waysider

This is pretty much an updated repackaging of the challenge VPW put forth in PFAL, along with sprinklings from a half dozen or so various other teachings. ..."Put away all your secular materials for 3 months." (paraphrased a bit) It's just repackaged PFAL dogma. And that's fine, as long as you're willing to subject it to scrutiny in the doctrinal forum.

This belongs in the doctrinal forum.

Hi, Tom My point wasn't really a reference to intent. Before the internet, a large part of proving someone had stolen your music was being able to show they had been exposed to it at some point. Such is the case with Led Zeppelin using Taurus as a partial framework for Stairway to Heaven. They toured together and shared the same stage. Zep may have even heard Spirit experiment with various paramutations. So, there's the exposure element for you. Same with Eric Carmen. He undoubtably had extensive exposure to Rachmaninoff material. Wierewille clearly had access and exposure to the works he pilfered. They weren't "previously unknown truths" as he led people to believe. This is where intent to deceive enters the picture. Yes, the problem with authenticity of what was once regaled as sacred is certainly a valid area of interest and quite worthy of exploration. I think what we're talking about here, though, is something of a more basic, fundamental nature...Wierwille actively made a deliberate effort to misrepresent his work and conceal that fact in order to facilitate his own, self-centered interests.

There's a guy from Cleveland, Ohio, named Eric Carmen, who had a couple of hits in the 1970's. His family is from a Russian background, his aunt was a violinist for the prestigious Cleveland Orchestra. He started studying classical music even before he entered kindergarten. So, one might surmise he was no stranger to the works of Rachmaninoff. Well, it turns out that All By Myself was partially based on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 in C minor/Opus 18. Never Gonna Fall in Love Again was influenced by the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Symphony #2. It was no coincidence. Carmen had probably been exposed to these works hundreds of times. The problem he encountered is that he thought they were in public domain. In fairness to him, I should note he was, at that point, not much more than a local kid, trying to break out on the music scene, not yet versed in the legalities of the music industry. His error was quickly discovered and he reached a royalty agreement with Rachmaninoff's estate. Wierwille's deliberate deception, on the other hand, took decades to come to light. Some still can't accept the reality of it. It's quite a different and darker issue than the Eric Carmen/Rachmaninoff controversy.

Who knew human reproduction could be so complicated?

I should have been clearer. I didn't think you were accusing me of anything. I'm just saying that to me, personally, the term "stolen" implies deliberate intention. For example, if write a song that unintentionally includes a riff I heard 30 years ago, that's a mistake on my part. If I know the riff is from a 30 year old song and try to slip it in, hoping no one will make the connection, that's stealing. Same result...different motivation. Well, anyway, that's just my opinion. By the way, this was an issue of legal importance before the internet existed because you had to prove accessibility to make a claim valid. If some guy in Germany wrote the same song I did, I would have to prove he somehow had access to my version. Otherwise, it was considered coincidental.

Stolen is too strong a word. It suggests deliberation. Drawing from previous influence might better describe the process. I'm using "lands" metaphorically.

Yeah, sure, nothing is ever completely original. And, that's good fodder for a philosophical discussion. But, when someone knowingly takes the work of someone else and misrepresents it as their own, they've ventured into a land where cold, hard reality trumps the esoteric.

You're misrepresenting, or, perhaps not understanding, the full scope of Wierwille's deception. Wierwille claimed to have taken his voluminous library to the dump and, instead, used the Bible as his sole source of reference. You may find this claim in the PFAL class if you need a source. Furthermore, he claimed God spoke to him in an audible voice and promised to teach him *the word* like it hadn't been known since the first century if he would, in turn, teach it to others. Well, here's the problem. This catalog of unique knowledge that Wierwille presented had, indeed, been known before Wierwille presented it .In academic terms, what Wierwille did was nothing short of plagiarism. He took sentences, paragraphs, chapters and, in some cases, entire books that other people had written and put his own name on them in order to mislead people into thinking they originated with himself. There are threads in the archives here that present exhaustive comparisons. Feel free to ask for directions in finding them. We will gladly assist you. You also posed this thought: Perhaps I have misunderstood your implication here but it appears to me that you are using that length of time to minimize the damage Wierwille caused. Make no mistake, the damage he caused lives on long after his own demise. In fact, this line of reasoning is, in itself, a testament to that reality. Oh, and by the way, welcome to the cafe. Have a cup of coffee on the house. I promise, it's not the *stretched* variety that became the norm at PFAL classes.

Some people may not be aware that The Way was not the original name of the ministry or that the PFAL class was once called Brown 25. HERE is the original promotional clip for the class.

Four out of five doctors recommend real credentials.

Evolving self delusion.

Stretched coffee for all. (While supplies last) P.S. Bring your own styro. cup.

" I apologize to those whose work I mistakenly did not attribute." Translation: I was wrong but it's not my fault.

Summarized version: Nothing and nobody was ever quite good enough to satisfy "leadership".

Although it has promoted itself as such, The Way is not and never was based on a model of life in the first century church. They have cherry picked verses to create a false narrative......."Oh, look, they broke bread together in the first century. We eat together as a group. They met in small groups. We meet in small groups. Therefore, we're like the first century church."....Nonsense. Our objective in FellowLaborers was to study The Book of Acts, live together for two years, patterning our lifestyle after the first century church and then return to our hometowns as leaders who were better qualified to serve our areas. We were to be living examples of what life could be like if we patterned ourselves after the believers in Acts. In reality, we were just a bunch of deluded kids, living a communal lifestyle with a Biblical veneer. That's all it was. Just a pseudo commune. (not the free sex and drug variety, as depicted in popular culture) And, it wasn't truly a communal way of life, either, because all the important decisions were being made at a much higher, authoritative level. The notion that we were part of some valiant effort is pure delusion. You can revive if you want to but it's impossible to restore it because it never really existed (as an example of first century life) in the first place.

HERE

Based on his PERCEPTION of the Marine Corps.

"When you think it's butter Bible but it's not....."

My personal hypothesis is that people are too embarrassed to admit they were duped so, by denying the truth of the matter, they sidestep that problem.

Kinda makes ya wonder why so many people have become staunch defenders of TWI doctrine on the various social media sites.

Have you looked on ebay or similar sites? The audience you're reaching here is quite small in comparison.

AD "27 things you never knew about the Bible. (# 6 will blow your mind!)"

Went out to mow my front yard. Just in the nick of time, I noticed someone's pet pooch "lost" its last meal on my tree lawn. WHEW! Close call. That's kinda how I feel about *Dr.'s* lost teaching. It's best if we see it for the pile of dung it is before we go cluelessly trouncing through it.

Somebody musta hit 'em with a ignant stick.