oldiesman

This cyanide analogy never worked for me. How do we know that there isn't a little poison in every religious group and denomination? There may be! Heck some people even think the entire bible is rubbish and poison. What is the answer? I believe the answer is to beware of everything one hears and reads. Test the knowledge, test the spirits. God gave mankind a brain with the ability to separate truth from error and that includes the ability to separate any harmful doctrine of twi away from the good. Take out the harmful leaven and get the new lump. The good does not have to be trashed along with the evil, in fact, I believe that interpretation is erroneous. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

Look at the context of I Cor. 5, it is present tense. Present Tense of his time. Paul was correcting the actions of current happenings of his time, not talking about former events of 30 years ago.

Jeff, my reading and interpretation of the verse about the leaven basically means to turn oneself away (present tense) from a wicked person or people. (I Cor. 5). Has little or nothing to do with happenings of 20-30 years ago, rehashing and condemning sins which nobody can change today. If you believe your experience was with wicked people, you are entitled to that belief and opinion and free to share. My experiences seem to differ and I am just as entitled to my beliefs and opinions. With regards to being a tool of twi and using words like "we" as if everyone was a tool, it does seem like it was a disparaging comment about a whole lot of people many of them may not see it that way. That is why I thought it was offensive, not just for me but others as well. Remember this thread is not just a two-way conversation between you and Rascal; many folks are reading it. Didn't seem like Rascal was using "we" meaning just you and her alone; I thought her meaning was clear and I think the use of that inclusion opened the door to other varying opinions in this thread. But being a tool does not apply to me, WhiteDove (and I believe many many others) because of the recognition that our actions in twi were free will decisions that "we" take full responsibility for. Can't blame anyone else. WhiteDove may want to add more reasons why. What may have been in someone else's mind, their possible abuse of someones time and money, their mindset and their sins, is for God to judge. Doesn't make me a tool. God is the judge and searcher of hearts and motives and sins, that's His job.

I think it's an interesting concept but right now "closed threads" are not part of the format. By closed thread, I mean participants of like mind and thoughts and feelings. I thought about starting my own thread about how I and those who think like me were not tools of twi, but what's the point? You or anyone else with a varying opinion may come in and give your varying opinion and we'll have what we have here. I think its possible that closed threads may happen in the future; it may be worth a try if there's enough support for it, perhaps you may want to make a suggestion to Paw. But right now I think we'll just have to live with each other as best we can.

I honestly do still feel that way. When we (you and me :) ) freely availed ourselves to participate in "those good old days" we engaged in a process that helped us learn many wonderful things about life and people and hopefully, brought some folks enduring truths about God and Jesus and the Word of God. Our free will participation could be described as the opposite of being a tool... we decided to freely choose to walk in love and in fellowship with God and Christ and when we worked it was as the scriptures say heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men.

The "we" is offensive. Speak for yourself please.

King Solomon, who communicated great truths but also had predatory sex problems.

I guess Jim Bakker. He had a ministry that blessed thousands but also had personal sex and money problems.

Soundzgood Jonny.

Perhaps through liberty lobby, the storehouse of conservative books and ideology. I'll take a stab as to "why" he promoted these books, i.e., I don't think he really believed that Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews. Also, VPW was a traditional conservative politically, and conservatives, especially fiscal conservaties, do not like big governent spending programs and $ free giveaway programs. From his writings, I believe VPW greatly opposed the fact that the U.S. was sending $billions to Israel each year. To date, it has come to somewhere in the neighboorhood of some $83 billion. I think he believed that the holocaust was being used as propaganda to fuel these endless giveaway programs. From a spiritual standpoint, he believed that "God's chosen of today" was the church of God, the believers in Jesus Christ; similarly he believed that the ideology that "the Jews are God's chosen people" is false today. Spiritually speaking, in his mind Jews who do not believe in Christ are no better or worse than any other Gentile, i.e. they are essentially Gentiles. ( I do not necessarily believe this myself, this is what I think he believed. ) I think VPW believed that a large part of so-called Jews today are like Gentiles and are not part of the original tribe of Judah. Even so, there is no evidence whatever that he believed they are racially inferior to anyone else. Unlike the Nazi tenet that Aryans are racially superior and Jews are racially inferior.

Waysider, it looked like you said that belief of the Nazi tenet of Aryan superiority and Jewish inferiority described VPW by promoting Anti-Semitic literature: I guess the reader can make their own conclusions as to what your writings meant. Yes, actions do speak louder than words, and there's NOTHING in VPW's actions or actions of Corps volunteers that can be compared with a military dictatorship that hauls people into concentration camps, mames and kills people, and is ultimately responsible for the carnage of millions of people.

Promoting "so-called anti-Semitic" literature doesn't make someone a Nazi anymore than it makes Arthur Koestler (Jewish author of The Thirteenth Tribe) a Nazi or Dr. Arthur Butz (author of Hoax of the Twentieth Century) a Nazi or Willis Carto (founder of the Liberty Lobby) a Nazi or the Library of Congress of the United States (that contain these publications) a Nazi regime.

Apples and oranges. The difference between a religious organization and a military dictatorship is night and day. Also forgot to mention that a tenet of Nazism is belief in Aryan superiority and Jewish inferiority. Contrast this to Dr. Wierwilles belief that all peoples are the same and come from the same bloodline (Adam and Eve), all are the same physically and mentally (formed and made the same) and spiritually all can be equal through belief in Christ and acceptance of Christ as Messiah (the new birth, Jews and Gentiles are the same body of Christ). Additionally, the Nazis hated, repudiated, killed and removed Jews from their presence; but Wierwille invited them in...

He was very much the opposite. Nazism is fascism and fascism is totalitarianism, i.e., more and more big government control over people's lives ... and less and less liberty. In contrast VP was a supporter of the U.S. Constitution, i.e. limited government free market system. Americans should realize that politicians like Sen. Obama have more of a fascist slant in their politics than Dr. Wierwille ever had. Not Hitlerian type fascism, but a softer-type fascism wherein big government socialism slowly takes over every aspect of life. The National Socialist party was like the little froggie in the frying pan. ... Americans clamoring, demanding more and more big government "help" feeds these flames.

I agree with some of your points Rhino... good points. Dr. Juedes' writings do seem to be a bit presumptuous with his blanket one-size-fits-all labelling. I also periodically wonder if Dr. Juedes would be so relentless in his one-sided attacks against all-that-is-twi/ces/stfi, if twi/ces/stfi had been Trinitarian. Thanks.

Dr. Wierwille taught that the human body is beautiful and as part of the class showed us pictures of it .... nothing wrong with nude pictures in and of themselves. This is not porn. Porn is designed to encourage lust and lasciviousness, perhaps covetousness, those are the sins we need stay away from. But viewing pics to show how beautiful the body is is nothing ... its vanilla. I don't believe VP was encouraging those sins and can't imagine someone getting caught up in lust and evil imaginations from viewing those vanilla images unless they wanted to. Similarly I suppose someone can say looking at a beautiful woman in a bikini leads to lust and lasciviousness and porn but I dont think so. (Maybe Islam says that, don't know.)

Sure thing Jonny.

This is the reason why I hardly ever use the word "cult" about a religious group (unless I deliberately want to put them down) because its true meaning is subjective and it literally means nothing more than a blanket put down of a group in someone's eyes. There is no consensus on what it means other than its sort of like someone's own spin ... if someone dislikes a movement, considers it false, extremist, misguided, evil, or any other negative one feels about a group, they may easily slap on the "cult" label. Sort of like "I think this group is yuck". So to try to answer the question ... "what makes a cult" appears to be nothing except what one regards (for whatever reason) as a bad group.

There are doctrinal differences. I give them credit for trying to improve. Also I believe JS is a hero for speaking the truth about adultery back then. To hell with charisma.

Excellent suggestion Waysider.

Christians have sex, Christians have spit, Christians use sexual lubricants, spit is a sexual lubricant. Nothing wrong with the statement except that one's saliva shouldn't be used when the mouth has an active mouth infection.

Congratulations Daddy Raffy.

Linda, this may not be your problem but what I do first is check for viruses or spyware or trojans. Several weeks ago, I had a few of these that couldn't be removed by my regular protection package. It was causing wierd pop-ups and slow internet, something not working right so I called this place called IYogi, they are an outfit in India that with your permission take over your computer and fix whatever is wrong. Guaranteed to fix it or you don't pay. They charge $120 per year, and they recommended a sensational security software called superantispyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/ It got rid of all the crap inside my computer and now its quiet as a baby. Don't know if this will fix your particular problem, but at least it would eliminate the spyware malware problem. Try it for 30 days for free, free download. $30.00 to buy. If you don't like it don't buy it. But it works!

Abigail, thanks so much for trying to encourage all posters to stay above the namecalling and labelling and adhere to a more excellent standard. I hope you don't go ... but understand if you finally decide to. Know that your heart and continued respectable posting is a great example and will be missed.

I just received the book but haven't read it yet, looking forward to it. The forward was written by Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. She wrote among other things: What hypnotic state? This is a manifestion of holy spirit that we the believer operate, we are in full control of our mental faculties. Stop and start at will. No hypnotism involved. If she doesn't believe in it, fine. But to mischaracterize it with that bullsheet is annoying.