I've always been afraid of Polar bears. Seems that up on the ice these bears eat people and anything else that moves as opposed to little black bears that generally shy away from humans.
Probably silly of me having any fear of dangerous animals. If I just had my believing in line I could safely walk through a valley of ,say, Cobra snakes just safely. And while we're at it.. let me drink some of that poisoned Kool-Aid. I've got my believing.. fear is nothing more than sand in the machinery of life is it not? A work of the Devil I tell you. Fear not the Bible sez!!
sudo (thinking even the apostles would be, uh, cautious in our inner cities)
Human beings are preprogrammed with a defence mechanism called "fight or flight".
Fear plays a vital role in helping us decide which of the two is the better option.
Eliminating fear from the selection process is an invitation for failure, not success.
"Doubt leads to worry, worry leads to fear."
It's a clever slogan,no question, but simply jibberish at its core.
It has no scriptural basis that I'm aware of.
Doubt can be a positive thing if it leads to closer examination and a better understanding of the problem at hand. Stifling ones' concept of fear and restricting the practise of reasoning and doubt is an insidious form of mind control. As I have said before(and this is just my opinion) session #7 is an amazing lesson in how mind control and behaviour modification can be used for ulterior motives.
I think being cautious and having forethought is a smart way to live – and believe that is encouraged in the Scriptures.
Proverbs 14:15 NIV
A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.
Proverbs 22:3 NIV
A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
Luke 14:31,32 NIV
31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.
Life can be treacherous at times – and on many endeavors a person would be foolhardy to ignore looking down the road or to assess risks – to consider options, alternative actions, consequences of different actions, etc.
To me the answer depends on how you define fear. If you speak of fear, such as fear in terms of survival. No, fear is not really a bad thing. If you speak of fear as something that takes hold of you, and eats at you emotionally to the point that it might even make you physically sick. Yes - all fear is bad. That is not how we are to be.
Here is the best example that I can give to show the difference.
Most people have a general fear of heights. But they can climb a ladder, go over a bridge, etc. It may be difficult for them but it can be controled.
I on the other hand have an unreasonable fear, of certain types of heights and I literally freeze up and can't move, I panic, get dizzy. It is dibilitating. As an example there is a place in the Kentucky called Natural Bridge, it is a lage natural stone bridge between two small Kentucky mountians, at it narrowest spot it is the equivalant of a little over half a city block. You can hike up to it, along a hard narrow trail, then you are supposed to walk across it and use the cable car to go back down. I went about a quarter of the way across and froze. I was in the middle the width of the span, I really couldn't even see the edges at that point, but I had to stop. I couldn't take another step. Kids were playing all around me. But my wife had to come back and help me to get back to the starting point so that I could work my way down among the onslaught of people coming back up the other way. I was convinced, even though I was a good 30 yards from either edge at that point that I was going to fall off.
To show how really stuipid this fear is, I can climb up a set of metal mesh steps on something like a fire tower with no problem, I can look out over the edge at the landscape as I go up, but once I get in the fire tower, I will cling to the middle, unable to approach the windows to look out.
Keith-----I think what you are describing could be more accurately called a phobia than a fear.
(Yeah,I know phobia kinda means fear but there is a difference.)
Your response takes on a pronounced physical reaction rather than a mental consideration.
When you stand on that bridge, I don't think you really believe you are in danger of falling off the edge. You are having a physical reaction to a stimulus that you obviously know to be misleading.
Phobias are common but that doesn't make them any less real or crippling.
Doubt, on the other hand, is a mental process. To deny doubt is to deny the logical process that the mind naturally is programmed to follow as a method of seperating real danger from perceived danger. To say it is wrong to doubt because it will lead to fear and that the resultant fear will lead to failure is not only untrue, it is inherently cruel and manipulative as well as counter productive in the problem solving process.
There is a type of therapy called "confrontation" that involves exposing a person to their phobia in a controlled and safe environment. If it is your desire to overcome it, perhaps this is for you. On the other hand, you might want to simply accept that this phobia is simply part of what makes you uniquely"you"like the color of your hair or eyes.
An illustration would be for example spiders and me.
Intellectually I know most spiders are relatively harmless to humans. They can be extremely beneficial in a garden. While only a very few of them have venom sufficient to sicken or kill a human, those that do are extremely nasty. They will only bite if they are hungry or threatened. All of them, even South American bird-eating tarantulas, are smaller than me. In the garden, I can generally leave them alone, unless they are camped out in the vicinity of a ripe, red, juicy, tomato. BUT.....
If I am not being logical and observant about them, I can walk into or almost into a spider web and go nuts! I will scream, run around frantically looking for the web's former denizen (whose happy home I have probably destroyed) and once I find it, hopefully not on my person, stomp it to death with great abandon. During this time I am breathing hard, sweating, and having cold chills and nausea. All this in spite of the fact that I know that even if it bites me, it won't kill me.
Paragraph 2 is a phobia.
On the other hand, a pretty normal fear for most people would involve the aforementioned fight or flight situation, i.e. oncoming tornado, snarling dog, etc.
WG (shivering at the thought of those big black and yellow garden spiders!) :unsure:
Just food for thought, and another man's opinion which may or may not be true, and certainly open to close scrutiny as any part of my thoughts and life are..
Please note, all this is from memory, so I may miss something... But one of the words for "fear" in the Hebrew is the word 'yirah.. As all Hebrew words are, they come from root words, which in the most simplist form, each letter has a root, as it used to be more of a pictographic language rather than the Aramaic type Hebrew script we see today..
Nonetheless, yira or yirah has at it's root the word 'ra' which means to see. "Resh" which is the letter R is a picture of a head being raised, thus sight or elevating something are at it's root definition.. The Yod is the picture of the hand, and implies work and action, and Hebrew doesn't have vowels (except for Aleph) so there is no letter 'I'.. And so some say the word originally meant the result from focusing on the work or action taking place. (The letter 'H'ey at the end of a word usually denotes what the name itself kind of implies 'HEY! Look!) Now, if someone pointed a gun at you, your focus on that could produce a pretty noticeable fear. Someone bringing flowers to you, might bring a different reaction. So some say the Hebrew word doesn't actually describe the "emotion" or "reaction" as much as it implies the action you are taking such as focusing on what is taking place, be that a negative or positive thing. Thus the "yira" of God being the beginning of wisdom.. And the admonition not to be "yira" of your enemies...
Fear can be a good thing and bad I think.. God's call to fear not, is usually in response to those focusing on the negative, the work or action that is distracting them from really trusting Him. Instead His call is for us to focus on HIM and what He is doing and promises, which is the beginning of wisdom..
In terms of language development - Phobia - is a new enough term, that I think it is likely that VPW was thinking in these terms when talking about fear, or at least a consuming fear, which is not as disabilitating as what I discribed, but I would still lable as always bad. If I think about the example used in PFAL - about the boy and his mother, I think of the mother as having a consuming fear - Bad. Did that fear kill the boy - I doubt it, but I'm sure it tore the mother apart and made it even harder to deal with the death of the child after it happened.
By the way - Thanks for the idea about overcoming this fear of heights, it is something that I'm working on, and I'm much better than I was 15 years ago when the incident I wrote about took place. I'm now at the point that I think I could make it across the Natural Bridge, but I would still be very nervous about it and most of this has not been from "shock treatment." but by prayer and focus on God in overcoming it. Maybe it's time to take a trip south and try again. To quote..."every day, I'm getting better and better."
We have studied a little bit about the senses in psychology..
One of the newer things they have been putting in textbooks is that we indeed do have a sixth sense. Not ESP.. it's related to hearing and they call it kinesthesis. Apparently it is related with hearing and balance.
It is thought that some people who have extreme fear and panic associated with heights because the "messages" they get via kinesthesis are mixed up. So the fear or panic is not logically unreasonable, as I previously thought.
So the fear is not due to some deep seated emothional problem, or secret sin, or anything like that.
Excellent book: The Gift Of Fear by Gavin De Becker
The man teaches how to use that sense, to listen to our bodies tell us when something is wrong, how to avoid getting into fearful situations in the first place, how to "read" others and how to get the heck away and what to do with the fear and information if you can't.
Kieth I don't think phobia is what VPW was thinking of at all. He used Job as the basis for this teaching. "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me and that which I was afraid of has come unto me." He was not talking about an irrational phobia. Loosing members of our family, our possessions, and our accomplishments is a real possibility. Many times it can be beyond our control (natural disasters, random acts of violnce, etc.).
In the context of Job, what T&O said and what VPW taught make sense. Job's GREAT fear of loosing his family was apparently something that distracted him from God.
The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing. It was used as a mechanism for control. Don't question, don't doubt, don't worry, these are fear based, only trust in what TWI says God says. Period. We were first taught this in the FC in the context of "private interpretation" and "the fall of man." Accepting those teachings put us in a position of not questioning what we were taught and not considering other views, other doctrine. What TWI taught, what VPW taught, was not private interpretation it was THE rightly divided Word and we were not to consider anything else or doubt it etc. Further if we didn't accept and act on what was taught (as being the God breated Word) it was because of fear. Once we were taught it we were expected to believe it unequivically and act on it. TWI taught fear as an "attack of the adversary." That's the rub, that's the control.
Fear can be good. It can make you alert and circumspect. That is something we need to be in order to not be tricked or taken advantage of by people or circumstances. It can be something that gives us a shot of adrenaline to survive tough times and conditions or to succeed when competing or when our life is threatened.
On the other hand, anything that keeps us from accomplishing the things we want, whether it is something you think God wants for you or something you want for yourself, is a bad thing. It is not neccessarily something that we need to ignore but something we need to deal with and overcome. If that is a fear or a phobia, then we need to deal with it.
I have irrational fears or phobias of things like sharks and mountain lions. In the ocean, I don't like the fact that I know there are tons of things living down below me that I can't see. I don't live someplace where I can go to the ocean, but I have still kayaked in the ocean and in brackish water (where many sharks feed). I don't let it affect me too much, even though we saw a shark the last time I went tandom with my wife, and it BUMPED US! Mountain lions are a reality around here in the mountains, and they have been known to attack people on rare occassions. I still hike in the mountains, but you can be damn sure I am always alert and safe, especially when with my boys. For me it is something about the lack of control- knowing things may be out there stalking me but without seeing it or knowing it and there most likely being little I could do if I was attacked. I have stress dreams about it sometimes, but I don't let that stop me. :)
Job's GREAT fear of loosing his family was apparently something that distracted him from God.
That's something I had thought, but now it does not make sense- why did he go TO God- with the offerings? In those days, the offerings often were about supposedly how you kept bad things from happening..
If anything, I see fear driving the man TO his religion, not away from it.
I do not "know" about Job, but my opinion is that he was not driven by faith but by fear in his offerings for his sons and daughters. (There is no indication that his children went to "church" with him.)
Faith is what we have when we fear the Lord. (Friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear Him -- Psalm 25:14.)
I think it's a variation on Bob Dylan's them, "you got to serve somebody," and that everyone is going to fear something, and the best thing to fear above all is God because then, bottom line, you won't cross him.
If you are afraid of getting your dog poisoned with raisins, you won't feed him raisins, which is a good thing. Watch out for raisins for your dog
I have irrational fears or phobias of things like sharks and mountain lions. In the ocean, I don't like the fact that I know there are tons of things living down below me that I can't see. I don't live someplace where I can go to the ocean, but I have still kayaked in the ocean and in brackish water (where many sharks feed). I don't let it affect me too much, even though we saw a shark the last time I went tandom with my wife, and it BUMPED US! Mountain lions are a reality around here in the mountains, and they have been known to attack people on rare occassions. I still hike in the mountains, but you can be damn sure I am always alert and safe, especially when with my boys. For me it is something about the lack of control- knowing things may be out there stalking me but without seeing it or knowing it and there most likely being little I could do if I was attacked. I have stress dreams about it sometimes, but I don't let that stop me. :)
I don't know, lindy - with you having been bumped by a shark, and living in an area where there are mountain lions, I would say you have a healthy, respectful and realistic fear of these predators.
I, on the other hand, have a completely irrational fear...of Komodo dragons. I've never been on the island of Komodo, or anywhere else where they would roam freely. Yet they completely freak me out. When the late Steve Irwin had an episode where he was on Komodo and he was wandering around and lying down in a dragon den, I watched, transfixed, almost unable to change the channel, I was horrified that much.
I'm not in a position where I would come into any sort of contact with them. I think there's one down at the Washington Zoo, but I'm not stupid enough to even ask to get in the cage with one of them, unlike some people. And yet, I'm scared s--tless of them. Now, that's irrational.
I guess there can be two schools of thought about Mr. Wierwille's presentation of doubt, worry and fear resulting in unbelief. One could be he was trying to teach people how to recognize a train of thought that keep someone from believing what God says in the bible and, ultimately, from receiving into manifestation the holy spirit (i.e., speaking in tongues).
The other might be he was instilling a control device to keep class participants from questioning his presentation and his premises.
The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing. It was used as a mechanism for control. Don't question, don't doubt, don't worry, these are fear based, only trust in what TWI says God says. Period. We were first taught this in the FC in the context of "private interpretation" and "the fall of man." Accepting those teachings put us in a position of not questioning what we were taught and not considering other views, other doctrine. What TWI taught, what VPW taught, was not private interpretation it was THE rightly divided Word and we were not to consider anything else or doubt it etc. Further if we didn't accept and act on what was taught (as being the God breated Word) it was because of fear. Once we were taught it we were expected to believe it unequivically and act on it. TWI taught fear as an "attack of the adversary." That's the rub, that's the control.
Of course, the real problem may have been that we believed it enough not to question it. Ah well, lessons learned...the hard way.
I guess there can be two schools of thought about Mr. Wierwille's presentation of doubt, worry and fear resulting in unbelief. One could be he was trying to teach people how to recognize a train of thought that keep someone from believing what God says in the bible and, ultimately, from receiving into manifestation the holy spirit (i.e., speaking in tongues).
The other might be he was instilling a control device to keep class participants from questioning his presentation and his premises.....
Of course, the real problem may have been that we believed it enough not to question it. Ah well, lessons learned...the hard way.
Well, that is certainly part of the equation. There were plenty of people that saw clearly that something was not right and left quickly or dropped out of the FC etc. The other half of the equation, though, is a man that started a ministry in a deceiving way and coupled teachings together in a way that discouraged doubt and questioning, took advantage of many women, and in many ways controled with fear while teaching it was wrong.
As far as the first school of thought, IMO, in light of the things I mentioned above it becomes harder and harder to accept it. Although, there may be some merit to the teaching, it is based on something that is fundamentally wrong, that being that doubt, worry, and fear are intrinsically wrong. Of course, I am agnostic, but I feel that when you are considering something that a man claims to be the rightly divided word of truth concerning God, those should be three things that can be apart of a healthy concern that should be part of the process of prooving it.
Not to make light of your fear of Komodo Dragons but the way you put it made me laugh. I guess saying that mine are irrational helps me deal with them. Stastically speaking I should be more concerned about driving a car or even flying than being attacked by a mountain lion, but not so.
...I, on the other hand, have a completely irrational fear...of Komodo dragons. I've never been on the island of Komodo, or anywhere else where they would roam freely. Yet they completely freak me out. When the late Steve Irwin had an episode where he was on Komodo and he was wandering around and lying down in a dragon den, I watched, transfixed, almost unable to change the channel, I was horrified that much.
I'm not in a position where I would come into any sort of contact with them. I think there's one down at the Washington Zoo, but I'm not stupid enough to even ask to get in the cage with one of them, unlike some people. And yet, I'm scared s--tless of them. Now, that's irrational....
Speaking of Komodo Dragons – years ago I worked for a company that installed various sensors and alert buttons for keepers at a zoo. My assignment one day was to relocate a temperature sensor in their new Komodo Dragon exhibit. With tools and step ladder in hand, two of the keepers escorted me into the main exhibit. I thought they were there just to make sure I didn't damage anything - - until I saw the three foot long Komodo Dragon poised on the top of a wall of rocks. I was almost to the temp sensor on a wall opposite of rock wall – when the dragon scurries down to in front of me – so fast I froze in my tracks. He [or she – didn't take time to find out] whipped his tail across my work boots with such force it sounded like a 22 caliber gun shot – stung a little too. Then he scurried back up to his perch – don't remember – maybe the keepers ran him off. But I do remember the reassuring words of one of the keepers, "You're lucky he's not full grown – he'd a broke your legs."…Yeah – then I'd forever be referenced by PFAL grads "Do you know what broke the legs of that guy in the Komodo Dragon Exhibit - - it was the fear in the heart and life of that guy."
Geez, T-Bone, don't they ususally empty the cages before sending in maintenance or repair? Or was that the zoo's cheap method of feeding their animals?
"Yeah, we're really keeping our costs down."
Thank goodness that animal didn't get a hold of you. You would have gone from being T-Bone to Sushi!
Guess I was considered expendable…There’s another time I had to install a wireless alert button in the condor cage. This time I have only one keeper escorting me – but he’s armed…with a broom. This enormous bird comes strutting towards us with wings stretched out. I commenced to installing the alert button at a feverish pace while my aforementioned body guard fended off Rodan by shoving the broom whiskers in his [or her – again I didn’t take time to check] chest…Yup – working for those zoo keepers did wonders for self-worth – didn’t help my fear any either.
quote: The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing.
I dispute this. In 1984 I got the 'Tape of the month' HQ sent out. One of them was a rather long teaching by Walter Cummins and he made a distinction between natural fear and learned fear, citing that natural fear was healthy. I think VP didn't spell out stuff like this is because he didn't feel he needed to.
I took a psych class once and they told of a 4 yr old child who heard a sudden loud disturbing noise when he was staring intently at a white kitten. For a time after the child was afraid of cats. They cured him progressively, by first showing him a small cloth the same size but a different color as the kitten, then a white cloth, then a stuffed kitten a different color, then a white stuffed kitten.....like THAT. Eventually the child overcame the fear.
quote: The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing.
I dispute this. In 1984 I got the 'Tape of the month' HQ sent out. One of them was a rather long teaching by Walter Cummins and he made a distinction between natural fear and learned fear, citing that natural fear was healthy. I think VP didn't spell out stuff like this is because he didn't feel he needed to.
I took a psych class once and they told of a 4 yr old child who heard a sudden loud disturbing noise when he was staring intently at a white kitten. For a time after the child was afraid of cats. They cured him progressively, by first showing him a small cloth the same size but a different color as the kitten, then a white cloth, then a stuffed kitten a different color, then a white stuffed kitten.....like THAT. Eventually the child overcame the fear.
While more than one experiment in Classical Conditioning has been performed, the classic illustration is Little Albert and the White Rat. John B. Watson, who was at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore at the time, and a contemporary of Pavlov's. Little Albert was 11 months old when the experiment began and, in fact, Watson was very successful in using the child's natural fear of noises to condition him to be afraid of the rat.
The child was not cured. He left the hospital before they could try to reverse the effects. Subsequent data has shown that people classically conditioned in this manner tend not to overcome their fear, one factor being that they tend to avoid what frightens them. Additionally, once ingrained, the process is not easily addressed.
The performance of classical conditioning experiments in such a manner are considered unacceptable and unethical by scientists today, for reasons we now see as obvious--the damage done afterwards and the lingering affects. I would be very interested to read the case you cite, John, and will happily provide more data to support what I've said here if you are interested.
I've read this thread from the beginning, and have seen a lot of interesting responses. An inborn sense of fear is necessary for survival. To learn fear, possibly by having someone threaten you with continued dire consequences if you step out of the line of their particular code, is something altogether different.
I know many people truly believe that twi brought/brings a release from fear. I see it simply as trading one frying pan for another--still roasting over the same insidious fire.
For most of my adult life I have wanted a motorcycle, but never got around to ever purchasing one. Just recently the opportunity arose for me to finally purchase one - a beautiful Honda Shadow 600 VLX. By all the research I read it was one of the best 'beginner' motorcycles out there ...'easy to ride'....'handles great'... yadda yadda...
Anyway, the first time I rode it for real it scared the snot outta me! I had ridden mini-bikes when I was a teen and never had any problems in steeiring and maneuvering them, but boy oh boy this was a whole different world. I became very aquainted with something better known as 'centrifugal force'. I came up on my first curve and tried to turn...turn....TURN! Anyway (no I didnt crash thank God!) I found out you had to lean into corners not just turn. Kind of a scary first experience. :blink:
Ever since that moment I was scared of the bike and to date have not gone faster than 35 MPH...which I know that if I want to ride any kind of distance to really enjoy this thing I need to overcome this fear of it. What makes it more frustrating is that I keep having dreams about riding, like riding to the coast on a beautiful sunny day.
So I know I will overcome it eventually, but in the meantime it really sucks how fear can rob from you.
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Sudo
I've always been afraid of Polar bears. Seems that up on the ice these bears eat people and anything else that moves as opposed to little black bears that generally shy away from humans.
Probably silly of me having any fear of dangerous animals. If I just had my believing in line I could safely walk through a valley of ,say, Cobra snakes just safely. And while we're at it.. let me drink some of that poisoned Kool-Aid. I've got my believing.. fear is nothing more than sand in the machinery of life is it not? A work of the Devil I tell you. Fear not the Bible sez!!
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coolchef
imo yes of course it is a natural surviver instinct
imo yes of course it is a natural surviver instinct
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waysider
Human beings are preprogrammed with a defence mechanism called "fight or flight".
Fear plays a vital role in helping us decide which of the two is the better option.
Eliminating fear from the selection process is an invitation for failure, not success.
"Doubt leads to worry, worry leads to fear."
It's a clever slogan,no question, but simply jibberish at its core.
It has no scriptural basis that I'm aware of.
Doubt can be a positive thing if it leads to closer examination and a better understanding of the problem at hand. Stifling ones' concept of fear and restricting the practise of reasoning and doubt is an insidious form of mind control. As I have said before(and this is just my opinion) session #7 is an amazing lesson in how mind control and behaviour modification can be used for ulterior motives.
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T-Bone
I think being cautious and having forethought is a smart way to live – and believe that is encouraged in the Scriptures.
Proverbs 14:15 NIV
A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.
Proverbs 22:3 NIV
A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
Luke 14:31,32 NIV
31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.
Life can be treacherous at times – and on many endeavors a person would be foolhardy to ignore looking down the road or to assess risks – to consider options, alternative actions, consequences of different actions, etc.
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Keith
To me the answer depends on how you define fear. If you speak of fear, such as fear in terms of survival. No, fear is not really a bad thing. If you speak of fear as something that takes hold of you, and eats at you emotionally to the point that it might even make you physically sick. Yes - all fear is bad. That is not how we are to be.
Here is the best example that I can give to show the difference.
Most people have a general fear of heights. But they can climb a ladder, go over a bridge, etc. It may be difficult for them but it can be controled.
I on the other hand have an unreasonable fear, of certain types of heights and I literally freeze up and can't move, I panic, get dizzy. It is dibilitating. As an example there is a place in the Kentucky called Natural Bridge, it is a lage natural stone bridge between two small Kentucky mountians, at it narrowest spot it is the equivalant of a little over half a city block. You can hike up to it, along a hard narrow trail, then you are supposed to walk across it and use the cable car to go back down. I went about a quarter of the way across and froze. I was in the middle the width of the span, I really couldn't even see the edges at that point, but I had to stop. I couldn't take another step. Kids were playing all around me. But my wife had to come back and help me to get back to the starting point so that I could work my way down among the onslaught of people coming back up the other way. I was convinced, even though I was a good 30 yards from either edge at that point that I was going to fall off.
To show how really stuipid this fear is, I can climb up a set of metal mesh steps on something like a fire tower with no problem, I can look out over the edge at the landscape as I go up, but once I get in the fire tower, I will cling to the middle, unable to approach the windows to look out.
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waysider
Keith-----I think what you are describing could be more accurately called a phobia than a fear.
(Yeah,I know phobia kinda means fear but there is a difference.)
Your response takes on a pronounced physical reaction rather than a mental consideration.
When you stand on that bridge, I don't think you really believe you are in danger of falling off the edge. You are having a physical reaction to a stimulus that you obviously know to be misleading.
Phobias are common but that doesn't make them any less real or crippling.
Doubt, on the other hand, is a mental process. To deny doubt is to deny the logical process that the mind naturally is programmed to follow as a method of seperating real danger from perceived danger. To say it is wrong to doubt because it will lead to fear and that the resultant fear will lead to failure is not only untrue, it is inherently cruel and manipulative as well as counter productive in the problem solving process.
There is a type of therapy called "confrontation" that involves exposing a person to their phobia in a controlled and safe environment. If it is your desire to overcome it, perhaps this is for you. On the other hand, you might want to simply accept that this phobia is simply part of what makes you uniquely"you"like the color of your hair or eyes.
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Watered Garden
An illustration would be for example spiders and me.
Intellectually I know most spiders are relatively harmless to humans. They can be extremely beneficial in a garden. While only a very few of them have venom sufficient to sicken or kill a human, those that do are extremely nasty. They will only bite if they are hungry or threatened. All of them, even South American bird-eating tarantulas, are smaller than me. In the garden, I can generally leave them alone, unless they are camped out in the vicinity of a ripe, red, juicy, tomato. BUT.....
If I am not being logical and observant about them, I can walk into or almost into a spider web and go nuts! I will scream, run around frantically looking for the web's former denizen (whose happy home I have probably destroyed) and once I find it, hopefully not on my person, stomp it to death with great abandon. During this time I am breathing hard, sweating, and having cold chills and nausea. All this in spite of the fact that I know that even if it bites me, it won't kill me.
Paragraph 2 is a phobia.
On the other hand, a pretty normal fear for most people would involve the aforementioned fight or flight situation, i.e. oncoming tornado, snarling dog, etc.
WG (shivering at the thought of those big black and yellow garden spiders!) :unsure:
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TrustAndObey
Just food for thought, and another man's opinion which may or may not be true, and certainly open to close scrutiny as any part of my thoughts and life are..
Please note, all this is from memory, so I may miss something... But one of the words for "fear" in the Hebrew is the word 'yirah.. As all Hebrew words are, they come from root words, which in the most simplist form, each letter has a root, as it used to be more of a pictographic language rather than the Aramaic type Hebrew script we see today..
Nonetheless, yira or yirah has at it's root the word 'ra' which means to see. "Resh" which is the letter R is a picture of a head being raised, thus sight or elevating something are at it's root definition.. The Yod is the picture of the hand, and implies work and action, and Hebrew doesn't have vowels (except for Aleph) so there is no letter 'I'.. And so some say the word originally meant the result from focusing on the work or action taking place. (The letter 'H'ey at the end of a word usually denotes what the name itself kind of implies 'HEY! Look!) Now, if someone pointed a gun at you, your focus on that could produce a pretty noticeable fear. Someone bringing flowers to you, might bring a different reaction. So some say the Hebrew word doesn't actually describe the "emotion" or "reaction" as much as it implies the action you are taking such as focusing on what is taking place, be that a negative or positive thing. Thus the "yira" of God being the beginning of wisdom.. And the admonition not to be "yira" of your enemies...
Fear can be a good thing and bad I think.. God's call to fear not, is usually in response to those focusing on the negative, the work or action that is distracting them from really trusting Him. Instead His call is for us to focus on HIM and what He is doing and promises, which is the beginning of wisdom..
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Keith
In terms of language development - Phobia - is a new enough term, that I think it is likely that VPW was thinking in these terms when talking about fear, or at least a consuming fear, which is not as disabilitating as what I discribed, but I would still lable as always bad. If I think about the example used in PFAL - about the boy and his mother, I think of the mother as having a consuming fear - Bad. Did that fear kill the boy - I doubt it, but I'm sure it tore the mother apart and made it even harder to deal with the death of the child after it happened.
By the way - Thanks for the idea about overcoming this fear of heights, it is something that I'm working on, and I'm much better than I was 15 years ago when the incident I wrote about took place. I'm now at the point that I think I could make it across the Natural Bridge, but I would still be very nervous about it and most of this has not been from "shock treatment." but by prayer and focus on God in overcoming it. Maybe it's time to take a trip south and try again. To quote..."every day, I'm getting better and better."
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Ham
We have studied a little bit about the senses in psychology..
One of the newer things they have been putting in textbooks is that we indeed do have a sixth sense. Not ESP.. it's related to hearing and they call it kinesthesis. Apparently it is related with hearing and balance.
It is thought that some people who have extreme fear and panic associated with heights because the "messages" they get via kinesthesis are mixed up. So the fear or panic is not logically unreasonable, as I previously thought.
So the fear is not due to some deep seated emothional problem, or secret sin, or anything like that.
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Shellon
Excellent book: The Gift Of Fear by Gavin De Becker
The man teaches how to use that sense, to listen to our bodies tell us when something is wrong, how to avoid getting into fearful situations in the first place, how to "read" others and how to get the heck away and what to do with the fear and information if you can't.
Required reading for both of my girls.
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lindyhopper
Kieth I don't think phobia is what VPW was thinking of at all. He used Job as the basis for this teaching. "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me and that which I was afraid of has come unto me." He was not talking about an irrational phobia. Loosing members of our family, our possessions, and our accomplishments is a real possibility. Many times it can be beyond our control (natural disasters, random acts of violnce, etc.).
In the context of Job, what T&O said and what VPW taught make sense. Job's GREAT fear of loosing his family was apparently something that distracted him from God.
The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing. It was used as a mechanism for control. Don't question, don't doubt, don't worry, these are fear based, only trust in what TWI says God says. Period. We were first taught this in the FC in the context of "private interpretation" and "the fall of man." Accepting those teachings put us in a position of not questioning what we were taught and not considering other views, other doctrine. What TWI taught, what VPW taught, was not private interpretation it was THE rightly divided Word and we were not to consider anything else or doubt it etc. Further if we didn't accept and act on what was taught (as being the God breated Word) it was because of fear. Once we were taught it we were expected to believe it unequivically and act on it. TWI taught fear as an "attack of the adversary." That's the rub, that's the control.
Fear can be good. It can make you alert and circumspect. That is something we need to be in order to not be tricked or taken advantage of by people or circumstances. It can be something that gives us a shot of adrenaline to survive tough times and conditions or to succeed when competing or when our life is threatened.
On the other hand, anything that keeps us from accomplishing the things we want, whether it is something you think God wants for you or something you want for yourself, is a bad thing. It is not neccessarily something that we need to ignore but something we need to deal with and overcome. If that is a fear or a phobia, then we need to deal with it.
I have irrational fears or phobias of things like sharks and mountain lions. In the ocean, I don't like the fact that I know there are tons of things living down below me that I can't see. I don't live someplace where I can go to the ocean, but I have still kayaked in the ocean and in brackish water (where many sharks feed). I don't let it affect me too much, even though we saw a shark the last time I went tandom with my wife, and it BUMPED US! Mountain lions are a reality around here in the mountains, and they have been known to attack people on rare occassions. I still hike in the mountains, but you can be damn sure I am always alert and safe, especially when with my boys. For me it is something about the lack of control- knowing things may be out there stalking me but without seeing it or knowing it and there most likely being little I could do if I was attacked. I have stress dreams about it sometimes, but I don't let that stop me. :)
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polar bear
You got it Lindy that was my point, VP made a law about it and put it inot a box like everything else he did. All fear in every form cannot be bad.
I think it's the motive behind the fear that justify's whether or not it is genuine or not.
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Ham
That's something I had thought, but now it does not make sense- why did he go TO God- with the offerings? In those days, the offerings often were about supposedly how you kept bad things from happening..
If anything, I see fear driving the man TO his religion, not away from it.
Just a thought.
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Kit Sober
I do not "know" about Job, but my opinion is that he was not driven by faith but by fear in his offerings for his sons and daughters. (There is no indication that his children went to "church" with him.)
Faith is what we have when we fear the Lord. (Friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear Him -- Psalm 25:14.)
I think it's a variation on Bob Dylan's them, "you got to serve somebody," and that everyone is going to fear something, and the best thing to fear above all is God because then, bottom line, you won't cross him.
If you are afraid of getting your dog poisoned with raisins, you won't feed him raisins, which is a good thing. Watch out for raisins for your dog
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Kevlar2000
I don't know, lindy - with you having been bumped by a shark, and living in an area where there are mountain lions, I would say you have a healthy, respectful and realistic fear of these predators.
I, on the other hand, have a completely irrational fear...of Komodo dragons. I've never been on the island of Komodo, or anywhere else where they would roam freely. Yet they completely freak me out. When the late Steve Irwin had an episode where he was on Komodo and he was wandering around and lying down in a dragon den, I watched, transfixed, almost unable to change the channel, I was horrified that much.
I'm not in a position where I would come into any sort of contact with them. I think there's one down at the Washington Zoo, but I'm not stupid enough to even ask to get in the cage with one of them, unlike some people. And yet, I'm scared s--tless of them. Now, that's irrational.
------------------------------------------------------------
I guess there can be two schools of thought about Mr. Wierwille's presentation of doubt, worry and fear resulting in unbelief. One could be he was trying to teach people how to recognize a train of thought that keep someone from believing what God says in the bible and, ultimately, from receiving into manifestation the holy spirit (i.e., speaking in tongues).
The other might be he was instilling a control device to keep class participants from questioning his presentation and his premises.
Of course, the real problem may have been that we believed it enough not to question it. Ah well, lessons learned...the hard way.
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lindyhopper
Well, that is certainly part of the equation. There were plenty of people that saw clearly that something was not right and left quickly or dropped out of the FC etc. The other half of the equation, though, is a man that started a ministry in a deceiving way and coupled teachings together in a way that discouraged doubt and questioning, took advantage of many women, and in many ways controled with fear while teaching it was wrong.
As far as the first school of thought, IMO, in light of the things I mentioned above it becomes harder and harder to accept it. Although, there may be some merit to the teaching, it is based on something that is fundamentally wrong, that being that doubt, worry, and fear are intrinsically wrong. Of course, I am agnostic, but I feel that when you are considering something that a man claims to be the rightly divided word of truth concerning God, those should be three things that can be apart of a healthy concern that should be part of the process of prooving it.
Not to make light of your fear of Komodo Dragons but the way you put it made me laugh. I guess saying that mine are irrational helps me deal with them. Stastically speaking I should be more concerned about driving a car or even flying than being attacked by a mountain lion, but not so.
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T-Bone
Speaking of Komodo Dragons – years ago I worked for a company that installed various sensors and alert buttons for keepers at a zoo. My assignment one day was to relocate a temperature sensor in their new Komodo Dragon exhibit. With tools and step ladder in hand, two of the keepers escorted me into the main exhibit. I thought they were there just to make sure I didn't damage anything - - until I saw the three foot long Komodo Dragon poised on the top of a wall of rocks. I was almost to the temp sensor on a wall opposite of rock wall – when the dragon scurries down to in front of me – so fast I froze in my tracks. He [or she – didn't take time to find out] whipped his tail across my work boots with such force it sounded like a 22 caliber gun shot – stung a little too. Then he scurried back up to his perch – don't remember – maybe the keepers ran him off. But I do remember the reassuring words of one of the keepers, "You're lucky he's not full grown – he'd a broke your legs."…Yeah – then I'd forever be referenced by PFAL grads "Do you know what broke the legs of that guy in the Komodo Dragon Exhibit - - it was the fear in the heart and life of that guy."
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Kevlar2000
Geez, T-Bone, don't they ususally empty the cages before sending in maintenance or repair? Or was that the zoo's cheap method of feeding their animals?
"Yeah, we're really keeping our costs down."
Thank goodness that animal didn't get a hold of you. You would have gone from being T-Bone to Sushi!
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T-Bone
Guess I was considered expendable…There’s another time I had to install a wireless alert button in the condor cage. This time I have only one keeper escorting me – but he’s armed…with a broom. This enormous bird comes strutting towards us with wings stretched out. I commenced to installing the alert button at a feverish pace while my aforementioned body guard fended off Rodan by shoving the broom whiskers in his [or her – again I didn’t take time to check] chest…Yup – working for those zoo keepers did wonders for self-worth – didn’t help my fear any either.
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pond
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
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johniam
quote: The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing.
I dispute this. In 1984 I got the 'Tape of the month' HQ sent out. One of them was a rather long teaching by Walter Cummins and he made a distinction between natural fear and learned fear, citing that natural fear was healthy. I think VP didn't spell out stuff like this is because he didn't feel he needed to.
I took a psych class once and they told of a 4 yr old child who heard a sudden loud disturbing noise when he was staring intently at a white kitten. For a time after the child was afraid of cats. They cured him progressively, by first showing him a small cloth the same size but a different color as the kitten, then a white cloth, then a stuffed kitten a different color, then a white stuffed kitten.....like THAT. Eventually the child overcame the fear.
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QuietThinker
While more than one experiment in Classical Conditioning has been performed, the classic illustration is Little Albert and the White Rat. John B. Watson, who was at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore at the time, and a contemporary of Pavlov's. Little Albert was 11 months old when the experiment began and, in fact, Watson was very successful in using the child's natural fear of noises to condition him to be afraid of the rat.
The child was not cured. He left the hospital before they could try to reverse the effects. Subsequent data has shown that people classically conditioned in this manner tend not to overcome their fear, one factor being that they tend to avoid what frightens them. Additionally, once ingrained, the process is not easily addressed.
This experiment took place in 1920 and you may Read the Complete, Original article here if you care to do so.
The performance of classical conditioning experiments in such a manner are considered unacceptable and unethical by scientists today, for reasons we now see as obvious--the damage done afterwards and the lingering affects. I would be very interested to read the case you cite, John, and will happily provide more data to support what I've said here if you are interested.
I've read this thread from the beginning, and have seen a lot of interesting responses. An inborn sense of fear is necessary for survival. To learn fear, possibly by having someone threaten you with continued dire consequences if you step out of the line of their particular code, is something altogether different.
I know many people truly believe that twi brought/brings a release from fear. I see it simply as trading one frying pan for another--still roasting over the same insidious fire.
Yours fear-freeishly,
~QT
*text edited for spelling errors and formatting
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Mr Incredible
I hate fear!
For most of my adult life I have wanted a motorcycle, but never got around to ever purchasing one. Just recently the opportunity arose for me to finally purchase one - a beautiful Honda Shadow 600 VLX. By all the research I read it was one of the best 'beginner' motorcycles out there ...'easy to ride'....'handles great'... yadda yadda...
Anyway, the first time I rode it for real it scared the snot outta me! I had ridden mini-bikes when I was a teen and never had any problems in steeiring and maneuvering them, but boy oh boy this was a whole different world. I became very aquainted with something better known as 'centrifugal force'. I came up on my first curve and tried to turn...turn....TURN! Anyway (no I didnt crash thank God!) I found out you had to lean into corners not just turn. Kind of a scary first experience. :blink:
Ever since that moment I was scared of the bike and to date have not gone faster than 35 MPH...which I know that if I want to ride any kind of distance to really enjoy this thing I need to overcome this fear of it. What makes it more frustrating is that I keep having dreams about riding, like riding to the coast on a beautiful sunny day.
So I know I will overcome it eventually, but in the meantime it really sucks how fear can rob from you.
Anyone else ever had a similar experience?
Edited by Michael B.Link to comment
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