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A couple of months ago, I was at the car dealership having my car serviced. I had my grandson, Cletus with me. (He's the ornery one.) As we waited, I glanced at some of the fancy new models in the showroom. One particular model caught my eye, so I took a closer look. (Cletus liked it, too.) A salesman approached me and said he would really like to make me a deal on a trade. I asked him if he could tell me a few reasons I should buy a car from his dealership. He said, "I told you all that 10 years ago, when you bought this one". Cletus whispered to me, "Golly, Grampa Waysider, I'm not so sure that feller really knows."

So you don’t think we are aware you are trolling? As a former failed stand up comic you are hyper focused on how you play to an audience. You we’re sheltered from any personal effects of these amoral a holes so you have no skin in the game. And you choose to live with blinders only focusing on a small portion of the truth and or facts that make your comfortable. And you have no original thought. You survive off the second hand vomit from 2 decades ago emitted by a narcissistic joke of a preacher who stole everything in sight and chased everything available with a skirt.

If you really want to make your "research" marketable to neuroscientists, you'll need to start by getting it peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal.

your lack of knowledge has never stopped you from posting before

A smashing group – I was blown away by Pflap and the Collaterals' first album – it’s the bomb ! Album title: Collateral Damage

IQ = IQ is an abbreviation for Intelligence Quotient. It is a score that shows how well someone understands and interprets the world around them. Understood…you’re saying you’re filled with so much hate that it’s very difficult for you to understand and interpret what happens here

Flunky = a person who performs relatively menial tasks for someone else, especially obsequiously. a liveried manservant or footman, synonyms: liveried manservant · liveried servant · lackey · steward · butler · footman · valet · retainer · attendant · factotum · houseboy · cabin boy on the Titanic (someone who was never in the way corps but wants to appear he’s spiritually superior to the way corps)

After seeing him unable to do it here, I'm confident he can't do it for the professors, either. He is who he is.

He's been giving the same answer the entire time he's been here. "Can you post something both brief and clear?" "*evasion*" If he had SOMETHING, there would have been SOMETHING he could whip out and say "Here's something noteworthy" and we'd be able to say "How about that, something noteworthy." He's had over 20 years to find it, so if he hasn't found it yet....

This isn't exactly new. There's a reason I responded to his mentioning of the group with casualness. It was going to be a LOT less than he began advertising, by the time the details arrived. Any wonder why his credibility is shot here? There's more than 1 reason.

36. The eye cannot say to the hand I don’t need you and the head cannot say to the feet I don’t need you 1 Cor 12:21 Yet 100% of PFAL graduates move directly from the class into living in this doctrinal and practical error. Why? Because their Bible has interpreted itself to indicate there is this extra special group called the household that is an inner Pharisee sanctum within the body of Christ that the verse is talking about. Print that in a collateral

The meaning of words has never been important to Mike. They mean whatever he imagines them to mean and expects everyone to read his mind. I might even say it's not quite a hypothesis, it's a mere consideration. But nobody really knows, like the meaning of 'San Diego.'

That's not a theory, it's a hypothesis. Theory vs Hypothesis

In other words. I'm handing you a line of bull, why don't you believe it? Strange, you can go on for page after page about what "cloak" means in Aramaic or whether the free will is biological, but a direct question about PLAF you dodge. Why should Waysider waste a moment of his time backing up a claim you made and refuse to back up? I'm with Waysider, name three things in PLAF you THINK we forgot, if you can.

Mike: "Most professors will read a well written and concise letter or text. I have had a lot of luck doing that." Hey, how about doing that here? Making your posts "well written and concise"? That way, maybe we could all benefit. You might not get so many attacks, and everyone else might begin to understand what you're saying.

It's cute how casually you can ascribe hidden meanings into the most straightforward points. You took this verse as if it spoke about pfal or some writings of a man that goes through editing. This verse was entirely to get across the PURITY of the words of the LORD. How pure is it? Human language lacks the depth to truly convey it. The word of the LORD is 50 pounds of purity in a one-pound box. it's like silver that's been re-smelted seven times to eliminate impurities- THAT'S HOW PURE ARE THE WORDS OF THE LORD. Taking meaning from the analogy of purifying what's considered a pure metal- and then running with that analogy and applying it to something else, well, that's unsound. If you wonder why you don't get converts here, it's because your processes are unsound and result- as they will- with errors. Since you're unable to notice it, to you it's like they don't exist and others are making them up. But that doesn't change the errors. Label the jar of pickles "soup" or "apple butter" and that doesn't change the contents.

So Crates: "The first flaw in your theory: how would you know you have the truth? And spare me the you have the Word bull. Catholics have the Word and they claim the have the truth. So do Presbyterians. So do Baptists. So does any one of 2500 Christian religions, all claiming they--and only they--have the one true truth. So how do you know when you have the truth?" Mike:"You sound like academia here. Sorry, you don't get spared. If God can't verify to you when you got the truth then maybe you got the wrong god. If you got the god of academia, you are NOT ALLOWED to have truth or to know if if it lands in your lap." Once again, Mike's demonstrating a lack of substance. It happens whenever there's a direct question, and this particular question strikes at the heart of Mike's entire belief system- Mike, how would you know you have the truth? Mike FLED the question and changed the subject. Mike's system has an answer that is FAR too weak to withstand even CASUAL scrutiny, so he does the "dodge, distract, evade, but never admit an error is an error" system he himself posted that he uses. But, the non-answer has answered quite a bit by what it fled.] So Crates: "Sorry YOU don't get spared. How do you know you don't THINK God is verifying the truth to you. Plenty of people have claimed God verified the truth and it was proven their claim was them lying to themselves. Besides, you've never heard of false prophets?" So Crates:"Do you read what you write? Or do you fade in and out? Saint Vic was obsessed with academia. After all, he implied he went to Princeton university and insisted everyone call him doctor. I doubt he had a TARIS hidden somewhere. So, considering his obsession with academia, by your own admission he was NOT ALLOWED to have the truth or know it if it was in his lap." Nathan Jr: "This hypocrisy needs to be understood. Well said. victor went to great lengths to bash academia, yet he beleeeved those credentials to be so very important that he purchased a "degree" so he could pretend to have academic authority and credibility. Why invoke an academic title, if it's meaningless?"

Mike: "My approach is to de-mystify free will and look for it in Biology as a deterministic mechanism like digestion. I have to re-define "freedom" here but that is ok, because it needs it." I rest my case. Again.

As you have been with pretty much everything you've posted on GSC over the last two decades.

a delusional person could believe their God is verifying it’s okay to sexually molest women as long as he keeps teaching “the Word”…in a delusional person’s mind anything is allowed- cuz in that make believe world they are their own God - incognito of course

Lol from the #1 sh1tp0ster who never started a thread here but pollutes everyone else’s. Hey irony boy

He has many ancient recipes. I met his Sous chef before...hes awesome..world famous too...he autographed my photo...

When I was with TWI in 1978-1983 the tithe was 10%. Did LCM raise it? And where in the Bible does it even say an percentage? It only says God loves a cheerful giver

<takes a seat and pulls out a menu> Hello All- There's quite a bit to unpack from 30 years. Bare with my rambling thoughts as they all get down. A third-generation "legacy", I only knew TWI as truth absolute. A child of the 80's, I remember growing up and having The Way being the only way. I took each class in the entire class series the exact week I was eligible, and repeated every chance I could. I only knew LCM as the fount-head of all things godly, and worshipped with (at) him through the birth of the new class. I soldiered on through his fall and stood behind my identity as a chosen part of the faithful remnant throughout the early 2000's. I pursued a degree and lead fellowships, certain I held forth what I knew to be the epicenter of the spiritual world. Once I got close to graduation, the promise of getting a job became VERY real. In a market the began to shrivel, I went from interview to interview, each time putting in hours of deliberate, thoughtful prayer and reflection, certain that the God I knew dwelt in my fellowships and that I was told would never let any wrong befall would come through in the clutch. Each time, nothing. Each time, disappointment. Each time, words came from those more seasoned as "Renew Your Mind", "It's not the spiritually best for YOU!", "God's got something bigger for YOU!". This was the first time I needed to prove God had my back. Long story short, I cobbled together enough to get by, but nothing close to the Eph 3:20 I was told time and time again. I got married, to an amazing and supportive spouse, who left her church to join up. She realized if she wanted tot be with me, she had to drink the Koolaid, and drink she did. She practically did a keg stand with that Hawaiian punch. Together, we weathered many situations that were far from the rosy scenes painted on STS tapes (or CDs or VHSs). Real life was hard as hell, and the God of the lectern and the magazine was not as quick to come through. There was always an explanation, mind you, but should not have to be this hard. "Maybe we're not studying enough. Maybe and hour daily is just a start.". "Are we giving enough? We're at 20%, but could we do more to prove our commitment to God and not our paycheck". We ABSed our meager earnings, lived in apartments, drove our terrible, leaky, beaten cars, and gladly taught others on how much God loved us and would provide. Any positive event in life was championed as proof of TWI's system. It began to seem like a lens that made all the bad not their fault and any positive thing their cause. Perspective. Fast forward to a fourth generation being born. Numerous requests from insiders to go on Staff and change from within. By this time, my life had changed. The grind of finally getting (and keeping) a real job meant hard work. I began to feel like everything in the ministry was a motion. Same old collaterals. The articles in the magazine were SOOOO predictable, as were the overly scripted services. Title, personal anecdote, verses, three main points, conclusion, blanket "Let's continue to..." statement... repeat. I felt as if I wasn't learning anything. To challenge myself and scratch my own spiritual and intellectual itch, I started my own studies and digging. ANy time I would bring these up, I was chastised for going solo and delving into what was already researched. I should re-search what is already available. By this time, I could hear an introduction and immediately know which verses would come up. One STS, I wrote on my wife's notes five verses. Sure as dang, each one was ticked in the course of that scripted speech teaching. I stopped taking notes. I stopped putting time into my teachings at fellowships. I started coasting. I could see others going through the same motions. I used to talk about all of the interesting connections and parallels the moment a great teaching was done. Now I saw how quickly others began talking about their week, their boring lives, their.... anything but the bible. Truth was, it was the collaterals being taught again and again and again. LCM was disavowed, never to be mentioned. All that was safe was the collaterals. So that's were everything went, and still are. Last flash is to the moment I realized how crumby the long-term TWI plan is for those out in the field. Find a menial job, work hard and don't rock the boat. Try to witness but we only need seats for the class- if it's just a connection, move it along. SELL SELL!!!! Find an apartment, move every few years, drive a 5 year+ model car (and keep that cardboard so you don't mess up the driveway). Long-term planning? You don't need that. God's got you. I woke up one day to realize my parents have no retirement and no equity of ANY kind. I didn't want that. I began looking at houses and tried every way to get one without getting a loan. Couldn't do it, so I tried to ask permission. Another post needs to explain this hot mess, but needless to say it was not on the menu. I forged ahead to the disapproval of many. Kid number two arrives- I stop going to STS. Our last trip, I don't even open my bible. I hear and scrutinize the entire presentation better than I had every encapsulated with my notes. (Oh the notes, but I digress...). On our way home, my wife says "What an electrifying teaching!". I let the air clear for about 5 seconds and say "Was it?". Her face was as white as the audience at any given STS. We then discuss very openly our current role in the ministry and where we saw our spiritual lives. Needless to say, it was the beginning of the end. We limped along for a few more years, mainly because of the sweet people that genuinely did care about others and the large family/friend connections. This is certainly a fact that cannot be overlooked, but we were killed with kindness and not won by spiritual truth. We eventually decide to skip fellowship for any convenient reason, attend other church services on Sunday mornings, and try on many religions/denominations. It came to a road that lead to us moving and telling our new coordinators we were out. I felt it necessary to go out on my terms, not middle-fingers a-blazing, but with a truthful talk. We left about two years ago. There were some rough times, including much anger that has not fully gone away. I still struggle with what could have been or should have been, a fact that I can't completely let go of, but am getting closer. I burned my syllabi and collaterals, but still have their haunting memory (and .pdfs! that's a fun post as well!) in my mind. Religion is no longer something I value, and, current spiritual beliefs aside, I was able to emerge with clear and cogent truths I hold to, truthfulness and integrity being paramount. I have spiritually sherpa'd a few others out of TWI, and gotten immense satisfaction for helping them think and process, not just bad-mouthing their religion. It's rewarding to truly help people, not blanket their needs in retemories or promises of a brighter day that never comes. It's rewarding to see them break the chain of mediocrity and a quiet life of apartments and ABSing to pay for staff cars (another post). I loved helping them and reassuring them the devil will not take them should they decide to take off the name tag. My bourbon is getting low, as is my battery. Time to refill both. I have lots to say, and not sure how much/when to do it. I have many damning things, but not sure how it could help me or others. I don;t want to go back to the post-exit anger and rage that consumed my evenings (too late for that today! Oh well...), but I think a healthy processing and sharing for those who discover this site (like I did) will help clearer thoughts and heads prevail. I know TWI is not the epicenter of the spiritual world. I know TWI is pyramid of those working the ladder upward. I know TWI is a shell built on a few books and lock-step loyalty. I know that 30 years is far too much CollateralDamage.