Jump to content
GreaseSpot Cafe

The law of believing-NO GOD NEEDED


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 366
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I say your recollection is bs. I was there and that's NOT what he said.

You were there?...Funny, I didn't mention the year of the roa that I was referring to or the context of when he said and to whom...

...but you were there!

Now isn't that special.

Maybe I was referring to 1977 or maybe I was referring to 1980...or...maybe I was referring to a conversation when he was talking to a handful of folks or maybe I was talking about him addressing everyone on the main stage at the rock...I didn't say...

...but you were there!

Now isn't that special.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, let's have some fun with worshippers and apologists:

Do you have a photo of John Juedes in your wallet? That you bought? A painting? That you bought? A little friggin statue? That you bought?

How much money have you spent on classes taught by John Juedes?

How many people do you know who hold John Juedes's written words to be, no joke, God-breathed?

Do the collected works of John Juedes take up a special place on your bookshelf?

If John Juedes told you to scratch something out of your Bible, would you do it? Without checking the facts first?

Suppose ONE person you KNEW said John Juedes took advantage of her sexually and claimed it was God's will that she please him this way: how much time would you spend balancing that with all the GOOD he did?

Oh PLEASE do not even try to compare agreeing with John Juedes with the sycophantic mania surrounding Wierwille.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good point Raf...

...As far as it goes, I try to keep my life simple and my faith simple...something about "the simplicity that's in Christ"

God is the one who makes things happen, not my believing. I feel an obligation to place my faith in Him and am convinced that what He promised He is also able to perform...why do some people get healed and others don't?...I don't know.

I do believe that He lives within us and that He inspires us and works within us...and that this life is temporal...which mean that we all will eventually die...The promise of eternal life is God's solution for his children...it's all up to Him.

I don't believe for red drapes or for money or for miracles...I work hard and try to get the things that I need...and I thank God for "making things happen" in my life...The heavens are His throne and the earth is His footstool...I thank Him for all that I have and all that I am...because afterall is said and done...I'm just a sinner saved by grace.

I don't believe in magic formulas or so called "laws" that we can operate like a mathimatical equation...that's not how life works...All nine all the time?...How about I get out of bed in the morning and put my pants on?...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, let's have some fun with worshippers and apologists:

Do you have a photo of John Juedes in your wallet? That you bought? A painting? That you bought? A little friggin statue? That you bought?

How much money have you spent on classes taught by John Juedes?

How many people do you know who hold John Juedes's written words to be, no joke, God-breathed?

Do the collected works of John Juedes take up a special place on your bookshelf?

If John Juedes told you to scratch something out of your Bible, would you do it? Without checking the facts first?

Suppose ONE person you KNEW said John Juedes took advantage of her sexually and claimed it was God's will that she please him this way: how much time would you spend balancing that with all the GOOD he did?

Oh PLEASE do not even try to compare agreeing with John Juedes with the sycophantic mania surrounding Wierwille.

Who remembers from the 40th Anniversary that the Corps received a few frames of the original film class?

I burned that - it was fun. :biglaugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a shot in the dark, i know not everyone is interested or can follow...but here i go posting it anyway...in my own words...

as ive often mentioned around here

our faith can be described as unfolding along a spectrum of "leaps"

and in general, this adventure lasts from womb to tomb

there is ample scripture to support this...just throw a rock at your favorite bible books...and look for sections you typically didnt read in twi...especially the epistles and book of rev

1) from what i have come to understand, "the law of believing" is the same kind of faith we acquire at 2 years old..or so.

...and for an adult to remain at this level of faith is a severe case of arrested faith development...and there are a billion adults in this very situation...a tyrant is an adult acting like a 2 yr old. As is our narcissistic boomeritus. From here, one does not like ANY other levels of faith...self-preservation and victory-mindedness are likely. Anti-social behaviour is also common here. Terrorism comes from here.

2) the next step of faith is when we bring our self-centered magic selves to a group and bond around a shared myth...or storyline. Like when we join a cult and insist that our small interpretation of Bible texts is the best...and "EVERYONE else is more wrong about it than us." This should happen at maybe 5-8 yrs old or so...when we bond with family and friends...but its not hard to see what trouble happens when this stage of faith lasts til late adulthood and gets into the CEOs and Politicians and power-brokers of the world. Severely metaphorically challenged. Language itself is more of a liability than a tool.

But this stage of faith does NOT like the previous stage. Much as TWI did not like lone wolves..."your application of the law of believing had better serve our group before it serves your individual self."

3) so the next stage of "faith" is not called "faith" at all. Although it IS a faith in reason. And as with all levels of faith..one does NOT like previous levels of faith. Thus, the enmity between religion and science. This stage of faith is very "darwinian." We should be picking this up in our teens. It is the level of faith where we question the heck out of the myths we used to believe.

and so on and so forth...the line of faith development is akin (but not identical to) to adult ego development..or cognitive development...or moral development...each level of faith carries us beyond the previous faith, but includes positive and useful aspects of it.

4) the next is more related to pluralism and compassion and a faith in equality and communal love. again...does not like previous stages at all. cant stand mere reason most of all, cant stand myth, but blindly tolerates self-centeredness. And while this level of faith is most caring and compassionate of the previous...it still cannot stand the idea of levels at all. This level of faith most often mistakes talking about levels with how earlier stages asserted dominance.

5) the next and beyond are more related to death and higher ("thinner?") states of consciousness...where all the saints and sages and wise ones we revere played here and beyond. This is where the previous stages suddnely make sense again as necessary steps.

note: even though we may live near one of these levels more than the others...we are almost always on the move between two of them. If i am at 2), both 1) and 3) are tugging at me. if i am at 3), both 2) and 4) are tugging at me, etc...

such as TWi mostly struggling being between 1) and 2) (thus, all the stories of being saved from self-centered oblivion based on magic..only to enter group-centered oblivion based on magic)

and Bill O'Reilly being in the struggle between 2) and 3) (thus, his bible based darwinian business mentality)

the struggle is often quite evident in language, in one's chief concerns, and especially what insults and offends and disturbs a person most often.

again...i am only talking about a single line of growth in humans...that path of moving from faith to faith to faith....as strange as it may sound, one can have a magic degree of faith that is served by a highly developed cognitive line. One may have a high degree of faith but have a warped sexual line, etc...

but when one's faith no longer works...one must make a leap to something new...and that daring journey through the space between rungs (maybe think flying trapeze) is where we are most spiritually engaged...that space is perhaps more important than the rungs themselves...that space is where "God" exists at ALL levels.

That is really cool! Thanks for sharing it!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How sad was vp for anybodies death to cancer? He was the one who condemned folks for their lack of believing and labeled them as posessed with a devil spirit when afflicted with cancer.

People died alone without friends and family because of the stigma and fear of the devil spirit that vp said was the root cause ...People died in condemnation because they believed that they failed in their believing.

I am glad that John J has posted the scriptures to debunk the dogma that has brought so much pain, frustration and shame when application failed to achieve the predicted results....

I have to go with Rascal on this one. I am sorry VPW died of cancer in a distant sort of sense, in that I never knew him and always think it is sad when someone died.

BUT, my mother died of cancer when I was 23 years old. I was involved with TWI at that time. My sister, my grandmother and I took care of my mom at home for as long as we could. We had a hospital bed set up for her. We cleaned her, made sure she had her medications, fed her, and even took care of her "bathroom needs".

During that time not one member of my fellowship offered to come by and help. Other people did. The mother of my sister's boyfriend, a few other family friends. But no one from fellowship. They didn't even help with an occassional meal as I saw so often occur afterward. My now ex-husband helped some (he would be the one member, I guess) but he also complained about it a lot. Devil spirits and all.

After she died, no one from fellowship attended the funeral with us, it was a Jewish funeral because that is what the rest of my family wanted and I certainly wasn't going to argue with them about that!

She had two cats when she died. My sister took them both. My ex didn't want them around the house because he was afraid the "cancer" devil spirit might have left her body and gone into one of them and might then come after one of us.

My allotted period of morning was also very short. I was basically quoted scriptures from when David lost his son, I can't remember the verse now, but the basic idea was that I should just get over it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Law of believing. I think some of the confusion about it develops around the way PFAL opens.

In session 1, VPW talks the abundant life. He states that when he looked at the world around him, his community and the people in it, the "unbeliever" often manifested a more abundant life than the believers.

John 10:10 is the foundation presented for looking at the abundant life. In it Jesus states that He came so that people could have life, and have it more abundant.

For the purpose of PFAL and the bible teaching that follows, John 10:10 and Jesus's statement sets the direction for where the class goes. Jesus came to bring life, more than abundant. So if that's why He came, if that's His purpose, why is that so many Christians manifest a life that's not abundant, that's less than that?

The answers are several - lack of knowledge, understanding, and choosing to believe what the bible teaches. Adverse conditions exist that work against the Christian that can be corrected by knowing what the bible teaches, understanding it, and believing it to the end that they receive it "into manifestation". God's will for the Christian believer to manifest a more than abundant life is to believe in Christ, understand what that means to us todayby rightly dividing the Word, the bible and then doing something with it, and about it. Believe it.

Which is all fine, but the comparison that's made to the unbeliever muddies the water.

An unbeliever has the same avenues open to them to receive the more abundant life in Jesus Christ and to manifest it - by believing in Christ, learning and believing what the bible teaches rightly divided, and doing something with it and about it.

Whether I'm an unbeliever (in Christ) or a believer (in Christ) the answer's the same.

So....why for the what for, say ye?

Believing in and of itself doesn't do the unbeliever any good if the don't believe in Christ and the rightly divided Word of God. So if they're manifesting a more abundant life than the Christian, the cause isn't the same, per PFAL.

In fact, following that logic, I don't think you can correctly say that the quality of life of an unbeliever COULD be more than abundant. So there's no comparison to be made that's equitable.

The unbeliever - by "believing" - can't manifest a more than an abundant life in Christ. Their believing wouldn't produce any results towards that.

If the abundance is "stuff" - cars, homes, job, relationship, happiness, joy and things that can be measured - and it's manifested by believing, it has to be in something other than Christ. So the comparison goes flat. By rights, a Christian should never look at those things as measures of abundance received.

If I do, I can - apparently - receive them by my "believing" and have nothing to do with the Christ or bible part.

Capiche?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have time right now to read this whole thread, so forgive me if I'm saying something that's already been said.

I found it incredibly ironic when Geer, either in P of a P or in one of the meetings that followed, said we needed to get the focus off ourselves and our believing and back onto God. Well no chit, Cherlock. And how did our focus get on us and our believing in the first place? Could it have been because we were continually told "just believe" or asked "Where's your believing? or some other variation on that theme?

I remember, a few years before I left twi for good, thinking that telling people to "just believe" had become no different from the admonition to "have more faith" that VPW always criticized. For all practical purposes it was the exact same thing! Something we could do. If I close my eyes and stick out my tongue just right and click my heels together, and just believe, voila! Magic.

I'm much happier simply putting my trust in God because I know He loves me than trying to fend off every fleeting negative though that might pop into my head. I'm all in favor of being positive but IMO, twi promoted sort of an OCD version of being positive. :D

Edited by Linda Z
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who remembers from the 40th Anniversary that the Corps received a few frames of the original film class?

I do! I do!

Actually, they may have been sent to all the "believers", as I am not a Corps grad. 3 or 4 frames of the original PFAL film class, laminated in plastic. I think I still have that stuck in my bible somewhere. I'll have to look for it someday.

I burned that - it was fun. :biglaugh:

I wonder what you could get for it on eBay? Hmmmmm......

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waysider,

"The next time I win the Mega-Lotto, things are gonna be different, I tell ya!!!"

Speaking of believing and receiving,

Baltimore Bunky Bags the Big One (Well, part of it, anyway)

(and no, I'm not Bunky, so I'm not your new bestest friend in the whole wide world who wants to invest in your can't-fail scheme)

Now, I knew what was available (the Mega Millions lottery jackpot), how to receive it (buy a lottery ticket), what to do with it after I got it (Buy Cuba, oust Castro, turn it into a year-round Renaissance Faire). My needs and wants were parallel (Cuba needs a steady source of capitalist income, and I want to get my Rengeek on), and God's willingness equals his ability. Well, maybe He doesn't really give a rabid rodent's rubbery rectum about Ren Faires, but we could always work that out later.

But I didn't win. I didn't win! Bunky won! Where did I blow it?

:rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thanks for reposting that "shot in the dark," abi...and thanks especially for telling us about your mom's passing

to briefly add...from what i have seen studying over the years of histories of religions, medicine, hospice, dying, etc...it seems everclearer to me that the depths and degrees of quality with which any group approaches those occasions of dying (doctrinally and practically) is perhaps one of the singlemost telling factors in how "christian" we "really" are...or how "jewish" we "really" are...or how "buddhist" we "really" are...or how "rational" we "really" are...or how "spiritual," how "loving," how "wise," etc...

imo, what is often described as "the law of believing" is very similar to what is described as "the law of attraction" ... and both are as valid and valuable as "the laws of eating and pooping" .... perhaps better described as art forms, rather than laws

...just sayin

:blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The unbeliever - by "believing" - can't manifest a more than an abundant life in Christ. Their believing wouldn't produce any results towards that.

If the abundance is "stuff" - cars, homes, job, relationship, happiness, joy and things that can be measured - and it's manifested by believing, it has to be in something other than Christ. So the comparison goes flat. By rights, a Christian should never look at those things as measures of abundance received.

Socks....good points!

Wierwille muddied the waters from the get-go in pfal.....setting up this "abundance" premise that unbelievers, many times, have and believers do not.

Pfal was flawed on so MANY levels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who remembers from the 40th Anniversary that the Corps received a few frames of the original film class?

I have 7 frames of that class here at my house originally sent to me by twi.

And (as I've stated before) -- I was never corps.

In keeping with the topic of this thread I:

A.) Didn't know it was available;

B.) Didn't know what to do with it after I got it;

C.) Definately wasn't BELIEVING for it;

D.) (Can't-receive-something-if-it's-*availablity*-isn't-*known*-to-you) (so says docvic),

E.) Yet I received it anyway.

Gladly received at the time and put it in a picture frame (under glass).

yet it's a *momento*of former times now, and NOTHING more.

It came *out of the blue, via snail-mail.

I neither asked, nor believed for it -- since I didn't know it was *available*.

Yet I received it anyway.

Whomever said you have to *believe to receive* is nuts.

Folks get unexpected gifts and other things all the time.

They're big, they're small, you like them, you don't --

and in this case (my 7 frames of film) -----------------

I never knew they were *rightly dividing* up the class!!

Who'd a thunk it!!! :biglaugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Announcements


×
×
  • Create New...