chockfull

I see. So you can spread an opinion that bolsters TWI and spreads doubt about the facts in a website labeled “cult facts” but anybody questioning your doubt of the facts gets accused of a God complex? Sounds like you have some issues to sort through. I’m not arguing with you about your delusions. Cult facts is a site about cults that contains footnotes, bibliographical info, and links to sources. This stands in direct opposition to TWI who obscure and hide facts about their past to include sexual manipulation and finance manipulation lawsuits. Pick a side or get a sore crotch.

Just trying to confirm the position that you are waffling on. You stated the cult facts website had exaggerated claims. I was just asking what exactly you felt they were. Waffle on. Happy new year

No I was delving into what you understand about AI since you now have it personified and identified wrongfully as the author of the cult facts website. As usual you pontificate off the top of your head then refuse to own anything you say. This is about facts not whether someone agrees with you or not. Its amazing how even facts get twisted up when people are involved in cults.

Happy New Year spotters! I am bumping this thread for all those who may still be stuck in TWI nostalgia bias. Perhaps you like me have seen a recent depiction of the “Jesus Revolution” with all of the social happenings in the 60s and 70s that preceded the Way Ministry and other groups like Calvary Chapel and all of the tales about the groovy Christians of Rye NY or the Life magazine articles or the House of Acts in SF California. Seeing all of that I was reminded of the motivation I had in my youth to seek out grassroots truth in the form of spiritual wisdom from the Bible and Christian fellowship. As I pursued that as a primary goal in life, got married, had kids, and worked out how to live as a Christian man father and husband I ran into direct conflict with the cult I was in, The Way International, and what the Bible taught about Christian life, marriage, family, careers, debt, and many other major categories of life where they were stepping beyond scriptural boundaries and into areas of life in the nunya category. Nunya d@mn bidness. I also witnessed several leadership couples where the Way broke up their marriage, convinced them they had major spiritual problems and forced them back into their training program again. And I witnessed the Way performing libelous acts talking about these people to their congregations and acting well beyond any authority reasonable for a church group. I witnessed any attempt to restore equal balance met by excommunication. So the times I could be swayed by nostalgia and the idea of a large church with many friends (they were fake) I recollect the doctrinal and practical manipulation of these people and others who have published their accounts, and I thank God on my knees that I am no longer subservient to little Napoleons and their Machiavellian imaginations and their evil acts against those in their own house. I thank God for freedom, like the freedom that the concept of the United States of America can bring when people aren’t being political moral midgets, like the freedom that emancipation can bring and has brought to minorities, like the freedom to worship God without any sense of lack of worth that another man or woman tries to introduce. There is a time for nostalgia. I can break out an old vinyl album I replaced and go back to my roots, to a simpler time filled with faith without manipulation, to a time of infinite possibility. But I have zero nostalgia of being under the authority of moral midgets and performing rote roles of service to magnify others and their egos. I will not sacrifice my future and family’s future to run a church for a group too cheap to build one in my house and try and hype a new lie which is the same old lie. God did not speak to Victor Paul Wierwille and give him divine instruction for all mankind that he would teach “the Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century. That is a lie from a book they no longer claim and a lie that is not in the man’s biography written by his spouse. Freedom > Nostalgia

https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/s/pzhpfhyFun Here is a thread that contains accounts of people dying due to the JWs policy of no blood transfusions. They include many accounts of people lying to the JW elders and taking them anyway. Cults get into a strange dynamic of making up restrictions and placing them on others to their detriment. This is putting people in bondage. It causes poverty, slavery and even death. More reasons to avoid cults.

Are you saying you don’t think that 50 of the Ways past leaders coerced people under their authority to have sex outside of marriage? I would disagree. I probably could get to close to that account from stories I have heard where they are in a private enough setting where they are authentic. Not saying I have firsthand knowledge of that many. But internal rumors heard I would place at above that number. It was a real problem in TWI history and leadership. VP and Howard would identify women who experienced sexual assault in their youth and childhood and victimize them and pass them around like a harem. So did many other high level leaders. A very clear reference on this site are accounts of the John Schoenheit adultery paper that was a simple word study that caused a firing and excommunication apparently because VP vehemently disagreed with doing a word study on adultery. I would actually say 50 would be a low number in my estimation.

I don’t know why it would bother you. You said the site has “exaggerated claims”. The site seems to present factual statements backed up by sources. It seems like the word “exaggerated” means you disagree with some of the sites claims and facts. I asked for one example. I get nothing but double talk in response. Let’s go back to “what do you feel is factually inaccurate about the site or is exaggerated exactly?” Or is this just a fleeting commentary which was the first thing that popped into your mind and I shouldn’t take your words seriously or literally?

So your sole reason for believing AI was involved was the amount of work into the website? In your mind what does “the website was built by an AI” mean? Can you walk me thru the steps the human would take to do this? Or to build the website via AI? Where would any inaccuracies come in there? I have modified my view of this that whoever put this stuff up may have used AI or some form of search aid like Bard to collect the source quotes from victims. That is a simple collation from internet sites. The cult pages themselves were done by people. People selected what to put on the title page and how to arrange the quotes and claims using a template. They did this to expose the facts about cults. They did a good job and are factual and thorough. What is your problem with the site exactly?

This sounds like it needs a Grey Poupon reference. Does it bother you that the cult facts group was never involved in TWI (they are unfamiliar with innie jargon) and yet have done a better job collating personal accounts than any other site including your favorites? Does that devalue their work that it is not their personal account?

I enjoy researching various different cults as opposed to focusing on the personal dirt related to the cult from my story. I also share my observations surrounding TWI here on this website under a pseudonym as opposed to having a profession as a published author or having my personal identity as always associated with this particular cult. I started this thread because there was a church doing a study on various cults including TWI which I was in. I personally participated in that series of study and along the way shared many fruitful points of similarity in how cults function to TWI. This thread is my personal experience in cult recovery. As well as a topic for how different cults function similarly.

There are no voting members of TWI outside the directors. The explanation was in terms the general public would understand not an insider. To me the site looks like it was compiled by people who were not on TWI. I am actually walking back my initial observation of AI here. It is definitely a website template that has similar pages per cult. Beyond that I think people were referencing accounts on the internet that are public domain.

Yeah I still read the Bible and pray. I haven’t come across much inspiration in math lately - most of the modern AI is elementary statistical modeling with a huge training set. Praying kind of is a fellowship with God to me. Wisdom is a mixed bag. Most of what I have I gained through pain. I have had a few you could call “divine intervention wisdom” where certain info got to me to change my action course. Mostly I feel it is developed through being aware of yourself and your surroundings - the constructs of emotional intelligence are the beginnings of wisdom. Religious zealots have a remarkable lack of awareness of any self flaws and society so are very low on the wisdom scale of any kind including God rescuing their sorry behinds. Yeah just navigating my own salvation and growth in Christ and it looks a lot different than the construct under cult authority.

“Up to 50 high ranking members coerced others into sex”. I mean if TWI is feeling squirrelly there is a statement of fact that if proven wrong could sustain slander charges. Yet no action at all. Why? Because it is true and truth is a defense to slander. This is similar to GSC. The Way leaders have tried multiple tactics to get this site torn down, kicked off its hosting platform, etc. However we tell the truth here and you can’t shut down truth. So they failed every time. Paw can tell plenty of stories there not sure if they have kept up these attacks recently.

Ok first I am not 100 percent certain AI was involved at all with this site so I don’t know how AI hallucinations might come into play or not. It may be involved as a tool or not. Second the fact that generated items may not be true in < 5 percent of cases does not mean “discount the source if AI was involved”. I’m sure though that TWI leadership finds ANY reason WHATSOEVER to discount external sources. JWs and Mormons do the same. First question is “is this an approved source?” If not they label it an “apostate” source and excommunicate any bringing it up due to superstition. Usually the response to new technologies are call them devilish and warn people away. I am sure that “innies” will not like the “feel” of that site as it ties the current leaders to the past culture which they are so desperately trying to distance themselves from while retaining all the power. This does not discount footnotes, sources, bibliographies as these are proof and factual. Did you find even one example of a footnoted source that was inaccurate or are you just spreading false rumors?

I’m not bothered by any of this discussion. This gets down to what people look to for inspiration. If there is some kind of common code for virtue a society can agree on it helps things flow in a community type of construct. If there is not then you have megalomaniacs setting themselves up as the sole source for virtue. And varying degrees of disagreement based upon the success of the narcissistic message.

Bumping this up again. https://www.cultfacts.com/cults/the-way-international It is just amazing how with every claim they make of cult behavior they footnote it and cite the source. Look at all those (source) links. This is not a manipulation this is real live sources presenting how a cult really functions as opposed to their brain numbing depiction of themselves as Jesus Christs personal representatives of “the truth” as opposed to a false prophets ministry based upon deception and manipulation. The closer you get to the so-called revelation from God about teaching VP “the Word” like it hasn’t been known since the first century the more you see that nobody in the first century was quite that gullible and would not accept VPs lazy research, lying and stealing, or aggrandized homiletics as anything other than a narcissist with opportunities to amass a fortune through aggrandized fictional tales. This mimics the way the Mormon cult amasses riches.

Another cult called “The Twelve Tribes”. They run Yellow Deli restaurants. Here is an expose:

When there’s an older sibling in the Stepford family.

Yes this bullshonta was a lot of what was behind the Nazi patrols with wooden spoons on campuses (and elsewhere in recreated environments) that would ensure the little kids were behaving, in bed not roaming halls, sitting quietly on their blankets, and in complete compliance with all the adult with the spoons wishes. Or they would be beat literally. Communal corporal punishment was the result in the Ways communities and societies. Still exists in many pockets today as that doctrinal error really has never been brought up and corrected. We didn’t raise our kids that way or permit bullies to usurp our parental authority and beat our children.

It was en vogue at the time to get rid of all your “old man music”. Monkey see monkey do for me.

Yeah it didn’t move the GAF meter enough to remember . Thats the one. VP wanted those kids completely compliant so he could HUNT CLOSE to his home for sexual prey.

Yes 100 percent of the people with the condescending Holocaust comments were TWI - when I was in. The comments fit right in line with all the other condescension regarding “rightly dividing the Word” which TWI couldn’t do with a razor blade a right angle and step by step instructions. All straight from the head pilferer who rightly plagiarized the word of truth.

The first one pretty much alienates Catholics the 3rd largest Christian group. The second two label TWI as anti Semitic. So cuts off a large group also. With incidents I have heard plenty about smug condescending arses at Holocost diaplays museums etc. People who can’t STF up from spouting their so called expertise on the topic.

Other book list stuff Starr Dailey - Love Can Open Prison Doors George Mueller - Autobiography, Release the Power of Prayer I liked those and didn’t feel they had tainted root material like others.

I think VPs tactic was to silently incorporate some conspiracy theory garbage into his “advanced class materials” that has anti Semite and neo Nazi type thought lines, and leave it as material the “initiated” knew and had access to. As far as burn basically “Uncle Harry Day” was celebrated as an annual burn chaff day consisting of theological material, old vinyl which everyone regrets now and other artifacts of various things. So an annual purge culture with the different programs “what to bring” lists comprising other forced purges. Definitely has neo Nazi flavor to it.