Rocky

1) I am most certainly NOT saying PFLAP is a valid interpretation of the Judeo-Christian creation story. 2) Indeed, tribalism is not confined to religion. Perhaps references to academic studies of zoology would also enhance this discussion. 3) I'd be reluctant to look for it outside Earth's atmosphere... until we find "intelligent" life there. 4) I appreciate your perspective and agree that it's sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful.

Yes. My point is that it (for those who may prefer not to anthropomorphize the concept) is imaginary. For the record, I'm not atheistic nor agnostic. But if I was, I'd lean toward agnostic. I prefer Deist. IT is more than religion's way of keeping skeptical influences suppressed (or trying to do so anyway). As Einstein posited, imagination is very powerful... or at least more important than knowledge. What got me thinking about this was the fact that tribal conflict seems to have been around since early humans. Or, at least since history was first recorded, which seems to me to predate the Judeo-Christian tradition. So, being curious, I asked myself... I said, "Self, why is that?" Clearly, I'm not capable of answering that question with any sort of authoritative knowledge. But I can imagine. I can wonder. And I can at least do some rudimentary and superficial research.

Feel free to do so.

There you go again... did it ever occur to you that perhaps you are responsible for making your intended message more clear to your audience?

There should be no doubt that much of "American" Christianity, or the people therein, have a (major) problem with "the other," despite Jesus' having taught that the "bottom-line" of all the commandments is to love God and love one's neighbor.

Thanks, but that wasn't the point.

After all, the could just as easily have rewound the tape and played it over and over. And for those of you who never heard the word "retconned" (like me), Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short,[1][2] is a literary device in which established facts in a fictional work are adjusted, ignored, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which breaks continuity with the former.

Why could it not be both?

I'll echo Waysider's comment but also add that nobody here can authoritatively label anyone's first person account false or exaggerated. Btw, Wbw, have you ever heard the expression, "where there's smoke, there's fire?"

I'd say that's the least likely explanation.

They never received it = they didn't grasp it. Idiomatically speaking, it went in one ear and out the other. Changing culture is a very difficult task. Getting someone to accept a directive or suggestion that runs counter to what they've been conditioned to accept is, for the vast majority of people, extremely difficult. The person is conditioned to resist OR possibly can't even understand what s/he hears OR has a very high level of risk aversion... OR...

THAT is the essence of leaving TWI. I don't think the R&R guys and gals are generally prepared to do that.

These threads with TLC seem to have a LOT in common with when Mike engaged in his incessant worship of Wierwille. I'm not suggesting TLC is Mike. The voice is definitely different. But there are parallels in that there was (is) no end to the circular nature of the bickering.

Unless any given splinter cult declares emphatically that it believes differently than Wierwille taught (and practiced), it's fair to surmise that said group's practice will be what Wierwille practiced. That includes the notion that, IOW, it's fair to characterize the the default position as how WordWolf described. It would naturally be up to any such apparent Top Dog to make the distinction by word and deed.

He and his now ex-wife.

Carmen was verbally horse-whipped by Dr Phil.

I may not have been clear. Putting your Shirley "quote" in perspective, "you only exist IN MY MIND because WHEN I imagine you to be." Does that help clarify?

One reads it, listens to someone speak or read it, or watches it on video. But until the person imagines what s/he has read or heard, the person doesn't have a basis on which to understand it.

Campbell with Bill Moyers. Under 10 minutes. "The individual has to find the myth that has to do with the conduct of his life. There are a number of services that myths serve. The basic one is opening the world to the dimension of mystery. If you lose that, you don't have a mythology to realize the mystery that underlies all forms. But then there comes the cosmological aspect of myth. Seeing that mystery as manifest through all things. The universe becomes, as it were, a holy picture..." And that's just in the first minute.

Oh come on Raf. You can't tell me that Moses wasn't real. He was photographed/filmed in real time! Let my people go, damn it!!

Indeed.

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