Mike

Mark, I want to repeat a challenge I made to you above.

I had written to Mark Clarke: "How many times have I brought up the issue of looking at ALL the instances of a topic in PFAL before any analysis can be performed? How many times have you ignored this caveat? The answer is ALL of them. Should I re-post them? Then waysider responded with: waysider, Let's test your understanding of this. I'll give you an "open book" test. 1. What did I leave out of that recent paragraph to Mark (for purposes of brevity), that I did include in similar earlier assertions? 2. How would you check all the "book and magazine form" of that TOPIC of genealogy? 3. Notice I said topic of genealogy and NOT simply the "word" genealogy. Sometimes the same topic appears in a section under a slightly or radically different wording. How would you find all the TOPICAL instances? You just said that it "should be fairly simple," so give me the method and timetable by which you would do all this after you answer questions 1, 2, and 3. Hint: Question #3 is a trick question. I'll tell you why later, after you fail this test.

Mark, you don't get my complaint. You saw my post but you didn't digest it. You didn't assimilate it. Then weeks later you posted this question to me: If you had properly read my post weeks earlier you wouldn’t have asked me that question. My complaint is that with my posts AND with PFAL you don’t read to understand, digest, and assimilate. You simply read with the intent to tear down. You don’t even understand what you are trying to tear down because you haven’t invested the time to understand it. I see you doing this over and over with me. How many times have I brought up the issue of looking at ALL the instances of a topic in PFAL before any analysis can be performed? How many times have you ignored this caveat? The answer is ALL of them. Should I re-post them? Should I show you EVEN MORE instances of this lack of reading my posts to the end of understanding them? There’s a fresh one, just posted last night ready for exposure. My complaint is that you are not taking the time to read my posts and understand them. I suggest you go back and read the last month’s worth of my posting. Only then can you discuss things with me in a thoughtful manner. I want you to quit this shallow pot-shot taking at whatever paragraphs of mine look tempting to you, while you ignore crucial passages that undercut your criticisms. You need to go back and read the “only rule” passages from the film class I have posed in the “snow” thread to understand why it is you have, AT BEST, multiple rules for faith and practice. Read all my recent posts on this topic and you stand a chance in understanding what an single RULE is and why you do not have one. Right now you obviously don’t. ******* No, I have quoted in his teachings where he CLAIMED that PFAL is God-breathed. I did not offer these quoted claims as proof that PFAL is true. I DID offer these quoted claims as proof that grads had forgotten the he made such claims.

It's not my idea. Paul talks about Christ formed within in Gal. 4:19 Dr talked about this a bit in RHST. Whenever you hear the phrase "the mind of Christ" that's the same thing as Christ formed within. The natural man mind cannot know nor please God. The things of God are foolishness to the natural man mind. It can believe the Word in a natural selfish capacity only, but the deep spiritual things are not understood and are even rejected, even though pneuma hagion is present. Pneuma hagion does not affect the mind. So, getting Christ formed within, or getting the mind of Christ, means a successful casting off of the old natural man's mind, and acquiring via God's grace and His Word, a NEW man. This is the purpose of PFAL, to build within the mind of Christ. Christ formed within is Christ in you THE GLORY, whereas pneuma hagion is only the token, the hope of glory to come. It came.

Here's a better appraoch: Q. How do you know God exists? A. He walks with me and He talks with me. We work together in life.

No.

I agree with this. I said so above, as well as many times in past weeks and years. As I said before, I do not try to prove PFAL correct, I assume it. I then work with PFAL to enlighten my life. The only thing I try to prove here is that many crucial portions of PFAL were not understood or were forgotten by most people posting here as well as by all grads. *** I said this most recently in Post #48 above responding to potato, who had written "I was sort of wondering (and forgive me if you've ever posted this in discussion) if Mike's system as proof of a system resembles what Godel's theorems describe."

Hi geisha, Well, you certainly handled that graciously! Had I been you I’d have been a bit insulted by that kind of “warning” from Steve. He does that periodically like it’s his duty to protect the supposedly helpless. It comes from two posters complaining about me 5 years ago who were very frustrated with being unable to break me in PMs. Of course, the dozens of posters with whom I have since had friendly PM disagreements are totally ignored in his warnings. Even the two that complained went on later to more friendly PMs with me after their initial fuming, but this is also ignored by him. It’s a sad commentary that I have to endure such breakdowns in civility. Thank you for verifying that my current belief is nothing new. The interesting thing is that the path you NOW walk is quite familiar to ME. I had plenty of the same thoughts that are expressed here at GreaseSpot during the years 1985 to ’98, as well as some in even earlier years. Many of those thoughts were kicked off by a personal visit to San Diego by DWBH in 1987. The meeting he conducted was like a live version of GreaseSpot. Then ten later annual visits by John Lynn maintained the momentum of that verbal thought that is common here now typed out. I simply came BACK to believing in PFAL’s Godly inspiration by carefully noting the written version. I noticed you cited being very familiar with the spoken version, as we all have. It was a close study of the written material that re-won my heart in 1998, having discovered that it was far richer than my earlier, more casual examinations had revealed. We should talk again sometime. Maybe if Steve were willing to chaperone we could do it in PMs. Agape, Mike PS - On the matter with SIT not being counterfeitable by Satan - my impression focuses on how SIT is proof TO THE INDIVIDUAL HIMSELF doing the SIT, and not so much to others. That was the context. We were being assured that we’d get the right thing and not something diabolical nor useless.

Well at least I'm right about everyone trying to get me to feel paranoid. And what is that word "actual" doing in there? If you remove it what is different in your sentence's meaning? Actually, I actually was actually just actually wondering, actually. ******* Hi Mark, I was wondering if you saw my answer in Posts #36 and #37 to this question in THIS thread? It seems you missed my answer weeks ago on the “snow” thread Post #159, even though you chimed in with your Post #160. I don’t think you are understanding or reading my posts. What’s the problem? I have other examples of things that I post just zinging right by you. I still maintain you have no idea what an ONLY rule for faith and practice is, having offered a multiple non-rule in place of one. Can you at least get this one down so we can move on to the others? I gave you four answers to your question, now what’s your response?

I'd say not. I've never tried to prove PFAL in a logical way. Remember how we were taught that the Ford can't derive Henry? I wouldn't want to be guilty of bunk deriving. I think we can all drink to that. For me, PFAL being of God enters in at the POSTULATE level in my thinking. I assume it, and then I build from there. In discussions on elements of issues I try to use as much logic as is possible, but the big issue of what to take as a rule for faith and practice has to be of God's grace. It's a gift, not something sought and found, derived, or proved.

Well slap my self-referential bottom, I too am a Gödel /Hofstadter/ Penrose fan!!! In fact I'm reading one of Penrose's latest books right now. The group of brain scientists I hung out with all through the 90's dissected all three authors, being anti-fans of same, at least in regards to Gödel and/or Quantum contributing anything to cognitive science. It humbled me, having spent several prior decades investing in the Gödel and Quantum connections to the mind, because I now think the brain scientists are right, but I still like the topic. Another gem is Rudy Rucker's “Infinity and the Mind” for a great Gödel plus treatment. Small world, isn’t it!

So, Steve, you really want me to waste my time on you too?

Hello SNL Church Lady. That's a lovely dress you're wearing.

geisha, On the "only rule" thread Mark just asked me a question and I answered it. However I had already addressed the same issue on the "snow" thread and in MUCH detail. He had totally overlooked that previous answer. I'm telling you this to demonstrate how much he is wasting my time by not paying attention to what I post.

Hi Mark, I found the place where I answered your question. I really wish you'd pay better attention to what I post instead of your little gotcha game. In Post #159 on the "snow" thread I posted the following:

The answer to your question is this: he taught us those keys that he and God used on the ancient scriptures so that we could apply the same keys to PFAL. I posted this a few weeks ago, along with a few other reasons for him teaching us those keys. Why don't you remember them? Do you want me to find them and show you what you totally ignored?

Hi geisha, It's nice to talk with you. With Mark I have also talked but he seems unable to hear me. Did you notice how I mentioned the time element with him several times? He just doesn't seem to get it that his detailed challenges to me are not high priorities on my already full schedule. I don't want to deal with someone who has already showed me that he will not fully digest what I show him. With every point I make he simply runs off to another sub-topic. Let me give you an example. In my post to you the following paragraph was included: “With those same apparent inconsistencies a believing scholar has an entirely different approach. For one thing, he’s not at all satisfied with halting the process like his unbelieving counterpart. Remember how Dr explained all this in the class? He told us that sometimes a believing researcher will keep a problem like this on his desk for 15 years before the solution is found. He also showed us how all the instances of the topic must be considered, not just that one area with the apparent inconsistency. He also showed us how all the key words in the apparent inconsistency must be defined by their biblical usage not their secular usage. Look at all the extra time the Bible believing scholar must put into the matter compared to the unbelieving scholar.” I was making an analogy in the above paragraph. Substitute PFAL for biblical to get the message I was conveying. Following the analogy I had made there, this would indicate that in order to discuss these apparent errors in PFAL, all the instances in PFAL would need to be on the table. Also, it would be crucial to look at how certain words were define within PFAL, and not in the common usage. Of course he read this, even though it was addressed to you, and he quoted part of the same post in another thread soon after I posted. The portion that I just bold fonted above was not the first time I mentioned these two ideas. I had mentioned it a few days prior, AND a few days before that, AND several more times in previous years here. Yet, not one iota of evidence was posted that he has any inclination to check all other instances of his current challenges in the PFAL canon. For instance, he completely ignored the idea of checking with the internal definition of Dr’s use of the words“thoroughly” and “throughly” and wants to play with external dictionaries. I’ve also noted that there’s been no attempt to search all the other instances of this idea within PFAL. He thoroughly discards what I posted, and I suspect in this case too, it’s because he doesn’t understand what was taught in PFAL. Do you remember how we were taught that God would teach the prophets in THEIR vocabulary? Why hasn’t this come up in his analysis instead of dictionary definitions? You see, geisha, I have been round and round on this very issue with others here. I’ve thoroughly discussed thoroughly with other posters here, and what I had to say was totally ignored. It still may be in the GreaseSpot archives. He can look there. I’m not only low on time, but I’m also bored with the prospect of again trying to teach something to someone who is dead set on remaining ignorant. It’s been nice talking to you this way. BTW, your PM mailbox is full, and that prevents you from receiving PMs from anyone on the board.

I can accept this. I thought my declining was more forceful, but I guess I was trying to be polite. I've already offered much on my methods and perspectives on the other thread(s). I still have one or two posts of yours I want to get to as time permits, but it is scarce right now. I'll answer when I can and in the other threads. As for getting into apparent PFAL errors and the details, I've been pretty thorough in explaining why I refuse to take the "quickie approach with maximum content distrust" that is prevalent here in this thread. By analogy, it reminds me of trying to mix astronomy with astrology, with you guys on the astrology end. You insist on a totally different approach. *** I'll try one more time to explain this, even though this has come up in posts to other people very recently. Let me illustrate by way of another analogy. Instead of looking closely at PFAL lets see how the Bible, the ancient scriptures can be looked at closely, Surely you know that if the ancient scriptures are approached by a competent scholar who is a complete unbeliever, many initially apparent inconsistencies can be uncovered with little motivation and/or wherewithal to untangle them. He is content with halting his "research" when a juicy apparent inconsistency is found. He then turns his attention to promotional techniques. Said scholar is very content at this point with “proving the Bible wrong” and can make it sound very convincing to his like minded peers. With those same apparent inconsistencies a believing scholar has an entirely different approach. For one thing, he’s not at all satisfied with halting the process like his unbelieving counterpart. Remember how Dr explained all this in the class? He told us that sometimes a believing researcher will keep a problem like this on his desk for 15 years before the solution is found. He also showed us how all the instances of the topic must be considered, not just that one area with the apparent inconsistency. He also showed us how all the key words in the apparent inconsistency must be defined by their biblical usage not their secular usage. Look at all the extra time the Bible believing scholar must put into the matter compared to the unbelieving scholar. Apply this analogy to your thread with you in the role of the unbelieving (in PFAL) scholar. *** Does this now make sense why I will not play your game by your rules? I'm not trying to prove PFAL to myself or anyone else, and I'm certainly not going to try and defend PFAL to those who only want to tear it apart. I AM trying to WORK WITHIN the PFAL material having already accepted it. This is do privately and with willing participants. On the threads here I am most interested in proving to grads that they do not know the material, hence most of their complaints against it should be held off and and a new look warranted. I think with the subject of "only rule for faith and practice." AS IT WAS DEFINED IN PFAL, it has been shown that you did not understand Dr's teaching on that subject. In my delayed responses to your posts I will get into this more. I think there are many more topics you didn't get right. I suggest you try learning the subject before you criticize it.

Hi geisha779, It’s nice to meet you, even here, where I feel a breech in etiquette and civility is underway, and by the same folks who decry the same treatment when it happens to them or their friends. I felt your post deserved a response. You convinced me that you weren’t playing the “gotcha” game that the others so blatantly are. I’ll explain a little. I declined an invitation to this thread and gave two reasons: time and method. I disagree with the entire method of investigation here in this topic, and I don’t have time to keep up with it. Many people want to talk to me because I have a very controversial stand. It’s also the case that many want to take pot shots at me (like Steve Loretz just did) and many want to waste my time. Some people even like to post ugly pictures, supposedly of me, and call me ugly names. It’s worse than Jr. High at times dealing with these low lifers. So I find that these demands on me, for legitimate discussion AND for idiotic emotional schoolyard play AND for pointy headed theological bs, are great and taxing. Six years ago I had more time and got quite involved in these things, trying to accommodate all and any comers in discussion. I found myself sometimes simultaneously discussing things on six or seven threads. Even though I had the time back then, I didn’t have the brain cells or the patience to deal with such a complex set of interactions. I learned to scale back in both the number of threads I allowed myself to become engaged in, as well as the types of topics I engaged in. When Mark invited me here I declined, yet he went right ahead and acted as if I were brought into the discussion. This is rude. When casual people read this thread it can look to them that I am losing the debate, having no comeback for the challenges posed to me as if I am here and engaged. More thorough readers of this website have taken note that when I get hot on a topic, I can pin back the ears of anyone here. I know my topics well, and I have lots of surprises up my sleeve. I simply choose not to engage here on this thread, and for the reasons I stated on the “snow” thread. So, Mark and others can have their little discussion about me alone here. Steve Lortz knows what a formidable opponent I am and timidly chooses to not engage me where I do put my pen. Instead he distorts my message behind my back to make himself look like he’s a grand overseer. I see the same tactic underway on Raf’s thread with a similar title and similar methodology in the About the Way forum, where I am a ghost debater of posters who can’t face me in the flesh. They want me to play THEIR game of methodology so they can win and feel good about themselves. I say “Nuts to them.” They can’t play my game and I wont play theirs. I think they do want to use the Bible as a weapon, and they are playing a gotcha game to the max. They are not interested in seeing a new perspective. I continually offer then one and they continually stomp on all that I say, overlooking many fine points. That’s why I’m not engaging here. *** As for your questions, geisha779, I’d be happy to discuss any of this, even supposed PFAL errors, in the PM system or on the threads where I feel I should invest my time and heart. One of the main things I do here is remind grads of things they either missed or forgot. This is a massive topic, with many details. It seems we all only received a tiny fraction of what was offered to us in PFAL and got heavily sidetracked in a huge number of baloney issues. I count myself in this, and I’ve escaped this fate only because I decided to listen to the advice of an old friend ten years ago, a grad here in SD, and came back to the written teachings to look at them in detail. The issue that surprised you, that I would think of PFAL as the Word of God, was not at all a surprising issue in the early 70’s. I don’t know when you first took the class, but in those days we grads were all hip to the idea that churchianity and all its standard ideas and even it’s scriptures were riddled with error and distortions. We all, in those early days, thought that God had provided a sure way out of that thicket of error, and it was through His revelations to an ordinary, non-saint type of a man like us who was teaching us. The closing of the Rock of Ages 1972 was in this vein, that God had chosen to re-enlighten the world with His Word and that He chose NOT the goodie-goodies to do it with, but “downers and outers like you and me.” Those were the words of VPW near the end of that Rock. Any grad from that time who now thinks that it’s an outrage that Dr had sin in his life has a very bad memory problem or was living in their own private universe back then. We ALL knew it back then, as well as we knew that we had sin. I’d have NEVER taken the class if my hippie friends had told me it was taught by some kind of modern saint. They endorsed Dr to me by saying he was real, so I gave him a chance. He turned me onto the God who can love any sinner. That God should give His Word in all it’s fullness to a sinner and to sinners is a GREAT way to stuff it to the devil and his accusatory nature. It also flushes out all the religious bigots and pointy headed over-intellectual theologians making them very easy to identify and not get mixed up with. I invite you to look at what God did in those collaterals again. It’s refreshing to the uttermost. You’ll see the real Jesus in there, and you’ll see Christ in you. Praise God for His goodness to sinful and His ability to cleanse.

Bolshevik seems intent on reinventing the flat tire.

I didn't address you. It was addressed to Mark. I quoted you, but spoke of you in the third person. Mark is the one conducting this kangaroo court. And he did it in a way that violates net etiquette.

It was Payne Ohio.

The timing was significant to VPW. It's short duration was also attention getting to him. I never said nobody else saw it, only that it didn't get reported by the Weather Service.

I may have made a mistake. The post I referred to may not be on this thread, but on the one that spawned this thread. That earlier thread is titled “Was VPW an Advanced Class Grad” and can be found here http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...t=0&start=0 In Post #12 of that thread I reminded readers that weather reports would not very well catch a small rogue snow storm, especially in days of scant communication technology compared to today's. Such storms can be only a few blocks in size, and last only a few minutes, and then melt in a few minutes and never be reported. On that spawning thread I posted a copy of a very old post that Lifted Up placed here. Here it is again, since it fits so much into this thread’s topic. posted Jan 1 2003 Post #159 Lifted Up Rafael wrote... "It didn't snow. The weather reports from that day in that region prove it did not snow that day." What weather reports? I have been staying out of this for some reasons, but I can't help being curious about that statement. Just from a weather reporting point of view, a snow shower such as that in question would be unlikely to show up (or proof that it didn't happen) in any old weather reports, unless the point in question is precisely at an observing and reporting point for weather data. General conditions...the high and low temperature for that given day and whether or not there was precipitation...at even a very a nearby point...just will not tell you either way. I experienced a very brief and local but intense snow shower one day back in 1979 when I was running near HQ. One minute it was not snowing, the next minute the snow was almost blinding, and fell hard enough to whiten the ground; five minutes later it was gone. Just a couple miles away, it evidently did not snow at all. I have actually seen that kind of thing a number of times; most noteably in the mountains of central PA, but here it was happening in fairly flat country. The same idea of extreme local weather variations happens in warm weather. I sometimes have a fun time explaining to insurance people, or their clients, that I cannot tell them for sure that there was or was not a storm causing damaging winds at their precise location, because we had no reports either way at the particular time and date they are interested in. (It is easy to be out in the boonies around where I live and work). Sometimes of course I can tell them for sure there was nothing around...of course these calls are not for weather from sixty years ago, either. Of course, if there were evidence that the temperature was close to, say eighty degrees at the time in question, then the occurrence of a snow shower at that time might be deemed implausible...just like the creation of a dry area across the red Sea by a strong east wind.