oldiesman

And if he ever said that participants must tithe otherwise they get booted out, then that would be a rule, a requirement, a policy, to tithe. But as far as I can tell he didn't make that requirement, otherwise we'd know about it by now. Something that specific and mandatory would be well known and crystal clear.

Outofdafog, you're talking apples and oranges. Parents teaching their children to tithe, giving them the tithing money and telling them to, is entirely different than an adult individual requirement to tithe. What choice do they have? The bible says they should obey their parents. They are also exonerated from personal responsibility, since they must obey their parents. What happens if they decline? They can't.

Nobody's forcing you to respond to my posts Wordwolf. What's the point? The point is trying to answer a question Tom asked in his opening remarks. As far as discrediting, I probably get more of that than anyone else here except maybe Mike. It's all part of the game. When folks post, their ideas/opinions may be discredited. And you do plenty of discrediting yourself for you to talk!

Skyrider, if you don't knock it off with the whitewashing rhetoric, I'm going to have to resort to some rhetoric of my own, regarding your posts. Posters should be able to post their opinions on a topic, without the fanciful labelling. I've been guilty of that myself in the past, but more and more, have tried to eliminate these things from what I write, and keep the debate to a higher standard if possible.

I disagree with the extortion accusation, and I absolutely can't imagine in my wildest dreams, Don Wierwille extorting money from folks. Any specific incidents?

Then please share those handful of stories. What happened? Was there ever an edict handed down from the trustees that mandated tithing, else one was asked to leave? If so, when? Is there any documentation available about that requirement? These are some questions of this thread. I'm not whitewashing anything and have no desire to deceive. I'm simply asking questions.

Georgio, Who's gonna tell folks about the Coffee House if you don't go to the mall, or door to door? :) Door to door works. Look at the Jehovahs Witnesses.

Welcome nowgrown.

FOR ME TO POOP ON...HEH HEH HEH

If this statement is what you're referring to, it's hardly an answer, because there was a wide variety of fruit, both good and bad. If you wish to analyze specific situations and say "this situation" or "that situation" wasn't on God' authority, I would likely agree with you depending on the facts.

This is the exact point I was making before. If someone wanted you to tithe and you refused, that was that. There was no requirement. What I would consider a "requirement", would be if one refused, and then ultimately got booted out because of it. Has anyone heard of that ever happening?

How do you know that, and with such authority?

You'd lose. Save your money.

The IRS lost their case and twi proved they were.

Nothing wrong with preaching the gospel ... in fact it's downright noble. If that's a form of pitching Jesus as you may call it, it certainly is sanctioned in the scriptures.

It probably couldn't succeed under the First Amendment, at least. First Amendment: If twi teaches as part of their religious doctrine, that God's hand of protection and blessing is taken away from a person for failure to tithe, then that teaching would be considered a protected form of speech and religion under the First Amendment. Then after that, one would have to prove twi's "intent" to cause harm, a very hard thing to prove.

I will dig them out... I think some were quite good.

I guess it does John. But way back in the '70's we had no reason to disbelieve Wierwille when he said "lots of the stuff I teach is not original", and that he "sought enlightenment from men of God scattered across the continent." He did say those things. We did read those things, before the Information Age. Things easy to understand, that are self explanatory, without all the spin. So simple, that dummies need not err therein.

I'm a dummy and I read this stuff way back in 1973, before the Information Age. The statement "lots of the stuff I teach is not original" is from the Way Living in Love, published 1972. The statement he "sought enlightenment from men of God scattered across the continent" was from some of the collaterals of PFAL. I suppose there are some folks who haven't heard or read this stuff. But I also think there are lots of folks who know exactly what I am talking about, who post here.

I agree, and he made it clear that lots of the stuff he taught was not original. Not only was that in written form in 1972, from a popular book in the twi bookstore, but he said it to folks for years. I guess I should cut some slack for folks who just came aboard in the 1990s.. maybe they didn't read it and know VP. But someone whos been around for 20-30 years? Been in the corps? Also written in the books he "sought enlightenment from men of God scattered across the continent". A person who receives all his stuff from revelation, who researches independently apart from anyone else, doesn't need to do that. He's already enlightened, directly, from God. Nah, I stand by my belief. Maybe if he said "I received all the stuff I teach from my own independent research". But he didn't say that. He did say he researched independently... but then folks read into that statement and assume that means all his stuff was original. It wasn't. He told us it wasn't. But you know what happens when we assume stuff? Still waiting to hear back from John. Dummies need enlightenment.

This may be a good time to break out some of my Way Memorabilia letters from twi leaders regarding questions I had on tithing. :) Before I start re-typing these letters, a question ... Are we allowed to post communications of this nature?

I see what you're saying and it was definitely wrong for twi to teach that God would abandon us if we didn't give money. I was repulsed by those thoughts, and in fact actually proved otherwise when I deliberately stopped tithing to see if I'd get abandoned. I didn't, and still had pleasurable participation in twi.

Really has nothing to do with Piffle. Piffle doesn't set the twi policies, the BOD does. I would like to know, myself. So far, haven't heard they do.

Yes that's right. There was some fear motivation associated with it. Christians Should Be Prosperous even said something like "tithing is the minimum health, accident insurance".... But I learned quickly in twi that God blesses folks with good health and accident prevention, anyway. Bottom line, it was/is up to the individual whether they wanted to tithe in twi, or not. It was not a requirement to participate, except in classes in the later years, as you pointed out.

John, you're an intelligent guy so perhaps you can answer this question from a Dummy: If Dr. Wierwille wanted to portray to us folks that all his teachings were received by revelation, and he researched these concepts on all his own independent from others, why did he say in 1972 "lots of the stuff I teach is not original"?