satori001

Looping with Phil...

When they wanted you to talk, they said "the secret to the Adversary's success is the secrecy of his moves." When they wanted to keep things quiet, they said "don't glorify the Adversary." Idiots.

Always liked Bensusan. Here is a discussion of the tuning.

I think quite a few Way people in Europe became aware of the murders, between the press coverage and the relatively small European TWI community. They were probably warned not to discuss it with anyone, lest they "glorify the Adversary."

If thine eye offend thee, Murine, er, Windex!

Vic's last words reverberate, through a glass eye, darkly. OT, with all due respect, he gets all due respect.

"Anybody else smell sulphur?"

Did The Way condone the commission of murder? That question hasn't been seriously asked, not here, anyway. They need not sink to the level of approving murder to be found guilty of gross negligence, depraved indifference, to the lives of men and women who trusted their leadership as stewards of a Christian ministry. As Radar points out, The Way had little taste for calculating or recognizing risks. Oh, I'm sure they took out proper insurance on the ministry's material assets, but people were cast like bread upon the waters, and whether they sank or swam was attributable only to their own "believing," and not the relative distance from shore or the possibility of sharks, and certainly not the decision that put them in harm's way. Why is there no public memorial to the victims on TWI's grounds? There ought to be. A tribute of some kind, at the very least. But to name Jan H's victims would have led to the questions that might expose them, and they knew that. So they covered it up, like a corpse in a casket. TWI means to keep the scandal hidden, but there's more to it. They truly see the victims as losers, failures, "cop outs." Certainly no glory to God. An embarrassment, really. After all, by TWI's 5th grade theology, it was their believing that allowed them to be murdered. In fact, TWI's official, corporate sympathy probably lies with Jan H, who never would have killed them had his (virtually) nameless and forgotten victims' believing been up to par. Poor Jan H. They tempted him with their unbelief. It wasn't his fault. That's how they think. This would have been under Martindale's watch, would it not? (Nothing was Martindale's fault, either.) Wierwille was in decline, he died in '85. Somewhere around then he was dishing the "POOP" (passing of our patriarch) to the patron saint of toadies for posthumous release - it would be VP's last will and excrement, so to speak.

What would Jan's victims, if they could speak, want us to know? Or would they prefer to be forgotten - just as if they'd never lived at all? Forgotten, as if never loved, as if never having been loved. As if their two lives amounted to nothing. Forgotten, as if nothing achieved, as if no priceless promise gone unfulfilled. Neither even ashes to ashes, nor dust to dust. Just dust. "Dust" that took itself far too seriously for a short while, before being made to remember its place. Dust must be swept away. Is that how they should (not) be remembered? It happened so far away, and so long ago. Agree they never lived, and we won't need to consider what it means to have lived, and then to have been murdered by the ministry-appointed "man of God." So far away, so long ago. It's tiring to remember the dead. "Let the dead bury their dead," aren't we commanded to go and preach? -- Of course, somebody must remember them. Relatives, siblings, their old friends? The ones we would count on too. Not "believers." Believers move on. Friendships, love, family, they endure. If the best you can do is "believe," then you'll be leaving. We can see right through you. If they still survive, the aging parents must carry that grief, as fresh and bitter as the telephone call that gave them the inconceivable truth. (Should they have been spared the truth too, as we were?) -- 24 years ago... "That bible teacher you've been hearing about, from your child, the bible teacher, the same bible teacher has unfortunately slain your child. You know, murdered? (Well, we don't know the whole story, but obviously he was really off the Word that day - old and new testaments. He was not in fellowship. Daddy's cookie jar was closed, and the "trap door" wide open.) But that isn't all. Both victims were born again. (Both, yes, there was another.) So it's okay, not senses-wise but spiritually. They'll be at the bema some day! It's too bad they didn't have more time to earn those rewards, but well... Believing is receiving, that's what they always told me. "One other thing. You know of course the Way International, Inc, USA, as a 501c3 non-profit corporation [?], bears no liability, criminal or civil, in this matter, under all the pertinent laws and statutes. The murderer's association with The Way Ministry was purely coincidental, purely conjecture, and pure fabrication. They've never even heard of him. This is why they'll have some papers for you to sign. "Do you hear that? The attorneys are knocking at the side door. Go answer it. Let them in. Offer them coffee and something to eat, and they will explain how it is. They have an envelope for you, to defray the costs. Take it. You'll need it. All you have to do is sign." -- Sheep will return to eating as soon as they feel they are out of immediate danger. Not far off, one that was too slow, one of them, is ripped limb from limb. They study the grass, it fills their eyes, it fills their stomachs, and they hear only the sounds of their own chewing, their comrade's purchase and sacrifice unappreciated and already forgotten, except, for as long they feed upon him, by wolves.

I think it would make a great skit for our next Branch meeting.

My recollection is that his initials were JH, not CMH. This topic came up on a thread on GS about 7 years ago (or was it Waydale?). He was 11th Corps, but graduated 10th. By reputation and demeanor, a real cold fish, though he must have shown a more approachable side to a few people. If I ever met him I no longer recall. We can imagine how an insecure and conflicted little cult from Ohio, burdened by compulsions of napoleonic magnitude to compensate for a little, bitty... "panacea" (for abundant living), must have reacted. As soon as they realized they couldn't blame anyone more tangible than the devil (a pretty lame excuse, since everybody else can claim same), they clammed up tighter than Vic's hat-band. Any normal Christian ministry, faced with such a tragedy, would be praying publicly, 24/7, for the victims and their families, and probably the perp as well. If TWI's leaders prayed at all, it was that it would stay quiet, and not affect the bottom dwellers' bottom line. So much for the "household." God only knows what else has been hidden in the attic or beneath the floorboards all these years. I invite all former insiders who've since become ex-TWI refugees to spill the beans - here and now - at Greasespot. Confession, not discretion, is good for the soul. Give it up. But start a new thread. Don't derail this one, for Pete's sake. Then again, in light of this defining episode, have we "abandoned the household of God?" It all depends - upon how we define "household." In the present context, you might substitute for "household" the word "asylum." Escape and abandonment are not the same things. And if TWI is or was of God, it might be the time to ask what you really know of God, beyond words on a page.

But for Dotsy, she'd have been his Eva B. Called him every night to hear all about what he'd been a-workin' that day. Hello? Normal?

for a Sunday morning.

in a band setting. Superb!

If you don't know anything about Yngvie, you just may still enjoy this. Malmsteen lesson. And then there's the Petrucci lesson.

Who needs the AMA when you got the MLM? A round for the house, on me!

So Logan is back. I keep waiting for Jack's dad to reveal he has a pet pig. James Cromwell and Rob Lowe's brother add some quality to the acting. Anybody else think Josh is Jack's son? Anybody else waiting for Jack and Marilyn to get together, only to have Audrey rain on that parade? Anybody else thankful that Kim is missing in action? What happened to Logan's wife Martha - shacking up with Pierce? What about Mike Novick? Who cares? Who is the mole at CTU this time around? I thought it was Morris or Milo. What about the Muslim CTU analyst babe? Will suitcase nukes blow up CTU? Will Karen and Bill have a spat? Will Logan demand his old job back? Will Chloe get an attitude? Will Wayne Palmer change his name to Mustafa Falafel and convert to the dark side?

I think he has put forth considerable effort to avoid understanding the root causes of what and why. Any practicing Catholic who thinks is obliged to do so. Nobody says Mark endorses or defends sex with children Abigail. Being Catholic is optional. As long as one stands with the corrupt institution, along with millions of others, he implicitly enables it.

Call them "pervs" or pedophiles. It doesn't matter. And how about Friar O'Malley? He seems to think ephebophilia (raping older children) is considerably healthier (if still unsound doctrinally) than pedophilia (raping younger children). He's entitled to his opinion, which does have a distinctly Catholic ring to it. He seems to be saying "Our perverted - but not mentally ill - priests could be a lot worse, so deal with it." I am ALL for dealing with it. We agree on something, anyway. Now cman, what is DOCTRINE, anyway? From Wikipedia: I don't see where it necessarily has to be written down. Nobody says humping kids is part of the official written doctrine of the RC church. Nobody even says it has the Vatican's official seal of approval, although I suspect (black helicoptor alert- conspiracy theory!) there are plenty of high-fives and butt-pats as the stories are traded around the inner circles. What confounds the civilized world is how they have protected the predators, how they have failed to defend the defenseless. I can accept that there are predators in every walk of life. I can't accept a so-called moral authority that enables those predators. So what about the RC church's UNWRITTEN doctrine? It seems to me Catholic leaders cover for pedophiles AND ephebophiles AND pervs alike. They've shuffled them from parish to parish, like a wolf, from one flock to the next, to cull a lamb here, a lamb there - for DECADES we know about, maybe even centuries. Of course for centuries! We weren't born yesterday. This isn't some new "fad." I don't know what you'd call it, but consistency like their's is "doctrine" in my book, if you can accept that it is a "code of beliefs," a "body of teachings," and especially "instructions." That's not too far a stretch, is it cman? Dealing with all this priestly pederasty had to require some considerable Bishopry. Probably Cardinalry, if not a little Popery too. It affects the church's prestige, its power, and its income. They aren't above any of it. And the Bishops overseeing the cover-ups are surely following "instructions" (a.k.a. "doctrine"). More like "orders." And from whence do these unwritten doctrines flow? From that place where Christ is crucified afresh every second of every hour of every day for a hundred generations since Peter's murder. Ah, tradition. And "beliefs." Beliefs held in common may be considered "doctrine." It's obvious to me the church elders believed they had to cover up all that raping. Punishing the rapist, stopping him, was much lower on the list. Relocating him to the next county was good enough. Hasn't worked out so well, of late. That cat's out of the bag. Now they "believe" they're going bankrupt in some parts of the country. Their accountants believe they might have to melt down a few golden calves, er, whatever, to come up with the shekels to pay off the lawyers. Well damn, that's not fair, O'Malley. Your hard-earned money could be going to some shyster and a bunch of crybabies, instead of a nice new edifice. Nevertheless the church must be defended, from everyone and everything but itself. This has everything to do with "doctrine."

I've never heard of Jack Chick either. Is that how you deal with it O'Malley? The truth, I mean. When you don't like it. Put the label on it. The label as prophylactic, preventing your mind from conceiving its fertile message, and bearing fruit? Hey, in that context it might be a sin. Better add it to this Sunday's mea culpas and see. What did we say in TWI? The memory fades... Something about the Adversary maybe. Or about "world wisdom" which we knew wasn't spiritual, but merely "sense knowledge." The speaker was "tripped out," or "from the pit." The end result was the same - shutting down the dialogue, hanging the "out to lunch" sign in the window until the other person shrugged and went away. That's what cults do. You may have thick skin, but what about your skull? Even moreso, that needs to be exceedingly thick, if it is to block out every self-evident refutation of the world's biggest cult. And so it is. You even brag about it, and rightfully so. There is nothing over-the-top "Jack Chick-ish" about pointing to the obvious. Even the RC church has been debating whether condoms prevent AIDS transmission, although to be deliberating over the obvious in 2006 shows their contempt for human life persists unabated. And why should the church care about those lives? They're only an amalgam of molecules, pushed together like HTML code on the internet. Transigent. Temporary. Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. Although - according to the Post article, they may even be coming around on the AIDS thing, some day. As for contraception-ban-engendered starvation, why would you compel impoverished people to bring children they can't hope to feed into the world? What demented soul conceived of that doctrine? Teaches that doctrine? Enforces that doctrine? Defends that doctrine? Real sickos, that's who. They know what they're doing. We wonder about Vatican opulence, in direct contradiction to everything Christ seemed to stand for, or its army of black-frocked bachelors and burqa-draped bachelorettes over-seeing the spiritual lives of families and children. (Which among today's priesthood would Jesus have chosen as disciples? If any, not many.) The RC church long ago became a carnival, a monstrous parody of the body of Christ. And you as a Christian can see no alternative? Repeat after me, Mark, and this post will go away: "Jack Chick, Jack Chick, Jack Chick, Jack Chick..." Do it enough and you'll never have to think about jack sh...

The topic is: how to go about severing one's connection to the RC church. My posts go to motivation for doing so.

I find it odd, on an ex-cult board, that anyone would think the RC church off limits. What was all that bad press about again? Forgive and forget? Won't happen again, right? Some of you people can't see beyond the nose on your faces. Exactly WHAT do you think (if you do think) is the outcome of a prohibition (utterly un-biblical) of birth-control in say, Africa - besides the wild-fire proliferation of AIDS, and for those little, fly-specked black kids who out-live their AIDS-infected parents (all expendable, amen), endemic poverty, abuse, enslavement, disease, famine, and infant/childhood mortality -- I spelled out the partial list only for those of you who can't think a single thought past your last, involuntary twitch. The depraved indifference of the church to the profound, global-scale of suffering this single policy (among many other bad policies) causes, evokes a staggering vision of human evil to anyone who opens his/her EYES. And the fact that educated American Catholics blithley buy the church line that banning contraception somehow sanctifies the value of life, without question (though many use birth-control personally), may accurately predict they would also sit passively by, and obediently look away while priests rape their children. Other than that, nice folks. Brainwashed by devils, but nice folks mostly. socks is probably right. Pay close attention people, not so much to what is said, but what was left unsaid.

If a Catholic was baptised but never molested, does that mean his/her membership was never consummated by an official organ of the church? In which case, could you just shoot the Pope an email along with a little something via PayPal?

Lisa, I didn't know your dad well enough to be his friend but I liked and admired him. He's been in my thoughts more often these past few days but I wasn't aware until just now that he had already passed. I'm truly sorry for your loss. By the time he really is "long gone," he will still be fondly thought of by anyone who knew him here. I wish you well.

Alizee Apparently she sings, too. Nice to know she has something else to fall back on.