It?s been 22 years since my moped adventures past Big Sur, so even my accurate memories would probably not help you much.
Yes, I?ve learned many things here. The reconsidering I?ve done about Dr?s material is that I see it even BIGGER than I did before. Challenges here have forced me to study areas unfamiliar to me, and the result has been a greater respect for how God effectively got through to Dr.
I was quite stunned when Pirate listed all the people I?ve had a chance to talk to here. The depth of challenges I?ve seen has been awesome to me. If I hadn?t seen the TVT-PFAL split, there?s no way I could have conversed with all these people and their objections. Many people have many valid objections to the way things turned out, and by seeing that it was this ugly TVT that did us the harm, while PFAL did us all good, then things can get untangled.
I think there?s going to be a lot of happy people when this dichotomy is understood better. Without bringing attention to their name, one poster has credited my information with helping to sort out the good from the bad in the past. I think that more are going to be able to have such happy reports. Even more, joy will be the result as we come back to PFAL and really get to know it.
An Associated Press article by Kenji Hall appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune today that mirrors the George Harrison affair that this reporter broke for the GS audience just days ago. It turns out Bob Dylan may have lifted some lines from a Japanese writer. (developing)
Shaz, I do the same thing! It's a great little melody..."He's so-o fine"..."My sweet Lord..."
:)-->
I think we agree, no free passes or coupons for being good or prolific or selling lots of units.
Obeying the laws of the land seems reasonable and downra-ht biblical. Jesus did, He paid taxes didn't he? Really, I'd think that one bennie of being the Messiah would be you wouldn't have to pay taxes, but He did. Just goes to show ya, I guess.
Shaz you've inspired me to drag out that old chestnut topic I like to pick on and give it a whack, and that's the selling of "God's Word" for money, IE personal gain.
I think that the laws of ownership, copyrighting, licensing and all that good stuff pointedly apply to the writings under discussion becuz they were written, printed, published and made available in the marketplace. Sold for money, both as part of the registration fee/donation for the class(es) and through the Way Bookstore, or any other outlet that would carry them.
Is that a bad thing? Let's say for a second no, not on face value. Peopel write books, they're published, they get sold. So what's the beef?
The beef is that if and when we choose to function within the public marketplace, we have an obligation to observe and obey the laws that govern it. Maybe they're not fair or even right...so we could go about trying to change them, make new ones, better ones.
But what's so bad about footnoting sections and saying "these x paragraphs have been used with permission by the author as they appeared in the book "ABC", or whatever the case may be. If you thought it represented the best way to express something, you could just ask the author for permission to use it and if you were granted it, you could use it. Course that opens a whole nother can o' worms I bet. ;)-->
Otherwise...we should not do it. It just seems like basic honesty - and even more so when you're dealing with a topic like the bible as taught in PFAL where the core message is the INTEGRITY of the Word.
VP decided to write, publish, print and sell his writings. By doing so, he was obligated to observe the laws and regs that govern such an enterprise.
Whaddya think, Mike? Was every i dotted and t crossed? Given the estimated intelligence of VP, doesn't it seem like a somewhat more circumspect and expansive approach to his publishing enterprise through the Christian American Press would have been fair, honest, and the right thing to do?
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
Though THINGS were sold for money in the bookstore, the Word, and inspired teaching of the Word was not sold. I see the bookstore situation as how things had to be stewarded in the 5-senses realm and in the legal realm. Though this minor activity that looks like marketplace affectivity involves some small amounts of money, the heart of Dr?s activities was the teaching of God?s children.
The bookstore money is totally insignificant when the greatest revelations since the first century were taking place. Dr?s putting God?s Word into written form, in our English language, is of such spectacular significance, that it totally eclipses the minor activities involving how the books were distributed.
Ok Ginger, we can get into the situation about the mother. My time is out tonight, but soon we can. Mj412 wants to get into that one too. I'll type up what's in the book in the next day or so.
Mj412, I'm not sure I yet understand the other questions you just asked. I have to go back and re-read the questions, and then re-read the book. This may take a little time.
I know this isn't the lionshare of what's been discussed in regards to this topic, but to my mind's eye, it's extremely important.
Again, if the instrument of executing legal business was the bookstore, what was in that bookstore needs to pass muster. I'm just amazed as I look back from this vantage point, years later, at how Mssr. Weirwille handled his writing.
It's indicative of what was going on in his mind and how he was applying biblical concepts to practical, everyday matters.
Years ago I had kind of an awakening. I'd heard someone teaching from the bible, a Way guy and he was going on about how getting "spiritually angry" was okay, that sometimes we needed to "stop patting people on the back all the time and pat a couple feet lower". I think he was paraphrasing something VP said. Anyway, I began to look at the records in the gospels, as to how Jesus conducted Himself.
The only records of Him "losing His temper" if you will, are in the ones where He tossed the money changers out of the temple. That's the only time he "raised His hand" against anyone, so to speak. The way the records lay out there's a strong possibility He did this twice in fact, not just once. His complaint - turning His Father's House, a house of prayer, in to a a "den of thieves".
Jesus didn't like it. He felt it degraded the House of God.
No one was stealing really - they were selling offerings to people coming to pray at the temple, exchanging currency, etc. etc. and doing it right there where you couldn't pass by the temple or go in without having to deal with all this hustling bustling commerce. (Isn't it ironic that just inside the main entrance of the "old" BRC, there was the bookstore, where people would line up to buy whatever gee gaws were out that month? Just an observation, nothing heavy, but some nights you couldn't get in that way for the backup. The first thing you went by from the south side was the bookstore)
We're the "House of God", the temple, the body of Christ.
Brothers and sisters selling the "truth of God's wonderful matcheless Word" will never wash clean for me. Ever. Been there, done that.
Anyway, thanks for discussing this. I really don't have much more to say on it, but I thought I'd post this much anyway, as food for thought.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
If you're gonna say that God fulfills positive believing, and the devil fulfills the negative, stop hinting about it and just say so.
PFAL taught that "in order to receive any thing from God," you had to know what was available, how to receive, what to do with it, needs and wants parallel, and know that God's willingness = His ability. In negative believing, you would receive, but not from God. Big whup, Mike.
It still doesn't explain the red drapes analogy, for one thing. Wierwille used that story to illustrate need and want parallel. In later years, it was explained to us that VP meant "parallel to the Word," but the analogy itself sure sounds like Wierwille meant the need should be parallel to the want. I certainly can't come up with a promise of God that would say you can believe for such a thing, and God would have to supply it. Red drapes ain't no need for a woman with no furniture anyway, no matter how you slice it.
Anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that we believe stuff in our hearts all the time, both positive and negative, both promises of God and not, and those things do NOT always come to pass.
quote:If you're gonna say that God fulfills positive believing, and the devil fulfills the negative, stop hinting about it and just say so.
That certainly seems to be Mike's implication. Here's Mike's exact words, with my emphasis.
quote:She didn't apply ANY of God's promises that I know of.
She didn't get her answer from the True God at all!
One may infer that Mike is trying to say she got the results of her believing from the untrue God, or at the least from somewhere OTHER than the true God. In any event, she got the results of her believing, because believing is a law and it's going to get fulfilled whether God does it or not.
If that's your argument, Mike, then I rest my case. The "Law of Believing" is not restricted to the promises of God, because of God doesn't fulfill it, someone else will, BY YOUR VERY OWN ARGUMENT.
HMMADD.
Mike, millions of people are afraid of countless diseases, yet do not manifest them. Why not? If the law of believing is truly a "law," then they MUST manifest those diseases. Is God changing the laws of the universe so frequently?
quote:Though THINGS were sold for money in the bookstore, the Word, and inspired teaching of the Word was not sold. I see the bookstore situation as how things had to be stewarded in the 5-senses realm and in the legal realm. Though this minor activity that looks like marketplace affectivity involves some small amounts of money, the heart of Dr?s activities was the teaching of God?s children.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HA!
Mike, if you are correct, then we were only paying for the cost of production of the books and the magazines, etc. That would put the costs FAR BELOW what we were paying (ask the Jehovah's Witnesses, who really do attempt to charge only "production costs." Their materials are loads less expensive than TWI's.
Oh, and let's not forget the classes themselves. The registration fee (oh, pardon me, "donation," snicker snicker) was greater than the cost of the books, and did NOT go to the terrific vegetable plates, which were donated by the believers, not The Ministry.
Man, could you imagine an American History course as taught by Mike?
An Associated Press article by Kenji Hall appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune today that mirrors the George Harrison affair that this reporter broke for the GS audience just days ago. It turns out Bob Dylan may have lifted some lines from a Japanese writer. (developing)
File this under "distract," folks. It's an interesting discussion that does nothing to disprove Wierwille's plagiarism. All it says is "other people did it too." That's very nice, I know.
While we're at it, let's name a few other people known to have committed plagiarism, just to get it out of the way...
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Alex Haley
Jayson Blair
Joe Biden
Vanilla Ice (musical, not lyrical)
All interesting. All irrelevant. Why? Because no one is claiming that ANY of these people were producing "God-breathed" works.
I've always seen the law of believing as being more powerful on the positive side than the negative.
I've never seen anything to the effect that the fear of a mustard seed will bring results.
The same way we sometimes label our own mental assent or agreement as believing, I think we sometimes see worries and concerns as if they were full blown fears. We were taught in the 70?s that the feeling you get from a speeding car headed in your direction is NOT fear. A shot of adrenaline and high heart rate in such an emergency is normal, natural, and part of God?s design in the human body. I think there was a verse to this effect that goes: ?Be not afraid of sudden fear.?
I think, that in order to align our vocabularies with Dr?s, we need to recognize that the milder mental operations of mental assent, agreement, worry, concern, and sudden fear, are just that: mild precursors to the stronger operations of believing and fear.
When we get to the story of the mother and her little boy, we?ll see which mental operation she had cooking.
The red drapes are interestingly not in the book, and I don?t yet know what to make of that.
Another change going from film class to the book, regarding needs and wants, is that the word ?parallel? was changed to ?in balance.?
As far as receiving something from another source than God, it does seem to be possible, but not as reliable, due to the flaky nature of the adversary. As a student of these matters, and not an expert, I?m learning to not say more than I know.
The most efficient, maximum yield, spiritual use of the law of believing requires a promise of God.
Sure, there are 5-senses applications of all sorts, but they are not as powerful. Having a positive attitude on a job interview is going to help score points.
Have you noticed that you have to re-write the law of believing into a "maybe it will happen and maybe it won't" thesis in order to establish its veracity? That's not what Wierwille wrote, and you know it.
"Having a positive attitude is going to help..." is NOT the "law of believing."
"Whatever you believe for or expect, you get," is the law of believing.
If receiving something from a source other than God is not reliable, then believing is not a law.
[This message was edited by Rafael 1969 on July 12, 2003 at 11:09.]
Wierwille taught "what you believe for or expect, you get."
Not, "what you believe for within God's will..."
Not, "What God promises and you believe..."
Not, "What you believe for or expect you might maybe get if the conditions are right."
I agree with what you're saying. I do not agree that it is a reasonable approximation of what Wierwille taught.
Like I've said before and I'll say again, Wierwille often got "believing" right. But he also got it wrong from time to time. Your reliance on your own words and dismissal of his words (as we've quoted them repeatedly) proves itt.
I?m not dismissing Dr?s words. I?m dismissing the implications you see in them.
From my perspective I?m absorbing Dr?s books exclusively, and daily for 5 years. I?m posting back to you what I?ve been able to ?rightly divide? from Dr?s books. Some of this believing stuff I?ve posted goes back to the 70?s when I first started noticing that some people were slipping into teaching the abbreviated form of the law, and not it?s fuller God based, promise based version.
I read Dr a little differently, some things I take in a figurative sense, while you look at them literally. There are other factors that go into this, but my agreeable-to-you reformulation of this law is as straight from what Dr teaches as I can get it.
The ?iffy? aspect that I acknowledge is due to how ?iffy? our believing can be, and how easily it can actually be only mental assent. Dr acknowledges this ?iffy? aspect when he finally does teach mental assent, later on. But in these earlier sessions of the class he teaches on the NON-iffy aspects of the law and God?s part.
I?m presenting the same message as Dr, only in a different order, and with emphasis or focus slightly rearranged.
The reasons my presentation looks different from Dr?s to you is because of your exposure to the TVT, and the resulting different way you look at the books. My motivation to find something good in the books is different that yours, because I saw a ten year period where it all worked very well. I have a different attitude toward the books, more time in recent years with them, and some exceptionally mature teaching from others on these matters.
As we communicate more on all these matters, more will be untangled.
***
I have another thought as to the difference between believing and mental assent and how believing is of a higher intensity. Look at how long it took Abraham to get his believing together. It was a task for him that took time. Some things are easy to believe for, but it?s when we face challenges to our believing and then still try to do it, THAT?S when we get into the real thing. The things that are easy to believe for now may be difficult later, unless this believing muscle is flexed and exercised like Abraham did.
"Another thought on the intensity requirements for believing or fear, Job said it was what he GREATLY feared that got him."
He DID NOT!!!
He said the thing he greatly feared happened. You act as though because he feared it it happened...that is not what it says!!!
To take a belief and bend scripture around it is not right. To take a verse and give it power is not right. Fear is a survival mechanism built in us to protect us. It is not a metaphysical power used to trip us up.
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Yanagisawa
Did you say "get the ball rolling" or get the kaballa rolling...for it sounds like that's your current freak - some sort of hidden, mystical kaballa-esque gnostic esotericism. I'm fascinated with you
Raf
HMMADD.
Good luck.
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Mike
Hi Ginger Tea,
It?s been 22 years since my moped adventures past Big Sur, so even my accurate memories would probably not help you much.
Yes, I?ve learned many things here. The reconsidering I?ve done about Dr?s material is that I see it even BIGGER than I did before. Challenges here have forced me to study areas unfamiliar to me, and the result has been a greater respect for how God effectively got through to Dr.
I was quite stunned when Pirate listed all the people I?ve had a chance to talk to here. The depth of challenges I?ve seen has been awesome to me. If I hadn?t seen the TVT-PFAL split, there?s no way I could have conversed with all these people and their objections. Many people have many valid objections to the way things turned out, and by seeing that it was this ugly TVT that did us the harm, while PFAL did us all good, then things can get untangled.
I think there?s going to be a lot of happy people when this dichotomy is understood better. Without bringing attention to their name, one poster has credited my information with helping to sort out the good from the bad in the past. I think that more are going to be able to have such happy reports. Even more, joy will be the result as we come back to PFAL and really get to know it.
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Mike
Mike Drudge, reporter.
San Diego, CA
July 11, 2003
An Associated Press article by Kenji Hall appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune today that mirrors the George Harrison affair that this reporter broke for the GS audience just days ago. It turns out Bob Dylan may have lifted some lines from a Japanese writer. (developing)
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socks
Shaz, I do the same thing! It's a great little melody..."He's so-o fine"..."My sweet Lord..."
I think we agree, no free passes or coupons for being good or prolific or selling lots of units.
Obeying the laws of the land seems reasonable and downra-ht biblical. Jesus did, He paid taxes didn't he? Really, I'd think that one bennie of being the Messiah would be you wouldn't have to pay taxes, but He did. Just goes to show ya, I guess.
Shaz you've inspired me to drag out that old chestnut topic I like to pick on and give it a whack, and that's the selling of "God's Word" for money, IE personal gain.
I think that the laws of ownership, copyrighting, licensing and all that good stuff pointedly apply to the writings under discussion becuz they were written, printed, published and made available in the marketplace. Sold for money, both as part of the registration fee/donation for the class(es) and through the Way Bookstore, or any other outlet that would carry them.
Is that a bad thing? Let's say for a second no, not on face value. Peopel write books, they're published, they get sold. So what's the beef?
The beef is that if and when we choose to function within the public marketplace, we have an obligation to observe and obey the laws that govern it. Maybe they're not fair or even right...so we could go about trying to change them, make new ones, better ones.
But what's so bad about footnoting sections and saying "these x paragraphs have been used with permission by the author as they appeared in the book "ABC", or whatever the case may be. If you thought it represented the best way to express something, you could just ask the author for permission to use it and if you were granted it, you could use it. Course that opens a whole nother can o' worms I bet.
;)-->
Otherwise...we should not do it. It just seems like basic honesty - and even more so when you're dealing with a topic like the bible as taught in PFAL where the core message is the INTEGRITY of the Word.
VP decided to write, publish, print and sell his writings. By doing so, he was obligated to observe the laws and regs that govern such an enterprise.
Whaddya think, Mike? Was every i dotted and t crossed? Given the estimated intelligence of VP, doesn't it seem like a somewhat more circumspect and expansive approach to his publishing enterprise through the Christian American Press would have been fair, honest, and the right thing to do?
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
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Mike
mj412,
You brought up a good point about the mother and her little boy in PFAL.
Does anyone out there with a PFAL book want to handle this one? Something plain can be seen by re-reading the text that cannont be seen from memory.
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mj412
so what promise of God did the mom who killed her boy use???
chapter and verse please .
stop ignoring and pretending it never came up now.
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Mike
socks,
I disagree on one point.
Though THINGS were sold for money in the bookstore, the Word, and inspired teaching of the Word was not sold. I see the bookstore situation as how things had to be stewarded in the 5-senses realm and in the legal realm. Though this minor activity that looks like marketplace affectivity involves some small amounts of money, the heart of Dr?s activities was the teaching of God?s children.
The bookstore money is totally insignificant when the greatest revelations since the first century were taking place. Dr?s putting God?s Word into written form, in our English language, is of such spectacular significance, that it totally eclipses the minor activities involving how the books were distributed.
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Mike
mj412,
She didn't apply ANY of God's promises that I know of.
She didn't get her answer from the True God at all!
Reading the book has the key. Do you have the book?
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mj412
you edited out.
wow you are desperate.
what about whenYOU SAY a sinner accidently believes something from God huh ?
what about Rafs point and the lesson of vpw saying we need to know god willingness to recieve it hmm?
Saint and sinner is what he said.
do you have a copy of a book?
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Mike
Ok Ginger, we can get into the situation about the mother. My time is out tonight, but soon we can. Mj412 wants to get into that one too. I'll type up what's in the book in the next day or so.
Mj412, I'm not sure I yet understand the other questions you just asked. I have to go back and re-read the questions, and then re-read the book. This may take a little time.
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socks
Miguel, that one point is a big point, methinks!
I know this isn't the lionshare of what's been discussed in regards to this topic, but to my mind's eye, it's extremely important.
Again, if the instrument of executing legal business was the bookstore, what was in that bookstore needs to pass muster. I'm just amazed as I look back from this vantage point, years later, at how Mssr. Weirwille handled his writing.
It's indicative of what was going on in his mind and how he was applying biblical concepts to practical, everyday matters.
Years ago I had kind of an awakening. I'd heard someone teaching from the bible, a Way guy and he was going on about how getting "spiritually angry" was okay, that sometimes we needed to "stop patting people on the back all the time and pat a couple feet lower". I think he was paraphrasing something VP said. Anyway, I began to look at the records in the gospels, as to how Jesus conducted Himself.
The only records of Him "losing His temper" if you will, are in the ones where He tossed the money changers out of the temple. That's the only time he "raised His hand" against anyone, so to speak. The way the records lay out there's a strong possibility He did this twice in fact, not just once. His complaint - turning His Father's House, a house of prayer, in to a a "den of thieves".
Jesus didn't like it. He felt it degraded the House of God.
No one was stealing really - they were selling offerings to people coming to pray at the temple, exchanging currency, etc. etc. and doing it right there where you couldn't pass by the temple or go in without having to deal with all this hustling bustling commerce. (Isn't it ironic that just inside the main entrance of the "old" BRC, there was the bookstore, where people would line up to buy whatever gee gaws were out that month? Just an observation, nothing heavy, but some nights you couldn't get in that way for the backup. The first thing you went by from the south side was the bookstore)
We're the "House of God", the temple, the body of Christ.
Brothers and sisters selling the "truth of God's wonderful matcheless Word" will never wash clean for me. Ever. Been there, done that.
Anyway, thanks for discussing this. I really don't have much more to say on it, but I thought I'd post this much anyway, as food for thought.
'when you're in love, there's no time and no space. there's a permanent smile on your face...
and hey somewhere, you threw your fear in the sea of no cares...'
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shazdancer
Mike,
If you're gonna say that God fulfills positive believing, and the devil fulfills the negative, stop hinting about it and just say so.
PFAL taught that "in order to receive any thing from God," you had to know what was available, how to receive, what to do with it, needs and wants parallel, and know that God's willingness = His ability. In negative believing, you would receive, but not from God. Big whup, Mike.
It still doesn't explain the red drapes analogy, for one thing. Wierwille used that story to illustrate need and want parallel. In later years, it was explained to us that VP meant "parallel to the Word," but the analogy itself sure sounds like Wierwille meant the need should be parallel to the want. I certainly can't come up with a promise of God that would say you can believe for such a thing, and God would have to supply it. Red drapes ain't no need for a woman with no furniture anyway, no matter how you slice it.
Now the negative believing side of Wierwille's teaching is also flawed. The "what killed that little boy" analogy is in the PFAL book, as well as the class, if memory serves. I could go with a BIG stretch that the mother was so fearful for her child that she always took responsibility for him, never taught him how to cross the street, and so the one day he goes by himself the devil takes advantage of his naiveté and kills him. That fits with the other analogy of the fearful driver who hadn't hit anything yet, but the fear of having a traffic accident was keeping him from his business. But that is not what Wierwille said. He said that "God would have to change the laws of the universe" to keep people from realizing their negative believing.
Anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that we believe stuff in our hearts all the time, both positive and negative, both promises of God and not, and those things do NOT always come to pass.
Shaz
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Raf
That certainly seems to be Mike's implication. Here's Mike's exact words, with my emphasis.
One may infer that Mike is trying to say she got the results of her believing from the untrue God, or at the least from somewhere OTHER than the true God. In any event, she got the results of her believing, because believing is a law and it's going to get fulfilled whether God does it or not.
If that's your argument, Mike, then I rest my case. The "Law of Believing" is not restricted to the promises of God, because of God doesn't fulfill it, someone else will, BY YOUR VERY OWN ARGUMENT.
HMMADD.
Mike, millions of people are afraid of countless diseases, yet do not manifest them. Why not? If the law of believing is truly a "law," then they MUST manifest those diseases. Is God changing the laws of the universe so frequently?
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Raf
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HA!
Mike, if you are correct, then we were only paying for the cost of production of the books and the magazines, etc. That would put the costs FAR BELOW what we were paying (ask the Jehovah's Witnesses, who really do attempt to charge only "production costs." Their materials are loads less expensive than TWI's.
Oh, and let's not forget the classes themselves. The registration fee (oh, pardon me, "donation," snicker snicker) was greater than the cost of the books, and did NOT go to the terrific vegetable plates, which were donated by the believers, not The Ministry.
Man, could you imagine an American History course as taught by Mike?
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Raf
File this under "distract," folks. It's an interesting discussion that does nothing to disprove Wierwille's plagiarism. All it says is "other people did it too." That's very nice, I know.
While we're at it, let's name a few other people known to have committed plagiarism, just to get it out of the way...
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Alex Haley
Jayson Blair
Joe Biden
Vanilla Ice (musical, not lyrical)
All interesting. All irrelevant. Why? Because no one is claiming that ANY of these people were producing "God-breathed" works.
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Mike
I've always seen the law of believing as being more powerful on the positive side than the negative.
I've never seen anything to the effect that the fear of a mustard seed will bring results.
The same way we sometimes label our own mental assent or agreement as believing, I think we sometimes see worries and concerns as if they were full blown fears. We were taught in the 70?s that the feeling you get from a speeding car headed in your direction is NOT fear. A shot of adrenaline and high heart rate in such an emergency is normal, natural, and part of God?s design in the human body. I think there was a verse to this effect that goes: ?Be not afraid of sudden fear.?
I think, that in order to align our vocabularies with Dr?s, we need to recognize that the milder mental operations of mental assent, agreement, worry, concern, and sudden fear, are just that: mild precursors to the stronger operations of believing and fear.
When we get to the story of the mother and her little boy, we?ll see which mental operation she had cooking.
The red drapes are interestingly not in the book, and I don?t yet know what to make of that.
Another change going from film class to the book, regarding needs and wants, is that the word ?parallel? was changed to ?in balance.?
As far as receiving something from another source than God, it does seem to be possible, but not as reliable, due to the flaky nature of the adversary. As a student of these matters, and not an expert, I?m learning to not say more than I know.
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Mike
The most efficient, maximum yield, spiritual use of the law of believing requires a promise of God.
Sure, there are 5-senses applications of all sorts, but they are not as powerful. Having a positive attitude on a job interview is going to help score points.
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Raf
Have you noticed that you have to re-write the law of believing into a "maybe it will happen and maybe it won't" thesis in order to establish its veracity? That's not what Wierwille wrote, and you know it.
"Having a positive attitude is going to help..." is NOT the "law of believing."
"Whatever you believe for or expect, you get," is the law of believing.
If receiving something from a source other than God is not reliable, then believing is not a law.
[This message was edited by Rafael 1969 on July 12, 2003 at 11:09.]
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Mike
How about this?
It's a law designed BY God to be operated WITH God. Any operation of it outside God is doomed to partial results to counterfeit harmful results.
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Raf
FINE!
But it's still not what Wierwille taught.
Wierwille taught "what you believe for or expect, you get."
Not, "what you believe for within God's will..."
Not, "What God promises and you believe..."
Not, "What you believe for or expect you might maybe get if the conditions are right."
I agree with what you're saying. I do not agree that it is a reasonable approximation of what Wierwille taught.
Like I've said before and I'll say again, Wierwille often got "believing" right. But he also got it wrong from time to time. Your reliance on your own words and dismissal of his words (as we've quoted them repeatedly) proves itt.
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Mike
Rafael,
I?m not dismissing Dr?s words. I?m dismissing the implications you see in them.
From my perspective I?m absorbing Dr?s books exclusively, and daily for 5 years. I?m posting back to you what I?ve been able to ?rightly divide? from Dr?s books. Some of this believing stuff I?ve posted goes back to the 70?s when I first started noticing that some people were slipping into teaching the abbreviated form of the law, and not it?s fuller God based, promise based version.
I read Dr a little differently, some things I take in a figurative sense, while you look at them literally. There are other factors that go into this, but my agreeable-to-you reformulation of this law is as straight from what Dr teaches as I can get it.
The ?iffy? aspect that I acknowledge is due to how ?iffy? our believing can be, and how easily it can actually be only mental assent. Dr acknowledges this ?iffy? aspect when he finally does teach mental assent, later on. But in these earlier sessions of the class he teaches on the NON-iffy aspects of the law and God?s part.
I?m presenting the same message as Dr, only in a different order, and with emphasis or focus slightly rearranged.
The reasons my presentation looks different from Dr?s to you is because of your exposure to the TVT, and the resulting different way you look at the books. My motivation to find something good in the books is different that yours, because I saw a ten year period where it all worked very well. I have a different attitude toward the books, more time in recent years with them, and some exceptionally mature teaching from others on these matters.
As we communicate more on all these matters, more will be untangled.
***
I have another thought as to the difference between believing and mental assent and how believing is of a higher intensity. Look at how long it took Abraham to get his believing together. It was a task for him that took time. Some things are easy to believe for, but it?s when we face challenges to our believing and then still try to do it, THAT?S when we get into the real thing. The things that are easy to believe for now may be difficult later, unless this believing muscle is flexed and exercised like Abraham did.
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Mike
Another thought on the intensity requirements for believing or fear, Job said it was what he GREATLY feared that got him.
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Mike
Has anyone noticed anything about the intensity level of the woman's fear regarding her little boy?
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karmicdebt
"Another thought on the intensity requirements for believing or fear, Job said it was what he GREATLY feared that got him."
He DID NOT!!!
He said the thing he greatly feared happened. You act as though because he feared it it happened...that is not what it says!!!
To take a belief and bend scripture around it is not right. To take a verse and give it power is not right. Fear is a survival mechanism built in us to protect us. It is not a metaphysical power used to trip us up.
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