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The Absent Christ?


OldSkool
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5 minutes ago, So_crates said:

I got into Relativity and Godel.  I knew that Einstein and Godel were at Princeton.

You could have at least learned to spell Gödel properly before you dropped his name, in a failed attempt to latch onto authority. But, anyway, like So-Crates said, 

10 minutes ago, So_crates said:

Joe Sixpack wouldn't, he'd hear Princeton and think Princeton University.

 

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37 minutes ago, Mike said:

I consider Research Geek's Report on Pikes Peak intact and even strengthened by this puny attempt of a debunking.

Oh, well...if researhgeek says so then it all must be legit...and pikes peak wasnt a pop-up degree mill with mail in correspondence avenues for getting a degree mailed to one' home address...silly me.

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I previously reported on the proliferation of degree mills catering to huckster clergymen of mid 20th century America.

Here is just one article supporting my reporting. It’s from 1960!
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1960/may-9/editorials-scandal-of-bogus-degrees.html

Burton College is exposed in the article. Burton = Pikes Peak. 


One of my favorite sentences in the article:

Degrees do not really tell the measure of a man, except perhaps when they are bogus.

Edited by Nathan_Jr
F-ing gloves!
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5 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Who TF is research geek? Who TF cares?

Find out for yourself. Learn how (H-O-W) to find out. 

I guess Mike figures since he's lost credibility around these parts that it helps to name-drop.

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4 minutes ago, OldSkool said:

I guess Mike figures since he's lost credibility around these parts that it helps to name-drop.

Cherry picking his names in order to bolster his confirmation bias. It’s a bitch-foot, spoiled child maneuver, and it’s transparent.

Edited by Nathan_Jr
The censorship is hilarious! I’m leaving “foot” as is.
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4 hours ago, So_crates said:

You apparently didn't check the link.

I only stated one of the most glaring errors.

The errors in Research Geek's paper are far from puny, they border on deceptive.

I don't think you gave me a link; just the idea of Princeton baiting.

Where are the less glaring in Research Geek's paper errors noted here?

 

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11 minutes ago, Mike said:

I don't think you gave me a link; just the idea of Princeton baiting.

Where are the less glaring in Research Geek's paper errors noted here?

 

As I said in the post, the link is in the post below:

5 hours ago, So_crates said:

 

 

Edited by So_crates
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4 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Oh, well...if researhgeek says so then it all must be legit...and pikes peak wasnt a pop-up degree mill with mail in correspondence avenues for getting a degree mailed to one' home address...silly me.

No, it BECAME that after VPW was gone.

And it sounds like you don't know who Research Geek was here. 

He and his wife was on your side here with the heavy research tools. The reason I quoted him is because they both had great credibility here at GreaseSpot.  

I suspect that, like Raf, he somewhat reluctantly sided with me in reporting that the bad stories about Pike's Peak were not fully accurate.

His attitude was that there are better criticisms of VPW than the Pike's Peak rumors.

 

Edited by Mike
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On 12/30/2022 at 2:17 PM, So_crates said:

Mike seems to think we've forgotten that five years ago, this paper was torn apart line by line and word by word and exposed for how unobjective it really is.

For those interested here's a blast from the past, presenting that critique.

The fun starts here:

 

 

Continue reading the thread to get the scoop on all the errors in the paper.

This is the second time in this thread I've provided you this link

Edited by So_crates
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5 minutes ago, Mike said:

No, it BECAME that after VPW was gone.

And it sounds like you don't know who Research Geek was here. 

He and his wife was on your side here with the heavy research tools. The reason I quoted him is because they both had great credibility here at GreaseSpot.  

I suspect that, like Raf, he somewhat reluctantly sided with me in reporting that the bad stories about Pike's Peak were not fully accurate.

His attitude was that there are better criticisms of VPW that the Pike's Peak rumors.

 

As far as you're concerned, anybody that agrees with you has great credibility 

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34 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Read the record of the timeline of the acquisition of his "ThD" in TWLIL. If one knows anything at all about the work required and expected of a ThD candidate, one could only deduce that victor's "degree" was the peanut butter and jelly sandwiche of doctorates.

tv-dinners-the-golden-years.jpg

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On 12/30/2022 at 11:17 AM, So_crates said:

Mike seems to think we've forgotten that five years ago, this paper was torn apart line by line and word by word and exposed for how unobjective it really is.  ...

 
2 hours ago, So_crates said:

This is the second time in this thread I've provided you this link

 

Well, I found the thread and went through pages 12,12,22,23,25  and then finally saw the "torn apart line by line and word by word and exposed for how unobjective it really is" part.

What a JOKE !

All you did was act skeptical of each line.  That was not debunked at all. You just did a little temper tantrum at each line.   ...not even knowing that Research Geek was on your team and reluctant reporting the facts.  You have no idea how strong a GreaseSpot poster he and his wife were here.  You are busted, Buddy! 

You read Research Geek and responded to him as if he were me.  It was a typical desperate debunking.  You lose.

 

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Mike said:
 

 

Well, I found the thread and went through pages 12,12,22,23,25  and then finally saw the "torn apart line by line and word by word and exposed for how unobjective it really is" part.

What a JOKE !

No the joke is the lengths you'll go to to protect a lying rake.

38 minutes ago, Mike said:

All you did was act skeptical of each line.  That was not debunked at all. You just did a little temper tantrum at each line.   ...not even knowing that Research Geek was on your team and reluctant reporting the facts.  You have no idea how strong a GreaseSpot poster he and his wife were here.  You are busted, Buddy! 

 

Quelle surprise!

Like you'd admit it was debunked. I notice you're still speaking in the abstract. Notice the debunking link speaks in specifics. Have you got any specifics for your rebuttal?

If you were any more transparent, you'd disappear. Your attempt to minimize the debunking here is so obvious it's sad.

38 minutes ago, Mike said:

You read Research Geek and responded to him as if he were me.  It was a typical desperate debunking.  You lose.

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, I wasn't doing it for you. I would encourage your "read only audience" to follow the links, read the posts, and decide for themselves whether or not the Research Geek's paper has been debunked.

 

Edited by So_crates
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9 hours ago, Mike said:

Not so!  I come from a nearby State and was familiar with New Jersey and Princeton since mid-High School when I got into Relativity and Godel.  I knew that Einstein and Godel were at Princeton.

But not Princeton University!!!   It was the The Institute for Advanced Study where they were at.

There were 3 FAMOUS schools from there.

The Princeton Theological Seminary was the third.  Long before taking the class I was aware of these things. 

Then, a few years later I went on a field trip to the Advanced Study Institute there in college to meet with Thomas Kuhn.

When I first heard Princeton with VPW the most obvious association was Princeton Theological Seminary. 

I consider Research Geek's Report on Pikes Peak intact and even strengthened by this puny attempt of a debunking.

 

So, the first time you heard that vpw went to "Princeton", you immediately said "Obviously that was Princeton Theological Seminary, not Princeton University."  

Sorry, I can't buy that. I'm calling that an outright lie.  And hardly a surprise by now.

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3 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Read the record of the timeline of the acquisition of his "ThD" in TWLIL. If one knows anything at all about the work required and expected of a ThD candidate, one could only deduce that victor's "degree" was the peanut butter and jelly sandwiche of doctorates.

In case you're wondering how he managed to finish the sandwich in time, there's 2 answers, and I think both apply in part.

1) Pike's Peak wasn't exactly demanding with the requirements on the submitted doctoral thesis.

2) vpw submitted the same work to PTS for his Masters that he submitted to PP for his Doctorate.  Both papers were about Peter as a preacher.   It's been mentioned here before that a proper Doctoral dissertation can't be the same subject as the Masters thesis, they both have to be different subjects. (Both have to demonstrate a wide grasp of the studied material.)  So, the paper that got him a legit Masters from PTS was largely the same paper that got him his unaccredited "Doctorate" from PP.

 

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5 hours ago, Mike said:

No, it BECAME that after VPW was gone.

And it sounds like you don't know who Research Geek was here. 

He and his wife was on your side here with the heavy research tools. The reason I quoted him is because they both had great credibility here at GreaseSpot.  

I suspect that, like Raf, he somewhat reluctantly sided with me in reporting that the bad stories about Pike's Peak were not fully accurate.

His attitude was that there are better criticisms of VPW than the Pike's Peak rumors.

 

Research Geek had an extensive history at twi.  Mike wasn't thrilled with that background, since RG could call Mike on things he knew, as an insider, that Mike did not.

I think most people who arrived here didn't think there was any significant problem with vpw when they arrived, and learned otherwise over time. That certainly applied to me.   There also have been a handful of people (a small handful trickling through over 2 decades) who were slow to accept the ideas of some things reported about what vpw did, what vpw said, etc.  After all, it's almost fantastic to believe that vpw was a reputable Bible teacher, then hear that he was drugging women and raping them, plagiarizing all of his best work, etc, etc. 

So, when it comes to Research Geek, I think he was slow to accept the full depths of vpw's depravity. This affected what he was willing to see, and willing to say.  It IS true that Princeton Theological Seminary is an actual school, and the Masters from there was accredited and legit.  What is a problem from there was vpw phrasing himself- and getting others to do the same- to prevaricate and to insinuate he went to PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.  Whenever anyone says they went to school at PRINCETON, it's automatic that anyone would think it was Princeton UNIVERSITY-  unless they were a staffer at PTS or lived on-grounds or something.   Across the US, around the world, Princeton UNIVERSITY has a reputation.  So, when they said he had a Masters at "Princeton" and said nothing else, the implication was that it was the University- and anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.

As for Pike's Peak,  RG was slow to "call a spade a spade." Pike's Peak was one of many degree mills at the time.  The degree was unaccredited.  ("They have as much authority to grant a degree as Schlotski's Deli!" - Al Franken.)   The campus was nonexistent, the library was virtually nonexistent, and students only showed up on campus once or twice total.   Pike's Peak has never come up in discussions about what a great education it offered,  how it built a good reputation, etc.  All discussions are about how it was a degree mill.   Research Geek was HONESTLY MISTAKEN, calling PP "experimental" and trying to grant it every benefit of every doubt.  However, the facts are in, and Pike's Peak was a degree mill. vpw himself knew that, and he said freely that people kept saying he didn't get a degree.  That's a half-truth- they said he didn't get a REAL doctorate, a doctorate from an ACCREDITED institution.  Naturally,by saying only part of the truth, he framed the claims to put himself in the best light and pretend his detractors had no basis for criticizing him.

BTW, RG once asked a good question, and it's time that question got answered.  vpw went to a legit school for his Masters- PTS.  He KNEW that PP was a degree mill.  Why, then, would he go THERE for his degree, knowing it was a degree mill?  (RG phrased it a bit more positively for PP, but he knew vpw knew PP had a bad rep, yet he went there anyway.)  

So, why did vpw go?  Why go to a place to get an unaccredited doctorate instead of a place to get an accredited doctorate?   To ask the question is to have the answer. We know all about vpw's behavior now, and this was not uncharacteristic of vpw.

vpw was a very lazy student.  Everybody said so. His father said so, even when leaning on a school and saying he'd be a good student there.  He plagiarized his way through his sermons in his pastorate, finding it a chore to read the Bible every week to prepare a sermon.   According to vpw, TWICE in his first year, he thought of giving up as a pastor.   So, lazy vpw made it through a Bachelors. Lazy vpw went to a real school for his Masters, and even picking the softest option- Homiletics- worked far harder than he wished to get his Masters.   When faced with a few more years of even harder work, vpw decided to go the lazy route and FAKE IT.  He approached a fake school and got their fake degree, largely retyping his Masters thesis as his Doctoral dissertation.   His check cleared, they had a paper as a pretext to granting the degree, and vpw got his "doctorate."

That saved vpw time, work, and money, and got him a Doctorate. Ever notice how he HID the name of the place he got his Doctorate from?   "He got his Masters from Princeton. He later went on to complete his Doctorate."   That made it sound like he got both from Princeton.  Why did he hide the name? He was well aware how it made him look that he got a "doctorate" from a degree mill.

Edited by WordWolf
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9 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Oh, well...if researhgeek says so then it all must be legit...and pikes peak wasnt a pop-up degree mill with mail in correspondence avenues for getting a degree mailed to one' home address...silly me.

So, ONE poster from dozens agrees with Mike on one thing, and it's a great victory.  Furthermore, the ONE person MUST be correct, and the DOZENS of people MUST be wrong- because otherwise, Mike is wrong as usual.

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7 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

I previously reported on the proliferation of degree mills catering to huckster clergymen of mid 20th century America.

Here is just one article supporting my reporting. It’s from 1960!
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1960/may-9/editorials-scandal-of-bogus-degrees.html

Burton College is exposed in the article. Burton = Pikes Peak. 


One of my favorite sentences in the article:

Degrees do not really tell the measure of a man, except perhaps when they are bogus.

It's hardly impossible to show how fake Pikes Peak/Burton was.

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42 minutes ago, WordWolf said:

In case you're wondering how he managed to finish the sandwich in time, there's 2 answers, and I think both apply in part.

1) Pike's Peak wasn't exactly demanding with the requirements on the submitted doctoral thesis.

2) vpw submitted the same work to PTS for his Masters that he submitted to PP for his Doctorate.  Both papers were about Peter as a preacher.   It's been mentioned here before that a proper Doctoral dissertation can't be the same subject as the Masters thesis, they both have to be different subjects. (Both have to demonstrate a wide grasp of the studied material.)  So, the paper that got him a legit Masters from PTS was largely the same paper that got him his unaccredited "Doctorate" from PP.

 

I either forgot or never knew he submitted his Master thesis for his ThD dissertation. This cop out is Family Guy-Sandler-Farley kind of stoopidity..

 

As to the requirements of Pike's Peak (aka Burton College), previously published articles in magazines and book reports are counted for credit. Read that again: BOOK REPORTS!

 

COLORADO: Burton College and Seminary, 41 Lincoln Avenue, Manitou Springs. President: Fred E. Stemme. Incorporated: Chartered under laws of State of Colorado, incorporated September 17, 1927. Purpose: “To provide courses for busy pastors and Christian leaders thru the Extra-Mural method, with a minimum amount of residence work.”

Facilities: “Administration” building (probably residence of president); Facilities of Hotel Grand View, Manitou Springs, to provide for housing and classes during 11-day 1960 summer seminar. Faculty and students: President Stemme and Dean Douglass (no further information about faculty); 2000 graduates reported in current announcement (“strapping the globe”). Degrees, requirements, costs: The 1956 and the 1957 programs of graduating exercises report the awarding of the following degrees: Bachelor of Theology, 4 (1956), 9, (1957); Bachelor of Arts, 0, 8; Bachelor of Science (in Education), 1, 0; Master of Arts, 3, 0; Master of Theology, 3, 10; Master of Christian Education, 0, 1; Doctor of Theology, 20, 24; Doctor of Education, 1, 0; Doctor of Philosophy, 5, 8. Costs depend upon number of “semester hours” of work to be done. “Ample credit is also allowed for books written, articles of academic value, Educational Tours, Foreign Travel, and any activity which has contributed to one’s intellectual growth.… Ministerial courses for correspondence study from various schools will be considered for credit.… Most of our students will read a text, taking copious notes on same, and then write a manuscript review from the notes.… This is ‘Extra-Mural Recitation.’ … Most texts will carry from four to six semester hours of credit.”

Edited by Nathan_Jr
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16 hours ago, Mike said:

When I first heard Princeton with VPW the most obvious association was Princeton Theological Seminary. 

So you are one in a relative extreme minority, considering how many people wouldn't know the difference, and becuase you knew that then you assume it's common knowledge across the board and any misunderstandings due to ambiguity would be on the persons hearing that VPW went to Princeton. Im a former New Yorker for Pete's sake and I thought for sure he meant Princeton University. It actually took me a few years of being involved with TWI to figure out he didn't goto Princeton but to PTS. Wierwille was extremely dishonest in an intellegint manner. He would make open ended statements knowing that he was leading people about two steps away from the conclusions he led them to and then wouldnt take the time to correct people who made that two step leap unless he had no choice. Thats called being a liar.

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