Rocky

3 hours ago, WordWolf said:

Apples and oranges.

 

Yes, apples and oranges. 

18 hours ago, cman said:

So....when Christ forgives, is it for himself?

Also, to understand this, shouldn't we figure out whether Christ has forgiven anyone? As I understand it, hasn't GOD forgiven each believer as a cleansing at the point of accepting Jesus as Lord?

Look, I'm confident I'm not going to satisfy everyone. Whether they are satisfied by trapping me in a gotcha, is also a different situation. I don't know if that's what anyone's getting at here, but if it is, it's no skin off my nose.  

2 hours ago, WordWolf said:

Apples and oranges.

Rocky, there was a legitimate point there- you didn't make a distinction between two things that can sound similar but are very different things.  Please spell out the differences for those following along at home.

Indeed. The general concept of humans forgiving others is not directly related to the Christian notion of redemption.

I don't believe it is possible for ME to clearly spell out the differences in an online forum.

I'm comfortable with the ambiguity involved in trying to understand the different situations. I'd have to apologize if someone reading/following along at home is not.

I appreciate the request for clarification. All I can say at this point is I see them as very different concepts.

Christian redemption is one thing. 

What individual humans must do to unburden themselves from emotional situations in which they hold a grudge against another human is entirely a different concept.

I apologize if that doesn't satisfy any reader.

6 hours ago, chockfull said:

Well it seems like the next logical premise after you stated your confidence in how forgiveness was for the individual.  If that is true it should logically extend to the purpose for Jesus forgiving people would it not?

But instead of following that logic now two posts later you contradict what you were confident in previously.

Logic is a framework for thinking and analysis, sure. I don't see it as chains on a person's ability to understand life. So yes, I contradicted something. But I tried to explain why I believe it was warranted.

Was Einstein always correct in everything he believed and propounded?

4 hours ago, cman said:

So....when Christ forgives, is it for himself?

Why would/could that be the case?

Philosophically, the entire premise of Christianity is wrapped around the concept of redemption, isn't it?

From my perspective these days, it seems early homo sapiens probably developed awareness of humanity's emotional and behavioral awkwardness and frailty. They had to come up with both an origin story or (myth) and a way to overcome the human tendency to hurt other people they cared about.

Jesus wasn't the first or only person or character to meet that need.

IDK, I'm just thinking "out loud" so to speak.

https://youtube.com/shorts/JPJ4sCkKtDI?si=AYguydEHmYw3R_q7

15 hours ago, penguin2 said:

Had a professor mention the quote, "it's about relationship, not religion."

IOW, it's a social concept... like having community w/people who (roughly) share the values and beliefs.

Which, IMO, is the bottom-line of what Victor Wierwille set up. His PFLAP class was a mechanism to tap what was already indoctrinated into young people, tweak it, make himself the guru, and go from there.

That is, whether he knew it or not.

It reaped him temporal (money, sex, and power) benefits even though he sold it as heavenly rewards. 

Regardless of the degree to which the 30% of Americans figure is fair or accurate, LOTS of people are coming around to seeing the folly in churchianity.

13 hours ago, WordWolf said:

"affiliated with organized religion"

Yeah, obviously the term organized religion also belies the fact the English language doesn't have "a word" that properly captures the essence of what is meant.

Hence, it's left to people's minds to play word games (which is a valid thing to do) and pose (rhetorical) questions about disorganized religion.

I certainly haven't found it, but when I was a young man, I followed a man who claimed he had the truth.

Today, I embrace life's chaos as well as holding that Proverbs 2: 1-5 are my favorite scripture verses. However, I'm not interested in developing followers.

THIS is my approach, not my truth. 

My son, if you accept my words
    and store up my commands within you,
² turning your ear to wisdom
    and applying your heart to understanding—
³ indeed, if you call out for insight
    and cry aloud for understanding,
⁴ and if you look for it as for silver
    and search for it as for hidden treasure,
⁵ then you will understand the fear of the Lord
    and find the knowledge of God.

On 10/14/2023 at 7:46 AM, chockfull said:

I absorbed the cost of fools in high places making idiotic business decisions that affected me and never apologized but just continued to expect unquestioning obedience at every subsequent idiotic decision.

I absorbed the cost of following megalomaniacs for decades.

In fact if you had to sum up my experience in Twi it could be done with the words “absorbing cost”.

Forgiveness?  Like being in a relationship with a narcissist it is a one way street.  

 

Poignant AND salient. And eloquent. Thanks for posting it.

I'm also confident that ultimately forgiveness is for the person doing the forgiving. 

31 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Well, yes. Cancer.

Victor taught cancer is devil spirit. He taught protection from devil spirit possession/infection is standing behind the hedge and shutting the trap door to your mind.

I’ll tell you what killed that old man…

Maybe so. I won't go that far, but as a critique of his PFLAP class, it seems fitting. 

On 10/8/2023 at 9:58 PM, WordWolf said:

I don't mind IMAGINING people without barriers, but it's endemic to the human condition- people form societies and define them by who is "us" and who is "them."  Without eliminating that (which [CURRENTLY] isn't possible for us [HUMANITY] ), people will come up with things to kill and die for, some will remain greedy and so on.

I'm hopeful someday, humanity will be able to do this things. Go to the ant, thou sluggard.  

That is, if humanity survives as long as ants have on our planet. 

1 hour ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Victor also said (probably in a class somewhere) that everyone dies because they stop believing, and that unbelieving arises from fatigue, and fatigue leads to sleep, soul sleep, death.

So what was it that killed that old charlatan? The naming of a building or his own belief in unbelief?

Cancer? 

2 hours ago, Stayed Too Long said:

Some believe in God, others are atheists or agnostics

 

https://apnews.com/article/nonreligious-united-states-nones-spirituality-humanist-91bb8430280c88fd88530a7ad64b03f8

 

 

 America’s nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don’t like organized religion

Gee, I wonder why that is. 

4 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

The motor coach?

 

Accuracy like it hasn’t been articulated since… the last time I wrote of victor paul wierwille squatting over and defecating into the mouth of God. 

Yes and yes.   

I saw a pic of the new post card. It's of the no-longer F***Mobile. One side of the card has a long view of the side of the bus. The address side has a pic of the back of the bus promoting PFLAP Today with a chyron kinda text at the bottom "Be part of the [bowel?] movement."

7 hours ago, chockfull said:

Didn’t say I wasn’t interested in the topic just that it’s off topic and to discuss it on a new thread.

You acknowledged in a subsequent post but all posters didn’t read that.

IOW, I disagree that my question was off topic. But I won't push it. 

If you have a subscription to Netflix, you may view a new documentary about ‘The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo’ on Netflix, a Grueling Documentary About a Religious Cult That Sheltered its Leaders’ Sex Crimes

The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo (now on Netflix) is the second grueling documentary in the last year about the crimes perpetrated by Mexican religious leader Naason Joaquin Garcia. This Netflix original follows 2022’s HBO three-parter Unveiled: Surviving La Luz del Mundo, both of which track the details of Garcia’s serial sexual abuse of minors, and give survivors a platform to share their harrowing experiences. So be aware: the film (a Spanish-language production from director Carlos Perez Osorio) and this review contain some difficult-to-hear, potentially upsetting testimonials, but they carry the weight and power of truth – truth that could potentially topple a morally corrupt figurehead.  

The Gist: “We chose him as our savior.” That’s how the followers of Aaron Joaquin Gonzalez choose to phrase their devotion to the founder of La Luz del Mundo (which translates to “The Light of the World”), a Christian primitivist church founded in Guadalajara in 1926. Curious, considering Gonzalez declared himself to be an apostle of Jesus Christ after saying he experienced a holy vision. But that’s brainwashing for you, the circular “logic” of a cult – a cult that allegedly perpetrated a vast number of sex crimes, including rape, trafficking and child pornography for nearly a century. Allegations came to light in 2019, when five Jane Does came forward to accuse current church “apostle” Naason Joaquin Garcia of abusing them. 

It's rated TV-MA and has in a subtitle at the beginning, translating from Spanish, The church says it has 5 million followers and 15,000 temples.

Does any of this sound familiar?

1 minute ago, Nathan_Jr said:

The crisis of cult - religious, ideological, political, national - is the single greatest existential threat to mankind. IMO

And wouldn't it be intriguing to imagine HOW humankind could evolve to somehow not depend on cults behaviors to survive, as individuals or groups?

1 hour ago, Stayed Too Long said:

One of the lyrics is, “Image no possessions. It’s easy if you try.”

John certainly did not live up to this standard, as  he had wealth and justified being wealthy. 
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/john-lennon-felt-guilty-having-money.html/
 

 

 

 

What's the standard in that lyric? 

The action word is "imagine," isn't it? Did he imagine? Did he try to imagine what he'd do with or without money?

I appreciate the story at that link. Thanks. 

3 hours ago, chockfull said:

This thread is about cults and their similarity of operation to TWI.

It is not about ants or the struggle of humanity as a broad topic.  Please keep comments on topic.

Is not the topic of cults inherently related to the characteristics of and interaction of social animals (humans), groups, and that of leaders?

Why would you not be interested in imagining, or exploring evolution of cults, social animals, groups, and leadership? Just asking. 

3 hours ago, chockfull said:

Good perhaps if it is important to pay attention to you should start a thread on that topic

Oh, okay.  

3 hours ago, chockfull said:

[quoting Rocky] My current understanding of Victor Wierwille's ministry and organization approaches it as a very definite collective imagination which many of us embraced FOR A TIME.

Oh, okay.  

Ants predate humans by hundreds of millions of years. They have evolved with ways to avoid many of the conflicts we humans still struggle with.

I hope it won't take humanity that long to figure out how to solve such problems/conflicts.

Ants at Work by Deborah Gordon.