lindyhopper

My point wasn't really what is good or bad, but more like what you said here. People making up theories to things that don't make sense to them, or it doesn't line up with their sense of justice, or they don't see a blatant cause and effect to a situation or an experience. That's a good question, I don't really know, but I would think that superstition arose out of what I have said above. I would suspect that as humans evolved and formed groups that individuals looked to someone with natural qualities of a leader(s) which could have been exceptional physical or mental abilities or perhaps a greater capacity for language. But later, I think in many cases religion and "political rulers" were one in the same. Political meaning tending to the affairs of the group/clan/tribe/etc. and that eventually meant those affairs as it pertained to other groups/clans/tribes/etc..

OM, Plain and simple, here are the real problems as I see them. Note this is completely non-partisan blame I'm laying here: 1- a capitalistic system which feeds greed and produces what PMosh called a "me first" mentality among the rich and really anyone that wants to partake in that very accepted and pervasive world view. What many of these regulatory bodies are in place for is to curb the practices that result from this mentality. Your "humble libertarian" friend has a very naive view of what capitalism is. Strict libertarian views only work when everyone believes in those same views, but we are in a pluralistic society, in almost every sense. Even if capitalism is based on "love" (equitable exchange) as he says, now the only love it is based on is the love of money. 2- corporate influence in the political realm. This brakes down into two categories. a- lobbying groups. On some level it is a good idea as a means to let legislators the needs of differing groups of people. Health groups lobby for funding needed for an array of different diseases that need money, for eg. Although, what has happened is it has also become a tool for big business to get congress to pass laws that favor them making more money and it is left to the legislators to figure out how this may or may not effect the everyday worker and the less fortunate. b- campaign finance. This is an additional way that big business takes a government that should be for and by the people and makes it for and by corporate America by buying influence. 3- Elected officials that have a total "lack of expertise" concerning the economics of the country. They then defer to pro-deregulation regulators like "the Oracle" for what would be the best economic policies for our country. We then end up with this bloated, volatile, totally unregulated market of derivatives. IT is so out of control and complicated that most people including our "congress critters" (as Ron calls them) don't understand it. We end up with the likes of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We then get pro-deregulation right wing/ libertarians like yourself and Mr. Humble Lib either ignorantly or divisively partisan complaining about Clinton deregulating a 60 year old act of regulation. 4- Poor or non-existent oversight by state and federal regulating bodies. They have allowed AIG, for example, to get so out of control. If we are going to have regulations, and I believe we do in fact need to, then we need regulating bodies that actually do their job. Derivatives for example needs oversight and needs more of an exchange setting to trade their contracts. Then you need people to run those bodies that are principally in agreement with the purpose of that body. This is the same as a person applying for a job and the employer is looking for someone that will help support the vision of the company. If the applicant isn't then it would be counterproductive and just plain stupid for the employer to hire that person. Lack of overseeing regulation already in place by a deregulating regulator is what got us to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. As for your "Humble" link... Wrong. Banks were not strong-armed or encouraged to lend to people who were too risky. In fact, while the Community Reinvestment Act (which is what I believe he is referring to) was revised a number of times in the 90's it was specifically made clear that it was for getting rid of the practice of redlining but that it was not a suggestion or encouragement for a bank to take unnecessary risks. It was more about opening up geographical areas that had people that were worthy of loans but were denied strictly upon their location not wether or not they were able to pay back a loan. This would in fact fuel the economy by allowing worthy applicants the opportunity to invest in their community whether by creating a business, investing in real estate, or improving their local community and the local economy in other ways. It was a smart idea. Plus, it got rid of a practice that on face value looked racist in some incidences and doomed lower middle class and poorer areas to a much harder road to improvement. What happened was banks (which had now become larger corporations than they had been once they were allowed interstate banking and branching in 1994) realized there there was money to be made here. Companies like Fanny and Freddie who were required to take on a certain percentage of affordable housing loans had business goals that went way above their requirements (at times only achieving half of what they were aiming for). No one was putting a gun to these banks heads. They saw a way to make a lot of money by taking on more and more risk and then trying to hedge that risk in the explosively growing derivatives market which is where we have what is called the "securitization of mortgages." Greed plain and simple. The bubble just kept growing from there. The market kept going up and "the Oracle" et al thought that the free private market had "completely hedged" itself from risk. AIG's biggest problems is not with our housing market but with the fact that they insured a huge amount of mortgages in Europe. They are a global company and it is still being learned how far and extensive their reach is. This is why it is too big to fail. The government is the only one big enough to step in. Ch. 11 would not leave them restructured it would leave a world wide market shut down. This is the problem with the boom of the derivatives market and lack of regulation. It is unregulated capitalism gone wild. Misguided again. The way trickle down economics works is like this. Profit is a slow drip from an ever-increasing well, but when sh!t happens, as any plumber or civil engineer knows, it runs down hill, especially when the guy with the mansion at the top of the hill is flushing as much of it down the toilet as he can. I'm all for consequences but who is really baring the brunt of it. The fat cats will find another way to make a crap loan of money. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of employees they had are out of work as are hundreds of thousands of other people in related and unrelated fields. With a company like AIG we are then talking about millions of people around the world. These are largely people that performed their jobs admirably. Millions of people loosing their homes, and not just the sub-primers. Middle class hard workers that haven't done anything wrong living on the street. People like me getting affected because my renters, good long term consistently paying renters) loose their jobs and are unable to pay rent. People loosing their retirement. Their far reaching arm as we see brings the whole market down. People everywhere loose money and their futures are full of nothing but consequences from the greed of a few. Is that your idea of justice in the free market? Is that your idea of consequences of failure? On a side note, I wonder if all this really lines up with your Christian beliefs and how?

I think I answered these things right within the same sentence and the one following. Ignorance of why bad things happen to good people. An example of that would be the next sentence. A child (i think most people think of them as innocent and "good"... don't really need to get philosophical about what good is here) dies. In this case as in most cases I would consider death to be a bad thing. Agree? We could bring in more examples but it is not about what I think is good or bad but what the people that don't understand why something they think is bad is happening to someone they think is good. Understand what I'm saying? Well you would be mistaken in this case. Not inter-species reproduction, that is typically never a better outcome, but we are all humans here and I was specifically referring to humans (maybe I missed something in the thread). In humans it is better to have more genetic variability. Conversely getting too close to your own family the worse it is, because you will have less genetic variability. There is something to be said about attraction as well. Let people mate with those they are attracted to not who the leader says you should or shouldn't get together with. You really think these religious and political rulers were reacting to some inherent biological behavior and not years of conflict over land and gods backed by religious dogma and political decree?

I haven't read the whole thread but did the first bit and the last couple pages, but I don't think I'm off topic. I think the whole idea of sin in a bloodline in born of ignorance and is an attempt to explain why bad things happen to otherwise good people. A child dies at birth.... it must have been the fault of the parent or some ancestor because why would a just God allow this to happen. That sort of thing. There is that, but then at other points in the Bible and in other cultures it is more of a racist/xenophobia. i.e. Don't marry outside of the chosen group because everyone else's blood is tainted. So it is either fear or ignorance... and not the good kind of fear. I think regarding this whole fear being awe and reverence idea... I don't quite get it. Lets put this in human terms or better yet sci-fi terms. Lets say there was a race of aliens that came here overtook the earth and gave us all rules. They weren't overly burdensome, but they were limiting in some ways and they included reverence and thanks be shown and paid to them. They had super human powers, claimed they seeded the earth to start life here, and could crush us at anytime, but saw a benefit in keeping us alive as long as we played by their rules and they would reward you if you did. Part of the rules would be to work and pay them, I don't know, lets say 10% of your earnings to them. We'll call it a tax on your "increase." How many of you would obey out of awe and reverence of their power, ability, and generosity and how many would obey out of actual fear for your lives? Stories would most likely circulate about how Billy and Jane were struck down for hiding their earnings (cheating on their tax forms) and were discovered by the alien overseers. Would that be a story of how to do what is right, a story about how to go about paying your taxes, or a story about why you shouldn't do something wrong?

OM, if nothing else, you are predictable. Is that what your right wing blogs are calling it, OM, the Glass-Steagall Repeal? The one that Pelosi, Biden, and Clinton signed? Don't you mean the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act? That would be Phil Gramm (R-Texas, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 95'-00' and one time McCain campaign financial advisor), Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa, who chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee from 1995 to 2001). It is also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. What your link left out was that the bill's first round of votes went straight down party lines with the one exception of a Dem voting with the Repubs in the Senate. Clinton first said he "would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements." It wasn't until the Repubs "agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns" that the Dems came on board and virtually all of them did, including President Clinton. Oh, and did I mention this was after 200 million in lobbying and 150 million in campaign contributions to targeted banking and finance committee chairs from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. This was the last of 20 attempts in 25 years which rewarded "financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts." There is a lot more to the repealing of the Glass-Steagall than I or your blog mentioned. The pro-deregulation Greenspan's hands were far from clean in this repeal. Take a look at this: The Long Demise of Glass-Steagull. In fact, if there was one person that could have stopped this from happening it would have been the man dubbed by many, even in congress, as the Oracle, Alan Greenspan. Leach said Greenspan was highly regarded in congress. He also said, “You’ve got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise.” Iowa (D) senator Harkin said Greenspan had "a way of speaking that made you think he knew exactly what he was talking about at all times" "a way that made people not want to question him on anything, like he knew it all. He was the Oracle, and who were you to question him?” This act was on Greenspan and Ruben's recommendation. But it was the push of the private sector (the announcement of the merger of Citicorp and Travelers) that pushed it all to a boiling point. Read this article too: "Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy". Definitely read the Long Demise PBS link though, it's good... makes you sick to your stomach. There is plenty of blame to go around, OM. But as a MotleyFool article put it: blaming this all on the repeal of Glass-Steagull is like blaming the break up of The Beatles on Ringo. The already out of control leverage and derivatives trading was well established by the time the Act was repealed. At the same time the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was being passed, Greenspan recommended that congress permanently strip the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of regulatory authority. From the "Greenspan Legacy" article: Fully hedged were they, Mr. Oracle? I could go on and on... edit. What I can only blame elected officials? Put blame where it is due, not just on your tired partisan politics. As I said, there is enough to go around on both sides.

Who the #)^% is that he thought as he... slugged forward. As the golf cart came closer it became clear. It was his half drunk replacement, Howard Allan, dressed in an all red leisure suit with a matching cowboy hat. "hey their, sweet cheeks!" Howard in is haze had mistaken Uncle Harry's undead ghoulishness for a group of new young advanced class grads. He greeted them with his well known "wet kiss" but this time not because he opened his mouth, but because he was really kissing a pustulating zombie of Rock of Ages past. "Mmmwwaaah! Bless ya ladies" Uncle Harry's ecotoplasmic, goo-filled, undead soul, quickly reverted back to Groucho's mucus parched nostrils, for kissing Howard was...

Even though these bonuses are only like 1/10 of a percent of the bailout money AIG has recieved, it is the principle... and that is still a sh!tload of money they are forking over in bonuses paid for by tax payers. Taxpayers of which many will never see that much money in their cumulative income earning life. That's f'ed up. ----------------------- Unfortunately, Geo, we have to prop up these foreign banks because they have been apart of the risk management and credit leverage that has allowed us to blow this bubble in the first place. Spreading the risk out freed up capital to loan out to still riskier borrowers with even riskier loans, but that has resulted in a handful of banks etc. holding huge amounts of the worlds derivatives. So now that things have gone sour, they are all still linked at the wallet chain and if left to fail will see a world wide catastrophic financial domino effect. It sucks and it's scary, IMO. There has been a small chorus of people over the years sounding the alarm about the dangers of derivatives which Warren Buffet in 2003(?) called "Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction." It has been virtually unregulated thanks to Alan Greenspan and others like lawmakers who have been severely ignorant in terms of macro economics. Oh, but it would have worked so well if people would have just acted in their best nature. Oh, if we could have just not have had greed in the world. Thanks Alan. The derivatives market has gone from virtually nothing twenty years ago to an estimated value of between 600 trillion to 1.144 Quadrillion USD world wide. Like all markets in a capitalistic system it is subject to booms and busts and this one is beyond unsustainable. These bailouts will hopefully stop some of the bleeding and hopefully get the economy rolling again, but the bigger problem if not addressed will still remain and loom bigger still. Obama said the other week that he hopes this budget lays the foundation for a future of sustainable growth and get us away from a "bubble economy." I welcome that change personally. I certainly am no expert, just someone who's been reading this sh!t lately, but unless he is thinking of completely ridding us of capitalism, which in spite of what dooms day conservatives are saying I don't believe he is, he will be sorely mistaken. Of course, so will we.

I agree with potato on this one and not just because I like spuds. Apparently, there were instances where people were given something with a purpose and verbal instructions. BUT in a court of law, verbal instructions and verbal agreements are usually as good as the paper they're written on. Maybe there were paper instructions, but that is not a contract. To my knowledge, back in the day there wasn't a whole lot of signing of contracts for property and all that. Things were distributed and sold or not sold or used or not used or given away or not. I believe a local planetarium I used to live near received a gifted copy or JCourPS by the local limb coordinator. We all found out years later when organizing an event there and what do ya know, they had heard of us and brought out the book. Now it is the burden of TWI, if they really care, to produce the documents that show that there is no way for this person to legally have these tapes and hence are selling stolen goods. You may think there is an absolute right and wrong, OM, but YOU DON'T KNOW ALL OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH PEOPLE OBTAINED TAPES AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW THIS PERSON OBTAINED THE TAPES. This whole thing is rather ironic given that two of the defenders of the Way here are the ones using the same practices that they accuse others of defaming the name of their "father in da word" with. ie accusing this person of stealing with no actual proof! Fact is PFAL as a class was the property of the Way, but at one time didn't care so much about other people getting their hands on the material. There were no contracts that I know of and they could do with their property as they pleased and no on here has put up anything other than speculation. Anyone other than Galen have any actual first hand experience of receiving tapes? DWBH probably. What do ya say? If this person didn't illegally steal the material, then legally they can sell it. Copyright is not proof of ownership or of personal property. It is protection against copying or reproducing in some way and then distributing it. I was thinking what twinky was thinking actually. If the decimals on the page are in fact correct, then maybe this person knows that TWI of paranoia is the only person/group around that would actually pay 5000 smackers to get these tapes off the streets. Don't want it getting in the wrong hands, ya know.

Seaspray, What you and WD and a handful of others here don't get is that facts reside in the realm of reality. Whether you or I can prove it is another thing entirely. If there is crap on Groucho's lawn then there is whether you believe it or not and if there isn't then there isn't no matter what Groucho or anyone else may say. Proving in a court of law does not make VPW a twisted pervert, he would have already been one if the claims are indeed true. If he or LCM were unable to be proven as sexual predators it would not necessarily mean that they were/are not sexual predators, only that there was not enough evidence to prove it. It works the same conversely. BUT, reality is reality regardless of what our faulty legal system determines. The number of people that have been falsely convicted including some that have been put to death or died in prison is appalling. The number of guilty disgusting excuses for human beings that walk out of a court room free is appalling as well. "Guilty until proven innocent" is as it says "in a court of law," protecting the accused from a number of potential injustices. That does not make one factually innocent of the act committed. If VP did the reprehensible acts that people testify of here, as I believe he did, then he is guilty of the act. That act may be a crime and he will never be convicted of the act in a criminal case, but that does not mean he is innocent of the acts. He may be innocent in that he can not be convicted of a crime and be sentenced to prision, but that does not make him innocent of the despicable, reprehensible acts that he and others perpetrated on actual innocent women. ..;and that's a fact, Jack! I can't make it any clearer.

We had monkey brain in honor of Darwin's! Is someone a Colbert watcher or did you just know this, Oeno?

No people aren't just that way unless they have serious issues to begin with, but everyone that is in the TWI right now are not hate filled crazy people. I know because some of my family is still in. There IS learned helplessness though. Like the kidnap victim that defends their captor or the abused wife that keeps coming back for more instead of running and never looking back. It isn't necessarily that there is something deficient about the victim. It is learned like anything else, just as you have to unlearn or relearn how get rid of that "way brain." Regarding learned helplessness, there was a test done on rats that were caged in a very small place and given food and water, all their basic needs were met. They did this for some time and after quite a while they removed the cage and still gave it food and water. The rats would not move. They moved the food away. They would not move. They tried to entice them with the opposite sex. They would not move. They pushed it and it just slid along. I won't get into all the brain chemistry, but in this state of learned helplessness it mimics depression. You don't create any new brain cells. They have increased stress, decreased pleasure, and on and on. It changes your brain chemistry. It is learned and it chemically, psychologically, biologically changes you. I think of these things when I talk to people still in the Way, and I think "Bingo!" I also know it from my own personal experiences and all the stories here that confirm my experiences and beyond. I feel sorry for those people still in. Their basic needs are met. Sure, do they really seem happy? Are they doing what they've always wanted to do? Are they really living a "more than abundant life?" No, no, no. Are they still rattling off the same old sayings and ideas that are decades old and don't actually work or make sense? Yes. Do they have an original thought in their head? Not usually. They only think they are thinking. They have been confined to an intellectual and religious box. Usually basic needs are met. They are poked and prodded and belittled to stay in that box while being told that everything they could possibly want and all the power of the creator is at their figure tips if they only stay in that box. You see it here, that even after that box has been lifted that some people still stay put right in the same spot. While others gradually relearn how to live and grow as a healthy person again. It IS enraging at times when I think about it. But put the blame where blame is due and the rest of them just pray or hope or whatever that they move on eventually. THEY are the ones that need to get over it and move on!

Ok I'll shift it... I do a lot of things you do, but I don't have to believe for a God to do anything for me and I still get it done. Crazy. Yes I have had to "get by with a little help from my friends" or family, but we got by and get by. I rent a house currently in the Caribbean, but only because I can't afford to buy one yet. I don't have a lot of great stuff. Don't need it. I don't live "high on the hog." I live pretty meagerly. I do have a house in the states with a mortgage to match, but technically I don't pay for it... a guy not unlike yourself does. Sure the debt is in my name, yes I do pay for it every month, but as long as there are people like you out there, renters, there will be people like me out there, owners, not just paying the mortgage but making money on the homes that you are paying for. Thank you very much! And thank you to your god as well for whatever he is supplying where ever along the food chain so that other people have good jobs so that those people can have what they need so that you or you boss has a job so that you make money so that you can pay my mortgage and buy all that cool stuff so that you can be happy and feel good or whatever. If it's working for you, thats great. It's paying my bills as well!

Nice job, Mark.

Bolshevik, I think it is all a dirty mess and nothing is quite that simple. There were a lot of screwed up things going on and when it came to people "weeding" out homosexuals, yes, I certainly think there were people that enjoyed it. It fed into their hate for and fear of homosexuals. There was also the convincing ourselves that what was happening to us (yelling, screaming, other abuse) was what was best for us. We were deficient in some way. That "humbleness" still affects me to this day. I always thought that there had to be sometime that I wasn't getting, something I didn't see, because they were the spiritual overseers. (How f'ed up that term alone- "overseer") Good grief what a screwed up set of scenarios most of us went through. I was apart or in the room and eventually the receiver of a number of "reproof sessions." The last one was clear that these guys thought that this was what was best for me, like a drug addicts intervention, but for piddly sh!+. None of the ones I went through felt good. As a teen, I was at a corps week where a long time staff member was stood up in a morning meeting in the Way Woods and totally reamed for something he said off the cuff during break that LCM overheard. Talk about uncomfortable. I was in some where the husband was pitted against the wife or vise versa. Uncomfortable. Meetings where leaders bad mouthed their own flesh and blood because they had "copped out." That was uncomfortable but was also a little scary and moments like that stuck with me right up to the time that I left, thinking my family might never talk to me again. I was at the butt end of the worst kind of scrutiny and interrogation for having a roommate that may or may not have done something terrible, or for getting mugged. I was called by my LC and told not to talk to my parents anymore because they were now on probation. Twice! There are plenty psychological issues to look into but it seem pretty clear to me that we were conditioned to act a certain way, to respond a certain way (mandatory thank you letters, stand and clap for this or that, dress like this or that), think a certain way (cliche after cliche, retemory after retemory, book after book and class after class). It obviously would have fed into the worst in people but it also conditioned us stoop to a new low, bend over and say thank you sir may I have another . Learned helplessness. Learned hatred. How many stood up and clapped for the first performance of "Wash My Feet in the Blood of the Wicked?" All of us. I was a little freaked out about it but I did clapp. WOW was crap, Mex!

LOL Recommend it? They RAN it! I heard about it from the age of 11 or younger and I took it when I was (not sure) 16 or 17. I'm sure I took it as soon as I was old enough. To be honest, I don't remember much. Masturbation is a sin, but only when you are married (the first version of the Eve teaching), slag words that needed updating, basic sexual anatomy, spit makes a perfectly good lubricant, and other less memorable things like some Bible stuff. Hey I was a teen.

It thrives? Oh that is rich. Mike, can you transfer any of these video clips to your computer and give us a look see? Are we arguing that VPW never said this story the way it has been presented here, ever on video, or just that it wasn't in the video or tape versions of PFAL and therefore not a major "hook"?

I guess we'll just have to take Mike's word for it. I for one know that I've heard the story on video from VPW's mouth. My memory is still quite young: ) I think it must have either been from a taped live PFAL class or a tape of Living Victoriously. Did HRA do a cameo as a carpenter with a balanced hammer in Living Victoriously? You around for Living Vic, Mike? I am in the club of those that think ol Vic made the tale up or "borrowed" it from else where. I think WW did a good job of summing up why.

If I may, Abi, (since Geisha may be MIA for a while) say that this doesn't work for a person that has a orthodox belief which includes Jesus being God. If you discount Jesus, you discount God. If you want to get God you get to God by going to God minor, or God in A minor third. I think one would have to let a lot of the NT slide to get to the point that you are talking about. Not really Geisha's style, you know. My sorry foot my sorry foot my sorry foot goddamn it my SORRY foot! AHAHAHAHAHa it let goddamn it go but not A S S... and it put it in lower case!

You know, Oak, I was thinking the same thing as I started reading the thread but it has taken me a bit to get through the thread and for the thread to get back to the point. Usually, or should I say in my experience, the "well I'll pray for you" line coming from a Christian to an atheist/agnostic/unbeliever/other it is in response to their lack of belief in the Christian world view or belief system. "God not giving up" is, again, in my experience, referring to the fact that the Christian God never gives up on you to come around to His way of thinking... believing on Him. I don't think it is in the context of, say, God never giving up on you having good health. It is more about your soul and the saving of it. That is my experience, that is apparently Oak and Bramble's experiences and it is the experience of the many other people/ friends/ non-ex-cult members I have known and discussed similar topics with. It is a little insulting or at least offensive, but nothing that I would loose any sleep over. So, yes, how do we bring the level of discourse up to a mo betta level. I would think perhaps following the words of Jesus might actually help here in this particular example. The one thing that comes to mind is how one should pray in secret, "in the closet" (funny choice of words there God ) instead of "out on the street corner" or the internets (expanded literal according to usage translation). By all means, pray to your little heart's content, for my sorry soul, my sorry health, or my sorry foot... or don't, or cast some spell on me or don't. In my world that does nothing for or against me, but in your world view it apparently does something for you and you believe it does something good for me, so that is great. Just don't tell me about it if you know I'm an atheist/agnostic/unbeliever/other, because a) I don't care and b) you might be offensive to someone who is otherwise a first class individual. And who wants to be THAT person? Certainly not someone who tries to be loving to the best of their ability.

I'm not sure exactly where that is. As one would when truly self aware. :)

This is a complicated place. I had no idea the sacrifices Paw has made. I honestly don't know what it takes to run a forum, but the complaints and responses here all sound familiar. I think I learned the grew the most here back in the days of arguing with Zixar and occasionally Satori and others. Most of those times have been in the doctrinal basement and the newer bottom dweller- Ticks and Tacks or in About the Way. I don't spend that much time here anymore in spite of the fact that you'll usually see my handle at the bottom as "logged on". I do miss those times a bit. I miss the arguments, but I don't think the moderation or anything else is the problem. I think there really is only so much to discuss. Sure there's the details but even when I started asking questions here years ago, it was many times met with "we've already discussed that. do a search," as if that is an easy task (as Mark O pointed out). I was glad to see some people started bringing threads to the top for newbies. But, there are only so many times one can or should rehash the same ol' stuff. The other thing is that, yes there are plenty of new people joining but not nearly enough participating to make the conversations very fresh tasting. They are usually discovering things that the majority of posters here realized years ago. When those issues do get rehashed and hashed and ashed I think perhaps it does look more like bitterness even when it isn't. Moving on is a good thing, especially when you have done it on your own time, at the right time, and no sooner or later than that. For me I don't know that there is much more about TWI I need to learn about. I know there are still people that need a place like GSC. I am related to some of them. I know that it has helped some of them to some degree recently. I think the place is still relevant. FWIW, I think people like Satori and Zixar and others are sorely missed. I don't know how I would have filled the void in my life if I had not read "moonwalking the mahi mahi" today. Seriously. Other than my kids doing and saying the cutest most amazing things in the world and the company of my wife, that made my day. I actually agree with a lot of what you said, Satori. I hate moderating silliness too, and I appreciate your talent and the importance that you put on your own words. I understand that. Perhaps moderating has gotten a little out of control or too in control. I don't know. I don't say some of the crazy $ h!t you say. Viva la loco. I salute the ministry of Al Gore for helping start the internets. PAW- seriously, thank you for what you have done here. Regardless of what happens, I hope you take the time you need to enjoy the rest of your life with someone special. You have done a great thing here. I'm sure someone will pick up where you have left off. Cheers.

God is "I AM" God is "Love" God is "Light" God is true self awareness. How bout' that one.

It is still pretty much 85 everyday here with a cool breeze. Hope you all fair well in the great white north. I do not miss it. I will be missing this weather in another year though.

Why thank you. I was actually talking about my words. I gave a quick critique of his words and stopped short... it is a waste to go over this stuff again and again. That is what I try to base my opinions on, though, not one's title or where they teach or who they collaborated with, but on one's words, against my admittedly limited abilities. I work with what I've got though. I've only been within close proximity to some noble prize winners and spoken with other very smart but less recognized people I don't follow his line of reasoning from the start with this. I didn't mean to imply that I don't respect the man. Honestly I don't know enough about him to say either way. I'd have to listen to more of his speeches. I'm certainly glad he is not a hate monger and I respect that. From this one snippet though, I felt it was a fairly standard answer from a more moderate and reasonable Christian view that I've heard a dozen times in person from other speakers. That and some elaborate details about a conversation he had with a big network reporter that was filming him at a huge event that he was headlining and his words made the person stay after saying they would leave after a short while and his reasoning stopped her in her tracks. I heard that he teaches at a very prestigious school and that he has a higher standard he has to live up to than say the average gay churchgoer. So I heard an answer that could have been answered fairly straight forward in considerably less time, but a good story that lends to the credibility of the speaker always goes further than an in depth answer. So how is your race sacred? "You can not violate it," what exactly does that mean? His logic if applied equally to his position on the sacredness of heterosexuality leaves you with some messed up views on mixing races, which I'm certain he does not hold but the point is his line of reasoning was kinda jumbled there. I'll take your word for it regarding the first half and say concerning the second half that we all speak from some degree of ignorance. Is he a science and medical expert or a theological or philosophical expert? And if it is not from ignorance then it is from disregarding things he's learned from some of his nobel friends if they talked about such things. I don't want to waste bandwidth with all the findings about sexual orientation, but it is out there if one wants to know. There are more and more findings of physiological differences and phenotypically expressed differences in homosexuals compared to heteros (as physiological and phenotypical as one's race.) The evidence keeps building basically and more and more people will have to simply ignore it, baselessly deny it, or squirm and wiggle and come up with a new way around it. That is nothing new though is it?

Listened to the YouTube clip from the first page and didn't find it all that logical. The premise that one's sexuality is similar to one's race in that it is sacred. I can see why he believes sex is a sacred gift from God, even though I can't think of a biblical reference off the top of my head. But race? Your face is sacred? To me race is a human system of classification. It is what it is solely for the purposes of visual and cultural classification and clarification or distinction and for some for discrimination. If there is a God I highly doubt it thinks of us in terms of race. We are the human race. A varied, wacky, randy bunch of misfits. So if there is a God I highly doubt it thinks your race is sacred. So from that point you could make the same argument for sexuality or sexual orientation. But that doesn't fit the purposes of his comparison. Secondly, the idea that every man is tempted in the sexual category is the same case as someone being a homosexual is again loose logic and a clear misunderstanding of the realities of sexuality. Sure I or any other man could be tempted to go outside our marriage, but we can still go home and enjoy having sex with our wives... as long as she doesn't have a headache: ) Not the same for homosexuality. That supposed sacred gift has been stripped clean and clear from the homosexual. This starts from their earliest ideas of sex. blah blah blah wasted air. I won't even go into the ignorance of medical/chemical realities of sex and sexuality. I'm glad some of you aren't hateful in your attitudes. There's a step in the right direction. Is there a place or a way all these different denominations and schools of thought can come together? Yes, just forget half the things you teach and believe and come together around the good DrWearWord's law of liberty doctrine. Simple. Duh! Come on you guys get it together.