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A couple of questions


citygirl99
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3 hours ago, T-Bone said:

I could see someone who was dulled to questionable behavior, and therefore a pushover for any rationalization.  Dulled to it yes; spiritually mature, pretty unlikely. Even more unlikely computing in the changing of minds days or years later. Maturity can be easily miscalculated.

Actually T-Bone quoted Mike.

Mike, Mike, Mike... spiritually mature people unlikely to be a pushover for rationalizations? I'd say you've got to be kidding, but sadly, I doubt you are. Earlier, I asked about a definition or description of spiritual maturity. No response from you (or anyone else here... likely because that's bull$hit twi jargon). For you to suggest that "maturity can be easily miscalculated," suggests you believe it is not only not twi jargon but actually an objective phenomenon.

Please, by all means, explain to us how to calculate this objective phenomenon so we don't miscalculate it.

Perhaps a more objective reality is that EVERY human is subject to falling for The Confidence Game. People (like us) who bought into Wierwille's ministry and pflap DID fall for the con.

From the book review link,

Quote

What makes a convincing con? It helps to have a vulnerable mark, someone in the throes of some sort of life turmoil. But other emotional states, like happiness or fear, can also lower our defenses and make us more open to persuasion. Clark Stanley, the 19th-century salesman who peddled actual snake oil — or what he claimed was snake oil, anyway — is part of a long tradition of scam artists who exploit our anxieties about our health and well-being.

Con artists thrive in times of social and political upheaval, when instability and uncertainty reign, making it easier for emotion to overwhelm reason.



Wierwille exploited our anxieties too... about eternal life, about truth, about the need for belonging... and then some.

Edited by Rocky
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3 hours ago, Rocky said:


Mike, Mike, Mike... spiritually mature people unlikely to be a pushover for rationalizations? I'd say you've got to be kidding, but sadly, I doubt you are. Earlier, I asked about a definition or description of spiritual maturity. No response from you (or anyone else here... likely because that's bull$hit twi jargon). For you to suggest that "maturity can be easily miscalculated," suggests you believe it is not only not twi jargon but actually an objective phenomenon.

Please, by all means, explain to us how to calculate this objective phenomenon so we don't miscalculate it.

 

Rocky, I think we mis-communicated somewhere.

Someone brought up the bs use of “spiritual maturity” which I think appears as one of the bs rationalizations in the 14 appendixes of the JS adultery paper.

I mentioned that that sounded familiar to me, because my twig did a mini-research work on adultery and bs rationalizations that were popping up around the ministry and causing trouble. In other words, me and my twig were blowing the whistle on the bs rationalization  “spiritual maturity” a few years before JS did with his paper.

Then I opined how bs-laden the “spiritual maturity” thing is in how crazy it is to try and play games with it. I think this is the stage you  were asking me about. Did you know about the earlier stages that led to it.

I think we mis-communicated, as usual.

Do I have the energy to unravel the same kinds of things with the others here ? Now? No. Going to bed for need of sleep is my righteous evasion for the evening.

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On ‎2‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 10:42 AM, Mike said:

I agree. Rocky, you nailed it in an earlier post also, saying it is human nature.

This thread is fascinating to me. Before my involvement with the ministry I was on fire with researching the phenomenon of lying. I mean even to the point of making crude lie detectors at home. I was in touch with scientists who were top polygraph experts.

Later in life I hung around with brain scientists who often dealt with what they call "confabulation" where various varieties of brain damage can cause a victim to lie profusely and way beyond credulity.

In pursuing my interest in writing and language I noticed that lying is woven into our use of language (English at least) in a strange way. There are FAR more words in our vocabulary that describe the spectrum of lying than anyone would  ever guess.  We are literally entrenched in it.

I am trying to anticipate how Artificial Intelligence will deal with lying.

Meanwhile I appreciate all the perspectives offered here so far.

 

16 hours ago, Mike said:

That “spiritually mature” part rings a bell. Several years before JS and the adultery paper I was a twig leader in a small way home. We had a carload of young people arrive one day from the State of Maine. I knew bad things had happened there so I braced myself.

After a few months some mild events occurred, but eventually one person in the twig was getting confused and hurt, and highly distracted from the word. I made an announcement that for the next few weeks, whenever no new people showed up, we’d do a grad night and work “adultery” and “fornication” from KJV, Young’s, Bullinger, Interlinear, etc.

We also collected about 9 rationalizations to casual sex that had floated around sparingly for years. I think the “spiritually mature” thing was one of them.

I was surprised and delighted when I first saw the JS paper on adultery. He had about 14 appendixes that were the same rationalizations we had 9 of.   We had done a mini JS paper in 1979ish.

I could see someone who was dulled to questionable behavior, and therefore a pushover for any rationalization.  Dulled to it yes; spiritually mature, pretty unlikely. Even more unlikely computing in the changing of minds days or years later. Maturity can be easily miscalculated.  It can also go down.  It always sounded like the thinnest of ice to me, if solid at all.  I lived in a nerd world where these things never happened in real life. I missed out on a lot of fun, but it looks like I missed out on a lot of misery also.

 But the “degrees of sin” thing didn’t seem capable of lulling people into something they had boundaries against. Luckily, I was spared all this.

 

7 hours ago, Mike said:

Rocky, I think we mis-communicated somewhere.

Someone brought up the bs use of “spiritual maturity” which I think appears as one of the bs rationalizations in the 14 appendixes of the JS adultery paper.

I mentioned that that sounded familiar to me, because my twig did a mini-research work on adultery and bs rationalizations that were popping up around the ministry and causing trouble. In other words, me and my twig were blowing the whistle on the bs rationalization  “spiritual maturity” a few years before JS did with his paper.

Then I opined how bs-laden the “spiritual maturity” thing is in how crazy it is to try and play games with it. I think this is the stage you  were asking me about. Did you know about the earlier stages that led to it.

I think we mis-communicated, as usual.

Do I have the energy to unravel the same kinds of things with the others here ? Now? No. Going to bed for need of sleep is my righteous evasion for the evening.

Hi Grease Spotters,

Just wanted to mention why I am incredulous with some of the posts on this thread (like the ones quoted above).

It just seems like a trick to outmaneuver other posters who make legitimate points…someone claims they are that far ahead of the curve when issues like lying and sexual immorality are being discussed on this thread – he claims he was looking into these issues many years ago…. I guess he thinks I should give credence to his take on the issues being discussed…Sorry, but I say that’s bull$hit.

He states “I was on fire with researching the phenomenon of lying. I mean even to the point of making crude lie detectors at home.

I mean…come on…why? Is he trying to beat a lie detector test? Does he think he’s lying to himself? This is so ridiculous... Sorry but my bull$hit detector is spiking big time on that one…But wait…it gets better…

He also said “I was in touch with scientists who were top polygraph experts. Later in life I hung around with brain scientists who often dealt with what they call "confabulation" where various varieties of brain damage can cause a victim to lie profusely and way beyond credulity.”   

Has anyone looked up  confabulation  

here’s an excerpt from that link:

“Confabulation is a memory disturbance in which a person confuses imagined scenarios with actual memories with no intent to deceive. Most cases of confabulation are the result of dementia, brain damage, aneurism or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism).

People who confabulate stories are often very confident in their memories even after being shown contradicting evidence. These stories can vary from slight truth alterations to completely unbelievable or bizarre tales. Even when the stories are completely false, the person appears coherent, consistent and relatively normal.

Confabulations are classified into one of two categories: provoked and spontaneous. A provoked confabulation is when a patient invents an untrue story in response to a question. These tend to be quite common among patients with amnesia or dementia. A spontaneous confabulation is a more rare occurrence and involves the telling of an untrue story with no apparent motivation.”

== == == ==

Considering the person’s dishonest tendencies on many threads (like frequently changing the subject to avoid answering direct questions, rarely provides proof of claims,often resorts to using logical fallacies, ignores facts and evidence, often presents skewed alternate versions of wierwille’s history) I am tempted to think his claims of studying so much  about lying, the brain and confabulation are actually a confabulation of his experience as a patient in some study on confabulation.

== == == == ==

Reviewing a few of his statements:

“we’d do a grad night and work “adultery” and “fornication” from KJV, Young’s, Bullinger, Interlinear, etc.

We also collected about 9 rationalizations to casual sex that had floated around sparingly for years. I think the “spiritually mature” thing was one of them. I was surprised and delighted when I first saw the JS paper on adultery. He had about 14 appendixes that were the same rationalizations we had 9 of.   We had done a mini JS paper in 1979ish. “

and

“I mentioned that that sounded familiar to me, because my twig did a mini-research work on adultery and bs rationalizations that were popping up around the ministry and causing trouble. In other words, me and my twig were blowing the whistle on the bs rationalization  “spiritual maturity” a few years before JS did with his paper. “

 

Yeah…my bull$hit detector is registering 11 on all that…and my bull$hit detector only goes up to 10…I actually had to draw a number 11 on the scale to accommodate the input overload.

…but  anyway…I seriously doubt much of what’s been said in the above posts because it hits me as an unabashed ploy - stating one has worked on acquiring expert knowledge or expertise on something WAY BEFORE anyone else. This is really just a childish game of one-upmanship…not buying it…nuff said.

 

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1 minute ago, Mike said:

Well I can wait for people to address the issues

instead of trying to construct some kind of box

to put me in.

You put yourself in the box , Mike, when you make unsubstantiated, outlandish claims.

If you want to stick to the issues, you only need to address them honestly, in a logical fashion.

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11 minutes ago, Mike said:

Well I can wait for people to address the issues

instead of trying to construct some kind of box

to put me in.

Your reaping what you sowed.

How much honesty and trust have you shown us?

So are you really suprised your getting a lack of trust in return?

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Here’s something outlandish for you. The reason I constructed home made lie detectors was so I could hook them up to the leaves of common house plants. I only worked with GSR portion of the machine.

One of the developers of the polygraph for the CIA had noticed consciousness like behavior when he started looking at plants. I heard him deliver an lecture on this on the radio. I was a cosmic hippie studying consciousness. At the time I was working as a traveling repair man for Western Union in NYC, and in my travels I located the guy and his lab near the middle of Times Square and became a groupie of his. He was pretty wild. This was 1970 and 71. Named Cleve Backster, he and his plants were written up in every magazine in the world through the 70s. He was discredited by most science including Myth Busters.. By coincidence he and I both moved to San Diego 40 years ago.

 

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

(Snip)...He was discredited by most science including Myth Busters.. By coincidence he and I both moved to San Diego 40 years ago.

 

Do you have an affinity for discredited people?

 

you seem to be attracted to them

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

Here’s something outlandish for you. The reason I constructed home made lie detectors was so I could hook them up to the leaves of common house plants. I only worked with GSR portion of the machine.

One of the developers of the polygraph for the CIA had noticed consciousness like behavior when he started looking at plants. I heard him deliver an lecture on this on the radio. I was a cosmic hippie studying consciousness. At the time I was working as a traveling repair man for Western Union in NYC, and in my travels I located the guy and his lab near the middle of Times Square and became a groupie of his. He was pretty wild. This was 1970 and 71. Named Cleve Backster, he and his plants were written up in every magazine in the world through the 70s. He was discredited by most science including Myth Busters.. By coincidence he and I both moved to San Diego 40 years ago.

 

You mean THIS guy?

You sure know how to pick 'em, that's for sure.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

Here’s something outlandish for you. The reason I constructed home made lie detectors was so I could hook them up to the leaves of common house plants. I only worked with GSR portion of the machine....(SNIP)

 

Really ?!?!

you say "The reason I constructed home made lie detectors was so I could hook them up to the leaves of common house plants."

 

that's totally different from the reason you gave in an earlier post ( see below) where you said "This thread is fascinating to me. Before my involvement with the ministry I was on fire with researching the phenomenon of lying. I mean even to the point of making crude lie detectors at home. I was in touch with scientists who were top polygraph experts." 

On 2/14/2018 at 10:42 AM, Mike said:

I agree. Rocky, you nailed it in an earlier post also, saying it is human nature.

This thread is fascinating to me. Before my involvement with the ministry I was on fire with researching the phenomenon of lying. I mean even to the point of making crude lie detectors at home. I was in touch with scientists who were top polygraph experts.

Later in life I hung around with brain scientists who often dealt with what they call "confabulation" where various varieties of brain damage can cause a victim to lie profusely and way beyond credulity.

In pursuing my interest in writing and language I noticed that lying is woven into our use of language (English at least) in a strange way. There are FAR more words in our vocabulary that describe the spectrum of lying than anyone would  ever guess.  We are literally entrenched in it.

I am trying to anticipate how Artificial Intelligence will deal with lying.

Meanwhile I appreciate all the perspectives offered here so far.

Let me guess...did you think your plants were lying to you?

 

geez Louise - I now had to draw a number 22 on my bull$hit detector - and I think you've hit the daily double 

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23 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

Really ?!?!

you say "The reason I constructed home made lie detectors was so I could hook them up to the leaves of common house plants."

 

that's totally different from the reason you gave in an earlier post ( see below) where you said "This thread is fascinating to me. Before my involvement with the ministry I was on fire with researching the phenomenon of lying. I mean even to the point of making crude lie detectors at home. I was in touch with scientists who were top polygraph experts." 

Let me guess...did you think your plants were lying to you?

 

geez Louise - I now had to draw a number 22 on my bull$hit detector - and I think you've hit the daily double 

You have to understand, T-Bone, these scientists were top polygraph experts.

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2 hours ago, waysider said:

You have to understand, T-Bone, these scientists were top polygraph experts.

Oh yeah...and I guess these scientists also minored in horticulture.... yeah - that’s the ticket!

Hmmmmmm...money is made from paper - paper comes from trees - cross a polygraph expert with a horticulturalist and what do you get ? A counterfeit money detector....ba dum bum...I’m here all week folks

i am a leaf

i am a leaf

on a lying tree

 

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43 minutes ago, waysider said:

You have to understand, T-Bone, these scientists were top polygraph experts.

I'm going back to taking another drink when someone's the "best in their field" or "top of their field." 

I think the business of "confabulation" is relevant here- the real meaning.  We're getting posts of CONFABULATED MEMORIES.  We're getting "I wish I'd done this" conflated with "And here's what I did" and the conflater, like other conflaters, isn't even aware they're doing it. However, they've heard this before and remembered the TERM but not the meaning. Naturally, the rest of us aren't going to exactly swallow the sandwich that's being offered.

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Maybe, this is........:offtopic:

......seems like this thread has been all over the map......

.......but, it just seems to me, that once again another thread was hijacked and all the focus is about Mike.  And, for those who've been long participants of GreaseSpot........know that these wierwille-defenders show up time and again to derail or diffuse the essence of the thread topic.  I wouldn't be surprised if another 20 pages were added as Mike's proclivities and innuendos banter back and forth.

Of these "wierwille-defenders"..........did any one of them EVER change their opinion?

........even when a corps girl was drugged and sexually assaulted and gave her first-hand account, wierwille-defenders REFUSED to believe it.

........her heart crying out to be heard.....deeply abused, deeply broken

........the only deep way she could convey what happened to her in twi.........was "soul stealing"

........adultery vs soul stealing

** A poster took to her defense on page 8........to try and knock sense into this wierwille-defender.    [  15 years ago  ]

........one of the great threads on GSC.......to try and engage a wierwille-defender to stop and think deeper.....

 

On ‎2‎/‎3‎/‎2003 at 2:07 PM, Dot Matrix said:

 

OLDS: Folks are picking at the "signs" that a girl gives when she means no. Personally, I find that ambiguous. And truly in a court of law it would not be very concrete. But again, it is not the issue.

The issue is not did the girls give little signs?. It is WHAT BIG SCAREY THINGS did VPW do to rape/sexually use these little girls? IF you have ever watched a show like Court TV or Unsolved Mysteries you have seen how a pedophile or sexual predator works. A man may befriend himself to the single mom. (After, he stalks and compiles information that THIS family can be set up ? single mom, lonely child, financial trouble in keeping babysitters) So, he befriends Mommy. Then, he offers to baby-sit. He starts by playing games like checkers or hide and seek. Then, he introduces a NEW game called ?touch? and another called ?ride the pony? Then, he tears the child from the Mother by building lack of trust in the parent and rebuilding trust in HIM. This insures that the kid will not tell.

Okay, so enter TWI. Most of these kids were 16- 19 years old and taking PFAL. Some were doing drugs all were seeking something more than they got at home. They were seeking something noble ? they sought GOD. VPW worked several ways. We were pulled away from our family as they were unbelievers. For instance, on the WOW field you could not go home.

Example: The first time he saw this young girl (one of the posters) she was a newbie at twig. VPW was naked in the bathroom and he left the door open even after he saw she was startled by his presence. (A weird thing for a minister to do. A weird thing for a father and husband to do to a 17 year old kid). Then, he parties with them offering them ?grown up? things like beer and Drambuie. He offers to take the girl to Indiana Campus if she is able to go. He gets his alone time and makes her feel special. Then, once on the coach out comes the booze?.. LET US ALL LOOK AT THE THINGS HE DID AND FORGET THE SIGNS THESE YOUNG GIRLS DID OR DID NOT DO. Who cares? I do not give a dam n if she was unable to speak from fright or if she just sat passively. What was this old fat guy doing to get these girls into this situation?

Here is another friend of mine. She was 16/17 years old at the Advanced class. She was so excited! And as she walked by the coach Chris asked her to come in the coach and meet VPW. She enters, overjoyed to meet the MOG! But he was naked! He asked her to give him a back rub. Chris told her ?VPW asked me to bring in the first pretty girl I saw.? Then, he rolled for a front rub and she turned beat red and got out of there.

Another girl was tormented by sexual misconduct in her own family. She goes into the corps and had to write a paper called From Birth to the Corps. She outlines the abuse! VPW sends for her and says something like, ?Ah honey, I read your paper! That is awful. You deserve to be loved not used.?

She relaxes and sits down. He hugs her and then begins to feel her up!!!!!! I do not care if she was too shocked to say NO or to run or give a signal. She was set up by an old evil man. A serial sexual predator..

If you do not like the term rape - OLDS ? then let us find something you are comfortable with. How about a serial sexual deviant? How about a sick-sick man? What you concede he was ?evil?? How about a sinner? You can pick whatever name you feel comfortable with. BUT PLEASE do not say that these girls (my friends) were looking for sex with this scanky old fart. Please do not insist these kids should have been able to handle a situation that was way beyond their abilities to handle.

Did you have a sister you can recall being 17? Olds, do you have kids?

Are they or have they been 17 years old? If someone invited them to church and then took an interest in them you might not suspect anything. Now, suppose YOUR kid came home and said that the minister gave her 3 beers and then felt her up? Or he took a shower and exposed himself to her? Or took off his clothes and asked for a back rub? Would you say, ?Well, honey you should have said no? If you did not say no then that was your fault!? Or would you go kick his fooking ....?

You can figure all this out on your own but at least give these kids, these little girls the same kindness and awareness you would give your own daughter. Just do that and if you still want to like VPW then go ahead. Just do not keep suggesting these ?kids? ?your daughter? or ?your son? would want an old minister to touch them.

See, you are thinking of Ex and me and Watered Garden and others as adults because we are now! We were not then. I tell you, if I had a daughter and she was 17/18 years old and some old minister acted like VPW did, I think I would have visited him with a gun or a police officer.

BTW, I am looking for a letter VPW wrote me. I complained about my corps assignment. He wrote to me something like "I wish your boobs secreted as much as your eyes do." How appropriate is that? I kept it incase I needed to proove he was an idiot. I will look for it and post the thing when I find it.

Dot Matrix

 

 

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22 minutes ago, skyrider said:

Maybe, this is........:offtopic:

......seems like this thread has been all over the map......

.......but, it just seems to me, that once again another thread was hijacked and all the focus is about Mike.  And, for those who've been long participants of GreaseSpot........know that these wierwille-defenders show up time and again to derail or diffuse the essence of the thread topic.  I wouldn't be surprised if another 20 pages were added as Mike's proclivities and innuendos banter back and forth.

Of these "wierwille-defenders"..........did any one of them EVER change their opinion?

........even when a corps girl was drugged and sexually assaulted and gave her first-hand account, wierwille-defenders REFUSED to believe it.

........her heart crying out to be heard.....deeply abused, deeply broken

........the only deep way she could convey what happened to her in twi.........was "soul stealing"

........adultery vs soul stealing

** A poster took to her defense on page 8........to try and knock sense into this wierwille-defender.    [  15 years ago  ]

........one of the great threads on GSC.......to try and engage a wierwille-defender to stop and think deeper.....

 

 

Sky, thanks for the link!  This young woman's life was torn asunder because of VPW, and his minions.  Some day he, and they will will have to answer for their wantonness. If VPW was alive today, he would be considered a Rapist, and be imprisoned for his crimes.

 

 

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Holy cow ! we’re at six pages now…I looked at her profile and noticed citygirl99 hasn’t logged on to Grease Spot since she first started this thread on February 10th…I have this picture of her being flabbergasted when she returns and sees all this and she’ll say “Geez, all I did was ask two simple questions.”   :biglaugh:

seriously though - I have really enjoyed this thread...thanks for asking those questions, citygirl99 !

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On 2/10/2018 at 11:12 AM, citygirl99 said:

A couple of questions:

Why do Wayfers feel they have to lie rather than tell the truth?

. . .

The answer usually given has been cognitive dissonance.

They've been lied to.  They've accepted the lies.  They live in a false reality.  They now lie to themselves and have to protect that reality for the sake of sanity or a sense of stability.

At this point, when they speak to others, constantly defending their little world, are they even able to recognize they are lying to others?

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