QamiQazi

Long Gone, that was very effective. oldiesman, do you see what you are doing, or did you already know? Now somebody just show me where it says that Hitler killed all the Jews. I just don't believe it. Prove to me that every Nazi is a murderer, or that they all directly participated in genocide. Can anyone offer any objective proof? Did anyone confront Hitler at the time? If not, why now? Why does it come up when he can't defend himself? Why can't people see what he did for national pride and get over his imperfections? oldiesman, what is the difference between that, and what you are doing?

Rafael, are you "undershepherding" your "babe" in the grease? I remember all those "back off" conversations when we'd tell others to leave our new person alone. What you're saying is it takes time to "re-old" his mind and we need to give him the grease-grace to do it. I'm really blessed about that. On the other hand, the point is so irrelevant that Dr. Wierwille didn't do it to "everybody" (see my wonderful yeah-but thread), it is like (forgive the n-teenth H analogy) saying that Hitler didn't kill "all" the Jews, so cut him some slack. No human being is perfect, and no human being is perfectly evil either. We therefore judge people along a continuum. It's reasonable for oldiesman to concede that Dr. Wierwille was far to the evil side of most contemporary, Christian "ministers." He doesn't have to be Hitler to be a bad person. I don't think oldiesman should require so much time to read the writing on the wall. There isn't much to read. It all says the same thing. I think Orange Cat is right. You are enabling the enabler, by lending credibility to an incredible position, which is the defense of the indefensible. It is not your position, but you yet validate that position. Does that make sense?

Watered Garden, Your answer was worth the wait. Thank you for proving to be such a remarkable person. I very much underestimated you. QQ

Erick, you haven't discovered "new light." Do you imagine no one has ever heard of forgiveness until you, Prometheus of Greasespot, bring us the apostolic gift? Though your arrogance is couched in humility, it is nonetheless arrogance. Try to understand how others might see you. You say "forgive" but you effectively mean "pretend it never happened." That is not the meaning of forgiveness, Erick. Everyone who has ever defended Dr. Wierwille's teaching legacy, whatever it may amount to, has felt compelled to re-write history, to un-write history that has been written here on internet bulletin boards. You can't reconcile the work with the man. Nobody can. So you come as a friend bearing wonderful truths, good news, and God's promises, and you say, "Just agree to pretend it never happened, and you shall enter the Kingdom." A little lie, embraced for Jesus' sake. For Christ's sake! How could it hurt? Who could it hurt? Erick, one who asks a woman molested by "the Teacher" to forgive and (especially) forget asks only a small thing. All she needs to do is forgive her predator, her rapist. How petty, that she shouldn't comply? How pitiful, how pathetic she is. Denying you, she denies God, because it is the truth you speak. It is a much greater challenge for you to forgive your Greasespot detractors and their unbelieving words. Somehow you bear up under the persecution, and I don't know how you do it. You're a real man, Erick. A "man of God" a lot like your father in the Word. You don't see it? Try.

Watered Garden, your answer is condescending and mean. I realize you can't hear yourself. I conclude this because you can't hear anyone else. "Your" question has been answered so often by so many it's become nearly tedious repetition, if not for the sincerity with which each has answered. I suspect something within you is trying to wear people down. That's what you do. That's how you do it. You just keep saying "I don't understand," and with it, you repeat your accusation, again and again. We are not discussing something distant and absurd, like the moon made of cheese. How could you draw that analogy? Maybe you are as cold and distant as the moon, despite your protests otherwise. And maybe your pretense of concern is as false as the claim the moon is made of cheese. That's what I think. I hear in your voice an ordinarily good person, but with something bitter, vindictive, antagonistic, vengeful, a seed of contempt stirring within you. You don't hear it. You wouldn't. You have contempt for this suggestion. But others have heard it in the past. That's where you've heard "shut up, shut up, shut up." Three times you quoted it. You must drive people to exasperation when you want to. And you do want to. That's your game, when you feel like playing it. It's not very pretty, is it?

Eaglehouse, that was too funny.

You were not "attacked." You shot yourself in the foot. If you got the parking sticker, there almost had to be instructions with it. You may have overlooked them. Even if there were none, it's common sense that parking stickers are not optional. Your reaction was a rebellious reflex left over from life in an authoritarian cult. Understandable, but inappropriate in the real world. I had to learn similar lessons after leaving, and they were far more costly than yours should be. The tow-truck driver was doing his job, and you may well be liable for a charge. If you cut the chain, you will be liable for that too. If you did overlook the instructions, pay the fee/fine if they refuse to waive it. It is legitimate. Call it "tuition" for a life-lesson. As George pointed out, it's pretty reasonable in this world. By the way, there are several inexpensive chemicals out there you can use to remove hideous-colored cult bumper stickers. Your solution was a good one too, although if I lived in a Wayfer town, I might cover it with one of those Grateful Dead dancing bear stickers, with just a hairline of fluorescent green showing from behind it.

This thread should be titled: "Would you diet for your beliefs?" I see you've found Atkins. Suddenly a lot of science is backing up what he has said all along. Marilu Henner has some great books out too. She discusses the way foods interact when eaten together, something most other diets neglect. Plenty of science to back it up, too. She's not just another celeb with a gimmick. My dad has used a combination of the two for years, and very successfully when he has kept with it. Good luck.

oldiesman, you think you got away smelling like a rose. You are mistaken. You are still deluded, and this is perpetuated by your own blind pride, which The Way Ministry manipulates to this day, and you don't even know it.

oldiesman, it was the decision of 3000 Americans to go to work at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. They were so stupid, they thought it was safe. Hell, they knew terrorists hate America. (It's in all the papers.) They knew the Trade Center had been a target once before. They knew that big jet airliners make a big hole in things they crash into, and lots of fire. They knew the Trade Center was the biggest building in New York, an easy target. But these morons went to work that day anyway. It was THEIR decision! Let's not blame bin Laden. They should have known better. But you say, "Well they lived in a free and mighty country. Nobody dreamed this would really happen. The assumption was that the people in charge were able to prevent things from going wrong. People were reasonable to believe they were safe." oldiesman, at at time when people considered the Corps, they believed (as you still do) that Dr. Wierwille had integrity. They believed that The Way was God-centered, and not a fraudulent little sham of a sect, scamming the pants off its followers. They believed the many false "proofs" of legitimacy served up to them on a silver platter by people who knew better. The Corps did not give their lives to The Way Ministry. They gave their lives to God. Or so they foolishly thought, because they believed what you yet believe. Fraud is a crime, oldiesman. Why do you think that is so? What is it about fraud that makes it evil? When you answer those questions, you will understand what you fail to grasp now.

oldiesman, when people are subjected to conditions of fear and stress, instincts seem to overwhelm the thought process. Victims feel trapped, even if they are not. Options are not so clear. They become like a "deer in headlights." Why do you think bullies act like bullies? Because intimidation works on most people. PFAL's impact was to redefine our entire world-view in a very short period of time. Call that what you will. ("If it quacks like a duck...") No longer were we ordinary people. We were elevated, instantly and effortlessly, to a place of grace and grandeur, His kids, seated in the heavenlies, the hope of glory within us. It felt great. That was the bait. The hook was allegiance to The Way Ministry. The "Trustees" reeled us in. To maintain this new image of ourselves, we had to accept the other teachings The Way offered. Otherwise, we were questioning God's own wonderful gift. Who were we to question? Had we sacrificed as much as Jesus, or Dr. Wierwille? How dare we suggest such a thing by questioning? Doubting is like stabbing them in the heart. The hearts that so loved us they gave... We acquiesced to abundant sharing, the Way Tree, the "Man of God," the women belong to the king, "believing = receiving," and any number of other hooks intuitively used by leaders. Every aspect of our lives was redefined biblically, and the bible was defined by ("itself?" do you really believe that?) The Way. By walking away from bad behavior, we had to walk away from the authority and credibility behind all we had been taught. But this became a "Catch-22" because when the sh_t hit the fan, those teachings were all we had left to depend on. We had rejected everything else. We had "put off the old man." Now what? Reject the teacher, reject the teachings. What else was left? Desolation, isolation, and total uncertainty. Don't think the leaders didn't know this. They wrapped themselves in the "integrity of the scriptures" the way politicians wrap themselves in the American flag. I realize you don't believe this. You seem to think the teaching had integrity though the teacher didn't. You can only believe this by maintaining the tunnel vision The Way teachings imposed on us. Whether battered, badgered or otherwise bullied, the survival mechanism kicks in and people are no longer "themselves." They may act rashly or logically, but they go into a kind of shock. Peripheral vision, and peripheral perspective ("common sense"), are lost. The "Stockholm Syndrome" is a good reference for this kind of behavior. Look at this website for some additional perspective on the impact you write off so casually: http://www.refocus.org/postcult.html [This message was edited by QamiQazi on January 13, 2003 at 10:11.] [This message was edited by QamiQazi on January 13, 2003 at 10:12.]

For describing The Way experience, I don't think the word "seclusion" is accurate on its face. Going into seclusion means going off by yourself, dropping out of sight, away from all others, making yourself excluded from the rest of the world. We were included in a community within the ministry, not really secluded. And yet, the cumulative effects of the words I might have preferred in the thread's title add up to a seclusion far more effective than living alone in a cabin in the wilderness. As Hope recalled, the word "sanctified" was defined as "setting apart." Sanctification became the euphemistic, underlying principle for denying followers anything that was not part of The Way's program for living. Followers were: insulated from the world and culture; separated from family and friends; segregated from society, even from other castes within The Way social structure; isolated from our neigbors; alienated from the rest of God's family. If that isn't seclusion, I don't know what is. Then again, suffocation isn't a bad word for it either.

Just a quick dissenting impression of the battle scenes: the warg and the orokai (sp?) looked indestructible but they were tossed and killed as if they were made of styrofoam. In the battle, the fierce warg/wolves had every opportunity to go for the Rohan horses' throats and they just stopped and snarled instead, inches from those tasty ersatz horse-burgers. It would have been more convincing if they were less powerfully built, but still scary. They were an 11 on the ugly meter, weren't they? Another scene where the bad guys parted like the Red Sea was at Helm's Deep, when Gandalf the White and the Renegade Rohan Calvary charged into the line of spears, and through the line of spears, as if there were no spears at all. I haven't read the book for ages, but couldn't Gandalf do more with his great staff than bonk the orcs over the head? I expected a little wizardry, not ken-do. Or is it ken-po? I don't remember why Wormtongue was spared, but the reason Aragorn gave was: "Hasn't enough blood been shed?" How dumb is that? Did their collective wisdom not know he would high-tail it to Saruman to tell him everything he knew, and that Saruman would use that knowledge to try and kill them all? Theoden might have saved a lot of soldiers' lives by killing or at least confining Wormtongue. If that's how the book told it, I still don't get it, but if not, they didn't make a great case for mercy. Show mercy, get slaughtered. Nice. At Helm's Deep, Aragorn tells the elves "Show no mercy for you shall be shown none." Had he learned his lesson? They nearly lost everything and everyone at Helm's Deep on account of Wormtongue, because he revealed its weaknesses to Saruman. Killing him would have saved hundreds or thousands of lives. Strange sense of morality, no? Maybe there is more to it. [This message was edited by QamiQazi on January 06, 2003 at 13:20.]

Mike, I think you are an essential voice here. Whether you stay or go should NEVER be put to a vote. Since when is an individual voice only allowed to speak at the discretion of the majority - in a free country that is? Or even an "open" forum? I think you're making progress Mike. You're winning people's hearts, slowly but surely, or else, why would they protest so loudly? They are fighting the inevitable, resisting the truth. In their hearts they know you are right. No, I don't really believe that, but it was kind of fun to write. Please don't go Mike. I am disappointed in the bathroom wall grafiti directed at you, and the hostility. It is misplaced. You are the effect, not the cause. Maybe people see a part of themselves reflected in you, and they don't like what they see, even though that part of themselves no longer rules their lives. Maybe the urge to rejoin the cult is like the long dormant ring in Lord of the Rings, whose power is rekindled in the presence of its master's influence. The draw of the cult is strong. But you know that, Mike, wherever you are inside that mind of yours. I almost shudder to think how close to being Moonies we really were. You are the gentle presence of the insidious temptation to surrender we've all felt in the past. That's why your presence is so unsettling to some of us. But I think it's healthy, because there is plenty of opportunity to examine your beliefs in the clear light of day, and away from the inviting fellowship's appeal.

Karl, that's just how rumors get started. A journalist ought to set the example for the rest. (Right Rafael?) I understand people also thought satori was you, Karl. Well I'd almost believe it. But my best theory is that the satori was never a real person, but an cosmic artifact, a quantum-level hologram, an internet-generated "ghost," a digital phantom, a cyber-spirit, the tangible personification of an animated amalgamation of billions of billions of ones and zeros, synthesized ("conjured" if the truth be told) from all those many posts expressing the hopes, fears and dreams of you and me and all the world! In fact, I wrote a song about it. Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. Damn. Not the song I was thinking of. I have to look for it.

Karl, at a cafe all the mugs look the same. I prefer Bass.

KK, the same two points you made here were subjects of questions I asked the "clergy" overseeing my PFAL class. Looking back, he had to know I was right. Instead of an honest answer, he told me to hold my questions "in abeyance." Acquiescence seemed appropriate in the polite company of Way believers. What difference did it make? I wouldn't realize how much hinged on PFAL's errors until long afterward. QQ

Steve! is partly right about "cognitive dissonance," and a little reading up will probably refresh his understanding. Although there are several more possible outcomes than the one he describes, he does the discussion a great service by introducing the concept. Here is a snippet pulled from one of the many websites that offer information about this fascinating and relevant behavioral phenemonon: What would really be interesting to know is how some people reach the "level of commitment" that requires a rational mind to serve a delusion, despite a world of solid and contradictory evidence. Maybe Mike can fill us in. Was it the 'shrooms you did in '71? "You don't really live until you find something worth dying for." - Jesus [This message was edited by QamiQazi on December 28, 2002 at 10:18.]

Mike, your remarks do not absolve you of the responsibility to answer honest questions honestly, if you can. Can you? Probably not.

If Dr. Wierwille's publications were "God-breathed," then God is the real plagiarist. The good news is Dr. Wierwille may be all those other things, but he beats the plagiarism rap.

excathedra, just don't tell me if it tastes like chicken.

Matilda, you are way too funny!

Mike, this would be a profound teaching, if The Way mythology were true. Live by the Word, love by the Word, "first master then serve." Had The Way been built upon the Rock, and had the myth been reality, this teaching would have been the lodestone for the next seven generations. The myth of his calling, the myth of his ministry, the myth of his class, the myth of his destiny, were, and are, lies. They were concocted, manufactured, packaged and propagandized across The Way Ministry, which itself was, and still is, a little splinter group. See Mike, whenever Dr. Wierwille taught about service to the believers, it was a kind of code. What he meant, and more importantly, what he expected and got, was service to him. How else do you account for the legions of servants, the court full of courtiers, the gifts and honors and protocols, the erections of monuments, the seasons of heraldry and pageantry of, by, and for a ministry of **supposedly** Christ-centered bible-philes. They were done for a reason, Mike. It was to manufacture a mythology. It worked! Whaddya know! People go for that crap. Look at the Americans fawning over British royalty to this day. We're born suckers Mike. Smell the coffee. You've wasted far too much time already. Don't waste another minute. Know this Mike. You are living the mythtery. The truth will make you free. Or mad, if you believe Huxley. Let's hope not. Free good, mad bad. "You don't really live until you find something worth dying for." - Jesus

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excathedra, I've heard that when you wake yourself up by snoring, you get to make a wish. I've never been to a porker pageant, but someday, someday I will if it's the last thing I do. Chatty Kathy, you are thinking of a duxymoron. Very perceptive, too. Zshot, don't lose any more sleep over it. "You don't really live until you find something worth dying for." - Jesus