ONLY rule of faith and practice - is this necessary?

[Bolshevik]

The baby uses its "five senses" to learn from its outside "points of reference".

[Mike]

Yes.

***

BTW, what I meant by popularization and simplification is this.

From one point of view, the simple popular one, the sun rises and sets like it travels around the earth. This is incorporated into our speech. According to classical physics it's not literally true, though, and there the earth rotates and it only looks like the sun rises and sets.

This is a bit more complicated and a less popular way of speaking, even though in the context of classical physics it is factual.

If we were to go one more step into complicate and one more step away from popular, in Relativity Theory it is quite valid to say that the sun rises and sets from the earth's frame of reference.

Someday there may be another theory where it is again not "true" but these things are not at all important to many simple points that common popular language would want to express.

The same is true for saying that we have five senses.

In addition to inner ear balance, we could say that temperature sensing is different from touch sensing.

We could also include the up-stream sensors in the small intestine that sense what kind of food is in the works and send messages to down-stream glands to get ready for it. There are many mores senses we could add into the discussion IF we were discussing anatomy and physiology, but we're not.

Here's another point: What use could Helen Keller have for the sense of balance? It's information we're talking about, and balance is not important nor commonly thought of as a sense for learning the higher things of cognition.

Same with taste and smell. They could (or should) be lumped together as one sense.... AND THEN even rejected altogether as not important to this section of the class, but like footnotes, that would be an unnecessary distraction to most students.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[Bolshevik]

You were talking about being limited by the "five senses". Then you talked about a baby.

what is the outside source of learning?

[Mike]

The green font text I was posting was the class transcript.

It was VPW speaking.

Maybe I wasn't clear about that.

Did you think that was me talking about being limited by the five senses and then the baby?

I went back and edited in a line to explain it better.

Please note,

I did not give you crap for not reading my posts carefully enough.

BTW, please note that I haven't been following you around from thread to thread throwing all sorts of challenging questions at you about what you have posted AND not carefully reading your posts. So the situation was not quite symmetrical. I was being hounded and the hounding reflected a casual skimming of my posts. You weren't being hounded, so I just wanted to point that out to you.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[Mike]

Still continuing with Session 6 of the class on "only rule"

You see how the learning process operates. Put it in the field of

philosophy. This is a field of course many people know I am dynamically

interested in and whether I'm qualified or not in the field someone else

could judge. But I do have a major in both philosophy and history and

I've been deeply concerned about the philosophical field.

But why is it that one person follows Plato and another person

follows Aristotle someone else follows Socrates, somebody else will

follow Freud or Hagel or Nietzsche, why? Very simple. Let's say that I

am a student of philosophy and I study all these different men. They

are all lodged up here what they have said. Now I have a hodge-podge of

different opinions, viewpoints up here.

All of these men are centers of reference for learning but in areas

they vary and differ. So here I am with confusion. Now in my mind I

begin to catalog. I separate out that which appeals to me or that

which I feel is right or truth philosophically.

Here is where the need for one center of reference or one rule for faith and practice is beginning to develop. The teaching is an analogy where we could substitute Biblical researchers or versions of the Bible for the named philosophers.

I'm cutting out sections that are repetitious and not needed for this discussion, just in case some of the grads who somewhat memorized have noticed that some things are missing.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[Modgellan]

you omitted some of the WURRRRRD? is that in order? should a word be changed first and then omitted or the other way around? Is that covered in another class? How much does it cost?

[waysider]

Class!----Class!----Class!

[waysider]

Are there really only 5 senses?

[Mike]

you omitted some of the WURRRRRD? is that in order? should a word be changed first and then omitted or the other way around? Is that covered in another class? How much does it cost?

Well, actually this is only the film class, not the final written book and magazine form.

I'm reviewing the highlights of what we all were exposed to over and over, and some of us claim to have memorized.

This section of the class seemed to many students to be a rather dry subject, and it didn't have any strong "attention getters" like goodies we can receive from God, and it came right after the emotional high of "Christ in you the hope of glow-ry" so it is not the most memorable part of the class.

In fact, this section of the class put many students to sleep, but as I said, due to my background interests I was always on high alert for this section. (Plus, I was usually the AV man for the class and had to be on top of the machinery at all times.) I would look around and see people dozing at this point. Now, as we discuss "only rule," I can see from what people offer as their "only rule" that no one got really it the first time around as to what was originally in the class on this subject.

****

Are there really only 5 senses?

It depends on what you mean by "really."

See Post #177 for a more information on this.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[waysider]

Same with taste and smell. They could (or should) be lumped together as one sense.... AND THEN even rejected altogether as not important to this section of the class, but like footnotes, that would be an unnecessary distraction to most students.

Smells also retain an uncanny power to move us. A whiff of pipe tobacco, a particular perfume, or a long-forgotten scent can instantly conjure up scenes and emotions from the past. Many writers and artists have marveled at the haunting quality of such memories.

In The Remembrance of Things Past, French novelist Marcel Proust described what happened to him after drinking a spoonful of tea in which he had soaked a piece of madeleine, a type of cake: "No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me," he wrote. "An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses...with no suggestion of its origin...

"Suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was of a little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings...my Aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea....Immediately the old gray house on the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set...and the entire town, with its people and houses, gardens, church, and surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being from my cup of tea."

Just seeing the madeleine had not brought back these memories, Proust noted. He needed to taste and smell it. "When nothing else subsists from the past," he wrote, "after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered...the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls...bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory."

http://www.hhmi.org/senses/d110.html

[Mike]

Yes, I've often marveled at olfactory memory. The nose knows!

What I was getting at in that Post #177 is that it would be hard to teach the alphabet to Hellen Keller with her sense of smell or taste.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[waysider]

It depends on what you mean by "really."

See Post #177 for a more information on this.

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/medical/a/aa051601a.htm

Jacobson's Organ and the Sixth Sense

Human Extrasensory Perception?

By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., About.com

See More About:

* vomeronasal organ

* esp

* flehmen reaction

* sense of smell

Traditionally humans have been thought to come equipped with five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Animals possess several extra senses, including altered vision and hearing, echolocation, electric and/or magnetic field detection, and supplementary chemical detection senses. In addition to taste and smell, most vertebrates use Jacobson's organ (also termed the vomeronasal organ and vomeronasal pit) to detect trace quantities of chemicals.

While snakes and other reptiles flick substances into Jacobson's organ with their tongues, several mammals (e.g., cats) exhibit the Flehmen reaction. When 'Flehmening', an animal appears to sneer as it curls its upper lip to better expose the twin vomeronasal organs for chemical sensing. In mammals, Jacobson's organ is used not simply to identify minute quantities of chemicals, but also for subtle communication between other members of the same species, through the emission and reception of chemical signals called pheromones.

In the 1800s, Danish physician L. Jacobson detected structures in a patient's nose that became termed 'Jacobson's organ' (although the organ was actually first reported in humans by F. Ruysch in 1703). Since its discovery, comparisons of human and animal embryos led scientists to conclude that Jacobson's organ in humans corresponded to the pits in snakes and vomeronasal organs in other mammals, but the organ was thought to be vestigial (no longer functional) in humans. While humans don't display the Flehmen reaction, recent studies have demonstrated that Jacobson's organ functions as in other mammals to detect pheromones and to sample low concentrations of certain non-human chemicals in air. There are indications that Jacobson's organ may be stimulated in pregnant women, perhaps partially accounting for an improved sense of smell during pregnancy and possibly implicated in morning sickness.

Since extra-sensory perception or ESP is awareness of the world beyond the senses, it would be inappropriate to term this Sixth Sense 'extrasensory'. After all, the vomeronasal organ connects to the amygdala of the brain and relays information about the surroundings in essentially the same manner as any other sense. Like ESP, however, the sixth sense remains somewhat elusive and hard to describe.

Edited February 2, 2009 by waysider

[Mike]

Now let's not get bogged with a few trees and miss the whole forest.

[rascal]

I think you're confusing two separate things: what was taught to us especially in written form versus what people did at times.

We should be looking on this thread at the former and adopting the Golden Rule toward the latter in our hearts.

Love means forgiving and forgetting the mistakes of people as much and as soon as possible.

God will certainly help you do this IF you want to.

Oh yeah, just like Jesus did when he called the pharacees whited sepulchers, filled with disease and filth on the inside...when he called them vipers, when he chased the money changers outta the temple and flipped the tables over. Or how about the love and forgivness he promised when he talked about it better a mill stone be hung around the persons neck and have them drown IF they hurt one of the little ones? What about the warnings concerning ravening wolves in sheeps clothing seeking whom they may devour?

Knowing that vpw and his doctrine did as much or worse than ANY of these guys...seeing how they decietfully used the word for their personal gain......I imagine his expectations for us and our responsibilities aren`t too far removed from the reaction Jesus had in his day to those whom hurt the innocent in God`s name ...using the authority granted to them by their position...shrug...I haven`t broken out any whips or flipped any tables at hq yet...I haven`t drowned any of the child molesters though a few of them are in jail now a decade or so after the fact.

So I`d appreciate it if YOU Mike would remove your sanctimonious finger of judgement out of the collective faces of those of us posters who refuse to follow your injunctions to do something that is entirely contrary to the example that Jesus set forth.

Forgivness?? that ain`t up to me, that is up to God when or if these guys ever repent and ask. When they come and apologise AND attempt to make amends, as is THEIR instruction...then I will consider it my responsibility to forgive them.

But hey let`s not let a little thing like specific scriptural instruction given by God if we believe the bible.... get in the way when wanting to encourage people to hide the evil that spiritually identifies these men as dangerous and renders their doctrines worthless.

Edited February 2, 2009 by rascal

[Twinky]

(Plus, I was usually the AV man for the class and had to be on top of the machinery at all times.)

Sort of like this?

There seems to be a nice arial sticking out of the side.

[waysider]

Now let's not get bogged with a few trees and miss the whole forest.

Expanding one's view beyond a narrow, error filled Bible class would hardly qualify as getting bogged down with a few trees.

In fact, it would seem that it might even increase one's ability to see the whole forest.

[geisha779]

I posted this in the basement(So to speak) the doctrinal forums. . . but wanted to ask you here as well. . . . Why VP? There are lot's of guys just like him. . .

Mike,

Why is it you have picked VPW's revelation of the "lost intent" of the scriptures? I wonder why you did not pick someone like Muhammad? A strict unitrian. . . claimed the bible's original intent was corrupted. . . visited by a spiritual being. . . thought Jesus was a cool prophet. . . believed the virgin birth, the miracles. . . just had another take on who Jesus was. Heck, Muhammad actually did start a whole new religion. . . a big one.

Or, even Joseph Smith who's "legacy includes several religious denominations with adherents numbering in the millions, denominations that share a belief in Jesus but that vary in their acceptance of each other and of traditional Christianity. Smith's followers consider him a prophet and believe that some of his revelations are sacred texts on par with the Bible." Wikipedia

Or even Charles Taze Russell "Russell taught his followers the non-existence of hell and the annihilation of unsaved people (a doctrine he picked up from the Adventists), the non-existence of the Trinity (he said only the Father, Jehovah, is God), the identification of Jesus with Michael the Archangel, the reduction of the Holy Spirit from a person to a force, the mortality (not immortality) of the soul, and the return of Jesus in 1914.

Russell died in 1916 and was succeeded by "Judge" Joseph R. Rutherford. Rutherford, born in 1869, had been brought up as a Baptist and became the legal adviser to the Watch Tower. He never was a real judge, but took the title because, as an attorney, he substituted at least once for an absent judge.

At one time he claimed Russell was next to Paul as an expounder of the gospel. . . "

http://www.catholic.com/library/history_of...witnesesses.asp

Mike, there is always the Pope? He speaks excathedra!!!!. . . No? "Papal infallibility is the dogma in Catholic theology that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error[1] when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation, or at least being intimately connected to divine revelation. It is also taught that the Holy Spirit works in the body of the Church, as sensus fidei, to ensure that dogmatic teachings proclaimed to be infallible will be received by all Catholics." Wikipedia

Why Vp? What makes him stand out from all the others who have claimed to "Fix" traditional bible misunderstandings. Especially those concerning Jesus. . .

I have to tell you. . . it can't be VP's upstanding moral character that attracts you to his unique gospel, or even his stellar education. . . . what makes gas on the snow pumps any more credible than an angel giving someone new revelation?

These guys had more than 10 people who "Got" it???

Edited February 2, 2009 by geisha779

[Mark Clarke]

Mike,

I find it interesting that you had the time to teach this little "class" of yours but couldn't find the time to respond to my posts. BTW, they were long because they were responding to your rather lengthy one, point by point.

I will only address one point from your "class" for now. (Please note that it is only one point I am addressing now; it doesn't mean I haven't read or understood the rest of what you wrote.) You said, I have posted that this “only rule” was irretrievable or catastrophically lost and VPW said that it was “buried.” I submit that those are not the same at all. If something is "buried" it can be dug up. It is not "irretrievable or catastrophically lost." That is the state I believe the Word was in, around the time of the Reformation. Once the Scriptures were available to anyone rather than only the church leaders, the availability of God's Word began to increase.

[Mike]

Mike,

You said, I have posted that this “only rule” was irretrievable or catastrophically lost and VPW said that it was “buried.” I submit that those are not the same at all. If something is "buried" it can be dug up. It is not "irretrievable or catastrophically lost." That is the state I believe the Word was in, around the time of the Reformation. Once the Scriptures were available to anyone rather than only the church leaders, the availability of God's Word began to increase.

What about DEAD and buried?

Who'd even WANT to dig that up?

[waysider]

What about DEAD and buried?

Who'd even WANT to dig that up?

So now you are proposing that the word was DEAD?

That has a final sort of tone.

If it was DEAD, how did Bullinger, Stiles, Leonard, etc. bring back to life the portions they contributed to Wierwille's PFAL?

[Mike]

So now you are proposing that the word was DEAD?

That has a final sort of tone.

If it was DEAD, how did Bullinger, Stiles, Leonard, etc. bring back to life the portions they contributed to Wierwille's PFAL?

With them it was dismembered, in a way.

***

But how about THIS:

Buried, but no one knowing WHERE it is buried, like stolen treasure.

This is the metaphor VPW uses in OMSW.

***

I imagine that some could be shocked that I could even propose the Word being dead,

but I was referring to the WRITTEN physical Word, and not to THE Word of God, which is spiritual and untouchable.

In the OT there are several stories of the written Word being destroyed or lost in several ways.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[waysider]

With them it was dismembered, in a way.

***

But how about THIS:

Buried, but no one knowing WHERE it is buried, like stolen treasure.

This is the metaphor VPW uses in OMSW.

Was it buried, lost, dismembered or dead, Mike?

Poop or get off the potty chair.

Edited February 2, 2009 by waysider

[Mike]

You're not so generous, giving me only two choices, and both scatological.

[Mike]

Mark, hang in there, I'll get to you.

Back on Post #151 I started posting in green fonts highlights from the section of Session Six

where we all first heard about "only rule."

Let's continue.

But why is it that one person follows Plato and another person

follows Aristotle someone else follows Socrates, somebody else will

follow Freud or Hagel or Nietzsche, why? Very simple. Let's say that I

am a student of philosophy and I study all these different men. They

are all lodged up here what they have said. Now I have a hodge-podge of

different opinions, viewpoints up here.

All of these men are centers of reference for learning but in areas

they vary and differ. So here I am with confusion. Now in my mind I

begin to catalog. I separate out that which appeals to me or that

which I feel is right or truth philosophically.

And let's say after a period of time by the process of elimination

I come to the place that I believe that Aristotle had the greatest

amount of philosophical accuracy. And I say "well as for me from now on

I am going to follow Aristotle." Then what do I become philosophically?

An Aristotelian.

Or if I should decide that Plato is the most accurate of them all

then I become what they call in philosophical circles a Platonist. Or a

Freudian.

Do you see how this all came about? All because the natural man

has to have a center of reference for learning which is outside of the

individual seeking. He has to have a point of contact. But we not only

need a point most of us have had multiple points, thousands upon

thousands.

I bold fonted the idea that will soon develop into the "only rule" idea.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mike

[waysider]

I bold fonted the idea that will soon develop into the "only rule" idea.

Define "soon", please