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... nevertheless still emotionally immature. self-justifying rationalizations through and through (by TWI and Victor Wierwille).

This can be objectively observed and described. It is through this frame I will make a subjective moral assessment. Value judgements are indeed subjective. How else could the species survive 200,000 years? Humans had to cooperate, help each other, for the survival and flourishing of the group, clan, tribe, nation state. Likewise, the individual needed the help of the group to survive and flourish. And we still do. WLC. *exasperated sigh* We were incapable of making value judgements about rape and murder until 3500 years ago? Whew! Finally! After enduring thousands of years of rampant child rape and matricide, humans finally understood how to live righteously. Thanks to the Hebrews - enthusiastic child rapists and mother murderers themselves, until they got morality. Got it.

We have addressed these issues before, but I did so in a way that was confrontational and not constructive. I hope to reverse that this time and do so in a way that addresses the issue from an angle I'm not sure we covered directly last time. One of the criticisms we (who do not believe in gods/God) face is that in the absence of God, we have no foundation for objective morality. I'll allow Christian apologist William Lane Craig to frame the issue. Objective moral values do exist, and we can justify the existence of such values because God exists. Objective moral values cannot exist unless God does. Now, I am oversimplifying his point and I invite you to read his work on this for yourself, but I do so with a cautionary note: I believe Craig (I will abbreviate to WLC to avoid confusion with that other Craig of our common experience) uses a LOT of words to obscure the fact that his argument is ultimately circular. That is, one has to presume objective moral values exist in the first place and you must assume there is a causative relationship between those values and the existence of a God in order to reach the conclusion that God provides the foundation for objective moral values. As I will demonstrate in either this post or a future one, the problem with the assumption that God is the foundation of objective moral values is, it leaves us with no mechanism to evaluate the morality of the actions committed by or ordered by that God. Of necessity, anything that God says or does has to be morally good, even if we know they're not. For the unbeliever, this is a serious problem, because we need to evaluate the moral value system of multiple gods who disagree with each other, with each religion telling us we have no right to question the morality of their God. We cannot question Allah or Jesus or Yahweh. A Christian sure can evaluate Allah, but only against Christianity. And the Muslim has no responsibility to accept a Christian's criticism because to the Muslim, the Christian is using a false moral foundation. Simply put, Christians believe Yahweh/Jesus is/are always right, and if your morality conflicts with theirs, you are wrong and better get with the program. Muslims think Allah/Muhammad are always right and if your morality conflicts with theirs, you are wrong and better get with the program. The problem is, they cannot BOTH be right, and there can't simply be no way to evaluate the morality of a god's actions or orders. The problem is in the premise. The problem with the whole construct lies right at the beginning, with the premise that objective moral values exist. They don't. Repeat, objective moral values do not exist. In fact, if you think about it, objective moral values are oxymoronic. We need to first distinguish between types of values. Some values are objective. Say, measurements. Five feet is taller than three feet. Six feet is taller than two feet. But is six feet objectively "tall"? Well, it can be. It can also not be. If you're a horse jockey, six feet is real tall. Perhaps prohibitively so. However, if you're a basketball player, six feet is tiny. Same six feet. Tall against one standard, short against another. The objective value is feet and inches. Or centimeters, for anyone reading on the rest of the planet. So when we talk about values, we can't assume we're talking about something objective, especially when human evaluation against ANOTHER standard comes into play. And THAT is the problem with morality. Morality is an attempt at a coherent system of value judgements, but such judgments are subjective BY DEFINITION. One cannot say an action is objectively moral, objectively right or wrong, anymore than one can say something is audibly green or chromatically loud. Actions merely ARE. They do not become moral or immoral, right or wrong, good or evil until they are measured against something else. What does this mean? On social media, a believer writes: "If atheism were true sin wouldn’t be real. It would be a social construct. So really if you murdered, raped or genocide a village, then that wouldn’t be wrong. So even your worst evils aren’t evil if atheism is true." But this believer is mistaken. Badly. The first mistake is to assume that subjective morality is somehow inadequate to evaluate the goodness or evil of an action. Not only is subjective morality adequate to the task, it is the ONLY tool we have to accomplish the task! That's hard for people to process because it requires saying things like "rape is not objectively wrong; murder is not objectively wrong; genocide is not objectively wrong." Here's the thing, though: "Not objectively wrong" is not a synonym for "right, acceptable, good," or even "neutral." Good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral are all subjective value judgments. Always. (This doesn't change just because one subjugates his own moral value system for God's and calls it "objective." God's moral value system is HIS subjective value system, and all people are entitled to evaluate it to decide whether it is adequate. Rape is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. Murder is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. Genocide is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. On what basis does one evaluate the rightness or wrongness of an action? Well, I submit you hold it against a standard that IS objective. While it is not written in stone, one can build a predictable and useful subjective value system around the premise that all actions have the potential of helping people or hurting them, contributing to our benefit or contributing to suffering. If you commit an act that contributes to the greater good without exacerbating suffering, we can generally evaluate your action to be "good" or at least "neutral." And we can test that standard against any other. Ditch the parts that don't work and improve the parts that do. This is what humanity has always done. It is why slavery was tolerated for centuries. It is why punishment for criminal activity has become less barbaric over time. It is why we look back at a movie like Reefer Madness as a virtual comedy rather than a solemn warning. It is why Amos and Andy were hilarious in their day and offensive now. Our morality evolves. Biblical morality does not. Quranic morality does not. Objective morality cannot change, by definition, because if it's objectively moral in 2025 then it must have been objectively moral in 2025 BC. If you argue "but it was a different time," then you concede, of necessity, that morality changes when times change, which is the OPPOSITE of "these actions are objectively wrong." This is how I answered the social media Christian (I will repeat his post so you don't have to scroll back up for it: "If atheism were true, sin wouldn’t be real. It would be a social construct. So really if you murdered, raped or genocide a village, then that wouldn’t be wrong. So even your worst evils aren’t evil if atheism is true." My reply: 1. Sin is not real. 2. It is a religious construct. 3. Rape, murder and genocide are wrong, which is a SUBJECTIVE determination with a rational basis in the amount of avoidable and unnecessary harm that is caused. 4. Evil is a subjective value judgment, so as long as there are people, those acts will contribute to avoidable human suffering therefore determined subjectively to be evil. 5. Subjective morality is an adequate basis to condemn evil. 6. Objective morality is an oxymoron. It does not and CAN not exist. Stopping here to allow others to weigh in and ask questions.

Wow! The famous adultery paper by John Schoenheit. I took the Class called "Living God's Word as a Family"...(an evolution of the old one by VPW), nowadays TWI places more emphasis on adultery, fornication, and child-rearing than on marital sexuality (nicknames for genitals LOL) I can type the index of the class if you wish.

"And awaaayyy we go!" George

WW is up. George

Expectations of Allied POWS in this WWII movie were that Japan should have honored the Geneva Convention. Actually, Japan wasn't a signatory to the treaty until 1953. (Interestingly, misdeeds by the Japanese prompted revision of the treaty in 1949.) The commandant of the prison was portrayed as being ruthless. According to many of his prisoners after the war, the actual Japanese officer on whom the role was based was one of the more humane and reasonable ones. To keep costs down, producer Sam Spiegel decided not to hire any extras, using crew members and Ceylon locals instead. This meant that some of the British prisoners were really natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucasian. George

This has been unattended for a month and a half. I suggest that Raf either give some more clues or just turn over the cards and offer a free post. George

I was surprised to learn that Bullinger is not held in particularly high regard among Bible scholars today. But then I can't imagine any literalist/dispensationalist would be.

Since wierwille relied a lot on Bullinger, here is a website for The Complete Companion Bible. However, any discussion of Bullinger's work that do not apply to vp's literal translations according to usage would be off topic for this thread. I just sent it along as an additional resource. The KJV Companion Bible in PDF Online

Unfortunately, my copy of your book was accidentally ruined when my water bottle soaked it while in my bag, so I can't refer to it. John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study." In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986." Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request? I ask because according to VPW's Birth Certificate, John Juedes wrote about wierwille wearing an eye patch and that ,"Witnesses at the Rock of Ages 1983 reported that Wierwille's speech began to slur during a hymn-sing, and he had to leave the stage during a teaching because he was having trouble communicating. Although rumors suggested Wierwille had two strokes, no specifics were generally announced." Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death. Finally, is John Schoenheit still willing to talk about the paper and answer questions?

I'd love to see a handling of II Peter 1:20. (Irony is my middle name.)

James Mason Georgy Girl Lynn Redgrave George

Cool. Not curious enough to buy it though. Not at that price. Anyone else recall examples from previous study or publication?

Yes. Exceedingly, abundantly rotten. Of course they are dismissive of rape, adultery and bestiality fetishes. What I'm asking is, do they NOW teach John Schoenheit's exegesis on adultery? I don't need to be shown what the Bible says about adultery to know it's wrong, but many do. Schoenheit's paper seems to me to be a thorough exegetical treatment of the issue. Without the appendices, I could imagine TWI turning a paper like that into a collateral pamphlet. (Changing some words here and there to claim it as original.) That is, if they are really trying to distance themselves from their filthy past. They remade PFAL into PFALToday, cutting the duration by 50%. Though that's the easiest edit to make, It's a step in the right direction. Teaching Schoenheit's thesis is another righteous step. It could demonstrate real change without having to admit anything. They want to distance themselves from their past. They want people to beleeeve they've changed. So simple.

These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "

I've never seen this one but it may be helpful, https://www.amazon.com/Literal-Translations-According-Victor-Wierwille/dp/1482768968#detailBullets_feature_div

I got to wondering if there is a collection of these somewhere. Wouldn't that be handy? The most famous, of course, is agape as "the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation." I can confidently say these many years later that this definition of that one word is pretty much made up out of whole cloth. It seems to be a concerted effort to work the words "renewed mind" and "manifestation" into a word that implies neither. BUT that doesn't make it necessarily a bad definition. I just think it needs to be thought out more. There were some verses where that translation makes no damn sense. Like when God so loved the world. Did he renew his mind? I mean come on. Explore. What were some of the others? I've long since discarded my TWI books, but I would be interested in exploring some of the others and analyzing whether they were accurate or self-serving. Post em if you've got em.

Does anyone know TWI's current position on this issue? How do they explain the firing of John Schoenheit for rightly dividing the word on adultery? Surely, they don't dispute the thesis of his paper. EDIT: JuniorCorps wasn't alone in leaving over this issue. How does TWI defend against this legitimate reason. They must be prepared. After all, those postcards about "coming home" were sent to former dupes they must know left because for this very reason.

Thanks. I just put that on my list of re-reads.

If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.

Thanks WordWolf for filling in the blanks of what I remembered hearing.

Thanks for the belly laugh waysider .