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socks

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  1. Good question, Rottiegrrrl...this will have a lot of "I don't know" in it... "Serpent" is the hebrew word nachash and means shiny, or shiny one. God curses the nachash and says that now more than any animal will it be cursed, denigrated to a low state, on the earth. This seems to fit with this creatures' future on the earth - Satan is referred to as "god of this world" or this age, 2 Cor. 4:4. He is associated with "this age", this period of earth and heaven. Given all that Genesis describes as God's curse and the other ways that Satan is referred to, I think it's wrong that theology gives Satan the role of god or ruler of the earth as in one who is in control of it. The bulk of scripture doesn't paint that picture, really. Rather I see God's description as Satan being kind of the Head Guy of Sin, of disobedience of and willfulness against God. So it's not a title of authority and ownership, but rather a title of function. As if to say, "Sin? Disobey God? That's Satan, he's THE guy on that". He has a title then but no a true claim to God's creation. Influence but not ownership. And Satan is cursed, and the lowest of all earth's creation, animals, etc. and that would in fact - include man if I understand that - and therefore - kind of SOL and no paddle. When I really look at what the Bible says the "Devil" is not one to be feared and whatever he really is - it's mostly a kind of rabbit trick going on. But it's a very weird, twisted kind of trick, that would seem to be so warped by any human standards as to be scarey, for want of a better word, as it's the opposite of what God wants - life, growth, procreation. Thus, the tendency to promote Satan to a higher position, even though God's condemned him to a much lower one. So the presence of a "shiny one", possibly an angelic presence that would have physical brilliance, fits. Not a serpent/snake. What exactly? Cant' say, exactly. What this nachash was doing there, have to come back to, again, some observations on scripture, with some I dunno's - will have to come back to this later. Hope this makes sense, for consideration at least.
  2. My english ain't what it used to be excedra. One of the strangest? Only one of? I'm going for the gold, here. Let's break it down: I'll pray for him, - it's free, hey. and given the opportunity would be happy to talk through our past. - time and place are everything. I'm probably not going to expend a lot of effort. But happy to, sure. He's the sorriest excuse for a person I can remember. - memory's fading so take it with a grain of salt, but surely he did not fare well. But I won't chase him down or harass him. - This is the vague part. Let me clarify - I won't chase him down or harass. Him. Geer threatened people physically over the years, got puffed up like a drunk bumblebee in his three piece suit and liked to bad foot people. Get in their face. Like the heresay quoted here by someone about busting anyone's head who'd mess with his car. I don't like people messing with my car either but if you shoot off be ready to put up - that's just the way it is. I doubt anyone faced off with Geer, ever and just said fine. Throw down. He got off easy because most people either respected him as a "man of God" and tried to excuse his insanity or gave him the benefit of being a "son of God" so let him off the hook for being a dillweed, or were just plain scared of him because he was such a freak and let him get away with whatever he wanted. My point - we're adults now. Whether Christian adults or whatever your brand - most of us aren't going to bust his head for being such a damaged human being who only know how to do more.
  3. I agree completely - follow the $, it's always very consistent in how it trends. Cross pollination is basic marketing. You scratch me, I'll scratch you, we'll both make money in the process.The strategy is to leverage shared membership roles in order to (fill in the blank), grow, increase sales, validate, etc. Cross sell, up sell. Marketing 101. The Way had a way of turning people into goobers if they weren't careful. "Wise" but extremely trusting, especially when the cross sell techniques were needed more by one side (us/me/The Way, CES/Lynn's foot Burgers) than the other. The most needy side is always at a disadvantage Always. VPW maneuvered around that reality as well as any but at some point the laws of nature do prevail without intervention and adjustment and the Way never got that "spiritual" advantage over the long haul, or long enough to do a lot of good, IMO. The Way Nash always needed financing. It had the books balance for a few years in the early stages, with brother HEW's assistance and short term bank loans (which VPW always prided himself for paying back and not loading down the books with debt).....and that was good. But the strategy of the Way - "WOW" - didn't need campuses to successfully execute and in the mind of this writer the rush to expand locations - Emporia, Rome City, Colorado, Tinny - Weighted the Way down to an insurmountable level that was a contributing factor to it's ultimate failure - on it's strategy. As all sound business acumen dictates, where profit is the desired outcome - growth has to be capitalized, funded, reserves have to be allowed for. Not all new business is good business and growing too fast isn't good if you can't manage overhead, everyone knows that. Jesus did. His "model" was scalable. The Way's wasn't if it required campuses, locations, support systems, etc. etc. The ROA - we were staring down the pipe by 1980, and knew it, there's only so much room. Find one person who can give you the projected plan, on paper with major requirements penned in and a timeline - and I'll buy your next cup o' free coffee. The Way's success was based on expansion of the Word via "PFAL" completions. X number of graduates = success. There wasn't complete agreement on what that number was but the process was agreed on - each one win one and eventually achieve span out, layering growth on top of growth. "WOW" was figured out on paper, more than once. It wasn't an entirely ambiguous goal, nor how it would be managed and maintained ("twigs", etc. etc. etc. etc.) The Way is still there but hardly acting on any kind of vision with vigor and drive. It's gone kaput. It likely would have for a variety of other reasons too but this would have done it, no matter what else happened. They would eventually have to re tool their strategy and sell - which they finally did but from a losing position. Instead of making money or profit of any kind they just unloaded properties when they had to. Never a good strategy but you do what you have to do. I know there's all kind of spiritual reasons why the Way would have turned into a turnip field eventually but I consider history and trending as the start of interpreting data, and this is what I see.
  4. Well, it's like I told my wife years ago - I didn't leave the Way before they had a chance to be really mean to me. I left the Way before I had the chance to be really mean to them. Everyone's better off keeping their distance. We're not kids anymore. Paul Allen ripped Craig a new one. Never saw that coming. The Great One brought down to humbler station. There's people who would have beaten the pus out of Martindale given the chance. Allen gave him a gift, really. They don't want that kind of trouble and neither does Geer. I'll pray for him, and given the opportunity would be happy to talk through our past. He's the sorriest excuse for a person I can remember. But I won't chase him down or harrass him.
  5. POP Greeting Cards - "for when just saying you suck wont' do". I think the condolences cards would be a big seller as times of illness and death are when Geer heads will really want to stick it to people, when they're the most vulnerable and in need of support. "Sorry for your loss....too bad, they'd be alive if it wasn't for your believing! " "To everything there is a season - except for your apathetic disbelief of God's wonderful matchless prevailing Word, you do that all the time and so people die like this!" "I was going to send a donation to their favorite charity......then I remembered God would want the money to go to a ministry that was really doing great work in His Word. So I kept it. Get better quick. Or whatever the problem is, believe for it to go away. Or if they're dead just move on. Soon. You're welcome"...........
  6. Heard that Rejoice. Yes! I remember that ham, hearing about the duplicators someone, some people, got. Nuts. Y'know, we never know more than what we know, no matter what we think we know. The future has a way of calibrating everything, it's The Ultimate Validator, more than the past, because we can re write that to be anything, the second it's over. But the Future - that's the rubber hitting road. If there's rubber and a road to hit - like the tapes and tape dupers....who would have known we could put the entire Way library into a thing smaller than a box of Kleenex? Or imagined what the proecesses would be to do that? We had Geer's paper read to us at Corps week, that summer, if memory serves - right? The entire eye glazing, drool inspiring thing, word for freaking word. You did that, you didn't do that, you never really loved me, you never really believed, you, you you you. It was like being at a Women's Rights for Sheep NOW! festival. I was glad to be a smoker then, as it gave me that moment to get up, kind of nod this way and that and work my way out of that hay baled sweltering humidified box of canvas tenting and get out to the muggy August air and share some healthy tobacco exhalant. Now I think the POP paper is in all kinds of media......POP paper plates and picnic plastic ware, all branded "POP" with useful quotes engraved in......POP Goes The Pool! hoop toss games for summer swimming fun...... How about POP greeting cards with messages like: "So sorry you're not feeling well....GET BETTER SOON YOU UNBELIEVING DAIMON HOTEL". "Happy Birthday! Another year to fail your Father in the Word! God bless!!" "My condolences on your recent loss....NOT REALLY, IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT!!" "CONGRATULATIONS! I guess you finally decided to listen to me! You owe me $$$, stop stealing from God you thief!!!" Sorry, this isnt' exactly epistle material, raf.
  7. Excanesta, the way I remember it is thus. Ly: Early 1986, maybe around Jan - Feb - I got a call from someone at the Way Nash, then my wife got a call, and the people were asking if and what we knew about a "book", a "paper" written by Geer. They described it as a "tell all" thing, named names, was the posthumous remarks, comments, last months of and recorded legacy of VPW, written by Geer. It had been read to the Way Corps at the Way Nash that week by Craig who had gone ballistic, literally. He was talking about how messed up everything and everyone was - they told me that he had made the statement that if it was "this bad" it was "MALPAK" time, time to hit the road and get out. It sounded a little over the edge, to us. I/we knew nothing about such a paper/book, that was the first we'd heard about it or anything like it. Assorted tapes were bootlegged out for a few months after that, as the Way's Region and Limb bosses and assorted management types were called in and met with, and the blubbering was well under way by that year's Corps week and ROA, as you may remember. I remember it somewhat - clearly - because I could understand what was happening at the Way Nash, having lived there. We spoke to people that next few months and it sounded like a hayride in a hell - paranoia, fear, constant diatribes against this person or that, every week a new person vilified for anything imaginable, then someone else lauded to the heavens for their great Stand On The Word. And nobody knew that the f they were really talking about - nothing had changed, really - the only thing that changed was how we thought. Everything done up to that point was done. Once anyone got squared up with that simple reality the future was and is the only thing left to consider. It was kindergarten Kristianity, and very difficult to get a grip on what was happening there and throughout the country as everyone suddenly - it was like the cap blew off a bottle of soda that had been shaken up for years and now WHOOOOOOSH!!!!!! and there was no going back in the bottle. I had a copy of the POP papier sent to me, a copy of a copy of a clandeestinely smuggled scratched out copy of some notes from the tapes - which reminds me that there were people suddenly buying pallets - I was told this but don't know if it's true - but pallets of cassette tapes so they could start copying everything they could get their hands on, and they were doing exactly that. It was like a war zone and Memorex was the infantry weapon on the ground. But once I got my eyes on the actual information it seemed a little....thin....and more than a little....self serving. Sure it was meaningful to the time and the people, all of us. But it wasn't worth losing much sleep over. VPW had been sick for years before he died. In fact, the overall time of the Way under his acting leadership was relatively short, from the formal filming of PFAL in 1967 to his death in 1985. In fact it could be argued he really only put in about 12 - 13 really active years as President of the Way before he was hampered by illness. Sure, the Way times their history back decades before that but "The Way" we came in contact with, the guy in the skinny black suit wiping his schnozz and saying "Dot's RIGHT!" every 5 minutes really memorialized in 1967 - and then quickly became outdated within about 2 years. He was reinventing himself very quickly, then. You know I don't write off all of my years and work I did with others, what I learned and the wonderful people I met like yourself. But I lost my rose colored glasses long ago. It burns some people that I'm so blunt about it while valuing the Word of God and the relationships I gained. But I do, to me there's no conflict left, "it is what it is" and was, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I only have one thing left now, and that's more than enough for me.
  8. Augustine and Calvin, and Darby who was a proponent of Calv(ism) more or less, mostly more I guess. Pre destination is a theo logical conclusion, an expository of God's sovereignty. It's not really scriptural unless you take a kind of flat earth approach to what the Bible declares God to be, and how God speaks of Himself. It resists the idea that God could have a "divine plan" or intent that would span all time and allow for a creation that has "free will" or what I prefer to term "free choice". I don't believe God's sovereignty is threatened or diminished by His creation, mankind in our case, having the capacity to choose between one or more options. Genesis certainly speaks to that, if I take it on face value not in a literal sense but as a conceptualization of how man and God interact. Man has choices. That's by design, clearly. Since pre destination is all forward thinking - it assumes a future that is decided by God - one only has to view the fact that the future always has a past to realize that God can't have decided something like how a person will choose. Calvin held forth that a person was destined by God to believe or not to believe, to be saved or not, to go to "hell" or to go to "heaven". Nothing that man does has anything to do with that outcome. It sounds possible and in line with how God describes Himself in Old Testament writings but - BIG but - the future is always "pre destined" when it finally happens. When it occurs it could be assumed that any action taken to change it in the past would still produce the events that actually happened - a loop, in effect that will always fulfill itself. That reality may or may not be "controlled" by God but it doesn't mean that God actually causes any one thing to happen, like someone believing in Jesus Christ as the son of God. Once a person does it can't be changed that they did because they - did. To do so would create alternate timelines, supposedly, and if that occurs we don't know it and never will because we're in "this" one. So it doesn't matter, practically speaking. The fact that we choose and make choices, by all measurable understanding, is enough to indicate that God - WANTS - us to make the correct choice and not the wrong one. SO - God's sovereignty is actually magnified, in my opinion, by man's "free will".
  9. socks

    question

    Falepooplemia. Falepooplemia hasn't added any friends yet.
  10. I never met a button that could carry on a decent conversation, but I haven't met all buttons yet so I reserve judgment. :biglaugh:/>
  11. "Marketing", as seen in the Myers, Hinn, Copeland, Osteen and Weirwille ministries is a destructive process working against legitimate authentic Christian experience. You're intelligent people, you don't need me to tell you what marketing as a process is. To the concepts of faith and relationships it's unnecessary. It's talking about what you want to talk about and how good it will be to talk about it when you do talk about it. and how good it will be for you. Real authentic human spiritual experience doesn't have time or need for that. Talk, just have the experience and the relationship. Marketing typically allows for people to tell you what you're supposed to experience and value, and what they want you to experience and value. That's fine but it's bull shi t when it comes to life. No one had to market Christianity to me, when I experienced real new birth and miracles that happened in the context of the name of Jesus Christ and the teaching of His love and power. When and as that occurred I got the message, loud and clear. Weirwille was on the cusp of that with PFAL. Endlessly selling the PFAL class as an event that taught the Word was unnecessary and pretty much ended up stomping out the real life of the living power of the Word. People had teaching events filled with bible teaching and some mad scrabble at the end to speak in tongues. If that's all it was it's fine but it's not enough. There has to be something real that occurs during that, something that God markets, not people. That's illustrated by the many people trying to "get back" to what they think they had (Jo Jo). There's no .....getting back to or just enough that's good enough....that does any good. If you didn't get it the first time or think you did and have lost it, fuk it. Start fresh, know the love you want to live now, not as a memory - now. People need the real thing. Then they don't give a crap what anyone thinks or does. Even the "man born blind" didn't give a rats foot about the who/what/where and when of his healing. It was simple - I was blind, I can see, that Guy did it. If you don't like it, or want to talk about it, fine. I'm going to go look at stuff for the first time, it's cool.
  12. I would agree with that Human - I think that's a very simple non-voodoo understanding of what it means to "exist".... In the way described earlier - my own son "existed" in my mind before he was born, my "Intents" were clearly to have a son, him. He then had a beginning, a birth, where that intention came into being. "Logos" - John 1 describes Jesus correctly then, as the logos of God. We know Jesus was born, we know Jesus died. The significance of Jesus, the Christ is that He DID have a beginning and end, and a resurrection that was completely outside the planning or forethought of mankind. His "ascension" is to a place at the right hand of God - one that He then assumed. God's intentions are now known. Another aspect to the existence is our side of it - there is no existence for us, no being or "am" - until we are born and then gain awareness. I suppose one could argue that we exist in some former state in the big never never land of wherever - but if we do, we don't know it. Not cognitively the way we learn to know our own existence, when we do. I actually think that is the one single most vital aspect to an understanding of who God "is", who we are and who Jesus Christ "is". We all share life together but each of us is a single, non repeatable instance of life, there is only one of us that knows that we are "us"....Again, we can postulate a lot of what ifs and maybe's but practically speaking the only verifiable life that we have is this one, and when it's over, all other considerations aside, that collection of memories dies with us. We accumulate a completely unique set of experiences and memories. God too appears to clearly declare Himself through the Bible in the same way - we understand God as a "1", we pray to "a" God that is a Father. Each child can only have one father. I can't pretend to understand the conciousness of God and won't pretend to through conclusions but - I do think it's clear that a God that exists for "eternity" - forever, if no beginning and no forseeable end - the state of awareness that we call "memory" and remembering, or knowing....is something I can't even begin to grasp or understand. But I can say that then for there to be a memory that is singular there must be an accumulation of experience this is also singular. If God made "us" after "His" image............that may be why we are individual and not collections of consciousness. We are "like" God in the most basic fundamental way.
  13. All men are liars (and this is to Allan and anyone else reading this) Some are just better at it or have more opportunity to excel than others. One of the most dammed difficult things for humans to do is just be truthful and factually honest, even within a reasonable effort. Avoidance and aversion alone count for a major part of the kinds of obfuscation that is prominent in the Way. That doesn't even account for all the reinvention and re purposing they do. Wayfers tied to the hip of the Way Nash get toxic over time but a lot of that is - IMO - how the individual thinks and what they need. For all the disgust expressed over the years for "nametag" thinking, a lot of it still goes on. I don't place any great amount of negative value to that however, it's an indication of man's tendencies. Put another way, once humans get fed, have decent digestion, effective and comfortable respiration and aren't being threatened by something else that wants to kill or eat them - we start looking around for other things to do. Our choices reveal everything. />
  14. Before Abraham came into existence, I exist There just isn't another way to read it in the immediate context... Unlike my trinitarian colleagues I don't think this statement proclaims him being God.. I think the only thing you can grasp from this is that Jesus thought he existed before Abraham... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Exist" isn't really that different all from "am" - I am, I exist. They both basically mean the same thing. Abraham was a man who existed at a point of time. Jesus didn't every exist prior to Abraham, in that way. I would say that we all need to agree on that first - Jesus didn't not say that He existed as a man before Abraham. Jesus was born, the man Jesus had a beginning. If I believe in a multi-personality deity that is still a true statement. If we can accept that as a true statement - that the man Jesus was born and did not exist before Abraham, but He did say that He did in fact - "exist" - Then we need to understand what that existence was. I know there's a format to this discussion but I would add right up front I am not a trinitarian by any stripe. I don't see that Jesus Christ spoke as one who understood Himself to be "God", it's not a natural assumption if I simply read the gospels. And historically I see that the theological premise(s) that began to develop that perception of Jesus as God took time and led to it as a conclusion but not one that was strongly driven by scripture itself, rather it's an intellectual exercise and conclusion.
  15. Move to California Galen. You need to get out more. The Way has some of your "Joe Believers" here that were the most judgmental, off-scripture, and vindictive dikheads you could hope to meet. Not all of course, but plenty to go around if you need some. Differentiating between your JB's and Corps and all of that is off base from any biblical standpoint, anyway. I doubt - I really don't believe - that God has special sections for Roman Catholics or Wayfers or Galenites or any recognition of the sects, societies and other lines of demarcation that we hold to be so valuable. If you're an a hole, you're an a hole. Humans populate and gather as they're inspired. The "blame game" only works on our levels of perception. Take it back to zero and you have a person making decisions about what they want to do or not do. That's what God sees, if I go by what the Bible says. But like I said, your haven of heavenly local JB's is probably as rife with hypocrisy and lies as any group of people, on average. They're either just not motivated enough to take it to the next level or they haven't had a chance yet. Something else that doesn't get a lot of air time here is the simple fact that if a person doesn't like what a group is doing, and no one's breaking the law and is assembling on their own then those who want to should and those that don't shouldn't. If you don't like what that group is doing, want to change it and they don't want to change it then go somewhere else. Over the years I saw a lot of people that got "kicked out" where the group was better off for their going than if they'd stayed. Not saying you are or were one of them but I'm just being honest. Not everyone that gets kicked out of the Way is a good person or does good things and is just being treated badly or wrongly. .
  16. They pay for when the Corps members move? Really?
  17. Rings and Popes, not my area. Can't comment on that. Walter, as far as that goes, I can't say more than what I said. What people really know/knew or whatever, I can't say. I just didn't get the impression he knew about any of that stuff. Maybe he did, maybe he'd say different today. I don't know. This discussion is very academic to me, a matter of very distant past events that are important to those who were affected but not of much importance today unless, I don't know, someone's still affected and is trying to resolve the stuff. I advise a person to resolve it for themselves to the end they're satisfied at whatever levels they need to be and then on with life hopefully smarter. That's why I don't have any problem discussing it for all it's ugly side - I have a very good time discussing the beautiful side, too. I am both, in my own ways. It is what it is and to deny it would cause the sort of cognitive dissonance that occurs when you know a thing to be true but deny it, for whatever reasons. I find it's popular in our modern culture to re label everything to softer language that removes direct responsibility. All sin, all do wrong, all do right, all can aspire to do good, all can be the worst bastards imaginable. That's the human condition. We need to get used to it to survive and live in ways that will reflect and support the conditions we want to see. Live the love we want to have. If we can't do it ourselves it's dumb to expect others to. Who knew what, when and why and how? Who cares, at this point. No one did a dammed thing that made a difference in the end or we wouldn't be talking about it now, about whatever they knew or didn't know about anything. People that were hiding this stuff from others did, people that lied, did and those who were lied to believed it and etc etc etc. People lie, people do good and bad. I say, accept that. Embrace the horror. But don't become it. To reiterate, I don't care who or what disagrees or agrees. Delete this post immediately if you don't like it and you can. I'll manage okay without it, trust me. You all do the same. />
  18. Thanks. I do think that I learned something through all of that though that's held me in good stead over the years as the evangelical movement has picked up steam. Namely, the endless sifting and tossing of the bible's content can lead people into a kind of insanity where they don't see the obvious and the most basic things clearly. Simple things become complex, by virtue of the thought processes they apply. On the one hand they preach how simple the Word is and how "easily entreated" it can be. Yet when you get down to cases there's NOTHING simple or easy about it. Your world's turned up side down with every transaction of life. Even simple involvement in normal day to day matters becomes icky sticky messy affairs of trying to re label everything and put a new happy-god face on it. Sure - it's ego. You say something's "good" and they say oh, my - you mean "best" don't you? No, I mean good dip, and if that's too complicated for you please don't use the bathroom stalls when I'm in there because you're probably not going to be able to use the toilet paper without getting into trouble and that's not trouble I want to be a part of. The adultery stuff is like that - diversion, avoidance, obfuscation and redirection while applying the most unctuous coercion this side of an enema. If a person doesn't know what adultery means, it's not hard to find out. There's little disagreement on it. Jesus clarified God's thoughts and intents on the matter. It's only complicated to someone who....has something to hide from God. Lie to God, fine but your prayer life will start sucking sand. Thus - the domino effect, etc. etc. The Way: Lying liars that lie to cover up the lies others they're lying about told when they were able to lie.
  19. the Adultery page of Shaneheights: John's paper was a simple statement that bore no malice or controversy on face value. I can only speak from my own conversations with Walter Cummins at that time, and the author. Walter didn't have any significant issue with the paper's content. As noted here, any idiot who's read the Bible even a little would recognize it wasn't new science or theology. The Way had teaching on adultery that pointed a lot of the references to a larger context of "spiritual adultery", or "cheating on God" in todays parlance. I never understood that to negate anything to do with the actual topic of marriage vows, "cheating" on one's spouse or any related matters. Neither did Walter, as one of the architects of much of the Corps teaching curriculum and presentations over the years. He sounded pretty clear on the topic to me anyway, meaning the other stuff didn't cloud his understanding of what adultery was in a marriage between two people, etc. He told me he felt that while it was a very important issue, and he wasn't aware - his word - of the accusations and all their histories. Keep in mind that while there was substance that also a lot of smoke was being blown up butts by John L y n N who was - in my opinion - trying to divert attention from his own proclivities and accountability and focus on VP and others. It was amazing to me - and I spoke to him right before he was "fired" and after - that he excused his own actions so easily as those of a man now changed - but hammered on VP, Don and Howard so hard. Not that that they didn't need confrontation but rather that he did a good job of separating himself from them. Many people had no idea then or even now of the trail Lynn left behind, he covered it all up pretty quick. But JALS's just one example of the chaos that some people created to accommodate - in my opinion - their own ends. To Walter however the 'adultery paper" wasn't the critical one to divide or join together around. It needed to be handled, yes but he supported the moratorium Geer had recommended on "new" research. Now - of course this wasn't new anything, let alone "research" - it was a practical matter, not a doctrinal issue. And to me that was where the BS piled up. How and when and what to do next, to proceed, to come together to begin to get things worked on, discussed, fixed, agreed on, etc. etc. etc. There was a LOT of chaotic communication between all sides and parties at that time, and a lot of hot headed people venting and posturing about many different things. Some of it was honest and usable and some wasn't. Schoenheit was a nice enough guy at that time but was kind of a goober when it came to normal day to day practical matters, or seemed so to me, he was kind of in a head space that I didn't understand. But th much maligned "Adultery Paper" was none of that, and actually could have been a catalyst for some good. The song coming out of the Way Nash was to hmmmmmmmmm.....pray, and then read the Bible and then pray some more and then pray again so you could be sure you'd prayed. Then take PFAL again for the 1,000th time because that will help you to focus when you pray again which would be soon. And then pray some more. Once you realized that the gang back there had no means of supporting a restructuring efffort, healing effort or even just a sit down and talk about it effort - it didn't really matter. In fact if you were praying for answers the answer for many of us was get the f-k as far away from those mooks as possible before they blow up - which they did soon enough, but not like a lot of people expected.
  20. There's a lot of good information there chockful - I have to say I'm not onboard with that as a means of identifying general broad "cults"- but I think it's good to have those kinds of things in mind as we make decisions. Here's why - if we're talking about "a" cult, and characteristics of "a" cult - I don't view Christian faith(s) as a whole from an "insiders' " viewpoint, largely because so many sects and groups, from the Roman Catholics to Wayfers, have criteria to exclude and include. There's marginalization across the board, everyone seems to do it, it's inherent to certain ideas. It's particularly in high profile for ex Wayfer groups - for me - because that's an area I'm familiar with. They can be highly exclusionary and prone to all sorts of in bred thinking. OR NOT - some aren't, by the standards I would apply. On the flip side of the coin, I have relationships with many people who aren't "Christian" at all and who see the whole thing=s as a big nest of viperous cults infested with lots of good hearted but deluded people who aren't reasonable if push comes to shove because their values aren't rooted in a humanity that will work on basic levels, like really respecting life, things like that. Non "believers" see Christianity as a cult from the get go - the cult of Jesus followers, or God followers, etc. Inevitably it transfers from the Invisible Icon to a human agency - voila - cult wit yer Jesus Dudes. I often don't feel any kinship to some churches and denominations, because there's no common ground - there is, really - but people are so prone to denigrate and devalue it and to that exclusionary mentality even when there's agreement and consistency in doctrine, concepts, values, etc. it's like they don't want to be recognized as breathing the same air as these other people. It's a mixed bag. As far as the Way Nash goes it's as much a "cult " as the 100's of other sects, societies, ministries, churches and organizations they rebuke themselves, sure. The behaviors and actions are what's important. One person calls it one thing, another something else. You (euphemistically applied) can call them anything that fits this year. "Cult" is so over used a loaded term - I don't use it a lot except to deliberately get someones' attention. The Way is like other churches though - that jerk that has the whole "man thing" going, manly men taking their rightful manly places to make the world right - don't remember his name. Or the RC religious orders and authority structure. The Pope, all of that. To me it's all like politics - lesser of two evils, gets you evil. I prefer to separate the people from the cult. I don't have anyone that's imposing it on me or that I need to impress or needle about it. I'm mostly concerned about those nefarious Girl Scouts and their "cookies".....
  21. socks

    Ciao Pope!

    The film Deliverance is loaded with TONS of great lines, cinematography, music, etc. etc. The actors. The Screenplay got a Golden Globe award. The script itself musta been a doozey. That line "Let's just see...." is when they're dredging and scouring the area down river of where the guys say they're canoe went down and Sheriff Bullard recommends patience to see what they come up with. If all happened as they say, they should find evidence of it. Maybe. Hard to say. In that Top 10 Great Scenes for me is at the end when Jon Voights in the car getting ready to drive away and the Sheriff comes over to him and says he's got questions still about why they had 4 life jackets if there were only 3 of them then and why Drew wasn't wearing his life jacket and there's a long pause and Jon Voight answers emphatically but calmly - "I - don't - know". And they stare at each other for a moment and Sheriff says "Don't never do something like this again. Don't come back up here....." let's let this town die in peace, something to that effect. The RC knows how to stare you down and they can say they don't know as long as it'll work. At some point I would think the the Legal system will have to say yeah, we get that, so we're going to help y'all out a little since you can't figure it out yourself. Now have some of the corn and relax, it's real special isn't it? /> (insert banjo music in the distance...)
  22. Sin, what is it - yeah, that's an open question. newlife's thread starter and all this got me to thinking - It's a thought provoking thing. I don't view "sin" either from the bible or anywhere else as I did back in the Way day. I don't think we understood anything about it, at all, other than the usual information that any reader of the bible will gather. How accountable and responsible a child is (or let's say we allow it to be) reveals a differentiator I think, it's just a way of seeing - to measure performance against a standard understanding is required to establish any degree of accountability to be responsible to perform that standard. (If I don't know what the standard is or why it is, I can't really be held responsible to aspire to it. Or can I and do I whether I like it or not and if so - when and how? It reveals that an action alone is not enough to establish a single standard of accountability or responsibility and impose it artificially by fiat, commandment, etc. and I think it starts to flesh out an understanding of right and wrong and "sin" contrasted to "righteousness". If I apply that to reality it doesn't always work though - f'instance a child may not know it shouldn't crawl across the street but it might anyway and in so doing come to harm. The harm caused by say, a car hitting it isn't because of it's understanding, intentions, purposes - it's caused by being in a place where a car could hit it. So wrong and right are easier to understand. No matter who you are, and what you understand, if you're in the street a car can hit you. And more so if, etc. etc. There's no "innocence" as we might call it, no ambiguity. Because? Not because crawling across the street is wrong or that there's anything untoward or unreasonable or remotely "bad" about crawling across a road if you're a baby or for that matter if you're an adult. (Chickens are on their own however and may be at risk).:biglaugh:/>/>/> Put another way there's no morality attached to it when viewed independent. No ethical considerations. Back to "sin" - I think - "think" - that religion tends towards viewing sin as the same kind of thing - where - God decrees "do not crawl across the street", and establishes it as wrong and bad independently of anything else, any cause or effect or understandable logic imposed that He reveals to us - it is wrong then because God says it's wrong and no other reason. I'm not sold on that, not because of my own preference but because I don't see that 1. in the bible, ot 2. in life. YES God's ways are higher than our ways and YES we may not understand HIS decrees BUT I would expect that if God is to hold us accountable and responsible for (a thing) AND IF we are like a child who can be hurt regardless of whether we can be accountable or not - THEN.... I'm not ready to wash it all out with "God will cover it and won't let anything too bad happen to us" or such reasoning because history is RIFE, filled with examples of perfectly good and reasonable people being ravaged and ruined, regardless of even the best effort. In fact if mankind is "in" sin out of the gate at this point - then Romans and the ideas presented on mankind (gentiles) have a moral sense that allows perception of good to the extent that they can seek, believe, learn and do the things mankind is encouraged to do and that would provide an inner urge to come to God is very important. Rather than lost and without hope, mankind is lost and without hope - and KNOWS IT, in it's heart and has a cognitive sense to respond to God's goodness. (Or we're all Calvin - ized and not jumping quite as joyously as my li'l converted guy because we don't know if we're a sheep or a goat but we have our fingers crossed which probably means we're SOL right there but we can hope, even though it won't matter either way what we do so - etc. etc. etc. ). One other point - my overall approach to biblical stuff isn't to attempt to work from a need to harmonize or align "it" all with itself. I prefer to let it stand as best I understand it, as - is, and work to understand the whole of the parts whether they seem to make sense or not. I feel that gives a person the best shot at understanding what God might actually be trying to say, especially in areas where I am not an expert already. Which is like, most of it.
  23. Wanted to add - a child would be surprised that they are in "sin" and disconnected or not aligned w/God and that there is a level of dissatisfaction in the relationship. I think this says something about what "sin" is, and to spec's points. A two year old simply would not know that - and we know about the "terrible two's".... A baby doesn't do anything yet. And a toddler is learning. A 3 year old will do something "bad" or wrong and not be treated like an adult who might do the same thing. Reasons are pretty obvious. I suppose if I were to ask a child with an adult mind if they knew they were in "sin" and separated from their Creator, they might be surprised. Really? How'd that happen? Oh - hmmm. Okay. How can we fix that then, I had no idea.... If I were an adult with a child's mind and was told the same things I would probably respond the same way. The adult mind racks up experience - memories and compiles a "life" that is remembered, experienced and anticipated, all based on the collective things learned to that point. It sounds "wrong" to condemn a child that has no idea of what's wrong yet and wrong to condemn a child that when they then struggle to learn and understand. We can see that's wrong, we accept a different set of standards by which to judge - over a lifetime. Things may be done but they are handled in a certain way - and our "justice" and legal system in say, America, tries to declare and deal with that kind of thing, for better or worse. A time will come however when society will say - you knew better, you've been told, etc. Yet - and this is significant - Jesus expounded a more intimate level to understanding "sin", (which was always there in the Torah, moral commandments) that to think and want a thing can be as wrong as doing it. So one might say that "sin" is deeper rooted than simply learning, knowing and doing/not doing something. If God is our Father and we His children there could be similarities to how God is with His creation, and why that metaphor is chosen, especially if it's less figurative and more factually true. Anyhoo - just some thoughts I go through on this topic.
  24. Thank you! newlife's question brings up so many things....and you have quite a bit to chew on there too. The nature of "sin" - that word, what is it, what does it actually mean? What is sin and more importantly - why is it, that thing or that state? I come back to this idea of relationship and "fellowship", a sharing of life. I took it all back to some basic realities - that we are single unique instances of consciousness - I am me, I know I'm not you or someone else and for the most part I can start by stating that a healthy human instance of life will always know that and accept it, more and more as it grows in understanding that. While I may learn over time that I'm a "part" of other things, of everything else, that has definition - I am not a part of everything or anything else to the extent that it reduces my own awareness of self. So I could say, I'm connected through relationships and processes, each one of us with each other and with everything else we are aware of. To me this single reality is never excepted or superceded by anything else, ever, while we are alive and aware of it. If we were to lose that sense to a demonstrable degree it would demonstrate itself by our own selves becoming less aware and conscious. Our ability to measure that basic state would degrade and we'd become unaware of ourselves. We "die" which may be what that really is. Either way - self awareness is fundamental. It seems that separation is therefore inherent and unavoidable - we can never all of us individually be "one" because of our intuitive awareness of time and memory. So if we are separate, what does it mean really to reconcile and be "at peace"? Sin - how do you here define it?
  25. newlife, mine has changed but not on that point (salvation conditional on behavior, actions, "sin"). Overall I sense from the Bible that God is more interested in "saving" than not, more pro relationship and sharing than he isn't, more inclined towards grace and mercy than condemnation. The goodness of God leads to repentance....I recognize a shift from what I read in the O.T. histories and the God that Jesus preached - a complete view of God as merciful and gracious, loving and forgiving.....In the O.T. they killed, drove out, conquered and the same was returned to Israel for "sin". Christ's message picks up from that and speaks of forgiving as God forgives, as seeing God as His Father, as loving those who would be your enemy. His teachings synthesize what I read in the O.T. to a character profile that - IMO - in fact suspends judgment and imposes it on Christ, in whom we can then be reconciled through . I understand salvation to be conditional on acceptance of Christ and that requiring a clear recognition of our own need for reconciliation to God. An act of faith that then opens up the relationship and clarity into it. i would compare our relative understandings somewhat like a person who lives with someone and doesn't know who they really are. Eric Clapton comes to mind - his "sister" was really his Mother but he didn't know it. His mother was 16 when she gave birth to Eric and due to a whole range of circumstances thought it best if her parents could raise him and so - his parents were really his grandparents and who he was told was his "sister" was really his mother, Patricia Clapton.. In a situation like that the relationship is what it really is - and the people involved do know and relate to each other in a completely normal and natural way but not for who they really are to each other. We can "know" God, "see" him and have understandings of Him that range from not believing He exists at all to believing He is now a "Father" to us. Coming to a knowledge of the truth sets us free - knowing who, what, where, when and why - in that then we don't need to filter or anthro-morph it into something we can grasp but know it for what it really is. I don't think it's expected we will do that completely in this segment of life but we can continue to look, learn and understand.
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