lindyhopper

...a butthole is like a bellybutton, everybody has one.

Hmmm, JohnUB, I never read Eph. that way. I always read it as anger or something that is really upsetting you. If you and your spouce or a friend have a fight....resolve it before you go to bed, that sort of thing. So are you saying Eph is saying that it is ok to scream and yell and not get it resolved and wake up angry the next day as long as you are not still "going off" on them? What is going off to you?

I think certain types of anger are perfectly fine and healthy. Righteous anger....I agree, most anger is this way. I'm right and their wrong and that really p!sses me off, or I am p!ssed at myself for doing something so stupid. Like not leaving the twi sooner, not seeing it for what is was/ is earlier, not standing up and saying something when I should have, not getting angery when I should have been mad as hell. But I think most of the time that "righteous anger" is more about just not being very understanding and loosing control a little..... or a lot. I try to over exagerage my responce usually just so I keep in mind how I shouldn't sweat the small stuff. Like while I am driving and someone does something that ticks me off I might say something like, "Damn it, I hate people!" If my wife and I, or either of us, are perticularly stressed or upset we like to scream as loud as we can but then transition into singing a very melodic harmony all in the same breath. That works wonders and usually makes us laugh. On the other hand, I know folks including some in my family who seem very angery about a lot of things..."ungodly" things. I think that is partially about making yourself feel better and partially about blocking any other thought to the contrary into their heads. I think that was one of those things that twi helped us out with. Their whole persona could change at just the mention of something homosexual or something trinitarian or some "spiritualist" terminology. That type of thing is obviously very bad and perhaps damaging to someone.

Or maybe it is like a 12 billion lane highway all going in the same direction. We all know the destination, but can't see beyond the horizon. Each lane gives a different perspective. One shift in a lane reveals a little more and hides a little more of everything we're passing by.

Ah, wine. I miss it. The Ladyhopper has been either prego or nursing for the past 4 years, which means little wine for me. Rosemount Shiraz is a favorite inexpensive wine we used to have quite often. We do have some bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape still sitting around from our trip to France (about 4 years ago....hmmm). The bottle I am looking forward to the most is of the domain name Chateau de la Gardine, 2000, probably not cheep here. I think it is about time we popped that sucker. I think there are a lot of nice inexpensive Pinot Noirs around that have only been getting popular recently. They are nice subtle lighter reds that haven't always gotten the respect they deserve. But alas, I have been out of the loop for a few years. Nice trick. Find a decent bottle of Sparkling Rose', like Moet Chandon. Get yourself some good chocolate. The good stuff, bittersweet. Let the chocolate melt in your mouth and down your throat. Mmmm good on it's own. BUT take a sip of the Rose' while you still have some chocolate at the back of your tounge. You'll get a real nice black cherry taste right there in the back of your throat and with the sparkling wine that flavor kind of sprays back up into your mouth. Ooh la la. It is a fun desert thing to do and perhaps a little sassy for you dating singles or a special occasion for us wedded folk. Be careful though, you may end up wine-less for the next several years.

Happy Birthday Belle. I just got back from a Birthday/ book signing. I had a piece of cake for you.

I think Belle is half the posters here.

I remember the spandex shorts guys, except I think we used to call them DiK pants. No package was too small, but it was there in your face, for all to see and get "blessed". I think one of the guys also sported the very stylish balding mullet. Always a crowd pleaser. What is up with that new poster. One of the worst in a long time. First glance, it looks like you are walking in the steps of JC....right into a brick wall. Nice job Divine Design. Hmmm Posters I miss? Ginger Tea, OCD (he may be someone else, not sure) new guy...PimpJuiceClergy, love the name.

When I origianlly read what Evan wrote he did say it was supposed to be all a joke. To me it still sounded like an F'ed up thing for a Christian organization to be joking about. But, read WaySurvivor's post on the Child Abuse thread again. This was happening in 87ish? The girl had nightmares and messed up memories about this for years. It sounds like someone let the joke go too far if she saw it as a young girl and they chased her. Sounds like an F'ed up thing that got out of hand....which maybe that is why it stopped. Sounds like somethng I never would have believed was happened while still in.

Shortfuse, One thing I have learned here over the number of years visiting these forums, is that there is some crazy sh!+ that has gone on in twi both on unique local levels and bigger higher up local and corps levels. One of the craziest things that I heard here was on the thread on child abuse in twi. There was a poster, "waysurvivor", that had a story with very intimate details and things that, to me, sounded completely made up if not completely insane. This person had some horrible things happen to her at Gunnison and perhaps other locals and said things about being in a box with spiders and being chased by corps guys in black robes and other things that didn't fit into my twi childhood POV. I basically told her I was sorry for whatever happened and that I thought the stuff about the way she was lying. Well, it turned out there were things that happened in the early corps involving black robes and even Weirwille acting as the "Grand Wizard." Check out the thread. It is a big one. WS's post is on the 12th page with mine and many other skeptical posters right after it. The next page (13) about 2/3 of the way down is TheEvan's post about the black robe initiation thing, then others follow from there. Anyways, since then I try to hold back and see if what a poster says pans out and is corroberated or I try to ask questions until it makes sence or is confirmed.

agreed

As an artist and designer I understand that having things look nice can make one feel better. BUT The thing to realise is why. When you feel good about yourself because you look nice, it is not because it is "your best," but because it is what is generally socially accepted as beauty. Ever seen old paintings of Venus? She is usually depicted as curvey if not fat by today's standards, yet it was a depiction of beauty. The concensus has changed many times throughout history. So which is more important? Feeling good because you conform to cultural ideas of beauty or feeling good about yourself regardless of what other people think and how you look. If the cultural norm was to be crusty and smelly then everyone would be walking around in last week's laundry, with dreadlocks, and no Dove in sight. I agree with Kit. A smile can work wonders. :) On the other hand.... Today there is a very good idea of what being healthy is. It requires exersise and eating well and when done properly you do have a general weight to height raito and all that. I would think that if people approached it more in light of being healthy and not "lookng good" then there would probably be more people truly "looking their best." Most of the models these days being portrayed as what beauty is, are not healthy. Many of them are anorexic heroin addicts. OR It is as depicted in the film, normal looking people with the bone structure the pros are looking for altered to fit "the look." I say be healthy and be yourself, and educate your kids about physical and mental health.

LOL Perhaps he thought his name wouldn't be posted in bold over his comment. Waita go Ed. After the local publicity in a community newspaper, he lets everyone know that her husband approves.

Perhaps this should be a different doctrinal thread, but.... Perhaps it has to do with what adultery is all about and how one defines it. If the Biblical intent was that God only wanted people to have one sexual partner for life then ok. Although, then the OT Kings like David would have been sinning way before Bathsheba. Although, if it had to deal with the lying and deceit involved and the pain and very long term hurt that it brings with it, and the "STEALING of another's only ewe lamb" then perhaps we are talking about something different. Sorry for the tangent. (Heading to the basement)

I didn't want to go there on this thread, but since you said it way better than I would have....I totally agree. Well, I never liked this sort of thinking. Maybe it isn't your thinking, but just the way you said it. It sounds similar to the "you don't believe in God anymore, because you were burned by twi" mentality. It makes our decisions sound reactionary. TWI did help some of us get to a point where we would consider thoughts like this through their excessive control, and to a point that part is reactionary...the thought process in the beginning. Once you get to the point of making a decision, whether it be to not believe in God anymore or not to agree with organized religion, you have thought it through a lot more, as your post displayed. This is the same for all of use to varying degrees. Whether it was just getting to the point of leaving or becoming agnostic or seeing doctrinal error or realising the abuses were going on and twi should be held accountable. There was always a starting point in which we doubted and questioned and eventually there was a point of decision. In between, hopefully, a lot of thought occured.

I don't think so, Rascal, the sting is the abuse of power and sexual abuse. The sting for the husbands is the lies and decieving the taking advantage of the person they love the most. The sting is that they were not "cool with it," they did not know about it. If the husband was ok with it and knew about it all along then a) There was never a sting to begin with and b) the marriage probably was never that strong to begin with. But that's the point, it wasn't ok with them and it is/was a hurtful thing for twi leaders to do. And I agree with Skip, but am no longer a Christian, so you might expect it of me. LG, Which part? Who the women and their their husbands are, or whether or not these unnamed couples should talk about infidelity? I agree to the former, but the later is a perfectly valid discussion about marriage, morals, and twi. Which is what I thought twinot was getting at.

Last I heard they were in TN or KY, but this was years ago. I was in MD when they were there and when they left twi. Then I heard they went back in. I think someone here said they may be in a splinter group now. Sorry, not really giving you much here, am I?

Imagination gone wild!

True, but I was refering to the arguement that makes the point that God has to allow evil to exist or had to create the potential for evil to exist, because it would not be fair or just to only allow us to make good choices all the time. That would mean we would have no choice but to do his will since God is good. This would make him a dictator, more or less.

I'll step in and tell you mine if you don't mind, T-bone. Perhaps I can say it a little more plainly than I origianlly did. In a book with an overall theme of redemption, the devil is a character that does not appear to have had that opportunity and will not in the future. Now Allan claims, with nothing to back it up, that the Devil had the opportunity to repent and to be forgiven but didn't. It seems like an assumption that makes it fit for him. Of course, the Bible is not a book for angels so perhaps they have their own book with it's own rules. This could be another assumption to make it fit. But, here we are, little imperfect mortals, nowhere near as close to God as "his right-hand man" reading what many believe is the "rule book" on life and redemption and we see that God does not give his former glorious, beautiful, and brilliant of a right-hand angel the same chance at forgiveness and redeption that he claims to give us. See the problem? What if the Devil did have the chance to repent and actually did. Where would we mortals be in reference to free will? We would be in the place that many say would not make God fair and just....with only the option of doing good, which would not really be an option at all. We would be in a place with no need for a redeemer and hence no Bible as we know it. Of course, what if evil and the free will choice between it and Godliness and good has nothing to do with the Devil. He is blamed in the Bible and modern Christianity with tempting us and blamed for everything bad and evil in the world, yet he was himself tempted by....what? He chose to go against God. Today that might be considered "devilish," what was it then? It would seem more plausible, that an all knowing God created evil as a choice and therefore created evil. It would seem logical, even with the story as it seems to be, that the free will choice between good and evil, godliness and ungodliness, would still be there even without the devil, just as it was before "the fall of Lucifer." So why is he blamed for all the wickedness in the world? Why does he not have the chance to repent and be forgiven? Why does he go from "the right-hand man" to all evil all the time? In my mind, he begins to look like a fall guy, a scape-goat and here all we have is "God's side of the story," which as pointed out isn't all that clear. Would it not be more plausible that the Devil, even in the account of Jesus in the wilderness, is all just evil and wickedness personified? Perhaps, because that would then make the possibility of God just being goodness and perfection personified a plausible option as well. That is my take, without getting into anything else, like the history of mythology.

I have no first hand experience with any splinter groups, but as far as I know the majority of them stick with much of VPW's twi teachings. IMO, that base is perfect soil to grow ego, corruption, and abuse. They would have to change a lot to change the outcome. It is still primarily a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. But lets face it, there is a lot of abuse, ego, corruption, and scandel in all kinds of churches. Human weekness is obviously something you can't get around. Another thing I think makes it easier for twi, home based, groups is the small size. They want it to be a personal ministry. They want people's needs to be met on an individual basis. Good intentions, but we are talking about absolute rights and absolute wrongs on every little thing, with "overseers" right over your shoulder a couple of times a week in a small home fellowship. Just wait long enough and you will see leaders overstepping their boundaries. Go to a mega-church or a church with several hundred people and ministers don't have time to get on an individual, private, friendly level with everyone. You might have a much smaller number of people that are hurt and with that smaller ratio comes less speaking out about it. Plus with a larger group people have the option of not seeking direct attention from the minister. In a small fellowship, it isn't really an option, they are up in your business a few short words from "hello." I would also consider the leadership training as part of the equation. Many if, not most, major churches have ministrers, preachers, pastors, whatever with degrees in theology and training in the field. There are interview sometimes etc, it is a job, not a volunteer. What sort of criteria is there for home fellowship coordinators. Is there a "corps" type program? IMO, that is not the greatest training for a leader in a church.

Imagination has a number of roles and serves a number of purposes. It is involved in problem solving many times as well as advancement. As an industrial designer, we use a phrase called "blue sky", in terms of brain storming. In other words, the sky's the limit....think of things that you never imagined before....invent something totally new. Start at a place that isn't even possible yet and then narrow it down to a workable, viable solution. This is how we got from desktops to laptops to tablets to palm computers. In school we worked on wearable computers. Back in the early days, when a single computer filled several rooms, most people wouldn't have thought of a computer you could wear, but somewear along the line, before it was even possible, someone thought of it. Imagined it. It takes people from figuring out how things work to how they could work in another way, a better way, a more efficient way, cost effective, or eronomic way. It also serves as a means of expression. Somtimes fictionalizing things open people's eyes to ideas and concepts that would otherwise be unthinkable. It is a way to take the abstract and convey it in a more concrete way. Take those two and put them together and you get what many of us talk about around here. The problems of how things work and why can be explained in more concrete ways. Human like Gods were invented to explain things like lightening, the sea, the wind, rain, and floods, earthquakes, life, death and everything else. One could say that all of those unseen, unvarifiable things we believe in are imagined. Of course that could mean it is all fiction or as in my field it may be something possible that is only impoossible to physically realise at this time. Who knows, someday we might see a wearable computer comprised entirely of body piercings, as I once conceptualized in school. Right now that seems a little out there, but you never know.

Thanks Shaz, Yes, co-morbidity....or as I was going to say, a lot of this stuff overlaps. I didn't have any experience with VPW but my observations of LCM are that he displayed narsasitic, sociopathic, and general psychopathic behaviors. Of course, I am not a professional, just my observations. Here are a list of general characteristics of psychopathy, which also in part are characteristic of the disorders you mentioned. Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Pathological lying Conning/manipulative Lack of remorse or guilt Shallow affect Callous/lack of empathy Parasitic lifestyle Poor behavioral controls Promiscuous sexual behavior Early behavioral problems Lack of realistic, long-term goals Impulsivity Irresponsibility Failure to accept responsibility for own actions Many short-term marital relationships Juvenile delinquency Revocation of conditional release Criminal versatility A lot of those apply IMO.

OH YEAH! If only I had photoshop, I could give you a nice pic of the cool-aid guy busting through TWI seal. I think they all had the red mustache. VPW's original motives seem somewhere between questionable and down right evil from what I read. The account of his last words and Howard's signage on POP as well as many other things point to them all being true believers in the way of TWI. Perhaps he convinced himself over time. LCM was/is a sociopath and a megalomaniac. When you are like that, you don't just convince people you are right you KNOW you are, you totally believe you are. Perhaps VPW was the same way. LCM learned a lot from him. The current lot have been sheep from the start. The way TWI is set up is to incourage people to strive for more and more power- one class to the next- corps- more responsibility- more oversite- more more more and more spiritual. That combined with the teaching of "so the ministry not be blamed" has help support their lies and coverups of hurtful things that were incouraged through insane teachings like "genuine spiritual suspicion," believing, no debt, and "spiritual anger." They believe(d) the stuff. They didn't hurt people because they are all completely evil people. The theology is one that incourages it. As it went on other teachings were added to support wrong doing and cover it up.

MMMMmmmMMMMmmmm White meet.