I think that for what EVER reason, TWI trained us into ignoring our God given uniquely individual experiences/ insights/emotions/ in short that still small voice that worked within each of us with statements like you mentioned.
Say you "believed God" for something. You knew it was available, knew how to receive it, knew what you'd do with it after you got it, had your needs and wants parallel (to the Word), your ability equalled your willingness, AND you were clear and concerned about it.
But you still didn't get it.
Your experiences tell you that "The Law of Believing" doesn't work. But Wierwille taught you that your experiences are deceiving.
So you go on following The Way, blaming yourself for being "off" somehow.
Perhaps Wierwilles "experiences are deceiving" teaching was a preemptive strike.
I'm pretty sure that the solid evidence in VPs case against personal experiences is Norman Vincent Peale supposedly telling VP that he (NVP) saw his dead father take his place in a choir in a church. NVP supposedly said to VPW "I don't care what you can show me from the bible! I only know what I SAW!!!"
That was dire proof to VP that emphasizing experiences is a trick of the devil.
Very good point! I hadn't thought of it from that aspect. We always had to be such know-it-alls while innies didn't we? Black and white, cut and dry.
John that was one aspect of experience that we know from the Word would not be true while being innies since the dead are dead---so the area of apparitions is not really what I was referring to. I think there is plenty of room for God to work with us within the realms of what other people in the Bible experienced and/or at least things that would not contradict the Word.
I was always told not to trust or expect any experiences on personal level. For the most part, only what God showed me while reading the Bible was valid-but even then could be shot down quickly by leadership. We really learned how to stifle and quench the holy spirit by putting God in such a tiny box.
Oh yeah...don't trust your experiences...doubt everything about your life...believe what I tell you to believe...especially when I tell you that your experiences in the motorcoach were a figment of your drugged imagination...or when I tell you that your children will be blessed by gawd for obeying 'leadership' when led by 'leadership' into making child pornos for said 'leadership'.
Ya think there was a personal agenda behind teaching people to shrug off their personal experiences?
Yeah, we weren't to trust our experiences and we weren't to trust our emotions.......UNLESS...they furthered TWI agenda. When witnessing, remember, we were told to tell people what God did for us through TWI and what we learned in PFAL. That people couldn't argue with our experiences. <_<
But, if said experience was contrary to PFAL or what TWI wanted us to believe...well, then it couldn't be believed. Another two-faced, double-tongued doctrine of TWI.
I my life I've had experiences with God reaching out in a very personal way. God speaks to his children in that still small, voice in little prayers answered etc.
If we listen to those promptings and find that the promptings are leading us in a directions TWI doesn;t like, and we know that the promptings are of God, who do you think will be the loser??
TWI that's who--I know that in my years "in" that small voice had a constant NO NO NO going in my brain on certain issues.
There probably is no God, no devil, and no holy writ of some diviine source. Blathering on about what superstition is more "accurate" almost approaches insanity, IMNSHO.
Religion ALWAYS has to denigrate what we experience over what it's dogma says, because our experiences will SELDOM agree with the dogma. I.E. - Jesus DOESN'T "walk with me and talk with me",
God DOESN"T supply all our need, and the sick often remain sick, the dead ALWAYS remain dead, despite what we may choose to believe. And Jesus may "love the little children", but he's got a damn peculiar way of showing it (being as 25 or 30 thousand of them died yesterday, if it was a typical day).
So, there you have it. There's no God, no Jesus floating on a cloud looking benignly down upon us, and no perky, ethereal, afterlife where things are finally gonna be good for us. Anything you want done, you'll need to do yourself, or, hopefully, get someone to help. Today is all we've got for sure, make the most of it.
If there is a God "out there" I'm quite confidant He'll get along fine without my supplications and worship.
Well George..must disagree with your 'rationalist' approach..GOD does indeed walk AND talk to us (as Mo also stated). Depends on ones definition of 'walk and talk', many sick ARE healed, often in MIRACULOUS ways that the worlds best doctors, experts, RATIONALISTS, cannot explain.
As for children dying everyday..mebbe da debil DOES exist, thousands have had personal experiences from that side of the fence as well.
Do you think twi taught this so they wouldn't have to explain people's experiences? Or maybe it was a way to prevent us from really been able to establish a true relationship with God? Maybe another way to keep our emotions out of the picture? Or maybe a way to prevent us from hearing the still small voice?
Very simple answers... YES, YES, YES and YES.
So, there you have it. There's no God, no Jesus floating on a cloud looking benignly down upon us, and no perky, ethereal, afterlife where things are finally gonna be good for us. Anything you want done, you'll need to do yourself, or, hopefully, get someone to help. Today is all we've got for sure, make the most of it.
Shucks George... NEXT you'll be saying there's no Santa Claus!
...I'm gonna have to check this stuff out with the mothership... I'll get back to you...
I was thinking about something last night...and recalled how we used to tell people that any "personal experiences" of God couldn't be trusted, but only what the Bible said could be trusted and called true. (This was mostly 90's thinking)
I don't want to debate the above statement--just want to ask you if you remember this being said (or something similar) and why you think twi would say it.
I thought it was said in the context that, Your personal experiences and how G-d walks with you is fine for you but they cant be cookie-cuttered onto how someone else walks with G-d.
How I walk and how G-d talks with me, and the things that my Heavenly Father shows me, are for me. They are not always for anyone else to know and certainly not for anyone else to take as examples.
When you go to teaching, a person should teach from the Bible. And not from their own personal walk with their Father. For me to listen to how you and G-d walk together, and to then attempt to apply that in my life could possibly be wrong and not to be trusted.
That was/is how I would understand the idea that personal experiences of walking with G-d should not be 'trusted'.
I think Galen and johniam, between the two of them, have nailed what we were taught rightly on this topic, while it’s also true that we went off into some tangents on this in later years.
Galen, above, has explained that the details of one person’s receiving of revelation, as in how God works with that one individual, should never be taught as doctrine.
In an earlier post johniam explained that personal experiences should never be used to establish doctrine above what is written. IF there is a conflict between the written Word and some personal experience, then the experience must line up to fit with the Word, and not vice versa as is done in many cases, like the Norman Vincent Peale account johniam reminded us was in the AC.
If personal experiences do line up with the written Word, then they are fine for that individual.
From all this we can see why Dr’s personal experience in 1942 was always acceptable in ministry circles, because prior to 1942 there was no authoritative written Word available.
From all this we can see why Dr’s personal experience in 1942 was always acceptable in ministry circles, because prior to 1942 there was no authoritative written Word available.
What a buncha B (as in *B*) & S (as in *S*).
But hey -- free country. Think what you want. :unsure:
From all this we can see why Dr’s personal experience in 1942 was always acceptable in ministry circles, because prior to 1942 there was no authoritative written Word available.
For those of you not familiar with Mike's "PFAL is God Breathed" premise (hence his little statement above about "no authoritative written Word available") please visit the Doctrinal basement for the full length feature.
If you ever talked with Pentecostalists or wild holy roller types and how they SIT, and what feelings they get, and how they experience it, you'd know EXACTLY why Dr taught that we can't base doctrine on personal experiences. It was to protect us from a HUGE storehouse of confusing and contradictory, but very wild and explicit experiences.
If you ever talked with Pentecostalists or wild holy roller types and how they SIT, and what feelings they get, and how they experience it, you'd know EXACTLY why Dr taught that we can't base doctrine on personal experiences. It was to protect us from a HUGE storehouse of confusing and contradictory, but very wild and explicit experiences.
well...I am not about to come to any conclusions based on vpw's very very limited experienced with a very very recent and limited sub culture of christianity
also...one man's "HUGE storehouse of confusing and contradictory" does not apply to everyone
and also...i think sound experience and sound doctrine compliment each other quite well...more of both please
Yes, I'm speculating a little. But I have done the talking with those who teach their experiences as doctrine. It's pretty wild!
Dr does explicitly say that their experiences vary and contradict, and in the same places he teaches that experience is no guarantee for truth, so at least ONE of his STATED reasons for teaching this is the confusing storehouse of experiences that are out there... WAY out there.
****
Todd, in some subjects variety is bad. If you were an astronaut and the trajectory department told you that if you hit thruster A for one second about ten completely different things can happen, would you feel good about hitting thruster A?
How about getting your car fixed by a cosmic mechanic who feels that silent, cool, and frictionless braking is at one with the universe, would you want to pay him for that brake job? Would that mechanic complement the normal ones?
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rascal
Wow Penguine, very good point.
I think that for what EVER reason, TWI trained us into ignoring our God given uniquely individual experiences/ insights/emotions/ in short that still small voice that worked within each of us with statements like you mentioned.
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shazdancer
Say you "believed God" for something. You knew it was available, knew how to receive it, knew what you'd do with it after you got it, had your needs and wants parallel (to the Word), your ability equalled your willingness, AND you were clear and concerned about it.
But you still didn't get it.
Your experiences tell you that "The Law of Believing" doesn't work. But Wierwille taught you that your experiences are deceiving.
So you go on following The Way, blaming yourself for being "off" somehow.
Perhaps Wierwilles "experiences are deceiving" teaching was a preemptive strike.
Regards,
Shaz
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johniam
I'm pretty sure that the solid evidence in VPs case against personal experiences is Norman Vincent Peale supposedly telling VP that he (NVP) saw his dead father take his place in a choir in a church. NVP supposedly said to VPW "I don't care what you can show me from the bible! I only know what I SAW!!!"
That was dire proof to VP that emphasizing experiences is a trick of the devil.
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penguin
Shaz,
Very good point! I hadn't thought of it from that aspect. We always had to be such know-it-alls while innies didn't we? Black and white, cut and dry.
John that was one aspect of experience that we know from the Word would not be true while being innies since the dead are dead---so the area of apparitions is not really what I was referring to. I think there is plenty of room for God to work with us within the realms of what other people in the Bible experienced and/or at least things that would not contradict the Word.
I was always told not to trust or expect any experiences on personal level. For the most part, only what God showed me while reading the Bible was valid-but even then could be shot down quickly by leadership. We really learned how to stifle and quench the holy spirit by putting God in such a tiny box.
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CoolWaters
Oh yeah...don't trust your experiences...doubt everything about your life...believe what I tell you to believe...especially when I tell you that your experiences in the motorcoach were a figment of your drugged imagination...or when I tell you that your children will be blessed by gawd for obeying 'leadership' when led by 'leadership' into making child pornos for said 'leadership'.
Ya think there was a personal agenda behind teaching people to shrug off their personal experiences?
Nah. Couldn't have been.
All this said with tongue firmly in cheek.
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Belle
Yeah, we weren't to trust our experiences and we weren't to trust our emotions.......UNLESS...they furthered TWI agenda. When witnessing, remember, we were told to tell people what God did for us through TWI and what we learned in PFAL. That people couldn't argue with our experiences. <_<
But, if said experience was contrary to PFAL or what TWI wanted us to believe...well, then it couldn't be believed. Another two-faced, double-tongued doctrine of TWI.
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templelady
I my life I've had experiences with God reaching out in a very personal way. God speaks to his children in that still small, voice in little prayers answered etc.
If we listen to those promptings and find that the promptings are leading us in a directions TWI doesn;t like, and we know that the promptings are of God, who do you think will be the loser??
TWI that's who--I know that in my years "in" that small voice had a constant NO NO NO going in my brain on certain issues.
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George Aar
Oh, GAWD, Johnur,
I had no idea how lost in WayThink you still are.
Just to help out,
There probably is no God, no devil, and no holy writ of some diviine source. Blathering on about what superstition is more "accurate" almost approaches insanity, IMNSHO.
Religion ALWAYS has to denigrate what we experience over what it's dogma says, because our experiences will SELDOM agree with the dogma. I.E. - Jesus DOESN'T "walk with me and talk with me",
God DOESN"T supply all our need, and the sick often remain sick, the dead ALWAYS remain dead, despite what we may choose to believe. And Jesus may "love the little children", but he's got a damn peculiar way of showing it (being as 25 or 30 thousand of them died yesterday, if it was a typical day).
So, there you have it. There's no God, no Jesus floating on a cloud looking benignly down upon us, and no perky, ethereal, afterlife where things are finally gonna be good for us. Anything you want done, you'll need to do yourself, or, hopefully, get someone to help. Today is all we've got for sure, make the most of it.
If there is a God "out there" I'm quite confidant He'll get along fine without my supplications and worship.
Damn, religion is just so farking silly...
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templelady
George, nice to hear from the other side of the fence
Have a wonderful week--someday I'm going to get to that bar-be-que and meat you face to face you marvelous old Curmudgeon you! :)
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allan w.
Well George..must disagree with your 'rationalist' approach..GOD does indeed walk AND talk to us (as Mo also stated). Depends on ones definition of 'walk and talk', many sick ARE healed, often in MIRACULOUS ways that the worlds best doctors, experts, RATIONALISTS, cannot explain.
As for children dying everyday..mebbe da debil DOES exist, thousands have had personal experiences from that side of the fence as well.
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George Aar
Mo,
First platter of ribs is on me...
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Tom Strange
Very simple answers... YES, YES, YES and YES.
Shucks George... NEXT you'll be saying there's no Santa Claus!
...I'm gonna have to check this stuff out with the mothership... I'll get back to you...
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Galen
I thought it was said in the context that, Your personal experiences and how G-d walks with you is fine for you but they cant be cookie-cuttered onto how someone else walks with G-d.
How I walk and how G-d talks with me, and the things that my Heavenly Father shows me, are for me. They are not always for anyone else to know and certainly not for anyone else to take as examples.
When you go to teaching, a person should teach from the Bible. And not from their own personal walk with their Father. For me to listen to how you and G-d walk together, and to then attempt to apply that in my life could possibly be wrong and not to be trusted.
That was/is how I would understand the idea that personal experiences of walking with G-d should not be 'trusted'.
:)
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Mike
I think Galen and johniam, between the two of them, have nailed what we were taught rightly on this topic, while it’s also true that we went off into some tangents on this in later years.
Galen, above, has explained that the details of one person’s receiving of revelation, as in how God works with that one individual, should never be taught as doctrine.
In an earlier post johniam explained that personal experiences should never be used to establish doctrine above what is written. IF there is a conflict between the written Word and some personal experience, then the experience must line up to fit with the Word, and not vice versa as is done in many cases, like the Norman Vincent Peale account johniam reminded us was in the AC.
If personal experiences do line up with the written Word, then they are fine for that individual.
From all this we can see why Dr’s personal experience in 1942 was always acceptable in ministry circles, because prior to 1942 there was no authoritative written Word available.
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dmiller
What a buncha B (as in *B*) & S (as in *S*).
But hey -- free country. Think what you want. :unsure:
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Mike
dmiller,
I thought penguin's point on the 1942 incident was valid and needed to be addressed. I didn't expect my handling of it to be well liked, though.
So, what do you think of the points Galen and johniam made?
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frank123lol
As long as vp point of view was held forth as true,it was ok,anyone elses that did not agree was of the pit.
Talk about controlling!Mike by the way,The bible was around long before said vp got his revelation.Which
has been proved not true as every thing concerning "I will teach you the word since it has not been known since the first century."
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Tom Strange
For those of you not familiar with Mike's "PFAL is God Breathed" premise (hence his little statement above about "no authoritative written Word available") please visit the Doctrinal basement for the full length feature.
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sirguessalot
Do you think twi taught this so they wouldn't have to explain people's experiences?
yes...when it came to spirituallity, twi/pfal was/is in way over its head
Or maybe it was a way to prevent us from really been able to establish a true relationship with God?
no...not consciously, at least
Maybe another way to keep our emotions out of the picture?
yes...there was/is such an ignorance regarding the value of emotions (and experience) in twi/pfal
Or maybe a way to prevent us from hearing the still small voice?
no...not consciously, at least
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Mike
sirguessalot,
If you ever talked with Pentecostalists or wild holy roller types and how they SIT, and what feelings they get, and how they experience it, you'd know EXACTLY why Dr taught that we can't base doctrine on personal experiences. It was to protect us from a HUGE storehouse of confusing and contradictory, but very wild and explicit experiences.
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WordWolf
Speculation.
You don't have in writing-which is YOUR STANDARD-
that this was the sole reason for him doing so.
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sirguessalot
Mike,
well...I am not about to come to any conclusions based on vpw's very very limited experienced with a very very recent and limited sub culture of christianity
also...one man's "HUGE storehouse of confusing and contradictory" does not apply to everyone
and also...i think sound experience and sound doctrine compliment each other quite well...more of both please
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Mike
WW,
Yes, I'm speculating a little. But I have done the talking with those who teach their experiences as doctrine. It's pretty wild!
Dr does explicitly say that their experiences vary and contradict, and in the same places he teaches that experience is no guarantee for truth, so at least ONE of his STATED reasons for teaching this is the confusing storehouse of experiences that are out there... WAY out there.
****
Todd, in some subjects variety is bad. If you were an astronaut and the trajectory department told you that if you hit thruster A for one second about ten completely different things can happen, would you feel good about hitting thruster A?
How about getting your car fixed by a cosmic mechanic who feels that silent, cool, and frictionless braking is at one with the universe, would you want to pay him for that brake job? Would that mechanic complement the normal ones?
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sirguessalot
sorry, Mike
i wont talk to you any more about spiritual things
unless you ask...which you wont, im sure
peace, bro
:(
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