T-Bone, what you write is always interesting, but so lengthy that at times I too think, I'll put this aside for another time. Not to say you shouldn't post long things, and we need the challenge to get us thinking, rather than "quick quips" and two-sentence posts that don't take a thread forward. You do post with lots of white space, paragraphs, headings, etc, that make reading easy when there is time. And yes, I do get to reading all of your posts.
hey All, believe it or not I’m well aware of the problem…Rocky nailed it on the psychological relief benefit I get out of it…but like I said – I’m working on it – which means I’m working on my editing skills…most of the time I can pull together ideas very quickly and post it – but my current editing process is after-the-fact - I’ve already posted it and then spend awhile correcting typos, fixing links, formatting and stuff to pretty it up…I had a boss who told me a story of someone who apologized for writing a real long letter because he didn’t take the time to write a short one…so I understand my problem but forget to implement the fix – spend more time refining the content before I post it.
T-Bone, I would far rather read what you write than delve into a PFAL book or the collaterals again. PFAL and RHST are inconsistent and I found it hard to get my head round the inconsistencies; and the collaterals are overly simplistic, from what I recall. You can re-read all you like; I won't ever bother with them again, LOL.
T bone whatever the reason for your writing style I actually like it. Your break down above helps introduce the current common Christian logic and thinking regarding the problematic fundamentalist interpretation we were taught and accepted as truth regarding the origin of scripture.
Conspiracy theory and extremist viewpoints are where Wierwilles logic in scripture interpretation leads. We have taken the time to debunk many of those extremist views on this site.
Look Christianity actually involves other Christians in other organizations who are not following a denominational head that is born of the seed of the serpent like Wierwille taught in his Advanced class.
And the body of Christ is not the Way. Neither is the household of God like they teach that is cult control language and manipulation by scripture interpretation
but hey All, enough about me - as my WOW brother used to say “you’re making me feel subconscious.” FYI he wasn’t deliberately doing a Norm Crosby shtick either
but my current editing process is after-the-fact - I’ve already posted it and then spend awhile correcting typos, fixing links, formatting and stuff to pretty it up…
The end product, the written scripture, comes by way of the revelation first being spoken.
So the pattern is first a revelation comes, and that could involve words, feelings, or sensations that God knows will accurately convey the revelation. Then the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed.
If you are good at searching the archive here, I posted this several times in past years, along with transcripts of the Corps tapes. Some of my very large threads were deleted, though, when bandwidth prices were prohibitive.
On 2/7/2022 at 3:14 PM, waysider said:
Materials for "Working The Word":
1. sturdy shoe horn.
2. ample supply of goose grease.
3. large supply of logical fallacies.
On these forums we are using words, letters, English . . . we are using symbols. Some of us are very good at conveying our thoughts and some of not so much . . . using the same symbols.
I find Mike is almost communicating something profound. The difficulty in articulating the experience of existence, perhaps?
But I think there's a presupposition of exactness that is demanding a conclusion of absolute clarity. That hand-in-the-glove mathematical exactness that always arrives at 42.
He's inviting spoon feeding?
I was just thinking in TWI, we were seeking to obtain revelation every second of the day, so as to follow God's commands and never be wrong, ever. What's the point of that?
Edited by Bolshevik Father showed me my spelling mistake
I have no idea what "# 4 Plenary verbal inspiration theory ..." is all about. A tiny summary would suffice. At the moment I don't have time to read your whole post and flush it out.
VPW definitely did NOT ascribe to the Divine Dictation model.
He says so in the Corps Thessalonians tapes when he hits verse 1:1 in both of the Epistles.
The reason for this, in those two opening verses, is due to those verses making it appear like Paul AND Timothy AND Silus were authors.
In those Corps tapes VPW implies that Divine Dictation CAN happen, but GENERALLY the revelation is not given that way. For Thessalonians, he teaches, the revelation first came to Paul alone, and then he discussed it with Timothy and Silus. Lastly, all three of them put it into written form.
The familiar verses are from 2 Peter 1:20,21 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The end product, the written scripture, comes by way of the revelation first being spoken.
So the pattern is first a revelation comes, and that could involve words, feelings, or sensations that God knows will accurately convey the revelation. Then the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed.
If you are good at searching the archive here, I posted this several times in past years, along with transcripts of the Corps tapes. Some of my very large threads were deleted, though, when bandwidth prices were prohibitive.
hello it's me again
Perhaps when you do have time to read my entire post, you’d put a little more thought before you single out just one item you’re not familiar with…ya know that also leads me to believe that you hardly ever apply yourself to actually THINK for yourself, since you seem to be lazy when faced with a challenge. Your laziness is also reflected in your flimsy excuse that a lot of your hard work got lost on Grease Spot Café’s cyberspace…It’s like saying “sorry but the dog ate my homework.”
Even if you didn’t have your old posts detailing this SUPPOSED pattern of revelation nor the SUPPOSED transcripts of corps tapes that would support your “thesis” because some of your very large threads were deleted, you should STILL BE ABLE to argue and defend your point with clarity, accuracy, details, and logic IF INDEED it was from YOUR MIND, YOUR DUE DILIGENCE and YOUR PAINSTAKING STUDY of the Scriptures.
If for some reason like a major glitch in Grease Spot’s server or if website administrators had to cut back on bandwidth and all the stuff I’ve written about criticizing wierwille, his ideology, analyzing PFAL, way corps program, TWI’s “theories and practice” were lost– I could write it all up again in a heartbeat – because it’s a part of my life story…I didn’t make this $hit up. I did NOT plagiarize someone else’s whacky cult adventure…It’s all in my head and heart! I could still argue and defend any of the points I had made about wierwille’s twisted use of Scripture and his whacky theology – because it all came from using my cognitive skills, and diligent study of the Scriptures.
..most of the time, the main reason I quote from sources outside of The Way International’s control - like Wikipedia, Bible commentaries, systematic theologies, Psychology Today and many other LEGITIMATE wellsprings of knowledge and wisdom, is to show that I’m not the only one who tries to follow an honest and logical way of interpreting a certain passage - - unlike wierwille’s slipshod methods of twisting Scripture to suit his own agenda…the same goes for exposing his harmful and controlling cult-tactics to exploit REAL Christians…I'm not the only one who started realizing he was harmful and controlling. I'll get to that in a bit when I reference Navarro's work.
Something every diehard PFAL-fan needs to ask themselves is WHY all the excessive admiration for wierwille?
Okay – it may have been partly due to a self-imposed paradigm shift that we as cult-followers experienced. We all tended to view wierwille in a very positive light. In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the character Jessica said love is blind. That seems to be a timeless truth indeed – when we love someone it makes us unable to see their faults. wierwille’s self-promotion was camouflaged by the persona that he was a simple clergyman frustrated with the lack of answers and power in his life until God spoke to him.
The unvarnished truth of why I was attracted to wierwille, and his ministry was the promise of getting answers to the big questions in life and experience whatever it was to tap into the power of God – by way of taking the PFAL class…over and over and over again and over again… zzzzzzZZZZZZzzz zzzzzZZZZZ
But beyond whatever reasons we may have had to hold wierwille in such high regard – there is another more alarming explanation for wierwille being held in such high esteem – wierwille required....mmmmm more like DEMANDED excessive admiration from followers and even outsiders. That is something I have observed in my 12 years of TWI involvement…But to show you I’m not the only one who has come to realize wierwille was a cult leader – I refer to articles from reputable sources like Psychology Today…DEMANDING excessive admiration is something common in a lot of harmful and controlling cult-leaders. Consider some excerpts from a Joe Navarro article.
Joe Navarro, a former FBI Counterintelligence Agent and the author of “What Every Body is Saying” wrote an August 2012 Psychology Today article titled “Dangerous Cult Leaders: Clues to what makes for a pathological cult leader”. He said the two questions he gets asked most frequently by students of criminology and psychology are: How do you know when a cult leader is bad, evil or toxic ? and when is a cult leader pathological or a danger to others? Navarro said those are valid questions in view of the historical record of suffering and hurt caused by various cult leaders around the world:
“From my studies of cults and cult leaders during my time in the FBI, I learned early on that there are some things to look for that, at a minimum, say "caution, this individual is dangerous, and in all likelihood will cause harm to others. Having studied at length the life, teachings, and behaviors of Jim Jones (Jonestown Guyana), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Stewart Traill (The Church of Bible Understanding), Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara (Aum Shinrikyo), Joseph Di Mambro (The Order of the Solar Temple a.k.a. Ordre du Temple Solaire), Marshall Heff Applewhit (Heaven’s Gate), Bhagwan Rajneesh (Rajneesh Movement), and Warren Jeffs (polygamist leader), I can say that what stands out about these individuals is that they were or are all pathologically narcissistic.
They all have or had an over-abundant belief that they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered. They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all they did not like being questioned or challenged. And yet, in spite of these less than charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.”
You should click on that link – and especially all you big PFAL-fans - read the entire article; at the end of the article Navarro lists 50 ...yes I said FIFTY ...a big Five O… 50 personality traits that stand out as the first warning to those who would associate with them, but there are many others. Navarro says this collection of traits give us hints as to their psychopathology. He also said this list is not all-inclusive nor is it the final word on the subject; it is merely his personal collection based on studies and interviews that he conducted in his previous career.
Navarro says “If you know of a cult leader who has many of these traits there is a high probability that they are hurting those around them emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually, or financially. And of course this does not take into account the hurt that their loved ones will also experience…
...When a cult or organizational leader has a preponderance of these traits then we can anticipate that at some point those who associate with him will likely suffer physically, emotionally, psychologically, or financially. If these traits sound familiar to leaders, groups, sects, or organizations known to you, then expect those who associate with them to live in despair and to suffer, even if they don’t know yet that they will.”
When I looked over the list of 50 typical traits of the pathological cult-leader – it’s sad and unsettling to realize that most of them are a spot-on reflection of wierwille.
Another treacherous aspect of pseudo-Christian groups like The Way International is how their trap is already primed for unsuspecting victims who are much more likely to be attracted to traditional belief systems like Christianity – something many people are familiar with – compared to something like Scientology.
That leads me to think that to understand the power of harmful and controlling pseudo-Christian cults we should look more at their methods than their seemingly innocuous statements of belief. The trick is to see how these harmful and controlling cults put their “theories” into practice – by twisting Scripture…misinterpreting Scripture…misapplying Scripture to facilitate…to justify…to excuse their bad behavior and exploit others.
~ ~ ~ ~
Well...let’s move on…there’s bigger fish to fry…there’s more important things to attend to right now…like your response in this post I quoted.
Sooooooo…let’s review YOUR reply to MY post
(you can see my original posthere ) where I mentioned the four major theories that scholars have proposed to explain the limits and/or extent of inspiration – HOW the Bible got written…
...and let’s keep it simple and just use logic and Scripture reference (the old chapter-and-verse-please-principle... which is the gold standard for Fundamentalists anyway ) to analyze your theological statements:
Mike: In those Corps tapes VPW implies that Divine Dictation CAN happen, but GENERALLY the revelation is not given that way.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please…If you say “GENERALLY” that implies a rule – a rule is an authoritative regulation or direction concerning a method or procedure, as for a court of law, legislative body, game, or other institution. So, chapter and verse please.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mike: For Thessalonians, he teaches, the revelation first came to Paul alone, and then he discussed it with Timothy and Silus. Lastly, all three of them put it into written form.
T-Bone:chapter and verse please – especially the part about “the revelation FIRST came to Paul alone, and THEN he DISCUSSED it with Timothy and Silus.” As far as WHO wrote Thessalonians – most scholars have various opinions due to the differences of tone and other details so it's really difficult to prove for sure WHO the author or authors were. These arguments are ongoing. My position on the matter of authorship of the letters is less important than its overall message anyway.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mike: The end product, the written scripture, comes by way of the revelation first being spoken.
T-Bone:chapter and verse please on this SUPPOSED rule. The reason I’m challenging your assumption is because there are numerous instances in the Bible where the message did not come by way of revelation FIRST being SPOKEN. Sometimes it was a vision. There’s an instance of God confronting Balaam by speaking through his donkey. God SPOKE to Moses. Jesus Christ spoke to Saul/Paul while he was traveling to Damascus. The 10 commandments were originally WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF GOD on stone tablets.
There’s instances of people being transported - like Paul to the third heaven - being transported or “caught up” could imply a bodily experience and as such would include input from all five senses. Perhaps various methods are implied by John in the book of Revelation – in Rev.1:1, 2 it says “the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ”…
to verse 10 “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” “
then on to verse 12 and following: 12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,[d] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
19 “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.
Then on to Rev. 4:1 and following where it seems to imply John took a trip – transported? Caught up? “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.”
Like Paul’s experience, John’s narrative expresses his entire being was involved, in order to follow the voice’s directive to “Come up here.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Mike: So the PATTERN is first a revelation comes, and that could involve words, feelings, or sensations that God knows will accurately convey the revelation. Then the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please that the procedure or “pattern” also included “the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed” …what do you mean “worked” and “processed”? “Worked” implies there was mental activity in order to achieve a result. “Processed” is to perform a series of mechanical, chemical or mental operations on something in order to change or preserve it. If the recipients of the revelation from God worked and processed this previously unknown…or hidden fact or metaphysical truth that would mean they used their own mental faculties to create or change the original message.
But II Peter 1 says “no prophecy of the scripture is OF any private interpretation” … In Bullinger’s book “How to Enjoy the Bible” Bullinger CORRECTLY notes that little word “of” is genitive of origin – and is simply saying Scripture wasn’t CONCEIVED by anyone’s imagination or personal interpretation – which covers a lot of cognitive skills – in other words, the authors of Scripture did NOT have to do a WHOLE LOT of work to process the revelation of a fact or metaphysical truth other than ( depending on which of the four major theories on inspiration that I mentioned in a previous post, that you subscribe to ) the writers recording their experiences with God the best they could and how much freedom one ASSUMES they had in expressing themselves.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mike: “as it is put into written form and distributed.”
T-Bone: Chapter and verse please. Before written records there was oral tradition, or oral lore, a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose, or verses.
~ ~ ~ ~
If you ask me what I think one of the many reasons are why you lack credibility at Grease Spot it’s because you reference wierwille to support your “thesis” when in fact many times you interpolate, exaggerate or try to extrapolate from some idea of wierwille’s that’s already problematic – so you tend to make an incompetent researcher, teacher and theologian look even more amateurish. If you’re THE ambassador who officially represents on foreign soil (Grease Spot Café) a return to PFAL – you’re failing miserably. By your interpolations, exaggerations, and weird extrapolations you represent an alternate-PFAL, as bad as PFAL is… yours is worse…it’s Bizarro PFAL…if you’re THE sales rep for returning to PFAL – you’re like a used-car salesman that doesn’t even know how to drive.
I wouldn’t rely on old incompetent plagiarizing wierwille for the scoop on how inspiration works. I’m embarrassed to admit I actually believed his lie of saying God talked to him. What a joke! Now there’s laziness exemplified. Copy the work of others…but tell everyone “God told me He’d teach me “The Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century” …yeah right.
That’s all for now
Edited by T-Bone the editor has worked and processed the heck out of this post - I kid you not !
I have no idea what "# 4 Plenary verbal inspiration theory ..." is all about. A tiny summary would suffice. At the moment I don't have time to read your whole post and flush it out
"Some Evangelicals have labelled the conservative or traditional view as "verbal, plenary inspiration of the original manuscripts", by which they mean that each word (not just the overarching ideas or concepts) was meaningfully chosen under the superintendence of God".......Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration#cite_note-12...Thy Word is Truth (E.J. Young)
NOTE: I slaved over a hot google stove all day to find that. Okay, I lied. It took about 5 minutes.
I was just thinking in TWI, we were seeking to obtain revelation every second of the day, so as to follow God's commands and never be wrong, ever. What's the point of that?
That, my good friend, IMNSHO, is exquisitely profound. Thank you very much.
Perhaps you hit on the core (fundamental) reality of life that TWI misses by miles. We have observed, in much detail over the last two decades, that Wierwille built a subculture that was ALL about (narcissism?) ALWAYS being right. Yet, in all of his "scientific precision and mathematical exactness" we (GSC has) have volumes of first hand accounts of his meanness (which is NOT a fruit of the spirit), his licentiousness, etc.
Under "popular culture". It is a comical way to reference the search for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. A recommended read, if not, there's a movie, or two.
Under "popular culture". It is a comical way to reference the search for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. A recommended read, if not, there's a movie, or two.
thanks... I remember something from my childhood about drilling all the way to China.
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Twinky
Hello Mike. I've kinda missed you round here. Could always rely on you to make a point that would stir up Cafe denizens. Was wondering what had happened to you. You went away to study PFAL more de
Raf
Am I the only one who thinks Bullinger's Figures of Speech sound a WHOLE LOT like Harry Potter spells? Condescensio! Hypocatastasis! Asyndeton! Polysyndeton! Expecto-Runaroundem!
cman
So the idea is that if specific things come together than things happen. And these things that contribute to the outcome, and the outcome itself, are, or can be known. Some kind of scientific or philo
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T-Bone
Thanks, Rocky - I always appreciate the feedback - yeah that’s a toughie but I’m working on it
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Twinky
T-Bone, what you write is always interesting, but so lengthy that at times I too think, I'll put this aside for another time. Not to say you shouldn't post long things, and we need the challenge to get us thinking, rather than "quick quips" and two-sentence posts that don't take a thread forward. You do post with lots of white space, paragraphs, headings, etc, that make reading easy when there is time. And yes, I do get to reading all of your posts.
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T-Bone
Twinky, thanks for your input also
hey All, believe it or not I’m well aware of the problem…Rocky nailed it on the psychological relief benefit I get out of it…but like I said – I’m working on it – which means I’m working on my editing skills…most of the time I can pull together ideas very quickly and post it – but my current editing process is after-the-fact - I’ve already posted it and then spend awhile correcting typos, fixing links, formatting and stuff to pretty it up…I had a boss who told me a story of someone who apologized for writing a real long letter because he didn’t take the time to write a short one…so I understand my problem but forget to implement the fix – spend more time refining the content before I post it.
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Twinky
T-Bone, I would far rather read what you write than delve into a PFAL book or the collaterals again. PFAL and RHST are inconsistent and I found it hard to get my head round the inconsistencies; and the collaterals are overly simplistic, from what I recall. You can re-read all you like; I won't ever bother with them again, LOL.
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chockfull
T bone whatever the reason for your writing style I actually like it. Your break down above helps introduce the current common Christian logic and thinking regarding the problematic fundamentalist interpretation we were taught and accepted as truth regarding the origin of scripture.
Conspiracy theory and extremist viewpoints are where Wierwilles logic in scripture interpretation leads. We have taken the time to debunk many of those extremist views on this site.
Look Christianity actually involves other Christians in other organizations who are not following a denominational head that is born of the seed of the serpent like Wierwille taught in his Advanced class.
And the body of Christ is not the Way. Neither is the household of God like they teach that is cult control language and manipulation by scripture interpretation
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T-Bone
Thanks Chockfull !
but hey All, enough about me - as my WOW brother used to say “you’re making me feel subconscious.” FYI he wasn’t deliberately doing a Norm Crosby shtick either
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Rocky
That's similar to how most writers do it.
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Bolshevik
On these forums we are using words, letters, English . . . we are using symbols. Some of us are very good at conveying our thoughts and some of not so much . . . using the same symbols.
I find Mike is almost communicating something profound. The difficulty in articulating the experience of existence, perhaps?
But I think there's a presupposition of exactness that is demanding a conclusion of absolute clarity. That hand-in-the-glove mathematical exactness that always arrives at 42.
He's inviting spoon feeding?
I was just thinking in TWI, we were seeking to obtain revelation every second of the day, so as to follow God's commands and never be wrong, ever. What's the point of that?
Edited by BolshevikFather showed me my spelling mistake
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waysider
Have an upvote for the 42 reference.
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Twinky
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T-Bone
hello it's me again
Perhaps when you do have time to read my entire post, you’d put a little more thought before you single out just one item you’re not familiar with…ya know that also leads me to believe that you hardly ever apply yourself to actually THINK for yourself, since you seem to be lazy when faced with a challenge. Your laziness is also reflected in your flimsy excuse that a lot of your hard work got lost on Grease Spot Café’s cyberspace…It’s like saying “sorry but the dog ate my homework.”
Even if you didn’t have your old posts detailing this SUPPOSED pattern of revelation nor the SUPPOSED transcripts of corps tapes that would support your “thesis” because some of your very large threads were deleted, you should STILL BE ABLE to argue and defend your point with clarity, accuracy, details, and logic IF INDEED it was from YOUR MIND, YOUR DUE DILIGENCE and YOUR PAINSTAKING STUDY of the Scriptures.
If for some reason like a major glitch in Grease Spot’s server or if website administrators had to cut back on bandwidth and all the stuff I’ve written about criticizing wierwille, his ideology, analyzing PFAL, way corps program, TWI’s “theories and practice” were lost– I could write it all up again in a heartbeat – because it’s a part of my life story…I didn’t make this $hit up. I did NOT plagiarize someone else’s whacky cult adventure…It’s all in my head and heart! I could still argue and defend any of the points I had made about wierwille’s twisted use of Scripture and his whacky theology – because it all came from using my cognitive skills, and diligent study of the Scriptures.
..most of the time, the main reason I quote from sources outside of The Way International’s control - like Wikipedia, Bible commentaries, systematic theologies, Psychology Today and many other LEGITIMATE wellsprings of knowledge and wisdom, is to show that I’m not the only one who tries to follow an honest and logical way of interpreting a certain passage - - unlike wierwille’s slipshod methods of twisting Scripture to suit his own agenda…the same goes for exposing his harmful and controlling cult-tactics to exploit REAL Christians…I'm not the only one who started realizing he was harmful and controlling. I'll get to that in a bit when I reference Navarro's work.
Something every diehard PFAL-fan needs to ask themselves is WHY all the excessive admiration for wierwille?
Okay – it may have been partly due to a self-imposed paradigm shift that we as cult-followers experienced. We all tended to view wierwille in a very positive light. In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the character Jessica said love is blind. That seems to be a timeless truth indeed – when we love someone it makes us unable to see their faults. wierwille’s self-promotion was camouflaged by the persona that he was a simple clergyman frustrated with the lack of answers and power in his life until God spoke to him.
The unvarnished truth of why I was attracted to wierwille, and his ministry was the promise of getting answers to the big questions in life and experience whatever it was to tap into the power of God – by way of taking the PFAL class…over and over and over again and over again… zzzzzzZZZZZZzzz
zzzzzZZZZZ
But beyond whatever reasons we may have had to hold wierwille in such high regard – there is another more alarming explanation for wierwille being held in such high esteem – wierwille required....mmmmm more like DEMANDED excessive admiration from followers and even outsiders. That is something I have observed in my 12 years of TWI involvement…But to show you I’m not the only one who has come to realize wierwille was a cult leader – I refer to articles from reputable sources like Psychology Today…DEMANDING excessive admiration is something common in a lot of harmful and controlling cult-leaders. Consider some excerpts from a Joe Navarro article.
Joe Navarro, a former FBI Counterintelligence Agent and the author of “What Every Body is Saying” wrote an August 2012 Psychology Today article titled “Dangerous Cult Leaders: Clues to what makes for a pathological cult leader”. He said the two questions he gets asked most frequently by students of criminology and psychology are: How do you know when a cult leader is bad, evil or toxic ? and when is a cult leader pathological or a danger to others? Navarro said those are valid questions in view of the historical record of suffering and hurt caused by various cult leaders around the world:
“From my studies of cults and cult leaders during my time in the FBI, I learned early on that there are some things to look for that, at a minimum, say "caution, this individual is dangerous, and in all likelihood will cause harm to others. Having studied at length the life, teachings, and behaviors of Jim Jones (Jonestown Guyana), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Stewart Traill (The Church of Bible Understanding), Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara (Aum Shinrikyo), Joseph Di Mambro (The Order of the Solar Temple a.k.a. Ordre du Temple Solaire), Marshall Heff Applewhit (Heaven’s Gate), Bhagwan Rajneesh (Rajneesh Movement), and Warren Jeffs (polygamist leader), I can say that what stands out about these individuals is that they were or are all pathologically narcissistic.
They all have or had an over-abundant belief that they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered. They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all they did not like being questioned or challenged. And yet, in spite of these less than charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.”
end of excerpts
From : Psychology Today - Dangerous Cult Leaders - Clues to what makes for a pathological cult leader
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You should click on that link – and especially all you big PFAL-fans - read the entire article; at the end of the article Navarro lists 50 ...yes I said FIFTY ...a big Five O… 50 personality traits that stand out as the first warning to those who would associate with them, but there are many others. Navarro says this collection of traits give us hints as to their psychopathology. He also said this list is not all-inclusive nor is it the final word on the subject; it is merely his personal collection based on studies and interviews that he conducted in his previous career.
Navarro says “If you know of a cult leader who has many of these traits there is a high probability that they are hurting those around them emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually, or financially. And of course this does not take into account the hurt that their loved ones will also experience…
...When a cult or organizational leader has a preponderance of these traits then we can anticipate that at some point those who associate with him will likely suffer physically, emotionally, psychologically, or financially. If these traits sound familiar to leaders, groups, sects, or organizations known to you, then expect those who associate with them to live in despair and to suffer, even if they don’t know yet that they will.”
When I looked over the list of 50 typical traits of the pathological cult-leader – it’s sad and unsettling to realize that most of them are a spot-on reflection of wierwille.
Another treacherous aspect of pseudo-Christian groups like The Way International is how their trap is already primed for unsuspecting victims who are much more likely to be attracted to traditional belief systems like Christianity – something many people are familiar with – compared to something like Scientology.
That leads me to think that to understand the power of harmful and controlling pseudo-Christian cults we should look more at their methods than their seemingly innocuous statements of belief. The trick is to see how these harmful and controlling cults put their “theories” into practice – by twisting Scripture…misinterpreting Scripture…misapplying Scripture to facilitate…to justify…to excuse their bad behavior and exploit others.
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Well...let’s move on…there’s bigger fish to fry…there’s more important things to attend to right now…like your response in this post I quoted.
Sooooooo…let’s review YOUR reply to MY post
(you can see my original post here ) where I mentioned the four major theories that scholars have proposed to explain the limits and/or extent of inspiration – HOW the Bible got written…
...and let’s keep it simple and just use logic and Scripture reference (the old chapter-and-verse-please-principle... which is the gold standard for Fundamentalists anyway
) to analyze your theological statements:
Mike: In those Corps tapes VPW implies that Divine Dictation CAN happen, but GENERALLY the revelation is not given that way.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please…If you say “GENERALLY” that implies a rule – a rule is an authoritative regulation or direction concerning a method or procedure, as for a court of law, legislative body, game, or other institution. So, chapter and verse please.
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Mike: For Thessalonians, he teaches, the revelation first came to Paul alone, and then he discussed it with Timothy and Silus. Lastly, all three of them put it into written form.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please – especially the part about “the revelation FIRST came to Paul alone, and THEN he DISCUSSED it with Timothy and Silus.” As far as WHO wrote Thessalonians – most scholars have various opinions due to the differences of tone and other details so it's really difficult to prove for sure WHO the author or authors were. These arguments are ongoing. My position on the matter of authorship of the letters is less important than its overall message anyway.
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Mike: The end product, the written scripture, comes by way of the revelation first being spoken.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please on this SUPPOSED rule. The reason I’m challenging your assumption is because there are numerous instances in the Bible where the message did not come by way of revelation FIRST being SPOKEN. Sometimes it was a vision. There’s an instance of God confronting Balaam by speaking through his donkey. God SPOKE to Moses. Jesus Christ spoke to Saul/Paul while he was traveling to Damascus. The 10 commandments were originally WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF GOD on stone tablets.
There’s instances of people being transported - like Paul to the third heaven - being transported or “caught up” could imply a bodily experience and as such would include input from all five senses. Perhaps various methods are implied by John in the book of Revelation – in Rev.1:1, 2 it says “the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ”…
to verse 10 “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” “
then on to verse 12 and following: 12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,[d] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
19 “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.
Then on to Rev. 4:1 and following where it seems to imply John took a trip – transported? Caught up? “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.”
Like Paul’s experience, John’s narrative expresses his entire being was involved, in order to follow the voice’s directive to “Come up here.”
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Mike: So the PATTERN is first a revelation comes, and that could involve words, feelings, or sensations that God knows will accurately convey the revelation. Then the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed.
T-Bone: chapter and verse please that the procedure or “pattern” also included “the revelation is worked by the recipient, and processed as it is put into written form and distributed” …what do you mean “worked” and “processed”? “Worked” implies there was mental activity in order to achieve a result. “Processed” is to perform a series of mechanical, chemical or mental operations on something in order to change or preserve it. If the recipients of the revelation from God worked and processed this previously unknown…or hidden fact or metaphysical truth that would mean they used their own mental faculties to create or change the original message.
But II Peter 1 says “no prophecy of the scripture is OF any private interpretation” … In Bullinger’s book “How to Enjoy the Bible” Bullinger CORRECTLY notes that little word “of” is genitive of origin – and is simply saying Scripture wasn’t CONCEIVED by anyone’s imagination or personal interpretation – which covers a lot of cognitive skills – in other words, the authors of Scripture did NOT have to do a WHOLE LOT of work to process the revelation of a fact or metaphysical truth other than ( depending on which of the four major theories on inspiration that I mentioned in a previous post, that you subscribe to ) the writers recording their experiences with God the best they could and how much freedom one ASSUMES they had in expressing themselves.
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Mike: “as it is put into written form and distributed.”
T-Bone: Chapter and verse please. Before written records there was oral tradition, or oral lore, a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose, or verses.
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If you ask me what I think one of the many reasons are why you lack credibility at Grease Spot it’s because you reference wierwille to support your “thesis” when in fact many times you interpolate, exaggerate or try to extrapolate from some idea of wierwille’s that’s already problematic – so you tend to make an incompetent researcher, teacher and theologian look even more amateurish. If you’re THE ambassador who officially represents on foreign soil (Grease Spot Café) a return to PFAL – you’re failing miserably. By your interpolations, exaggerations, and weird extrapolations you represent an alternate-PFAL, as bad as PFAL is… yours is worse…it’s Bizarro PFAL…if you’re THE sales rep for returning to PFAL – you’re like a used-car salesman that doesn’t even know how to drive.
I wouldn’t rely on old incompetent plagiarizing wierwille for the scoop on how inspiration works. I’m embarrassed to admit I actually believed his lie of saying God talked to him. What a joke! Now there’s laziness exemplified. Copy the work of others…but tell everyone “God told me He’d teach me “The Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century” …yeah right.
That’s all for now
Edited by T-Bonethe editor has worked and processed the heck out of this post - I kid you not !
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waysider
"Some Evangelicals have labelled the conservative or traditional view as "verbal, plenary inspiration of the original manuscripts", by which they mean that each word (not just the overarching ideas or concepts) was meaningfully chosen under the superintendence of God".......Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration#cite_note-12...Thy Word is Truth (E.J. Young)
NOTE: I slaved over a hot google stove all day to find that. Okay, I lied. It took about 5 minutes.
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Rocky
That, my good friend, IMNSHO, is exquisitely profound. Thank you very much.
Perhaps you hit on the core (fundamental) reality of life that TWI misses by miles. We have observed, in much detail over the last two decades, that Wierwille built a subculture that was ALL about (narcissism?) ALWAYS being right. Yet, in all of his "scientific precision and mathematical exactness" we (GSC has) have volumes of first hand accounts of his meanness (which is NOT a fruit of the spirit), his licentiousness, etc.
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Rocky
Btw, I don't get the reference to "42." To me, 42 represents Jackie Robinson.
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Bolshevik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number)
Under "popular culture". It is a comical way to reference the search for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. A recommended read, if not, there's a movie, or two.
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Rocky
thanks... I remember something from my childhood about drilling all the way to China.
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Twinky
Never mind doesn't even know how to drive - this one doesn't even seem to know what a car, used or otherwise, is!
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chockfull
Oh my friend you have been cruelly deprived of a tremendously insightful body of work called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
You must remedy this immediately
Spotters don't forget your towels !
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Rocky
No doubt I have been. I blame Wierwille and TWI. But I have worked on overcoming said deficit. Might 42 be included in this publication?
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T-Bone
Nope - that’s the edition I have…but if there’s a newer edition it might be in that.
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Bolshevik
I'm pretty sure 42 has been used before . . . That's why I didn't define it where it was written
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waysider
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Bolshevik
After all the "build up" . . . The literal translation would be that 42 is just a number
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T-Bone
yeah but not just any number - it's the product of 6 and 7
now - does anyone have a problem with that? well, to be honest - I do...because it's a mathematical problem !
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