or misfortune or something in their lives( other than having different beliefs and practices from Christians). Yet I know both Christians and pagans who are good people. And some of the most unwise people I've ever met quoted reams of scripture. I for one, would rather be on the side of the inclusive and build bridges of understanding with others, than to view so many others as enemies and evil, to be feared, changed, stopped etc. How that view of others as enemies can make the world a better place I can't see. Especially since they aren't harming you--it would be different if harm was coming to you and yours. But we are enimies without doing harm, just by being not Chrisitan. In that viewpoint, only if the unbelievers change or have no power can the true believers live in safety from them and their ideas. Therefore, it is right to enact laws etc against their practices, isn't it? Funny, a co worker and I were talking just last week. At our place of work there are many overt Christians--their cubes are decorated in religious calendars, scritptures etc.( I work in a very large office full of cubes.) While you might see fairies or unicorns in some cubes, the pagans at work kept a pretty low profile. I knew a couple from conversation and running into them in other places outside work. But this October all of a sudden, everyone started wearing pentacles or other pagan jewelry to work, not under their shirts, either. Four of us are on my very team. Not one squack has been raised about it. We figured that somehow we knew that in our small cowboy town the tide had turned--we pagans didn't need to hide to protect jobs here anymore. I for one am very thankful I live in a community where I can practice my beliefs in peace.

Um okay, lots of that doesn't make sense to me, but I will clarify my stand: Perhaps that record is in your Bible as a wisdom lesson, as in: If you as a society accept a level of violence like the slaughter of innocents in my (God's) name, then your society will know violence, division and captivity--the road to Babylon. Which pretty much sounds like the rest of the story of Israel. Reap what you sow might be another way to say it. Live by the sword, die by the sword is yet another. Or, karma.

I personally have no interest in following a god that calls for the death of innocent children. You can dance around it all you want, I've heard plenty of explanations, from they were possessed babies so had to die, to they weren't human babies, to well, it didn't really happen... So people were warned and didn't move out of their homes, their farms? Thye didn't want to drag their families as refugees, poverty stricken and starving? Gosh, that certainly deserves a death sentence, don't you think? They didn't obey so the men of God had to kill them, even the small children and babies. Slaughter for God. It is just not athiests who don't swallow that reasoning, there are Christians also. You stand ,sky4it, is not the universal Christian stand on this Bible account. Just one of those bug a boos that bite when it has to be an inerrant Bible. Couldn't possibly be war like men making themselves look good for history--"God told us too, so it was good." Perhaps that record is in the Bible for another reason--to show that greedy armies, drunk on power and violence, can do horrible deeds in the name of their God.

Cman, it would help if you would reference the actual questions that bothered you, or speak specifically of the issues that are troubling to you. Since I have not followed what is apparantly a long history of posting between you and the athiests of GSC I have no idea what you are talking about, other than you are not happy with either George or /and others on this thread. I might add that this thread was started as a dialogue for better understanding, I thought. Since many of the posters on it are new to this thread/doctrinal etc, I for one do not know why you are annoyed and it seemed out of place on a thread that seemed to progress beyond barbs and animosity for many.

Cman, sounds more like grumpiness aimed at Geo than a contribution to this thread. As far as I can see, several folks on this thread have seen that Person A's proof of truth does not necessarily translate to Person B as proof of the same truth--even though Person A's doctrine says it will, Therefore Person B has to be dishonest or 'off' in some way..will people ever get over the idea that their truth is universal for all humankind? Very discouraging in a discussion such as this.

Quote, johnj: So if a person's personal system of morals allows cruelty, for example, no one can call it wrong. So if a person's DOCTRINAl system of morals allows cruelty, for example, no one can call it wrong. Same diff, as far as I can see. Isn't that what much of the posts in About the Way deal with? In both cases, those outside the system-- society-- can call things wrong. They can even pass laws about activities.

In TWI we were taught so often that those outside the True Household were spiritually suspect/possessed etc. Heck, even those in offshoots who believed nearly every point of doctrine with us were so off we couldn't fellowship with them. If we did happen to have contact with a gay person, or a Roman Catholic etc, we might witness to them, but if they didn't want our doctrine, they were out of our lives. Even family, often. Even if we had only ever seen them do good, they would be spiritually dirty because they were not 'us.' In our minds we attributed evil to them, even if they had done none. I suspect a similar doctrinal viewpoint of 'not us' might play into all the attributions of immorality etc laid at the athiest's door. Somehow or other, some religious can't seem to separate themselves out without declaring others as evil. Yet if you live life getting to know a wide variety of people, not just the 'like us' ones, you find that there are good people in all walks of life. And those of us from the TWI daze probably have actual experience with the angry bullies who threw Bible verses at people to cut them down, not build them up, and know that a born again, speaks in tongues label might not mean a good guy.