Raf

Here's the deal: The article we wrote was a rebuttal. It was kind of pointless without the teaching set that was being rebutted, so it's rather unfair in that regard. For example, WW quoted a line earlier, "had God foreknown- or forced or tracked or whatever you'd like to put as the word there..." Our rebuttal is nonsense without the original quote. I do not think our paper has much value without the teaching series it is rebutting. Then again, it's been well over 20 years since I've even seen it.

Not UNCLE. And I don't think that's where the man was from. I was actually quite surprised to learn where he was from. Then again, that was the point.

I don't.

Can we all agree that this topic, however it started, has become almost entirely doctrinal since TLC's act of necromancy? I mean, you can almost make the case it belongs in the European forum, but About the Way? not seeing it.

I resent the characterization of our work as "easy." It was exhausting. That said, on its own terms, Geer's thesis was preposterous. On its own terms. On philosophical terms -- that's another matter entirely.

"Let's get out of here." "My date's not going to like that much. But what the hell, his wife will be delighted."

"Tom is the one who saw you at Susan's. He's known about you all along, isn't that right? We do know what that means. If Commander Farrell is the man who was with Miss Atwell, then Commander Farrell is the man who killed Miss Atwell. And we know that the man who killed Miss Atwell is Yuri. Therefore, Commander Farrell IS Yuri, quod erat demonstrandum."

Wonder Woman

Rude. Look, if you're not open to exploring what other people think, that's fine. No one's forcing you. But the namecalling is juvenile. You believe a man born of a virgin walked on water and then took a 3-day nap for our sins because God couldn't just say "I forgive you" without slaughtering him first. Personally, I now find that "wacky" and I'm embarrassed I ever believed it. Had the concept been introduced to me as an adult, I would have laughed as hard as you laugh at Scientology or the Book of Mormon. But I respect the fact that others disagree with me and I'm even, occasionally, willing to explore what the Bible teaches on its own terms. This forum is for people who are trying to process their exits from The Way International. We're open to people who DON'T want to exit, though we would probably find that "wacky." What we don't do here, generally speaking, is consider ourselves above each other's company. But if you're too good for us, by all means, the exit fee is three times the entrance fee. Don't forget to tip your servers. And the door is always open if you want to come back.

Pretend I'm posting as a moderator for a moment here: That's nice. We urge all posters to keep their comments focused on people's arguments, not on the people making them. If the starter of this thread has lost all credibility with you, that says NOTHING about the validity of his or your argument. I'm sure he has his feelings about you, too, based on your dismissal of his position. So what? If you don't like what he said, challenge his argument. And be ready to have your argument challenged right back.

I am not aware of VF being "exclusionary" or "elitist" in the sense of his group being the only group that gets saved. I would say that is inconsistent with the character of the man whose teachings I followed throughout most of the 1990s. It's been ages, so that could have changed. I would be surprised as a matter of character, but not as a matter of potential.

I don't know about the rambling...

I actually like the "So that's who she was" ending of Flash more than the actual resolution of the Thinker/Devoe storyline. But what I really liked about this season was that they had SO much more fun than last year.

None of this addresses that "Jesus" said one thing about salvation, Paul implied quite another and the writer of Hebrews a third. These people just flat out didn't agree with each other, and it's not because they were talking about changes in administrations or audiences. The distinction is in the writers, not the audience. The writers of the gospels did not agree with Paul. The Occam's razor approach to this adequately addresses the issue without creating an unnecessary framework of different audiences. "Can you lose your salvation." This is a yes or no question. "Depends on who 'you' are" is an interesting approach, but it's only necessary because different writers provided (what appear to be) different answers to a fairly straightforward question. Shall we call it an impasse? Take the last word...

I meant Black Lightning, not Black Panther.

Just one? Not half? ;)

I'm going to have to catch LoT on Netflix, because every episode just seemed odder and odder, and that Tickle Me Gizmo Marshmallow Man moment was nauseating. I gave up trying to keep up with Arrow. I'm only missing the finale on Flash (aired last night here).

"The conditions for salvation appear to be different at certain times..." This is really a roundabout way of saying "the contradictions are so glaring that the only way to resolve them is to assert that they are not talking to or about the same people." Paul and Hebrews are talking about the same people. Jesus was talking about the same people they were talking about. You really need to design a Rube-Goldberg contraption out of the scripture to get them to pretend to be addressing different things. Again, my opinion.

No longer being a believer rids me of the need to find the "correct doctrine" on "once saved, always saved" (or "incorruptible seed," if one were to insist). I don't think the Bible's authors agreed on the matter, to be honest. It's only when one posits that there was "one author, but many writers" that the need for a coherent, consistent, correct doctrine becomes necessary. My advice to you would be, follow the doctrine that inspires you to do the most and greatest good. If you are worried about losing your salvation, don't do anything that would jeopardize it. If you are confident that you're a son of God and nothing, nowhere, nohow can separate you from the love of Christ, then act like it. Don't be a p-grabbing, lying, misogynistic racist boob just because the threat of hell no longer applies to you. Can a Christian lose salvation? That's for Christians to answer. No matter where you land on that question, there are scriptures to support your view and scriptures that conflict with it. I would think that if God preserves His will in His Word, the fact of such contradictions makes it obvious that it is not a vital concern to Him. And that makes sense. Why would God even WANT to reassure those who, like me, decided to chuck it all because it no longer made sense? I'm not listening to Him anymore! What reassurance does he have for me? "Its okay, you're still my son. I won't send you to hell!" That might reassure you guys about me, if you believe in incorruptible seed. Or you think I'm going to hell, if you don't believe in once saved, always saved. But to ME, the threat of hell is on par with the threat of a lump of coal in my stocking on Christmas morn. So from YOUR perspective, I think God is far more concerned with encouraging people to keep on believing and praying and being a part of the One Body, and not at all concerned with letting believers know they have an out if they want to rebel.

From Another STFI split I know that Vince Finnegan reached the same conclusion [that salvation could be lost] after I dropped out of his offshoot in the late 1990s. It seems to me that the Apostle Paul would not warn about using grace as a license to sin if he felt losing your salvation was a possibility. It does appear, obviously, that VPW and TWI did use grace as a license to sin in practice, and to a lesser extent in doctrine. I think many sincere Christians believe salvation cannot be lost, and many other sincere Christians believe it can. That this should be the case with TWI and its offshoots should come as no surprise. Personally (and I'm going slightly off-topic and into doctrinal/questioning faith territory here) I think it's because the New Testament writers were not in agreement with each other. The gospel writers quote Jesus saying he who endures to the end will be saved. Paul at the very least implies once-saved-always-saved. Whoever wrote Hebrews seems to think that salvation can be obtained once and lost once but never regained. Dispensationalism can smooth over the differences between Jesus and Paul, but (to quote Spock) it takes a feat of "linguistic legerdemain" to make the writer of Hebrews say salvation cannot be lost. My opinion NEW MATERIAL NOW: Not exactly new. More of a recap. When you open your mind to the likelihood that the New Testament writers were in frequent, passionate disagreement with each other, a lot of doctrinal questions get resolved right away. There was no single answer to "what did the first century church believe." They argued as much as we do. The insistence that there is one correct answer is what leads to arguments. But it requires each side to ignore passages that obviously prove them wrong. .

I did not, but I know that Vince Finnegan reached the same conclusion after I dropped out of his offshoot in the late 1990s. It seems to me that the Apostle Paul would not warn about using grace as a license to sin if he felt losing your salvation was a possibility. It does appear, obviously, that VPW and TWI did use grace as a license to sin in practice, and to a lesser extent in doctrine. I think many sincere Christians believe salvation cannot be lost, and many other sincere Christians believe it can. That this should be the case with TWI and its offshoots should come as no surprise. Personally (and I'm going slightly off-topic and into doctrinal/questioning faith territory here) I think it's because the New Testament writers were not in agreement with each other. The gospel writers quote Jesus saying he who endures to the end will be saved. Paul at the very least implies once-saved-always-saved. Whoever wrote Hebrews seems to think that salvation can be obtained once and lost once but never regained. Dispensationalism can smooth over the differences between Jesus and Paul, but (to quote Spock) it takes a feat of "linguistic legerdemain" to make the writer of Hebrews say salvation cannot be lost. My opinion.

By your definitions, T-Bone, I agree. I no longer believe in the supernatural (as most commonly defined). And kudos to you for recognizing our approach to so-called "faith." I do recognize that different people define faith differently, so definitions are needed there too. Everybody has "faith," if you define faith the way some of us did. Everybody believes something. But there's an enormous difference between believing the sun will "rise" tomorrow and believing that this has only been happening for thousands of years. Believing the sun will rise is evidence-based. Believing it has only been happening for thousands of years (as opposed to a few billion) is contrary to evidence and requires a belief that an alternative explanation that defies evidence is correct. Define evidence. And away we go! ... But when you define faith as "believing something despite there being 'no proof,'" it gives us one less thing to argue about. Atheism is not a religion because it does not entail belief in the supernatural. Humanism is a worldview and philosophy, not a religion. But if we were to switch gears and talk about these same words as defined by government, I would switch gears and argue that humanism IS a religion. Not that it entails a belief in the supernatural, but that it is entitled to the same protections and privileges as religion when it comes to government recognition. If you're not allowed to deny me a job based on my religious beliefs, but you are allowed to deny me a job based on my being an atheist, that is a violation of my rights. Not because atheism is a religion, but because as far as government is concerned, atheism and humanism should be entitled to the same protections. Government should not be allowed to say "Atheism is not a religion and is therefore atheists are not entitled to freedom from persecution or discrimination." And lest you think that's a trivial argument: not really. Multiple states have constitutional provisions depriving atheists of the right to hold elected office. Those provisions are illegal and unenforceable, but that has not always been the case. They are only unenforceable because atheists stood up for their rights and won.

I am not going to object to going off topic on this thread, seeing as the conversation flowed rather naturally and the topic itself is so narrow that staying on it too strictly would be dull. Explore away.

The truth is, there are a LOT of good questions here. How do you define atheism? How do you define religion? How do you define god? All need answers.

That's not what a logical fallacy is. You're thinking of a conundrum -- in order to prove there's life after death, one would have to die. But once you have died, you can't come back to report your results. A logical fallacy is when you draw a conclusion from premises using a methodology that is flawed. "You can't prove there's no life after death, so it's just as likely to be true as false." This is a logical fallacy. Propositions do not have 50-50 probabilities. So you can make an evidence-based argument that one probability is, in fact, much higher than the other.