Mike

Oftentimes a doctrine would appear in the written or taped teachings, and then in later years the TVT versions of that doctrine will have become distorted. I think this happened with feelings. We were given some good advice about not letting feelings run our doctrinal lives, and then it was later distorted and expanded in the later TVTs. I think we should ALWAYS check the record in matters like this, and not rely on 40 year old memories that are saturated with negative feelings for some.

I think you are merging two different teachings from two different teachers here.

Well, if it was part of the TVTs, we could still learn from it's origins that are in the record. Even early SNS tapes could help. I do remember thinking too many ministry people had the "can't trust feelings" popping up in their speech a little too much for my liking back then. At the time I understood it to be the strict cultural German attitudes that surrounded New Knoxville. I remember quite well having to stifle feelings of fear about not believing Jesus is God. I knew where these false feelings came from, and I didn't let them influence my searching the Word on who Jesus really is. I stifled my feelings in this one area of determining right doctrine. But feelings in general seemed fine to me as part of life.

I could be wrong about this, but my impression is that it was ONLY in the area of rightly dividing the Word that our feelings should be ignored, because they too often were heavily based on wrong doctrine. As far as feelings and knowing OURSELVES, this does not ring accurate to me. I have not yet searched out all the places in the record where this was taught. I would like to see the context material in the record where he taught this. My impressions are that in doing a check-up from the neck-up I'd want to consider my feelings to see it if is Christ's feelings behind my feelings that I am feeling. We should OBVIOUSLY trust revelation from God if He uses feelings in the way He communicates something. Jesus trusted his feelings that virtue had flowed out of him to heal the woman who touched the hem of his garment.

I think he was saying: I do not think we have already had [the fulfillment of] this [prophecy in Revelation 21:4 mentioning pain ending,] with me sometimes experiencing pain with my physical body.

No, it's not that way. I'm happy with all the tools I learned in PFAL, and all the things that VPW found, and all the things I've found with the tools. The best community would be one where everyone appreciated and worked those tools. I am patiently waiting for that, and trying to make it happen (again) as much as possible. Meanwhile, emotionally and socially, I am not Jones-ing for community at all. I have an abundance of that; far more than I ever had in my life. It's with the Grateful Dead community.

You sensed that right. I do long for the family. It was a wonderfully functioning family at one time, and it will be again when we see Christ. I liked reading M. Scott Peck. Thanks for the tip.

No, I paid that to again experience the 3 weeks of synchronized thought of a group of believers. All of my reviewing of the class was solo for the past 35+ years. That minds could synchronize that way was a common occurrence before 1986 for me, and I missed it. It was worth more than $100. It also give me an inroad to help them with better classes in the future.

What I did in 1986 was wait, and I gave the Board of Trustees 2 years to "splain" themselves, all the Geer hoopla, Schoenheit Paper, and stuff. I watched the Way Mag and SNS tapes diligently for any clues or announcements, but there was nothing. The BOT left us non-Corps to struggle alone with the rumor mills, and the unfortunate facts. After 2 years of abandonment I got a quickie Mexican divorce, and took the kids with me... the PFAL videos that is. But I left with thankfulness for the past, and an eye to when they would calm down at HQ.

Thank you, socks. I miss your presence here, and am glad to see you check in some.

Memory degradation is what I fight. "Forget not all His benefits" is a command we should learn from and implement in our lives systematically. If we don't obey it, then all the memory of His benefits will erode. Circumstances and false evidence, discouraging evidence pile up all the time, and at the same time the memory of all the benefits of God erodes unless refreshed. All the original reasons to believe can be slowly forgotten if the natural memory degradation is not fought.

Maybe we can discuss this a little more on the new thread Twinky set up.

Read with understanding... that is.

Please take the time to read my latest post here, and you'll see that in this thread I am tracking with Twinky's vote on the Greatest Secret being love, except I am voting it the second greatest secret. My vote, as I mentioned earlier, is that the greatest secret is exactly as PFAL taught us. Then I gave an example of why I vote this way. It appears to me that it was MY EXAMPLE (Bible interpreting self) that Twinky started that new thread for me to continue discussing my offered example. I may take her up on that, but I'm in no rush. There's hardly any more I can say on it, other than that the short paragraph I already gave here in this thread. I'll wait and see what others say on that other thread, and that may give me more ideas. Meanwhile, as I mentioned above, this love angle Twinky brought up is CERTAINLY a great secret to most people, and it is a rich angle, as I tried to indicate, starting with John's First Epistle. Even the idiom of permission gets involved in there, as well as the revelation that the god that controls this world is the devil, temporarily.

Twinky, my vote for second greatest secret is the whole topic of love that you mentioned. That topic includes (in my categorization) the big question of why a loving God seems to be running an evil world. God being all love and no hate, not yin and yang, all light and no darkness at all is a major revelation in 1 John, and the terms light and dark are defined there. Another part of this Number Two Secret is that God loves me, you, the Samaritans, the opposite political party members, and all body&soul sinners.

I think this is a close second. It's like the NEW revelation at the beginning of John's First Epistle, that God is light and light ONLY. This is a huge secret still today. Related to this, when I was heavily witnessing on the streets and trains of NYC in the 1970s, the BIGGEST QUESTION people had was why is there so much suffering and evil in the world that God created. This is very related to your vote, Twinky, that they just don't get it that God is love in spite of the world being the opposite.

The Bible, as the revealed word and will of God, is always DECLINING, moving away from what we were taught with an unchecked evolution of thought, in both individuals and institutions. I've seen this evolution from time to time, both in myself over the past 5 decades, and here in some posters in the past 2 decades. I fight it off the best I can, but find myself fighting it off over and over. Here is one example of this evolving road down here at GSC: the recent belief that the Bible does not interpret itself that has grown up here in some in fairly recent years. This is a very equivalent to the belief that the Bible is of un-coordinated origins, and lacking authority in lives today. It's not the work of an accurate God, nor an authoritative God who is powerfully in charge. It follows that the Bible is not the revealed Word and will of God in this thinking path.

How so? Was ti the Table of Contents?

I did not pick up anything cynical. Your comments are very understandable, seeing the confusion that has developed around free will for about a thousand years. Free will was over spiritualized long ago, and that notion seeped into the Western collective consciousness. The more carefully classical free will is looked at, the more it shows itself to be a man-made ball of confusion. I think we ALL start serious thinking about free will with cynical perspectives, because it made so very little sense to us all our lives.

My pleasure, ma'am.

Eve considered some bunk info and paid dearly for it, but she also had access to God to ask and didn't. We don't have that advantage, and often we see through a glass darkly, so we need to do some considering and investigations. In the AC we were taught 16 keys and one of them was that "what we can know by the 5 senses God expects us to know." We were taught in a few different places that "complaining to management" is a proper route to go. In the foundational class we were taught that the good servant Ananias initially objected to God's command to heal Paul's blindness. We were also taught that the angels were curious about the mystery gap between the Lord's sufferings and glory, and that they looked into it. In a controlled cult, like the Way Corps became, any extra thinking is discouraged.

Actually, one of the things I discovered while working my little free will theory is that too much freedom could be a bad thing. One of the good things about a good habit is that it is hard to lose. It can hang in there for us and nag at us to perform it like an obedient robot. The parameters that bind us in good ways and in bad ways are the brain's synapse connections and their strengths. These synapses are plastic and can change with our efforts, if those efforts are smart enough and strong enough. In austere and dangerous circumstances, however, slow and careful free will decisions are usually not called for, and emergency responses (all very robotic) must kick in sometimes, saving our lives. The whole purpose of free will is to make it possible for us to respond to the Word even when our synapses are dead set against it. This takes just the right words and usually some repetition. I see free will as a special case of advanced, self-directed learning. It is what makes it possible for us to learn a new response or a new habit. When free will is seen as a LEARNING MECHANISM then the question of why we have free will is answered: it's so we can make better decisions NEXT time by learning from our mistakes and persisting to try to get it better. I see free will being depicted in this following song. It seems to depict both the robotic and the ability of going further, steering toward the better. The wheel here represents determinism, and is like a giant grain grinding machine, that cranks out most of life. The "try harder" is the emergence of free will in spite of the robot wheel's dictates. Notice the reference to God in there. "The Wheel" Songwriters: Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, Bill Kreutzmann The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down. You can’t let go and you can’t hold on. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still. If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will. Won’t you try just a little bit harder? Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Won’t you try just a little bit harder? Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong. Little bit harder, just a little bit more. A little bit further than you gone before. The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down. You can’t let go and you can’t hold on. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still. If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will. Small wheel turn by the fire and rod. Big wheel turn by the grace of God. Every time that wheel turn ‘round bound to cover just a little more ground. The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down You can’t let go and you can’t hold on You can’t go back and you can’t stand still If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzawDpF72eg

Neurophilosophy can be read at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/neurophilosophyt0000chur

That "Conscience" is an excellent book! And I saw that Amazon has used copies of Neurophilosophy for under $10

Was that a free will "Mmmph" or by accident?