Mister P-Mosh

Here is something of an answer, although it directly answers none of your questions. This is also a G**k thing, as in the computer industry it is against the rules to give direct answers.

In comparing Rocky to Hitler, you have invoked Godwin's Law, so this conversation has been killed. You should know better than that.

You should check out the other thread I started on this topic in order to avoid derailing this one. I have quotes by some of the people you mentioned that show they did not support a Christian nation, but rather one with freedom of religion, or a distaste for Christianity.

I knew people on welfare in TWI, and I wouldn't doubt that there were bad parents there who would have their kids eating from the garbage. While I wouldn't blame TWI for that, it could technically be true. As far as the stockpiling thing goes, I know of individuals that did and still do that kind of thing, believing that the government is going to fight them and whatnot. That also is an individual thing, since TWI draws in the insane as well as it does anyone else. Also, I read about where people were saying VPW was trying to get people to stockpile weapons and train for an invasion by communists or something like that, but I don't remember the details.

The Guardian has a pretty funny cartoon about this topic.

If I were in charge of this site, I would do things a little differently, but I don't know if pawtucket has really done anything wrong with how he's handled it, if he has more information than I do. As far as restricting people from forums and such, I probably would have temporarily banned quite a few people, including the majority that post to the political forums, myself included. As far as the Rocky Vs. QamiQazi thing goes, I'm not sure what is up with that. I do think that Rocky deserves at least a warning, if not a temporary ban for two or three comments made over time. However, I would have disabled the QQ account altogether, which may have happened as I haven't seen him around for a while. My point of view is that it's ok to have someone around that discusses things normally and attacks once in a while in the heat of the moment. It's another to have someone who can't discuss something without turning it into an argument or finding ways to make other people mad. That's just a troll. Rocky isn't a troll, and he can provide some pretty good conversation, but he's been a bit angry as of late for various reasons. When I get too angry, I try to leave the threads alone that I would be mad about, and if that doesn't work, I take a break from the site. In Rocky's specific case, I think that if I were him I'd leave and start my own TWI related site. I've thought about it anyway, because I'd like to leave no topic taboo, not protect people's names, and allow profanity. I'd also probably change the focus from being TWI specific to cults in general and make the different forums for different cults. Still, all of that is no slight against pawtucket, just that I would do some things differently. I do think that Rocky has a point, but I think it's more of a result of pawtucket not being public with his enforcement of the rules. I can understand why Rocky would be frustrated though, especially now after his thread is moved to a forum he can't see.

I'm not sure that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation to begin with. Sure, there were colonies of Puritans here, but there were deists, atheists, etc. within the founding fathers of the country. I think that's why they tried to come up with a way to "agree to disagree" and let people hold onto their own beliefs and keep the government and religion seperated. Most of the Christian stuff in the government (such as adding the words "under God" to the pledge of allegiance) were done fairly recently. From what I can see, the Christian aspect of our country came about as a result of the cold war, where people wanted to differentiate themselves against the Communists. There's always been a majority that support Christianity here, but for the most part it doesn't sound like it played that big of a role in deciding laws until the past century.

Thanks for taking a non-angry approach. I'll do the same. I can understand the belief and how strong it is. However, it sounds almost like Christianity may not be compatible with Democracy, at least on issues like this. The problem at heart is not just the belief about homosexuality, but the evangelical nature of certain sects of Christianity that require the adherents to shape society to fit their version of Christianity, without considering the rights of others. I think that this is the inherent problem plus the source of all of the conflict. I agree with you there. I'm of the opinion that your right to extend your hand ends where my face begins (that's an overgeneralization, because if someone put their hand even two inches from my face I will knock it away.) I do respect Christianity and it's adherents except in cases like this when Christians try to force other individuals to conform to their beliefs. One of the great things about our form of government is the concept of individual freedom is sacred, and people are mostly allowed to do what they want as long as it poses no threat to others. That way Christians can live how they wish, gay people can live how they wish, etc. I think that Christians see gay marriage as homosexuals forcing everyone else to approve of their lifestyle, while gay people view the Christians as trying to force their religion on everyone else. From my standpoint, it's best to go towards the side of freedom rather than restriction, and I don't see how there is any real concrete evidence, legal or ancedotal, that would prove that homosexual marriage would have an effect on straight marriages or Christianity. It may just be from the TWI teachings, but it seems to me like Christians either can go with a Fred Phelps (his church protested at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, telling his mom that her son was burning in Hell, etc) and do everything you can to rid the nation of homosexuality, or you can take a more tolerant "love the sinner but hate the sin" approach where you let them do what they want as long as it doesn't affect you, but you don't have to approve of it. I think we agree that Christianity is against homosexuality as the bible clearly states, but I don't see how it can allow people to oppose gay marriage so strongly but not want to kill all the gay people at the same time. That could just be the TWI teachings, as I said before.

It's really easy to see how bigoted some of the people are around here. I mean seriously, first it's "DOWN WITH GAYS!" and next it could be "KILL THE N***ERS!" or who knows what other ridiculous things. Why do so many Americans, particularly Christians, want to force others to comform to their beliefs? I mean, I can understand if it's something like affirmative action or the sex education in schools. What I can't understand is how allowing private individuals to do something that only affects them causes such hatred and bitterness. Nobody owns the definition of the word "marriage" yet we all do as individuals as far as what it means to us. You have the right to refuse to refer to gay couples as married, just as they should have the right to refer to themselves as married. I think that most of the right-wing people are projecting their own faults onto the homosexual community. It's not the gays that are causing the downfall of society. It's hatred, fear, blaming others, and superstition. There are far more divorced heterosexual people than there are gay people, so why not start rallying against divorce instead? They are the ones having kids and breaking up their homes which can sometimes ruin the kids' lives.

We could make our own commercial, and I would gladly donate money to it as others around here would, but even then it would be extremely expensive, moreso than anyone here can afford. If you want to expose them, the easiest way is to get them on the news.

This thread inspires all sorts of childish thoughts and things to say, but I won't do it!

I believe the argument about the potential for an anti-semetic backlash is that the supposed anti-semites are going to think: "Hey, those damn Jews killed Jesus, the Jewish messiah! Those Jews are evil, including Jesus. That's why I am a Christian!" Anyone with at least half a brain can't be Christian and an anti-semite at the same time. However, there are a few people out there that will be stupid no matter what. The Jewish kid that claimed he was adopted and became a skinhead comes to mind.

I'm not a Christian, but I still intend on seeing it as I think it would be very interesting. You're probably right about kids though, as the previews do make it look rather gory.

I won't click the yellow button, but I will say bite me. He fell down, possibly due to heart problems, possibly not. However, he did have a history of heart disease, and he was 75 pounds overweight. I do agree that fluids can build up and cause swelling, but 75 pounds of water within a two week period sounds like a bit too much. Maybe he was only 50 pounds overweight before. Who knows? I wasn't addressing anyone directly. In fact, I do believe that it is easy to lose weight on the Atkins diet. However, there are a lot of health risks in that diet that anyone with google can easily find. Even if some of the potential risks of the Atkins diet are remotely possible but not likely, it's enough that I wouldn't want to do it. As far as what I do on the political forum, I think you are confusing me with other people. I may not be the most friendly guy in the place, but I can usually back up what I say with mainstream news sources and I am willing to do so as long as it's not just someone trying to get me to do all of the work for them. For example, I've seen the report of Atkins' death, and noted that it lists myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and hypertension. These are pretty serious, and whether or not the heart attack caused Dr. Atkins to fall and hurt himself, one has to wonder what else was wrong. Also, there is a brief comparison between the Atkins and other fad diets that should make it easier for people. If you look at the section for Atkins of "Who should avoid this diet?" it lists: So basically, you cut out women which is over 50% of the population. Then, you cut out those who are at risk of heart disease, of which around 40% of people who die in the U.S. do so as a result of heart disease. I couldn't find any statistics on how many people might be thought of as being "at risk" but I would imagine a good majority. Then you're left with those that have kidney problems or diabetes, which is a pretty big number as well, and finally, athletes. That sounds to me like the Atkins diet is not really good for anyone. I do think that people can be on it for short periods of time and not have many problems, but people who stay on it for long periods of time are going to harm their bodies. Of course, it's not just me. There are a number of doctors that have problems with the Atkins diet too. That site lists problems such as: I am not telling people to not use the Atkins diet if they want, there's no reason for anyone to be offended by me saying how bad it is. It's a diet, not a religion, and there are flaws with it just like there are with anything else we eat. Some people decide that heart disease is acceptable to be thin. Others decide that getting cut up and having the fat scraped and pulled out of them via a liposuction is also a good solution. Neither are "natural" approaches that provide the body with just the right nutrients and calories. The Atkins diet is superior to eating french fries and krispy kreme doughnuts all day, but it is not some great thing that helps everyone. Those who go on it should be aware of the risks, and make their own decisions. I just don't like that people are all so happy about it, and are unaware of the risks. I'd hate to see all of the people on it complaining about it ten years from now because they didn't have all of the facts and thought that the Atkins diet was endorsed by science, while they are dying from heart disease and other problems.

That's probably the most important thing that most people need drilled into their heads. I think that most of us (myself included) are too lazy and we think that we are too busy to spend 30 minutes in a gym or exercising somewhere. My wife does pilates and they seem to be helping out quite a bit. She has the videos but has stopped using the videos and just does it on her own for 30 minutes every weekday. That's helped her out quite a bit. We also go to the gym sometimes, and on the weekend we go walk around places a lot. Even a trip to the mall can be exercise, although a park is best.

The Atkins diet is dangerous for many reasons, but I won't get into that here. I'll just say that if you value your colon, kidneys, heart, etc. then you won't go on this fad diet. The founder died of a heart attack after all, while weighing 250 pounds or so. Anyway I prefer my diet. It's the "eat stuff that makes sense" diet. I've named it other things too but this is what it is right now. Basically, I eat less meat, although when I do it's seafood or chicken. I don't eat fried things most of the time, don't drink much other than water and fruit juice. I eat whole grain bread rather than white bread. I eat vegetables when I can. When I go out to eat, I don't finish everything on my plate unless I am still very hungry, and I eat slow just in case. As far as I can tell, if your breakfast is a bowl of cereal and some type of fruit juice, your lunch is a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with sun chips with a glass of water, and your supper is chicken with mole on rice or potatoes with fruit juice to drink, you're going to lose weight. My wife is a big fan of Weight Watchers, and they seem to have the most sensible balanced diet as far as I can tell. I do eat some of their desserts that she buys at the groceries. In particular, they make an ok brownie with chocolate sauce and fat free cheesecake. The Weight Watcher idea is basically to lower sugars and fat, while raising fiber, while working on a certain amount of calories.

Anyone who runs a web server can get the IP addresses of who connects. This could allow them to know what ISP you use, and in some cases a general physical location (such as a city or state.) However, they can NOT determine who you are if you go to their site. They will only know that someone looked at it, what their IP address is, and what time they went. There's no way to track things back specifically to Greasespotters, unless pawtucket decided to allow them access to his logs, which I'm sure he would never do without a search warrant from the cops. One other thing though, is that they could see what sites link to them. If you link to it from here, the referrer would show up to them as gscafe.com. They could write a script to block people from here by linking to them from this site, but I doubt anyone in TWI is technical enough to think of doing it. Plus, it helps their google ratings if other sites link to them, so they wouldn't want to block this site.

What sort of guitar did you get, Zixar? Brand name and model would also be welcome.

Idiot son of a... is the name of the song. It's funny but not exactly mature.

Actually, South Park is the show that I was going to put here. I agree with most of the political stuff they say on the show, and I think they usually use absurd situations to deal with social issues. Of course, as they clearly warn at the beginning and between commercials, it's rated MA-17 or something like that, which means that parents shouldn't be allowing their kids to watch the show. I wouldn't let a kid under 13 watch The Simpsons either I would think. It's slightly off-topic so I don't want to start a debate about it, but it amazes me that parents seem to think that cartoons are for kids just because they are drawn rather than using real actors. Shows like The Simpsons and South Park were never intended to be for children. I think we both agree here. When we moved, I decided against even getting a satellite dish or cable for now. We get the local news channels which is pretty much all I need, and the wife gets her Spanish language channels (actually, there are more over the air for free than we could pay for with either satellite or cable) and if there is anything special we want, all we have to do is download it from someone else that has a ReplayTV. My wife is getting to see "Sex in the City" this way, all for the cost of a DSL connection.

I have heard this as well, but one has to wonder as to the root cause of this. Does being homosexual lead one to all of these problems, or are they a result of society's negative reaction to homosexuality and they end up dealing with it the wrong way? It's also a fact that a much higher percentage of black people are addicted to smoking crack than the percentage of white people. Is this because there is inherently something wrong with being black, or is there something wrong culturally or with something else that causes this?

If you watch it again, look for TWI books in the commercial. I will have to watch again before I can notice it, but they seem to hide the complete titles. I forget if it was "Jesus Christ Is Not God" or the "Promised Seed" or another book, but that one was very blatantly hidden, except for the "Jesus Christ" part.

I had suspected such things happened, but I didn't see or know of any myself. It's horrible that people had to go through some of those things and I bet the same TWI leaders who were complicit with covering up for abuse are the same ones who have mocked the Catholic church for using the exact same strategies.

I saw it mentioned on another thread and I was curious about incidents that anyone might be aware of. What I am curious about is not so much of people in TWI abusing their own children, but whether or not TWI leadership would have been aware of it going on and never addressed it. Alternatively, there could be cases of TWI leadership abusing children but I never heard about it. I have seen parents get too crazy with "the rod of correction" (aka the wooden spoon) but not doing things that put their kids in the hospital or raping them. Are there any situations where this definitely happened?