Twinky

No, O&A, it was because of their lack of believing!!

Eph 6:2,3 "Honor your father and mother"—this is the first commandment with a promise: "so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." From Ex 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Ps 68:6 God setteth the solitary in families... We are (supposedly) all the family of God. And we should respect those who have helped up, raised us up. Take care of them. Heck, likely we are all going to be old one day. And not just because those old-timers in the Word (stay with me!) have been around for a long time. We are supposed to be kind even to our enemies. Even to those who hate us. How much better should we treat those who have been the faithful? Seems to me that there is a record of very old people hanging around and still serving in the temple. Simeon - a very old man whose eyes saw the longed-for Messiah and blessed the infant Jesus when he came in to be circumcised. The prophetess Anna, who had served in the temple for decades - she would have been very old in a culture that old age might well have come early. It's often said that it's how a society looks after its most vulnerable that shows what sort of society it really is. And TWI is adept at casting out anyone at any age who has some problem that slows them down. I just wonder how long it is since Rosalie ran round the grounds for half an hour.

Best healing you could get from TWI, WG.

Rottie, your tour is getting close now and no doubt you are getting quite excited about it. I went to talk recently by a Palestinian Christian - he was born into one of the small remaining groups of Christians and historically, his family has been Christians for many generations. He talks about aspects of life in Palestine, specifically in Bethlehem where he lives. There are very few Christians left in Palestine and particularly in Bethlehem, and this work supports that small minority group. Among a persecuted people, they themselves are often more persecuted - by Palestinians. They can get a "free pass" from Israelis and this religious distinction is used as a divide-and-separate device by Israeli soldiers. He is a young man of about 30, trained as a lawyer, can't get legal work, and did some work / training at the Bethlehem Icon School. Bethlehem Icon School He was keen to promote the work done by the Icon School, which brings a much needed source of income for Palestinian Christians, who paint the icons to earn some money. There is almost no other work to enable people to buy the necessities of life. Bethlehem is usually included in Israel tours, he says, but few tourists realise that they are in Palestine not Israel; and they spend money in souvenir shops that bring money to Israel not Palestine.

Excie, PM me if you want me to invite you. I just got joined into the site (first look at it this evg). Unfortunately I see other women writing about being assaulted (with variations on your story). You won't be alone there.

That is so funny, Bliss. Had a rummage through the man's website. Hmm, spiritual coaching for $75, by phone or by Skype. Just another way to catch out the vulnerable?

Switch the words "wives" and "husbands" around and you have the usual too-familiar situation. So this particular leader has a slightly different taste (yeuk). So much! Wow, I got $30 per month! Not zackly substandard, just overcrowded. Founders Hall was a nice newish building, But four people in a room that was really built for two at the most. And the in-rez Corps didn't need to be pushed together so much, it wasn't like there was a vast number of victims at the time I was there. Now this is interesting to me - as an international "student" I had, obviously, to complete some application or other for a visa, and so did TWI, and ultimately I got ... was it an H visa? that permitted study (only) but no work, as far as I can recall. That's a joke, ennit, since that's mostly what we did - work. But TWI would call that "training" while we worked dishroom, mowed the grass, chopped wood, and did all the zillion other routine tasks that were required ... not to mention all the set-up/take-down for RoA and other Big Events. Fraud, yeah...on internationals - but on US citizens as well. Sorry for the internationals in the article Waysider linked. I'm glad the hypocritical bully is getting his come-uppance.

I wonder if he meant to write "77" instead of "11" which would make him 37, more in keeping with having a little child. He doesn't post here any more, more's the pity.

Happy birthday, Copenhagen. Especially as you are 103 years old, at least according to your profile here at the cafe. Have a nice drink but keep that Zimmer going in a straight line :)

Expected something interesting from you, waysider, but that's just plain weird.

Good one, Allan. And post-mog:

Bliss, it is sad that the staff at HQ so abused your family member and had so little respect for him as to take and squander his loving service for them. I perceive that that was his motivation... There is much more to "giving to God" than giving money or things. We should be giving in loving kindness, generosity of heart, and reliance upon God (to name but a few) and, as others say, we will get those things back in abundance. There were some awesomely wonderfully giving, generous, genuinely helpful and caring, people at and associated with HQ. Mostly they were people at lower levels, people who came in for SNS or events, and such like. Those higher up the leadership ladder began to expect what was given in good heart, as their right to demand. They themselves didn't know how to give - nor how to receive. Don't know how to give physically, don't know how to give "heartily" - hence all the "loving" tongue-lashings and vilification and excommunication of those who didn't adhere to the party line. Those are the ones who blamed the victim for mishaps, for illness, for undesirable things happening in life. Unfortunately this attitude did permeate to some of the lower levels. It's an attitude that leads to abuse and "taking advantage" and overlording. It is also not confined simply to TWI. The way in which giving and receiving was taught in TWI was, like so much else, too shallow, too materialistic. It's not simply a question of putting a dollar in the box and expecting ten dollars to materialise in your pocket (that would be trying to buy or bribe God!), any more than expecting instant results with anything else. Sure, there are instant healings and instant other responses to prayer recorded in the Bible; and sometimes things took longer. As those who pray for anything in our day and time also find. Sometimes the answers to prayers (or the response to actions) comes years later...maybe not even in one's own lifetime. If your family member looks back on that time, he may well find that he has learned some things that stand him in good stead now...not just about money, but about hypocrisy, honesty, and giving in general. And about not listening solely to what church leaders say about God, but in building his own relationship with Him (even if he did walk away thinking it was all "hooey"). I hope it hasn't put him off being a giving person and he hasn't become a greedy b*******.

That doesn't look a comfortable place to be (shiver!) Actually I saw a letter today in my local paper - presumably sent to many newspapers, local and national - from an Animal Aid charity explaining that this challenge isn't a good idea from the animal welfare point of view. The funds raised go to research into Motor Neurone Disease (aka ALS in the USA) - and that research takes place on animals. According to this letter, only one animal experiment out of many has shown some (dubious) positive results. Here is the text of the letter:

Oh well, everything within reason. Don't go collecting the wrappers from every candy bar you eat. We'll think you have Asperger's Syndrome if that happens.

Ice bucket challenge seems to have been picked up in the UK by the Macmillan Society (cancer research and support charity). The Motor Neurone Society isn't best pleased.

You've got some great photos and really intimate facial portraits. Lovely. (even the calf lets you see what it's thinking...it has a little ... anxiety ... about what's happening)

Allan, it could have been really interesting if your rellies had treated it as a normal church housegroup, where people can interject and discuss the topic, refer to external sources, and say, "Well, I think it means..." or "What about [some different related section of scripture]? How does that fit with what you're saying about ..." How nice it is to have freedom of speech!

Every point of view (or set of beliefs) has a load of assumptions attached to it. Some of those assumptions are right, some are wrong...some might even be somewhere in between. It's no bad thing to examine and investigate assumptions and reassess one's PoV. If you are confident in your assumptions then you should be able to debate with someone with different assumptions, and one or both can change their minds or retain the same PoV. It's not a bad thing to air assumptions. And to test out one's critical thinking ability and interpretation of those assumptions - heck, our critical thinking ability was pulverised enough in TWI. You can probably pick up a load of Bible commentaries that will come up with yet other PoVs, explanations about why this did or did not occur - the flood, and historical inaccuracies and anomalies, for example. Some of those appear to be more "wish list" than "what happened.". I welcome Raf's "actual errors in Genesis" commentary. He might be right. He might be wrong. He's stated his assumptions. No need to shoot the messenger, if the message is wrong. Maybe the message was wrongly recorded by someone else before it got to this particular messenger (Raf). "Maybe" lotsa things (shrugs). But to think about what might underlie the Biblical record and the truths or errors therein, is no bad thing. (And nobody shoot me either, please. I'm just saying - get back on track, let Raf have his say, and consider what he says on its own merit)

And even later than that, it became "Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness of the Word." Kinda, when they realised that common sense had totally vacated TWI thinking, they changed their definitions ... again.

Just looked at what the video was for point 32. If only the tantrums in TWI were that mellow. Instead of spitfests and vile language.

Sure it makes room for them, excie. Makes room for them in the punishment cell. They used talents and abilities and secular skills if it suited them but woe betide you if you had some better skill than the leader of your work group. If you could point out a better way to do something, then you were "leaning to your own understanding" and not listening to the work group leader, who had the revelation on the best way to do any task. Yeah right.

There is therefore now great condemnation to them that are in The Way Ministry. Always.

Is it not that the first 5 books were attributed to Moses (ie not written by him) and only some time later actually written? (In the same way that the gospels were circulating as oral stories rather than written ones for quite some time before being committed to papyrus). Some say the "Moses" (and other) books were actually written down by scribes retained by Soloman. Others say that these books were redacted by scribes in the Ezra/Nehemiah restoration period. And by either time, camels would have been domesticated and would have been a symbol of wealth. So would that then be adding something later that demonstrated the wealth at the preceeding time? (You could say, for example, that the Conquistadors had "thousands of doubloons" to spend on their invasions...wouldn't mean as much as if you said they had "millions of dollars," which conveys the value/amount better.) Some versions of the Bible in the English language attempt to do something similar by substituting common names - pounds (weight) for example or inches (as cubits don't mean much nowadays to the average reader). Whose image is this on this "penny"? But that isn't what the unit of currency was called (denarius), and neither does the apparent value (penny) convey the amount/meaning, which was actually a day's wage. In our time, we might have said, whose image is this on this $50 / $100 bill? So perhaps saying Abraham had camels might be a reasonable way then of expressing his wealth, that "communicated" at the time the books were written down. Maybe nowadays we'd say that he had top-of-the-line motor vehicles, luxury yachts, transport fleets, or football teams. Or Cayman Islands bank accounts. He was uber-rich.

IIRC is "If I Remember Correctly" Google is a wonderful thing. I wondered that, too.

Thomas, look at the dates. Steve posted well before Raf's latest thread on Genesis.