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I have in my hand at the moment, a book by John Pavlovitz, titled "If God is Love, Don't be a Jerk." John is a former pastor who outgrew what he was taught about God. On page 39, Wasn't the entire PREMISE or Fundamental "truth" Victor taught us in PFLAP, that God's Word must fit together like a hand in a glove... with scientific precision and mathematical exactness? Besides, science isn't always precise, is it? And mathematics, well, it's primarily abstract. How long does it take an adult human to figure out that you really cannot put God in that small of a box? I know, your mileage may vary. Anyway, GSC readers may be interested in Pavlovitz' book as a doctrinal discussion. But clearly, he blows the foundation out of Victor's foundational class. He blows Victor's culture of deception completely out of the water.

I think this cartoon ought to be in the dictionary next to the definition of confirmation bias

I let my kids know I don't want them to make the same mistakes as Dad. Impress me and make new ones I hadn't thought of. While unconscious bias is probably a thing . . . is that a thing that can be measured? Identified correctly? Trained out of? Spread to the masses without consequences? Reminds me of purge patrol and maybe something else.

I love the vibe of this one! I think I have a kinship with any lone wolf types…a demotivator poster came to mind: years ago my wife found this website despair website for demotivators posters and we actually ordered little framed posters for a desktop of certain demotivators, and we took them to our jobs. On my desk was Everyone in our tech shop got a kick out of it except for this one tech – he was a Christian and let everyone know that. Time frame was about 10 years after I left TWI and about 10 years before I joined Grease Spot. I was starting to get over the stigma of being in a harmful and controlling cult and was practicing how to unabashedly express my feelings and experiences. Of course, this Christian guy had his eye on me as his next project to fix. Since his condescending manner reminded me of some of the elder-corps-jerks when I was in residence – I had no problem staying calm and not taking his "superior-ness" personally…Anyway that little poster of mistakes on my desk bugged the $hit out of him and he’d let me know it. He’d say “Do you really feel that’s the purpose of your life? To serve as a warning for others?” I told him I find it humorous and sobering at the same time – in the bigger picture of my life I see that it’s multi-purposed. One reason I share that I was in a pseudo-Christian cult is to warn others that are seeking answers to be careful where they look.

A) Yes, we were taught to be jerks in twi. B) The closer in you were in twi, the more you were taught this (by example and by lecture.) C) Some of us, post-twi, have tried to learn better behavior since leaving. D) Some of us, post-twi, haven't tried very hard (generally, those who insist there were no real problems under vpw._ E) vpw, among other things, was a self-professed "expert" at all sorts of things that he didn't understand as much as he claimed to, and as much as he believed. F) vpw taught, by example, and others he taught, passed along ALSO by example, to be a self-professed "expert" at all sorts of things. (The closer in you were in twi, the more you learned this.) G) Some of us have tried to unlearn that since leaving twi, some of us have not.

Let me guess...looks like they're halfway through session one of PFAL Today.

Can I get an amen?

The paradox, as I remember it, was that we were taught that WE were the "called out," the special ones because we had the "rightly-divided" truth. Yes, I remember reading and hearing about the two greatest commandments. But, again, for me, it wasn't until the early 1990s that I began thinking in terms of introspection. M. Scott Peck taught me, when I read his main work, The Road Less Traveled, to reflect on what I was thinking and doing. It wasn't until years later, and screwing up my marriage because of the male-dominated social orthodoxy that I even started to figure it out. The curtain didn't come up all at once to enlighten me about my psychological problems. It was a process. A journey I'm still on. Wierwille's crappy example, unfortunately taught me more than his crappy class did. That's why I appreciate people like Pavlovitz, Stephanie Foo (author of What My Bones Know), Brene Brown (Atlas of the Heart) and MANY others. Like Penworks, like Skyrider, and other current denizens of GSC. So, my conclusion, is that we very emphatically WERE taught by both dogma/doctrine and by example to be major jerks. And I was one of them. Thankfully, I never attained a powerful status or position in TWI or I have to now figure that I would have many more people to whom I would have to make amends. Being so damn sure of knowing what's right about God, or any related spiritual matter... well, going back to the OP for this thread, I believe Pavlovitz seriously understated the point. But I guess his use of a particular figure of speech in that regard can underscore the importance of it. The difference now is that I'm not a 19-year old know-it-all airman trying to sell a class. I hope others lend their insight on this subject even though this post feels like a closing argument.

Ill readily admit I was a gigantic jerk up until about the year 2000. I followed the example of others who had been around longer than me and were way corps. Not everybody is a jerk. I actually held the Bible in higher esteem than anything way leadership had to say. And that started on my apprentice year, the year 2000. Personally, I did everything in my power to treat people with love and respect. I wasn't perfect at it and I probably stepped on a few toes along the way, but if someone said something to me I would be as meek as possible to them and do all I could to apologize for my faults. My main concern to this day is standing approved before God and not men.

I think they trained us to be jerks by example, but I think it could have been avoided. I did not agree with everything everyone taught, but I respected the hell out of a lot of these Corps trained "jerks."

One thing about mathematics is that it is not studied in the real world, it's studied in the imaginary world of numbers. (Don't believe me? Then demonstrate the square root of negative 1.) Physics, chemistry, and biology all take place in the real world (with some calculations), and are subject to reality ruining experiments and so on. Since math exists separate from reality, there's no "sampling error" or anything like that to interfere. There's some ideas that float around some intellectuals that math and theoretical physics (the imagining stuff) are SUPERIOR to science you can encounter in your life because they are "pure". Personally, I consider the obverse to be true- that the science we actually USE to be superior than imaginings that may never go anywhere for us. But, that's all OPINIONS about existing areas of study. Naturally, there's all sorts of perspectives, opinions, and biases. So, mathematics can be exact because it is conceptual and is a manipulation of ideas. Interestingly enough, we can discuss ideas of God and so on, with about as much relevance to the world we live in (and arguably as much importance.) But, that's all ideas, and not relevant when discussing our lives and any experience. Philosophers have certainly done so for millenia and have drawn a comfortable paycheck doing so. Likewise, there's been any number of theologians (self-appointed and otherwise) who have drawn such a comfortable paycheck, vpw included. So, coming back to the thread's subject..... vpw wanted a living where he could tell people what to do AND draw a handsome paycheck doing so, preferably one with little labor and lots of job security. So, he considered entertainment and business management, and put them aside to go into religion. (It's been argued that he went into all 3, eventually.) When vpw finally got encountered the hippies (once they existed), he put on his full act, and convinced them that he was some great one, and got them to respect him under the premise that he studied about God and taught about God. Once he had them hooked, he slowly reeled them in more and more, and was bossy and authoritative around them in private, turning into a tyrant when it was REALLY private. He taught his inner circle to imitate him, and they taught others to imitate them. So, in twi, there was considerable education to be a jerk and to be bossy, depending on where you were in the group and what year it was. Oddly enough, your chances of escaping jerk training were worse AFTER vpw died. BEFORE he died, you had to be on-grounds somewhere (a "root locale") to get the training, since he kept it close at hand. After vpw died, a few years later, a lot of things were coming to light, and lcm decided to be twice the jerk and boss that vpw was rather than try and address any of the problems. So, lcm demanded an oath of loyalty to follow him blindly (when someone asked him directly, he confirmed this.) The immediate result was a refusal of most of the leadership in the US refusing to do so- resulting in lcm firing all of them- resulting in 80% of the twi rank-and-file leaving WITH them all in one year. What was left in twi was the 20% most likely to follow lcm off of a cliff- and all the moderating influences were gone. So, the jerk training was spread across twi with nobody putting the brakes on it locally any more. (Seriously, in the Bronx, when twi sent someone bossy, they were treated courteously to their faces, and ignored most of the time, until they left and were promptly forgotten. Yes, EL, I'm thinking of you here.) When lcm pulled his power play and canned ALL the NY leadership we respected- and I mean ALL, the only ones left were respected by family but not rank-and-file otherwise- we left with them. They had earned our respect, lcm had not. (As a sign of how empty we left twi at the time, I could have jumped from "local chair-warmer" to "branch coordinator" when it was all done. If I had been older, I might have had a shot at grabbing "territory coordinator" = which WAS grabbed by someone who went from "local chair-warmer" to "territory coordinator". I know because he'd warmed a chair next to mine from time to time. ) So, yes, jerk-training was a thing at twi- and all indications are that it still is. This leopard has not changed his spots.