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You Die When You Stop Believing


Broken Arrow
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VPW taught that a person actually dies when they stop believing. As he grew older he began to say that a person dies when they become "tired of the fight and stop believing".

This teaching was damaging to me personally in ways I did not understand at the time. First of all, when VP said a person died when they became "tired of the fight", I got a sense of hopelessness. The ramifications of this teaching are that at the end of everyone's life, they would become full of despair and die discouraged. Otherwise they would keep on living.

On a more personal level, it just so happened my own father died when I was in TWI. My father was not a Way believer. For a long time I blamed my dad for dying. I believed he died because he stopped believing and he left us alone. He abandoned us, he abandoned me. I realize that denial and anger are a normal part of the grieving process, but this TWI doctrine fed my wrong thinking and probably made the grieving process last a lot longer than it needed to, like years longer. I did the bargaining thing too, by the way. I blamed myself for not praying well enough, or believing well enough, or not being a good enough son, or whatever. Could I have said something during our last conversation that would have made a difference? All that is part of the grieving process too.

My father had heart disease, and that's what he died of. He went to bed one night and never woke up. He died at the ripe old age of 56. Death comes to us all, and it doesn't follow anyone's schedule. TWI imparted a sense of control that was not real. When life's circumstances proved that we were not in control, we found someone or something to blame. In the end, such a doctrine does a lot of damage.

Peace is not found in controlling or eliminating negative or hurtful life (or death) experiences. Peace comes in knowing that, come what may, we are never alone.

For me, and maybe I'm just weird, there's a certain peace in knowing today could be my last day on earth.

With that being known, it is possible to die content and at peace.

Edited by Broken Arrow
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Sorry to hear about your dad, I lost my dad in a car wreak; the not being

able to say goodbye or giving the dad a hug, sometimes I feel I got robbed,

but try to sing that ROE Speedwagon song, Keep Pushin on, and try to push

on.

I heard a guy one time say, If something happens to one of his kids, that he

would stop believing in god; that kinda gets me thinking sometimes, believing

is a trip, would that guy be putting himself under a law of believing somehow?

My dad did a stretch in Vietnam, he took a wive and three kids 1,800 in a corver"sorry about the spelling"

with a dog, pulling a boat; I don't know about what he believed in, Vietnam kinda

got to him, but he had a do or die believing, it was something to see, I had a cool dad.

I hope I didn't get off topic?

Edited by teachmevp
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I wonder what VPW did with the Apostle Paul's phrase, "I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."

I think he was just trying to extend that unbiblical law of believing to cover death ... we live in a fallen world....sooner or later our bodies wear out or we are subject to some sort of disease, accident, homicide, etc. Some people perhaps do give up, but the vast majority do not is my humble opinion.

Edited by DogLover
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Broken Arrow, I'm sorry for your loss of your father. And for your difficulties in coming to terms with your grief. It's okay to grieve. :cryhug_1_:

My father died (also heart disease) at age 50 (decades ago now) - it was a sorrowful time. At least I had the comfort of knowing he was at peace and painless now, with God in heaven (as I then believed, being quite young). That's the peace you refer to. It doesn't stop us grieving or missing the deceased, but it does give us a reason to carry on living.

While we are in this human body, sickness and death will come to us all. Doesn't matter what our goals are. Your dad's death wasn't his fault. Nor was it yours.

Might be worthwhile getting regular heart/health checks yourself in case you have an inherited tendency to what he died from. "Believing" for a long life is as much about taking care of yourself now in purely physical things, as well as attitude to life.

I love that OT description ... "old and full of days" - doesn't occur as often as I'd remembered, but it's a tender way of describing death.

We all fell for VPW's line at least briefly. And it's mostly wrong.

Some people do just give up when in a difficult situation, that they perceive as hopeless. And some spouses don't last long after their loved "other half" has died - their reason for living has gone. Very elderly people might set a goal - reach 100, see someone's marriage, see a new baby - and then, goal achieved, die soon after.

But the will to survive is very strong; that doesn't happen to most people.

For all we know, when VPW started spouting that line, he was already suffering from cancer and knew it was far gone and inoperable. That man abused his body in many ways and reaped the consequences. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was already sowing the seeds of his own post-death glorification and in his usual manipulative way, was saying (again) how much he'd done for us by his (cough) stand on the word.

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I'm sorry to hear about your father and the mental fight you had to endure after his passing.

I think the bottom line is the way does not know how to minister to people when bad things happen,they have nothing comforting to say,they throw out a few verses for you to chew on and say something like "The word will keep you strong".

They should be honest and admit they do not have all the answers to life.

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I'm sorry to hear about your father and the mental fight you had to endure after his passing.

I think the bottom line is the way does not know how to minister to people when bad things happen,they have nothing comforting to say,they throw out a few verses for you to chew on and say something like "The word will keep you strong".

They should be honest and admit they do not have all the answers to life.

Amen to that!

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Might be worthwhile getting regular heart/health checks yourself in case you have an inherited tendency to what he died from. "Believing" for a long life is as much about taking care of yourself now in purely physical things, as well as attitude to life.

Thank you for your very kind response and, oh yeah, I'm doing the health checks. I have heart issues as well. My father died when he was 56, I am now 53. He passed away quite a while ago and perhaps I didn't make that clear. The TWI thinking inhibited the grieving process a great deal. I was 23 at his passing. I didn't really start truly dealing with his death until my 40's when I dropped the Way thinking.

If I still embraced "Way thinking", it would be very dangerous. My attitude would be rather cavalier and I would do whatever I wanted to because, "You die when you stop believing".

Thank you all for your responses!

I wonder what VPW did with the Apostle Paul's phrase, "I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."

Right! Or the phrase, "The outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed day by day".

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I think this is another great example of how twi blames the victim when someone is hurt. Everything bad that happens is because of unbelief... (or an attack of the adversary if you are in good graces with twi's agenda and leadership of the day.)

I remember the first time I heard the teaching that you die when you stop believing... If you follow that thought process through logically, then if your believing is right, you could be immortal.

I never thought of how that teaching would effect people who were close with the deceased. It is akin to thinking erroneously that your loved one committed suicide. How evil of a teaching!

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I have a question!

Believing - - - WHAT? the "ministry"? da verd? Do you see my problem.

As they put it -- everything falls back to your believing.....but that's all that's said! I know that term is used as a noun....but it still makes no sense. Therefore....anything relating to something that makes no sense.....is.....itself....senseless.

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Wierwille died because he stopped breathing.

Raf said it here first.

"We don't die when we stop believing- we die when we stop breathing."

I'm sorry to hear about your father and the mental fight you had to endure after his passing.

I think the bottom line is the way does not know how to minister to people when bad things happen,they have nothing comforting to say,they throw out a few verses for you to chew on and say something like "The word will keep you strong".

They should be honest and admit they do not have all the answers to life.

Ultimately, that's one major weakness of twi and the Word-Faith movement in general-

nobody knows how to minister to the suffering other than to BLAME them for suffering.

Oh, it's easy for a celebrity (already rich, famous, etc) to say "I got this far through believing."

What about the millions of celebrity VIEWERS who believed hard enough to pop a blood vessel

and reality just stayed where it was? Among scientists, the supposed "proof" of this sort

of thing is called "counting the hits and ignoring the misses." When the "law" of believing fails,

they change the subject and claim it never failed....

I think this is another great example of how twi blames the victim when someone is hurt. Everything bad that happens is because of unbelief... (or an attack of the adversary if you are in good graces with twi's agenda and leadership of the day.)

I remember the first time I heard the teaching that you die when you stop believing... If you follow that thought process through logically, then if your believing is right, you could be immortal.

I never thought of how that teaching would effect people who were close with the deceased. It is akin to thinking erroneously that your loved one committed suicide. How evil of a teaching!

This is the same type of talk the "miserable comforters" gave Job-

"Oh, bad things are happening to you? Well, it's your own fault!"

twi aligns itself with the miserable comforters whenever one of the twi'ers

opens their fool mouth to someone suffering in any way.

It's adding insult on top of the injury.

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oh my. more so than anything i have ever read in a decade at the gsc, the opening post of this thread not only touches and illuminates somewhere near or at the very root of "how things like twi/vpw/pfal happen in life"...but also offers an antidote. much gratitude Arrow.

reminds me of those fields where the harvest is plentious...the laborers are few...where things like redemption and atonement and forgiveness are no longer words for mythological powers we are looking for, but words for very real and extra ordinary experiences we are having.

btw...some are of the opinion that Job simply died in the original story. And the magical ending was added for the same reasons we prefer that it remain. And Elihu was an original chaplain. As if dying is enlightening enough for anyone...so do it well.

And whatever one thinks it is, this ordinary human will to live can be quite resilient...enough so that there is a kernal of truth in VPW's end of belief statements...in spite of how he interpreted it.

Such as how some people defy odds for years simply because they are waiting for someone or something...then suddenly die when it happens. Like how some people live in comas for years, stuck in an inner loop, then sometimes even die even though they resolve the loop and come out of the coma.

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We all know that long married loving couples frequently die within a short time of each other. They say they "died of a broken heart" and I do have to wonder if there is truth there. Losing the will to go on could cause lack of appetite, poor nutrition, and who knows what else could be set in motion in cases of these long-term marriages. I can comprehend this.

But my life depends of obeying my overseer who scrutinizes my every activity and instills fear in me??? no way. The BOOK was written a long time ago -- how long did Steven live....and how come he was stoned to death? Who was his overseer and what command did he, Steven, who was so blessed by God......fail to carry out?

Those remaining in that cult have lost their ability to think for themselves to such a degree,. that unless we are able to catch their attention and grab it long enough to show them the real truth, they have no hope and the only thing we can do for them is pray for Father's mercy on the individual believers because in a way.....they have become insane....and we can now intercede on their behalf, if not for healing....at least for the hereafter -- -maybe!

I anybody else getting knots in their guts and becoming slightly nauseous over this? Or am I just a silly old woman?

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Broken Arrow, my dad died in 1992 when we were apprentice FWC and I felt angry and cheated for years. I thought it was the devil trying to get us away from our goal of becoming a grreeeaaattt man and woman of God.

I wasn't able to grieve for him honestly until my mother died. We were out then, but still the pain remained. At least by the time my last relative, an aunt, from that generation passed, I was able to see that death is the natural culmination of life, and not something to be blamed for.

Here's a song that comforted Mr. Garden and me greatly when Mr. Garden's mother died a couple of years back:

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I have come to intensely dislike the whole "you're believing wrong/not big enough" or you have too much "negative believing" crap.

I figured it out one day: "Negative believing" makes about as much sense as the idea of "negative light" as a definition of darkness.

You either believe the Word or whatever, in a given situation or you don't.

The absence of something is NOT something in itself, I would think.

It is as absurd as the idea that Job was responsible for the deaths of his kids and all the others. If anything, it wasn't this thing called "believing in reverse". It may be he had missed some opportunity to do something to avert the calamity by increased diligence, but the people were responsible for their own choices in the end. Not Job.

I bristle when someone says "You're not belieeeeeving enough" or some such crap.

It is more than just nonsense, it is harmful to those that buy into it.

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I think this is another great example of how twi blames the victim when someone is hurt. Everything bad that happens is because of unbelief... (or an attack of the adversary if you are in good graces with twi's agenda and leadership of the day.)

I remember the first time I heard the teaching that you die when you stop believing... If you follow that thought process through logically, then if your believing is right, you could be immortal.

I never thought of how that teaching would effect people who were close with the deceased. It is akin to thinking erroneously that your loved one committed suicide. How evil of a teaching!

Exactly. IMO you are correct on every point you make, and it gets weird when someone you love dies for the reasons you point out. It's also difficult to comfort someone and not be condescending. I mean, after all, their loved one died because of weakness i.e. they were out of fellowship.

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Broken Arrow, my dad died in 1992 when we were apprentice FWC and I felt angry and cheated for years. I thought it was the devil trying to get us away from our goal of becoming a grreeeaaattt man and woman of God.

I wasn't able to grieve for him honestly until my mother died. We were out then, but still the pain remained. At least by the time my last relative, an aunt, from that generation passed, I was able to see that death is the natural culmination of life, and not something to be blamed for.

Here's a song that comforted Mr. Garden and me greatly when Mr. Garden's mother died a couple of years back:

Thanks WG. I haven't had the chance to listen to this yet, but I will. I met your husband's mom a while back and of course I knew his brother.

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I remember sitting at my grandfather's funeral and thinking about how possessed the preacher was who was performing the service. My grandfather was old, so I wasn't angry at him for dying. Like during most emotional life events when I was in TWI (or rather most events that SHOULD HAVE BEEN EMOTIONAL for me) I was just numb.

I remember some WC minister guy was there at the funeral to support my family, but he wouldn't go into the actual church sanctuary where the body was because he "didn't want to be that close to death" or some such nonsense... Like it would make him "unclean" or something. I thought that was weird.

Now, looking back, I wonder if it was just that he would have burst into flames if he had walked into that holy area of the church. Much like a vampire or witch in an old horror film. Probably not, but the thought has crossed my mind.

I'm not so numb anymore, and I feel bad now thinking of how I looked daggers at that poor pastor who was trying to comfort my family at their time of need, while that WC minister just sat in the vestibule not wanting to get his hands dirty.

Oh well, I was just a kid back then...

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oh my. more so than anything i have ever read in a decade at the gsc, the opening post of this thread not only touches and illuminates somewhere near or at the very root of "how things like twi/vpw/pfal happen in life"...but also offers an antidote. much gratitude Arrow.

reminds me of those fields where the harvest is plentious...the laborers are few...where things like redemption and atonement and forgiveness are no longer words for mythological powers we are looking for, but words for very real and extra ordinary experiences we are having.

btw...some are of the opinion that Job simply died in the original story. And the magical ending was added for the same reasons we prefer that it remain. And Elihu was an original chaplain. As if dying is enlightening enough for anyone...so do it well.

And whatever one thinks it is, this ordinary human will to live can be quite resilient...enough so that there is a kernal of truth in VPW's end of belief statements...in spite of how he interpreted it.

Such as how some people defy odds for years simply because they are waiting for someone or something...then suddenly die when it happens. Like how some people live in comas for years, stuck in an inner loop, then sometimes even die even though they resolve the loop and come out of the coma.

Thank you for your kind words. I'm with you in regard to those who live in spite of all odds. Life does hold mysteries none of us completely understand. James Thurber wrote a true story about a dog he had that became injured. When the last member of the household arrived home the dog greeted him and died. Was the dog "believing"? Did he die because he grew tired of the fight and stopped believing? Back to Krys's question, what did the dog "believe" for?

Edited by Broken Arrow
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We all know that long married loving couples frequently die within a short time of each other. They say they "died of a broken heart" and I do have to wonder if there is truth there. Losing the will to go on could cause lack of appetite, poor nutrition, and who knows what else could be set in motion in cases of these long-term marriages. I can comprehend this.

It's been fairly well documented among doctors that depression, anxiety, and the like suppress the immune system thus opening up the body for all kinds of things. I'm not just making this up. With my own health issues, medical information I received said this very thing. Of course, I suppose someone could "run" with this and say all one had to do was "stay happy" and good health would be guaranteed. That's not true either, but it is a factor.

:offtopic: My in-laws have been married for 65 years! He's 93 and she's 86. Every night before going to bed they sing love songs to each other! I live with them and I know.

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