Raf

You'll know what to do when it gets hold of you, and with a little help from above...

You can call me Al Paul Simon

Ok, take it to the next step. What movie would be represented by two big apples?

Yeah! (and, as you know, I was not commenting on your posts, but posting another quote). But you knew that. :)

I think the topic is whether mastery of PFAL is necessary. I teach a grammar class. For students to pass the class, they need to score at least 75 on a test (over which I have no control). Semester after semester, I see students striving for that 75. They work hard to reach it, and most of them do. Then there are those students who strive for 100. They're usually the ones who get a 90 or better on the test. To me, devoting time to mastering PFAL is like striving for the 75. If you hit it, great. You passed. But the better students are the ones who go beyond the merely acceptable passing grade. PFAL is the flawed work of a flawed man. It has errors, both technical and doctrinal. To the extent that it leads people to an understanding of God in Christ, I rejoice. But I rejoice more when we aim higher. The law of believing is nothing. Faith in God in Christ is everything. Five sonship rights? That's it? What's more important, the number of crosses on the side, or the one in the middle? Which one did we spend more time on? Master PFAL if all you want to get is the 75. Master the Bible if you want to go further.

How could anybody figure that out? It's completely mental!

Nope.

It was just a flesh wound. OH! He hit me right in my profession, which is relevant to this discussion because... yeah, I don't know either. Must be from the Dodge, Distract School of Discourse. What the Hey, I don't know what to say. You are so divorced from reality it's not worth responding. But hey, you're a fun read. By the way, it's SOLELY, not SOLEY. "Soley" is actually ancient estrangelo for "idolatrous sycophant."

I can see why you'd answer that, but no.

"How far up are we?" "If it rains, you'll be the first to know.

I see. Thanks Allan. Sorry if I sounded confrontational. I'd start with questioning the premise that TWI's record of deaths and tragedies was abnormally low. For one thing, the TWI population skewed young and healthy. So, yeah, you'd get fewer incidents of certain illnesses. But fewer accidents? I'd like to see how this comparison was done.

I've really listened hard to all the anti-CG stuff here. I'm so glad I left TWI when I did, so I have a hard time coming to terms with some of the uglier things that have been spoken about him. And I have a hard time thinking that people who followed him out the door (as most of NY did) had anything other than pure motives. Fortunately, I can see very clearly that most of the people I know who left during the Geer expulsion are disconnected from him now, so whether or not leaders' motives were pure, a good chunk of us "followers" learned the lesson of not accepting bunk from leadership just because of their position. Incidentally, I'm not saying I don't believe the uglier things said about Geer. I just have a hard time with it because my memory of him was so positive most of the time.

Or maybe it has something to do with "the power of positive thinking," which is a valuable way to go about life. Or it could have something to do with the fact that the TWI population was and always has been small enough to not constitute a representative sample. In other words, one incident of any of those things in TWI would have a far greater impact on a per-capita count than it would in most other religions, and the absence of one incident of any of those things would have a much greater impact in reverse. TWI was not a microcosm of society. Therefore, the numbers shouldn't reflect a microcosm of society. If we were to conclude that TWI and the Mormons experienced this low incidence (which I certainly do not believe in TWI's case, but let's take the info for granted), and we were to conclude that it is because of their doctrine on tithes and offerings, we would have to conclude that TWI and the Mormons worship the same true God. Is that what you're saying, Allan? I'll give you another example: The retention rate in TWI was and always has been far lower than most other religions/denominations/groups. Is it possible that's because of the tithes and offerings?

:) Actually, what I would be saying is: I find your gullibility amusing.

Un abrazo is a hug.

Notice that he says to master the classes, not just the collaterals that come with them? That means the classes carry the same weight to him as the writings. But we KNOW that the classes are full of crap because Mike himself discounts them as authoritative. Meanwhile Wierwille himself says to master them! There's a word for that. It starts with an H and ends with a yporcrisy. Guess what that spells? myyyyyy precioussssssss.

Batman Begins

There is simply nothing to forgive. It's a great thread to get to the bottom of this. It was either this or search for all those interminable threads. You got the Reader's Digest version. Enjoy it. Oh, and my soul is doing just fine. Thanks for asking. :)

What the Hey: If I'm ever in legal trouble, I want you to be my lawyer. Actually, I want 12 of you on my jury. Especially if I'm actually guilty. Because you don't know up from down, right from wrong, or the dark side from the side the rest of us are on. Mike lies, we point out and document his lies, and you criticize US for it? Wow.

Whether or not I agree with the above statement, it is not what I intended to say. It is, however, a reasonable interpretation of my statement: "VPWs character doesn't disqualify his writings from being God-breathed." So I won't call that a lie or a misinterpretation. It's more poor communication on my part. I clarified what I meant later: It's not VPW's character that disqualifies his writings as God-breathed. It's his writings that do so. He could have been of impeccable character, and his writings would still be disqualified as God-breathed on the merits.

I knew I'd pick the right one to read. :) BullsHit. First of all, when I find an ACTUAL error in PFAL, I don't lose any sleep over it because it has not overturned my foundation for existence. I note it and I move on. When you find an ACTUAL error in PFAL, you dodge, distract and deny, anything but admit that the ACTUAL error is an error. Then you PRETEND to go into your Mike cocoon to seek out the deeper answer. The result: not one of the actual errors has been refuted, answered, disproven by your methodology. As for my comment on Wierwille's character not disqualifying his writings to be God-breathed, perhaps you missed my larger point, which is that you don't HAVE to resort to his mendacious, dishonest, harmful and sinister character to come to that conclusion his work is not God-breathed. The quality of his work speaks for itself: it's not God breathed because it fails to live up to its own standard of what it means to BE God-breathed, thereby disqualifying itself according to PFAL's standards, not according to mine. The TRUTH that PFAL is a flawed work will never seek into your seared conscience, but I will not have you lying about me the way you lie about Wierwille, PFAL, God, Christ and the victims of Wierwille's lechery. By the way, nice lie/misinterpretation of what Garth wrote. But then, why should anyone expect you to represent him correctly when you've already lied about God, Christ, Wierwille, Wierwille's victims, my writings, WordWolf's writings, and even your own? Garth's post: No doubt or ambiguity about the identity of the "seriously deluded" here. Mike's lie about what Garth wrote:

VPW's character doesn't disqualify his writings from being God-breathed. VPW's writings disqualify his writings from being God-breathed.

John, I see that Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather (took a little digging), but I do not see that he knew anything about what had happened prior to Uriah's death. If there's something there, could you point me to it? A little speculation, and maybe Ahithophel did some math, calculating the time between David's marriage to Bathsheba and the birth of Solomon, realizing it was less than nine months. But I don't see anything explicit enough to support "he made sure everybody knew."