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Showing content with the highest reputation since 03/21/2024 in Posts

  1. Hi Greasespotters, The International Cultic Studies Association (I'm affiliated with them) sent this announcement today about a new series beginning March 28, 2024. New Docuseries "Cult Justice" Premiers on Hulu, March 28, 2024 (networkforgood.com) Cheers! Charlene Edge, author of Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. https://charleneedge.com
    2 points
  2. In twi, things like that went on because vpw wanted it (as long as he was in charge), since he'd set up twi to have the Head Cheese wield autocratic power without checks or balances. (The same, obviously, applies to his successors, who also enjoy power limited only by the now-pitiful reach of twi.) So, vpw wanted it. The question then becomes....why did vpw want it? vpw was all about power- the wielding of power, and the appearance of prestige and influence. (It's why he got his doctorate at a degree mill and then INSISTED on being called "Doctor." I'm three times the fake doctor he was, and you don't see me insisting on "doctor.") So, some of it was to try to make twi seem influential, which made vpw seem influential. Another part of it was something different. Other than vpw's abilities to con people, he was actually pretty stupid. He always cut corners on his education, and never learned if he could plagiarize instead, and tried not to bother with anything else. When it came to other types of con, vpw fell for them. If you had a fake supernatural con, vpw would swallow it and teach the Advanced Class it was real and NOT a sleight-of-hand trick. (I believe there's real stuff, but it's a lot rarer than the cons, and conflating the two is wrong no matter what.) One of vpw's sources for conning was the John Birch Society, a bunch of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists. He had a hotline to all their pet weird ideas. He would listen to them, then announce all of their stuff and pretend he was getting Divine Revelation about all of it. Rock and roll being of the devil? Yeah, the JBS and all their cronies. So, if the JBS endorsed candidates, vpw went along and endorsed them also. Stupid of him? Yes. It makes about as much sense as a news-anchor reading ANYTHING off the teleprompter, even if it made no sense or was inappropriate. But the same thing in the sense that it was mindless parroting of something from someone else. twi was actually pretty effective at teaching all sorts of people to do mindless parroting of all sorts of things. Society has LOTS of people who do that, but twi made a policy of it, and we're here discussing them, of course.
    2 points
  3. What I found in TWI is that so much was governed by unspoken rules so that people had to know these unspoken rules or face consequences. The politics side of that is one of those scenarios. You have little lemmings pulling up to little voting boxes and all pulling the same levers because that’s what good lemmings do. There was no diversity of opinion or thought. This is the biggest travesty - environments for producing Stepford robots with no propensity for freedom of thought or opinion. That describes the Ways vision of Christianity. Not a worldwide body of Christ composed of members in particular with different ideas and talents, but rather a uniform stamped copy of the perfect “believer” not Christian because that’s a bad word. They all vote the same way, hold the same opinions and it is all masked under what they call being “likeminded”. It is a mental hold on people starting with “the class” and driving towards “likemindedness” And all of it is unspoken from stages to avoid the threat of paying taxes on earnings.
    1 point
  4. “…question of whether Murica should adopt 'multi party' elections....Please Don't...it has been the bane of democracy here in Australia and New Zealand...Imagine a 'crooked' party doing backroom deals with an equally crooked party to get majority coalition. It's corrupt over there NOW without giving the regime in charge even more tools to weaponize.” This is not difficult to imagine at all. To presume this isn’t already going on is, well, presumptuous and a failure of imagination. And we already have multi-party elections.
    1 point
  5. vpw always inflated the importance of any public figure- in order to claim twi was significant because it contained vip's. So, ONE NFL player and vpw went crazy. One COACH for tennis and even lcm dropped her name. So, small wonder vpw wanted in when someone ostensibly IN twi was running for public office. No, it did not go well for or with H@yes G@h@g@n of Maine. https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/22444-hayes-gahagan/#comment-527243
    1 point
  6. TWI made an attempt to inject its influence into a political campaign in Maine in the late 1970s or early 1980s. It didn't go well.
    1 point
  7. All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!!! Well also, HOW WONDEFUL IN MANY MANY WAYS!!!!!!!!!!! VERY BEST TO YOU AND YOURS UNTIL... WE ALL MEET AGAIN!!
    1 point
  8. Thanks all! I really appreciate the kind words.
    1 point
  9. Thank you OldSkool for all your contributions here. Many blessings to you and may the Lord continue to shine His face upon you.
    1 point
  10. Nobody thinks you're crazy - at least not any crazier than some of us here have been! It's great when we all get back to some sort of "normality." Very best wishes for your future. You will be missed here. Do feel free to look in and see us occasionally.
    1 point
  11. Thank you OldSkool for the powerful testimony of Jesus' presence (as opposed to absence) in your life.
    1 point
  12. Trying to refrain from replying until I have time, but thank you cman for posting that wikipedia link, which neatly sums up most of the "evidence" mythicists need to overcome to be taken seriously. Some of that is easy. Some of it, not so much. The expert consensus is the easiest argument to overcome because in this field, the expert consensus is ludicrously biased in favor of tradition. When I hear about the consensus of experts, I tend to expect overwhelming evidence in favor of that consensus, not overwhelming excuses about why we shouldn't expect to find evidence even though, no, seriously, we should. The notion that we would have to reject other historical figures if we held Jesus to a more rigorous standard is also incorrect. I would submit that such claims would be refuted by asking for an example, one example, of a historical figure whose existence is taken for granted but for whom LESS evidence exists than for Jesus. You won't find one. What you'll find instead is a Jesus that has more in common with Robin Hood and King Arthur than with Nathan Hale and Alexander Hamilton. Amyway more later
    1 point
  13. Old Ones will enjoy this as well..
    1 point
  14. Yes it fits right in with Bible accounts like the twelve meeting the seventy where they said “we own the trademark on everything you’re doing” and called them “swagger jackers”.
    1 point
  15. On the nostalgia bias front I see that the BODolts have paid money to patent the term “Word Over the World”. Tm. Your ABS at work. Now if they could only patent the term “world peace” then they could collect a lot of money at every Miss America contest. All u other WOWs are cheap imitators lol.
    1 point
  16. So, vpw did teach others. So, if the first part of the alleged 1942 Promise was correct, then it was completed, like a contract, with both parties delivering what they were supposed to. But, did vpw teach "God's Word like it hadn't been known since the 1st century"? No. First, nearly 100% of everything he taught has been traced to other Christian writers or teachers whom he plagiarized. So, each of his teachings was on something as someone knew in the 20th century already. Was that a made-up promise, or was it the promise of a being so uninformed it didn't know people were already teaching the Bible and writing about it? Or was it a lying spirit that promised this? The possibilities vpw was listening to a lying spirit or a stupid god are even worse than vpw just lying and plagiarizing. Second, what was "God's Word as it was known in the 1st century"? Nothing like twi! People knew God's Word by experience and in power. The written texts studied ad nauseum in twi were largely UNKNOWN in the 1st century. People read the Torah, taught, prayed, healed, and saw miracles. The selling points of Christianity were results, not clever men at pulpits teaching a new Greek word or making a bad joke. Christians were decentralized, Christians had no head honcho on the Earth, Christians had no codified "Statements of Belief." Christians weren't tithing. Christians weren't buying books or paying money for classes. In short, the 1st century Christians did NOT resemble vpw's claims or twi in any way other than vpw CLAIMING they were the same. Talk is cheap, and the reality was VERY different. If you want to see something of the 1st century in vpw's work, review the "ministry" of Simon the sorcerer.
    1 point
  17. "God did not speak to Victor Paul Wierwille and give him divine instruction for all mankind that he would teach “the Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century. That is a lie from a book they no longer claim and a lie that is not in the man’s biography written by his spouse. " In case someone particularly nostalgic- who doesn't know any better- has just arrived, read that, and said aloud "Oh, yeah? Prove it!", I'm going to reply. First of all, the Burden of Proof is on the person who insists on the existence of something, the one who says "this is true." In this case, that means the burden of proof is on the one who claims that the alleged 1942 promise was true. So, they are asking the wrong question to begin with. However, I'm not done. In many cases, where some claim has been made, we can look things over and confirm or dismiss them. Let's look at the claim. vpw claimed that God Almighty spoke to vpw himself and said that He (God) would teach him (vpw) God's Word as it hadn't been known since the First Century if he (vpw) would teach it (God's Word) to others. Further, vpw insisted that he demanded God prove this by making it snow. A moment later, he was in a complete snowstorm and could see nothing out the window. First of all, the claim in taped pfal was that vpw had dedicated his life to God's Word. Nobody heard this 1942 Promise until much further into twi. Second of all, his own WIFE heard nothing about this in 1942. She wrote that he first told this to the early corps- so the first words out of his mouth that day to here weren't "Honey, something amazing happened today and I have to tell you about it..." (I've heard claims that Mrs W was wrong and people heard of it in the mid-1960s. Even if true, it doesn't change him saying NOTHING to his wife when is ALLEGEDLY happened. Third of all, vpw's claim CHANGED. When he first made the claim, the sky filled with snow was "BLACK" with snow. Later, he claimed he was in a white-out (my phrasing), where the sky was all white. If the man had a genuine experience with God, he would remember if the sky suddenly turned all-WHITE or all-BLACK, because even the legally blind can tell the difference between an all-white and an all-black sky. However, if vpw was making this up, and later heard that an all-snow sky is all white, he would change his story. If he was repeating a miraculous occurrence, he would have added comments. "I know the sky SHOULD have looked all white, but there it was- all BLACK outside my window in the middle of the day..." This change reflected someone trying to convince people of a story he was making up and fine-tuning as he heard objections. Fourth, all weather reports of the day show no snow anywhere in the state. He never claimed it was a VISION of snow, but real snow. However, let us continue AS IF he claimed it was a VISION of snow. Then the rest of his claims should be examined for all their faults.
    1 point
  18. Happy New Year spotters! I am bumping this thread for all those who may still be stuck in TWI nostalgia bias. Perhaps you like me have seen a recent depiction of the “Jesus Revolution” with all of the social happenings in the 60s and 70s that preceded the Way Ministry and other groups like Calvary Chapel and all of the tales about the groovy Christians of Rye NY or the Life magazine articles or the House of Acts in SF California. Seeing all of that I was reminded of the motivation I had in my youth to seek out grassroots truth in the form of spiritual wisdom from the Bible and Christian fellowship. As I pursued that as a primary goal in life, got married, had kids, and worked out how to live as a Christian man father and husband I ran into direct conflict with the cult I was in, The Way International, and what the Bible taught about Christian life, marriage, family, careers, debt, and many other major categories of life where they were stepping beyond scriptural boundaries and into areas of life in the nunya category. Nunya d@mn bidness. I also witnessed several leadership couples where the Way broke up their marriage, convinced them they had major spiritual problems and forced them back into their training program again. And I witnessed the Way performing libelous acts talking about these people to their congregations and acting well beyond any authority reasonable for a church group. I witnessed any attempt to restore equal balance met by excommunication. So the times I could be swayed by nostalgia and the idea of a large church with many friends (they were fake) I recollect the doctrinal and practical manipulation of these people and others who have published their accounts, and I thank God on my knees that I am no longer subservient to little Napoleons and their Machiavellian imaginations and their evil acts against those in their own house. I thank God for freedom, like the freedom that the concept of the United States of America can bring when people aren’t being political moral midgets, like the freedom that emancipation can bring and has brought to minorities, like the freedom to worship God without any sense of lack of worth that another man or woman tries to introduce. There is a time for nostalgia. I can break out an old vinyl album I replaced and go back to my roots, to a simpler time filled with faith without manipulation, to a time of infinite possibility. But I have zero nostalgia of being under the authority of moral midgets and performing rote roles of service to magnify others and their egos. I will not sacrifice my future and family’s future to run a church for a group too cheap to build one in my house and try and hype a new lie which is the same old lie. God did not speak to Victor Paul Wierwille and give him divine instruction for all mankind that he would teach “the Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century. That is a lie from a book they no longer claim and a lie that is not in the man’s biography written by his spouse. Freedom > Nostalgia
    1 point
  19. I recall VPW saying something to the affect that the bible was not written for unbelievers, agnostics, or god rejectors. Assuming no one is born with a knowledge of god, then somewhere during their development, they decided to believe in a god or gods. I was in that boat myself. Being born into a Catholic family, religion was crammed down my throat from a very young age. I hated all the rules of having to eat this, pray in a certain position, recognize certain days, confess my sins to a man behind a screen, blah, blah, blah. So I decided to reject it but still held the belief there was a god. Sometime later, as I was eating lunch in a resturant, a guy sat next to me and began to tell me about a god that was completely different than the Catholic god. This random meeting began a 20 sum year association with TWI. At first TWI filled me with peace and tranquility, but then realized they too had crazy rules that must be obeyed. And not adhering to them would force god to remove his hedge of protection from me. So I checked other religions out, but found they all had some hook, that when swallowed, forced me to recognize some aspect of god that made no sense. This got me to reason that if each religion had completely different requirements to satisfy god, which one was right? Then I threw in different faiths, which didn’t even worship the same god, and scratched my head in confusion. Then I came to the conclusion that none had any idea of what they were talking about, as there are thousands of different Christian religions alone, not including all the other faiths. Which one worships the one true god? Impossible to determine. So my logical conclusion was there is no god. I had attempted to reason through mounds of different dogmas to find god, but all it all brought was confusion. Now my mind is cleared. I do not have to choose one god over the other. Peace and tranquility.
    1 point
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