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I'll just jump right to Godwin's Law here and state that Hitler was a lot of things besides the monster he is remembered to be. In the grand scheme of things, do we really care what personal accomplishments he may have achieved?

Personally, I have never said that or believed that in any sort of way. Obviously, there was more to VPW than being a con-man although the fact that he was a con man tainted his whole character.

Well I’d rule out the first definition you gave - 200 + I Q …the other one comes close - wierwille buying a church office …uhm - he did buy the title of “Doctor” from a degree-granting mill.

Moral Benefits of Wisdom 2 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— 3 indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. When does one call out for insight? When might we cry aloud for understanding? Would those instances be when we feel like we're on top of the world and everything's going our way? Jesus declared that in the world we would have stress, pressure, hardship. If, as we were taught in TWI, those problems, those excruciating pains of loss are our fault because of our "lack of believing," then where in the process is God?

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.