chockfull

This is a long response. No I can’t relate to your exact experience with your grandson. The experiences I’ve had are different. So is the answer to the question I asked that you believe Jesus was harassing those kids or abusing them mentally? Because this is a record of him doing something that was observed and recorded.

I guess this is called “personification” where you take all of the negative elements you experienced from a cult, label man’s abuse as God being an abusive partner, and equate some form of leaving Christianity as leaving an abusive marriage arrangement. Your life your business. Not a path that has the slightest interest for me. If you are saying I’m living in denial I think maybe the mirror would point 3 fingers back at yourself. You are equating fundamentalism and more specifically the specific bondage of TWI with scripture and all of Christianity. “If that is as far as you want to go” that is the height of ego to think that I am refusing to “go deeper” or some BS you still have ingrained from cult fundamentalism. Being a scribe or a Pharisee is not “going deeper” as accurately illustrated by my Lords interaction with them. The vast majority of all Christians consider TWI a cult and VPs teachings to be self aggrandizing plagiarism. So was Jesus abusing those children he cast spirits out of? Still waiting on that answer. What does your “going deeper” tell you there?

The way you are inserting comments into my quote makes it impossible to answer any of your questions inline and I’m not cutting and pasting every one of them from all over everywhere. If I’m not answering all your questions that is why. So much of this is Christianity 101. God as Creator was not a dictator so he did not interfere in His creation every microsecond but set up systems where people could choose to talk to Him or not. Those who do He helps but not in a direct interference way for the most part. Certain circumstances dictate miracles such as those we read of Jesus on earth. Mankind has arrived at whatever state he is in through his own choice. Yes this is allegorical as today people also arrive at their own state through their own choice. What other parts of the Bible are allegorical? A lot of them. Even VPs teaching highlights verses with “figures of speech” as different from a direct reading. Remember the whole Athletes of the Spirit debacle with TWI taking figurative language to a new low? With respect to the devil spirit comments you are choosing to be confused as you don’t believe they exist. From your mouth. Jesus healed children by removing a spiritual cause of their illness. At least that is what seems pretty clear in those verses. Your grandson has a known mental condition that has negative and positive ramifications. This is not a devil spirit. This is not a spiritual cause. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. So now for my questions. What was Jesus doing to those children if not healing them? If he wasn’t removing a spiritual cause then the only other logical conclusion would involve some form of mental child abuse. Is that what you believe happened? I am not gaslighting anything. I am commenting on words proceeding from your own mouth. If it’s not gas coming out of your mouth how can it be lit on fire?

I view Gen 2 and 3 as allegorical illustrating freedom of choice between good and evil that is available to every living soul. You most certainly are interpreting it in a fundamentalist sense from my perspective. Faith means different things in the Bible I think most count 5 usages. The idea of devil spirits is upsetting. Having spiritual causes of illnesses is upsetting. Mental illnesses which can look like devil spirits are upsetting. Being sick is upsetting. Cancer and chemo is upsetting. VP said cancer was a devil spirit. Then he died of it. What .... doctrine are you talking about? Those records in the gospels are Jesus healing a couple kids by removing a spiritual cause of the illness? So healing the kids was ....? Dang that is real cynical. Not a view I want to share at all.

Yipes. I hated to watch movies with the wayfers as they over spiritualize everything. My natural defenses were to either watch stuff alone or take them to The Exorcist and then at least they would be entertaining.

Trying to respond to this I think a previous response somehow showed up missing. What I find ironic is someone with no belief in any inspiration in scripture telling me to “look deeper” into scripture. No my remark is not snarky it is in the practical realm. What is pleasing God? It varies per individual but to me it involves seeking out a virtuous life. I like my life better seeking out virtue than I do trying to parse over some VPW regurgitation of manifestations in a book he stole or “the law of believing” which actually I think we’ve shown to have spiritualist origins here on GSC. Does God “always” provide wisdom when I ask? I think so, whether it is in the form of the word of a friend, a sunrise, an idea, an observation about nature, a secular writing striking me in a way, or about a hundred other practical ways I could mention. But to you He is “an unloving Father” because of how you interpret Gen 2 & 3 and are stuck on VPW believing fantasy and some idiot who is blabbing about devil spirits in a medical situation. Yeah I get it. It’s always the hypocrites that drive people away from churches and they are everywhere. But what do you want to build in your life? Tearing down idols is only half of a renovation project.

I don’t read that at all in those verses. Hebrews 11:6 - I mean is this just common logic ? If you don’t believe in a magical character how would you possibly try to please a magical character? James 1:5-6 ask God for wisdom If you don’t believe in a God why would you ever ask Him for wisdom? Again rocket science 101. And now that you don’t believe in God you are saying making basic logical statements shows an unloving God? I disagree. I read it those verses as simple logical statements with logical conclusions. What rock and what hard place is it that you find yourself in either way? Want some more rocket science 101? If you never read the Bible you won’t understand the Bible. If you read the Bible and don’t believe in a God it probably isn’t going to be that interesting and you probably won’t read it much. But a fundamentalist, hand in a glove absolutist? Yeah that’s what wrecks the Bible and any inspirational truth. And places believers in bondage. And drives them away completely. Goodbye baby. Goodbye bathwater. Adults and showers only now! I am gonna back out of this channel now and let you all continue.

Yes although yet another label there seems to certainly be some level of restraint that a Creator has in day to day intervention. Is it a big bang then see you approach? Is it a God talks to me every day cheering me up writing patterns in my cornflakes approach? I see that as the two extremes of possibility and reality likely lies between the two. I think the battle of Armageddon is supposed to be an arena where there is no restraint to the spiritual realm but an all out battle. Until then there is a restraint on both sides. So there is no justice in this world and bad things happen to good people. Whether you believe in a spiritual realm or a Creator or not it appears the same reality is faced regardless of belief. My thoughts for the .05 worth lol.

Glad you found medical answers and have enjoyed a rich interaction with your grandson. The JWs are real bad about the medical stuff and superstition with how they refuse any blood transfusions due to some strange scripture interpretation. I blame the Adv Class for all the stuff about devil spirits. It was like Harry Potter crossed with conspiracy theory with some OT reading to lull the hearers to sleep. It is interesting to see the end result of all of that is driving people away from faith.

socks I really enjoyed reading your post and logic and reasoning. I love the conclusion arriving at serendipity as a common goal. Polar opposites to force feeding a new Plaffy down the worlds throat with a trademark.

Yes this is interesting. It is hard to find a middle ground on this topic. It either progresses to a Dan Brown type novel where you have Franciscan monks vs the Illuminati or the rejecting of anything not observable by your 5 senses. One angle to this argument or discussion to consider is how does mankind realize the benefit of superior intellect? How is higher reasoning constructed in the philosophical realms? The Greeks had a high degree of superstition even to the point of not allowing unknown gods introduced at Mars hill. Anyway no answers but interesting discussion.

Yeah there’s probably a better way. Non-verbal autism is well known. It seems that non verbal would make it very strong on that spectrum. This is a known mental challenge that is genetic usually and due to missing chemicals in a body that requires treatment and maintenance. The ignorant have always flocked to superstition to explain away the unexplained. A native witch doctor with completely different beliefs would possibly come up with the same superstitious conclusion.

Yes this is the dilemma it seems. Is there anything spiritual out there or in there that inspires from the outside? Or the inside? There is a real challenge here. Mankind needs a muse. People need heroes to inspire them to greater acts. What is this muse? I view it as a spark of the divine. Where I look for inspiration as there is little of it in the world arising of itself. Only if you condition yourself to look for it. In your scenario you describe what does it matter whether the inspiration is a new view of your personal experience or that same view possibly introduced by a loving Father? People will view the words I wrote here as either inspirational or devil spirit inspired depending on their mindset. Or illogical lol. My inspiration is rejecting the Pharisee approach to controlling things and amassing power and simply looking to the simple truths in writings for inspiration. A favorite inspirational quote for me about fundamentalist mindset is actually from Ralph Waldo Emerson “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. That inspires me almost as much as Jesus words to those hypocrites.

This feels like a drive by shooting. We have had a number of these. I would suspect it’s a fake account of a leader that is somewhat unhappy with the details we discuss here so need to come here and reprove us with PLAF quotes. They usually last a short period of time until the poster realizes it will take actual logic and discussion to make any headway then they leave.

Yeah you aren’t seeing any divine spark. I guess religion to you consists of an illogical social construct that people use to explain the unexplained or try to. I can respect that position but personally find it a touch too cynical for me. YMMV. Yes I’ll take some leaf oolong. I have a friend with a tea shop who made a special blend for the eclipse and sold a ton.