waysider

Somebody pass me a s'more.

It's not my intent to take this thread off-track or discuss the ins and outs of speaking in tongues. My point is simply this: We were led to believe we were spiritually special, noble if you please. It started with two essential ingredients of the PFAL class, believing and speaking in tongues. Take those two things out of the class and it just becomes another Sunday School lesson...a poor one, at that. But, like it or not, that's the thread that holds the whole PFAL series together. We supposedly had unique knowledge on these subjects that were hard or next to impossible to find anywhere else. Wierwille used that angle to set himself up as an authority figure and instructed a small inner circle of followers how to do the same. Meanwhile, we felt like we had an inside track that other groups only hoped for. We had an elitist, aristocratic attitude. We thought of ourselves as being spiritually noble. Well, we were THE BEST!, after all. Wierwille said so himself. edit: My apologies to chockful. I did a poor job of trying to make my point and didn't mean anything to be taken personally.

Well it was one of those kind of thoughts that runs through your head while you're waiting for the toaster to spit out your pop-tarts.

"wayside I still disagree with this. And you are stating it as fact." It is, indeed, a fact that what we called speaking in tongues (also called glossolalia) is not limited solely to Christians and has been around much longer than Christianity. This "fact" is irrelevant to your experience or mine. How people use it and perceive it is a whole other matter but it's lengthy historical existence is simply a fact, not an opinion.

Despite what the calendar may have indicated, must of us were still "kids" when we became involved with The Way. Current thinking is that mental adulthood is not reached until about 25 years of age. We were like silly-putty, just waiting to be molded.

Even Non-Christians do what we called "speaking in tongues" and have been doing so since long before the days of Christ. It's not unique or mystical. We only thought it was. It was a way to give ourselves unique positioning in the religious world.

"The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers, And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.".....Cream I wonder if people will assign some sort of *spiritual meaning* to this, 2,000 years from now.

"twi's main income has always been its REGULARS- and low pfal tuition paved the way for more regulars." Exactly. It didn't really matter WHAT The Way charged for PLAF (The Wonder Class). The objective was to create a cadre of followers who would vow to relinquish a large portion of their income to the organization, on a long term, regular basis. Anything they made on the class, itself, was icing on the cake.

So, if you paid $100 dollars for the class, did you only get half as "blessed" as the person who paid $200? And what about those poor souls who were only able to get $40 worth of blessing?

The idea of not wanting to redo the original PFAL series is something that always bothered me, greatly, even back in the 1970's, primarily because of the way it was rationalized.. There was a great deal of hype floating around suggesting it was sooooo perfect it could not be improved upon. I didn't buy into that back then and I certainly find it humorous now. Another thing that bothered me was that, despite Wierwille's feigned zeal for Word Over The World!, he was not the least bit interested in making it available to anyone unless it turned him a profit. All that mumbo-jumbo about it being perceived as less valuable if it was free was just that...mumbo-jumbo. Having to pay for the class was simply a way to delude yourself into believing you had made a good choice. If the product had been all it was purported to be, it could have been free and no self delusion would have been needed.

When you take it for granted the water will be there, it's likely to be because it has been there in the past. When you accept it on blind faith the water will be there, you have no evidence that it will be. At least, that's how I see the two differing.

We had something like that in FellowLaborers. I think it would have been about 1977. Middle of the night..We were all copped out...Bringing down the whole "ministry".. Word Over The World wasn't happening and it was our fault..Program was immediately canceled and then on again just a few hours later...Must tow the line completely to continue in the program....blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada...

The flip side of the old age problem is the young age at which people had babies. Thirty seems totally reasonable today but, if years were measured in a different manner (Some fundamentalists have suggested years were really months), it would mean that children of pre-school age were giving birth to their own children.

You have a good point. To say a modern day person could achieve such longevity would be an actual error, based on what we now understand about human physiology. We don't, however, really know all the nuances involved in the Genesis account. So, although the chances of the account being accurate are astronomically remote, we can't say with all certainty it's an actual error.

Well, sure, it was OK for THEM to have insurance. It was paid for with the money we would have spent on our own insurance, had we not given it to them, instead.

Actual error: The incredible ages of persons who lived during that era. The human body is genetically destined to "fizzle out" at about 125 years. (Hayflick Limit) Either it's an actual error or they measured their years differently. Still, any "different" measurement of years would suggest that the younger ages cited would be in error, instead.

They could have learned a thing or two from THESE guys.

As the old saying goes, "We were like mushrooms...They kept us in the dark and fed us horse poop."

Part 1

It should be noted I'm referring to a time frame that is more than 40 years ago.

Disclaimer: I have not read this yet. HERE is the link.

As a concept, lack of insurance was pervasive in the early 1970's. It was a sign that your believing was "weak". Who wants that? As WW pointed out, the reality was that it meant you had more money to give to The Way. At that time, Ohio did not have a "proof of insurance" requirement for vehicle registration so very few of us had car insurance. Most of us were young and didn't give much thought to health insurance.

"Regarding the Genesis writers, I thought basic astronomy was known during that time, much more than worlds of the flat in Columbus days." Not to drive this too far off track but it was known long before the days of Columbus that the Earth was not flat. Hundreds of years before Christ, the Earth was declared spherical and its size was calculated. SOURCE

The seat of learning And the flush of success Relieves a constipated mind

It doesn't change my opinion of you one bit.