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You know, it is possible John might answer questions about his paper and what happened way back when if any of you ask him. Here's the website contact page to reach him and his organization: Connect With Us | Spirit & Truth

I was going out WOW and on our way to Amarillo I flipped into a manic psychotic episode and they put me on a bus. I got off the bus in Oklahoma City and was acting crazy and the police picked me up and put me in jail. A warden took it upon herself to look into my purse and fortunately my parents’ address and phone number were in it. (They had moved) and she contacted my dad who flew to OKC and took me home. Without these “fortunate” occurrences God only knows what would have become of me. It’s only because God took care of me not TWI. By the way, I didn’t really want to go WOW in the first place but was pressured into it by my twig leader. I’m bipolar but was undiagnosed at the time.

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.

I was born and raised as a Roman Catholic, and attended their schools. I bought into their belief’s and even thought of becoming a priest, in other words I was sold on their doctrine. UNTIL the Second Vatican Council in 1962. Prior to this no Catholic could eat meat on Friday, and if they did it was a mortal sin. A mortal sin would send you to hell if you did not confess the sin to a priest. So if a Catholic was to eat a bologna sandwich for lunch on any Friday, and on the way home they were killed in a motor vehicle accident, their soul would immediately be damned to hell for eternity. Pretty severe for sure and not very comforting for their surviving Catholic family. Then, the Second Vatican Council decreed that eating meat on Friday, except for Lent, was no longer a mortal sin. In other words, you can eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, and rib steak for dinner, and no longer commit a mortal sin. How in the name of fairness and common sense, could a loving God cast his children into everlasting hell for eating meat on Friday prior to the Second Vatican Council, and not post Second Vatican Council? That opened my eyes to the ridiculousness of this teaching and started me on a very long journey realizing that trying to explain a loving God was also ridiculous. There are several thousand Christian religions that all disagree on how to obtain eternal life. Plus all the other world religions all have their way of salvation. If you can’t prove one is tight then all must be wrong.

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.

IMPORTANT NEWS: If anyone is offered a Spanish translation of Chapter One (or other parts) of my memoir, Undertow, or any other of my published work, including blogs, please know I have NOT authorized that translation. My book, like all books published in the U.S., is protected by U.S. copyright law. For more details, read the copyright page of Undertow. To put this another way: I have not given permission, and have no plans to give it, to anyone to translate any parts of my work into any language. I say that not only as the author, but the publisher who owns New Wings Press, LLC, which published both of my books. People who hire translators, by the way, are not the authors of a work, they are the publishers. Now, if as a publisher, I had a bottomless piggy bank and a professional translator I trusted (and another translator to check that translator's work), I might consider publishing Undertow in Spanish, but as of today, I'm 99% certain no such criteria is in my future. Nor do I want it, thanks anyway. In case you're not familiar with the book business, publishing a book, not to mention writing it, is a whole lot of work, stress, sleepless nights, a juggling act of managing editors, blurbers, book designers, book marketers (yourself and your friends), book printers and book distributors. And 99% of the time, money is "lost" on the project. So you have to really, really, really believe the book(s) are worth all that to publish them. So, I'll just say that sharing Undertow with those who want it, like you guys here at GSC, was and will always be one of the most rewarding endeavors of my life. Cheers, Charlene L. Edge

Not exaggerating a bit, then.

I'm getting married! This is still something of a surprise and a wonder to me. Am I excited, or terrified? Happily expectant, or scared of the future? Thinking it's just the best, or just the weirdest thing, that I'm in process of? Deliriously joyful, or just plain delirious? All of these things, from time to time, and sometimes simultaneously. It's a month since it was agreed, and I'm still sort of getting my head around it. I can tell you one thing. NO, that's NO, bloody church leader, or anyone else for that matter, is going to interfere.

A hearty congratulations to you and your new beloved! Have fun at your wedding... I'm sure loving my second marriage: to a non-Way-believer. We married in 2002. What joy. What freedom to relax and be yourself!

Congratulations Twinky!! I'm so happy for you!!!

Chantal should have some moderate impact on the Carolinas and Virginia: i: George

Anything we have known Anything we've forgotten.

Around 1979, I took my first PFAL class. I was only 15. I continued on with the indoctrination, ran home fellowships, served in Way Productions, worked on the grounds crew and graduated with the 17th Corps. Those 3-4 hour 'Corps nights' with LCM constantly screaming and relentlessly berating people were especially brutal. After our graduation, my husband and I finally bought a small house. However, we quickly sold that house within 2 years because of the the no debt policy. Crazy times. After years of abuse, I finally found the strength to get out in the year 2000. This web site has been helpful for me. It is good to know I am not alone. Thanks to all who shared their stories on this forum.

Our Unwritten Seoul

Even VPW argued that the soul is simply your breath life.

Quantitative: countable. We have a soul. One. It's a thing. Not part of our imagination. Immeasurable: it doesn't have weight or mass. There's nothing about a soul that science can point to, independent of the body, in order to demonstrate its presence. It might be easier if I asked you what a soul is, independent of the body. I'm suggesting that St. Thomas Quinas' meditations on the soul carry no more weight in the real world than George Lucas' notes on how The Force works. (If you can think of a polite way for me to say that, I'm all ears)

Three agents. Each following the god of Abraham. Each having their own scriptures upon which they justify violent suffering. Did I fix it?

That's fair. Each of the studies cited in the article acknowledge that very young children have an innate, intuitive, pro social moral sensibility. The article recognizes that children's moral sense is further developed through experience and even indoctrination. I should point out the careful word choice of "developed" leaves open the possibility moral sensibility is not necessarily improved.

Want to know what the glove looks like, what it’s made of, how it fits? Want to know where in your imagination to look for that yet undiscovered manuscript? Want to know how to MAKE something fit that doesn’t fit? There’s a Bible version for that.

Why would God need a witness?

Definitely a dog person…my pooch has never let me down and can always be counted on for her loyalty.

One more.

How's about some Saturday Night Blues?

Success!

Objective

This is how I look at nothingness. Prior to being born I was absolutely nothing. And after I die I go back to that state of nothingness. I didn’t suffer prior to being born and will not suffer after my last breath. There is nothing brave about accepting reality. If I truly believed in an after life you can bet I would being doing all the arrive there. Actually I did chase that belief for most of my life. I went down so many rabbit holes trying to be godly it wore me out. Please answer me this. How do you know for a certainty your biblical belief is the correct one getting you into heaven? If your are a RC you get to heaven by being water baptized, attending mass on Sunday and holy days of obligation, confessing your sins to a priest, doing good works, and make certain you do not die with a mortal sin on your soul, because if you do you are assured of going to hell. A Baptist believes you are not saved by works, but by the grace of god. How do you reconcile these contradictory beliefs? Let’s assume you are a RC and die with no mortal sin on your soul. And when you stand before the judgement seat of god he says, “why haven’t you realized works will not get you into heaven?” Or what happens if god actually believes being a Muslim is the only way to heaven. Or what if god believes you must be a Buddhist to enter the pearly gates? How about you must be a Hutterite or Menonite? It defies logic that of the thousand of religions in the world, you somehow, have come upon the correct one! Let’s say one representative of each of the religions of the world stood side by side and formed a line for miles. And when god appears, he would tap you on the shoulder and say “you have got it right. Welcome to your group. All the rest have got it wrong.” Pretty crazy odds, no?

Thank you. If I am less than respectful in responding to your questions, please call me out on it.

I have no problem believing there is no karma.

And for the non-believer, it's difficult to believe there is no karma. But here's the thing. If you make a habit out of blowing through red lights on a regular basis, there's a pretty good chance you're going to get T-boned someday. It's not karma, it's just the laws of statistics catching up with you. It's not a punishment from God. It's not a tit for a tat or an eye for an elbow. It's just a way to cope with the sometimes harsh realities of this world.

Sin is a real religious construct. Sin is a real religious concept. The concept doesn't exist outside a religious framework..

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.

That's where vpw's cadre of sin came in. First, they procure the victim and get them to go to him in private. Afterwards, one of them "coincidentally" ran into her as she left, trying to make sense of what happened. This exit counselor, so to speak, can tell her how she was privileged and so on, and watch her for signs of exploding. If she seemed ready to spill the beans on having been raped/sexually assaulted, then the exit counselor passed word. Quickly, she's announced as unworthy in some way and kicked off grounds. This attacks her self-esteem while she's trying to make sense of things, and let's some innocent people possibly see she was kicked out for supposedly some weakness on her part (kept vague, of course.) She's immediately put on a nice, slow bus. That's really cheap, and since they're in the middle of nowhere, it will take her a day to reach home if she is close, dayS if she is not. That gives the twi propaganda machine lots of time to contact all the leadership in the person's home area and destroy her reputation. That way, if she says something to them, they've already "poisoned the well." Furthermore, it isolates her further, damaging her self-esteem even more. Any time someone was any kind of liability, twi shoved them on a bus. Sometimes it meant a person took a WEEK to get home, because they were in no shape to go home alone, and got lost somewhere in the US. That happened a few times. lcm documented vpw doing it in his book "VP and Me." (We discussed that in the thread "VP and Me in Wonderland.") A man in residence evidenced some sort of event- he was incoherent. Any normal place- where having a fiduciary responsibility to care for people they accepted responsibility for- would have had him taken to a hospital and evaluated. What did vpw do? He CONFRONTED the man! As if this was a sane response. Then he sent the man home on a bus. lcm worried about the man getting home, but vpw told him to stop worrying and the man would get home. A WEEK later, he turned up at home. That's the most anyone at twi knew about what happened to the man. He showed up at home a WEEK later. I wish we had details about his ordeal, and about what medical situation had happened. Was it acute malnutrition or sleep deprivation? Was it some undiagnosed brain condition? Was it something else? We'll never know, and vpw never cared. We know at least one woman got sent home (IIRC, after getting raped hitchhiking on LEAD when she was sent alone on someone's vehicle) and she was a mess psychologically when she left. Nobody cared. She was in no shape to take care of her connections, and she got lost somewhere in the US. Several days later, she made it home.

That's where the reasons given in the Appendices come in. What should have been so obvious became overshadowed by deceit, lies and powerful positions in twi.

This was the catalyst to us finally deciding to leave. I was young but I remember thinking "I didn't know we needed this research paper? That's kinda crazy. How is this not the most obvious thing in the world?"

A bestiality fetish. Not a problem for the spiritually mature with a mind so renewed... Yet some are aghast when I say victor squatted over and defecated into the mouth of God. What? Scat play by the spiritually mature is off limits? Hey! I didn't REwrite the book. Victor did.

I should… I mean, I want to… I just can’t… People still call this schmuck “Dr.” Even John Schoenheit does. WITAF!?!

Not even close to what was "taught" in Christian Family and Sex. *Just spit in your hand*

Back in the U.S.S.R. There is a town in North Ontario with dream comfort memory to spare.

Space Oddity "Four, three, two, one, earth below us"

Like their leader VP, men (and some women) used those reasons above to get what they wanted leaving behind darkness and brokenness. I saw the darkness, I saw the darkness No more safety, no more light Now I’m so shameful, no trusting in sight Thanks to him, I saw the darkness

What Do You Know About Cults? What is a cult? “An ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment.” ~ Benjamin Zablocki, PhD, “Cults: Theory and Treatment Issues.” http://www.icsahome.com/articles/cultspsymanipsociety-langone How do cults recruit? Promises and pressure What are some warning signs? Charismatic, authoritarian, self-proclaimed leader with no check on power Deceptive recruiting (often sincere) Critical inquiry viewed as “persecution” Organized psychological manipulation Emotional, sexual, and financial exploitation Inner circle of loyal followers with secret beliefs/behavior No meaningful economic transparency How do cults undermine freedom? Demand loyalty to cult leader/ideology Disallow freedom of religion (theirs is the only right one) Intimidate to prevent free thought Control personal goals Destabilize freedom of association How can we respond to recruiters? ABCD A - Always research group B - Be firm when refusing recruitment C - Challenge appealing promises D - Don’t tolerate deception, even from a friend Warning: An imbalance of power is an opportunity for abuse. Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International By Charlene L. Edge. Memoir. Paperback and eBook at major booksellers & indie bookstores “… A frank, in-depth account of one woman’s struggles in a controlling organization.” — Kirkus Reviews Gold medal winner - Florida Authors and Publishers Association, 2017 On Book Riot’s list of “100 Must-Read Books About Life in Cults and Oppressive Religious Sects” What it’s about: After a family tragedy struck, teenaged Charlene rejected Catholicism, family, and friends to join what became one of the largest fundamentalist cults in America: The Way International led by Victor Paul Wierwille. After promotion to the inner circle of biblical researchers, Charlene discovered secrets: Wierwille’s plagiarism, misuse of Scripture, and sex abuse. Amid chaos at The Way’s headquarters, Charlene escaped. Why Undertow matters: Each year about 50,000 to 100,000 people enter or leave high-control groups called “cults” (data: The International Cultic Studies Association). Movies like Going Clear and The Path have captured the nation’s attention. Undertow is a personal story about cult recruitment and fear-based manipulation by an authoritarian, charismatic leader. The fundamentalist mindset, espousing certainty about God and the meaning of the Bible, causes untold divisions in families and communities. Undertow shows this pain from an insider’s perspective and that healing is possible. A taste of Undertow: “I gulped down Doug’s words without doing any critical thinking, not pressing him to prove what he said. He was so sincere that I clung to his assertions, like ‘believing equals receiving,’ as if they were heaven-sent.” CHARLENE L. EDGE spent 17 years in The Way (1970–1987). Later she earned a B.A. in English from Rollins College and worked for more than a decade as writer in the software industry. She is a published poet and essayist and a member of the Florida Writers Association, the Authors Guild, and the International Cultic Studies Association. She lives in Florida with her husband, Dr. Hoyt L. Edge. She blogs at: http://charleneedge.com

Mike is his own case study on how one can expect people from the way international to respond when they are faced with civil disagreement. I remember well what it was like to be so dang convinced that I am absolutely 100% correct on most things to do with the Bible, and by golly, the way international provided air tight "research"...yeah...they call it proven ministry research indicating that the topics are above question. Proven ministry research is considered absolute truth. Such an arrogant position. So typically, and we see it with mike, when one debates with someone blinded by wierwille-ism they almost always resort to bullying tactic, (ad-hominem attacks, passive agressive insults, even loud and boisterous yelling and screaming like a spoiled child, etc) if they can't dominate the conversation and browbeat those they debate with into submission. So when confronted with the illogic and gaping holes in wierwille's materials they come to a crossroads: give in to the cognitive dissonance caused by wierwille's doctrines and what the Bible actually teaches and run like h377 back to wierwille's doctrines or they can actually turn aside and consider other's points of view. Should this honest route be chosen then they would do as the Bereans and search the scriptures daily whether these things are so. Mike, et al., typically choose the run to wierwille route and resort to all sorts of slanderous insults, playing the victim, etc. Why the animosity? Because they are caught in an us verses them mentality that the way international builds into their adherants. Without the us verses them schtik the wierwille's entire story falls apart on yet another front....I mean it's allready falllen apart on so many angles, I guess another set of stress fractures won't hurt anything. Mike's word choices and several posts he put up today absolutely reek with an attitude of superiority and it's obvious he thinks everone who posts here is posessed, living in outer darkness, or whatever imagined scary scenario exists outside of the way international. Cult mentality, then they have their own jargon and way speak that makes little sense outside of a home fellowship where most people throw way speak around to each other as if actually makes any sense to begin with. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ that he has delivered me from the way international and their toxic doctrines that hide Christ and elevate a drunken, narcissistic, idol that they choose instead of Christ.

I take exception to this. Those of us who believe there's nothing after this life have EVERY reason to live. What we lack is a reason to DIE. By which I mean, we can understand the value of sacrifice as well as the next patriot (there ARE, in fact, atheists in foxholes), but we understand that sacrifice as being for other people, not for reward.

1. "Sadly, I cannot get this man to accept the notion that the Bible really is the word of God." Ok, let's start there. The Bible never calls itself the Word of God. That's part of the problem right there. The Bible speaks of the Word of God quite often, but it never has the self-awareness to declare itself to be that Word. Maybe, just maybe, you can be wrong about the Bible being the Word of God and still be a good Christian. 2. "I think he would like it to be..." Well, no one asked you what you think, did they? Maybe he has no preference one way or another and is just waiting for you to make a plausible case for your thesis. 3. "... but is overly obstinate and has an awful attitude towards God and his plan for man's redemption." A lot to unpack there. Has it occurred to you that maybe YOU're the one being "obstinate" with an "attitude" that won't budge no matter how many facts he presents to counter your preconceived notion that the Bible is the Word of God? Like, maybe YOU're the stubborn one, not him? Because he shows you the Bible, and you start making excuses. Oh, that's the Old Testament. God's different now. He's really kind and gentle. He did what he did before because he HAD to to fulfill the plan of redemption. Problem: The plan of redemption is only the plan of redemption because God wanted it that way. It didn't have to be. He could just accept an apology without shrugging his shoulders and saying oh well because someone found a particular fruit of a particular tree to yummy to pass up (He also could have put that tree ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET but instead put it right in front of two people who did not know good and evil; then said don't eat from that tree. Not exactly a strong case for omniscience. It's like I put a cookie on the table in front of my 7-year-old and said "Don't eat that," then walked out of the room. He's gonna eat the cookie. I'm not all knowing, and I know that). So your friend, I submit, is not stubborn. Rather, he's amused at the contortions you'll twist yourself into to deny what's obviously written. There IS not idiom of permission in the Bible. Bullinger, for what he's worth, appears to be the only one who makes an issue of it. It's hardly a scholarly consensus. The existence of other figures of speech does not verify the "idiom of permission" as something the Bible employs on a regular basis. It is, however, an extraordinarily convenient tool for believers to employ whenever their holy book shows God doing what no good God would ever do, even though the book is unambiguous about it being God who did it. But that's just the old testament. Unless, of course, you're holding back tithes from the apostles in Acts, which is New Testament. (Oh, but it doesn't say God did that. It was Satan -- even though the Bible doesn't say THAT either). The Bible is filled with examples of God saying he'll do something and then saying He did it. It doesn't say he allowed it to happen or he allowed Satan to do it. It says HE did it. Now, it COULD have said he allowed Satan to do it, very easily. Look at Job. Satan did those things. It says so. Yeah, he got God's permission, but it says that, clearly. There's no ambiguity, and there's no "this is how it works normally." A figure of speech is supposed to be a statement that is true in essence though not literally true. "It's raining cats and dogs" is a figure of speech. "This car can stop on a dime" is a figure of speech. A figure of speech is not supposed to be a way for you to get the Bible to say the opposite of what it clearly says just because what it clearly says is inconvenient for your theology. God ordered the execution of a man for picking up sticks on the sabbath. He didn't give man permission to kill the offending sabbath breaker. He gave man an order -- cast those stones! God didn't allow divorce. He prescribed it. He didn't allow Satan to kill all the firstborn of Egypt. He had it done. And he DID have a choice. When my kid offends me, I have a choice how to discipline him. You have no idea how many times my discipline has stopped short of killing him because he did his chores between sunset on Friday night and Saturday night! So here's a thought. Bear with me: Maybe your friend isn't the stubborn one in this equation. Maybe he's not the one being inflexible. Maybe, just maybe, he's given this far more thought than you have.

From WordWolf on a friend tracker thread:

I agree with Kit...watch what you post. During my divorce and custody dispute, my lawyer cautioned me about talking, emailing, posting, etc... about the case while it is in progress. ANY KIND of statments made by me could be used in court against me. And in ANY kind of court battle, whether it be civil, family, or criminal...it's just not worth taking chances. The internet is a public forum, and as such, can be accessed by anyone for any reason. That alone should scream caution to those involved in any sort of legal action.