Nathan_Jr

Even though I attended fellowship with an open mind and heart, I felt gross and filthy and exhausted within minutes. Within the first 30 seconds of the PFAL video, I knew that little charlatan was a fraud. Within 60 seconds, I received the 2nd revelation - that established it. Its so, SO important to teach our children how to be critical thinkers.

How is trust earned if people are reading books? How is trust earned if people are reading magazines or newspapers or the flier announcing the county fair? Expanding on your logic: How is trust earned if people are riding bicycles? How is trust earned if people are eating mangoes? The internet had a goal? I find doors of opportunity open all the time while using the internet, but mainly because I seek the opportunity. It’s interactive. Different strokes, I guess. Victor had a goal of suppressing his followers ability to find out. Literally, their ability to find out about anything at all. One way he did this was by crushing people’s opportunity to pursue education. Russell and Huxley and Orwell warned of hucksters like vp.

Facecrime... uh, I mean Facebook

That's how I took it.

Thanks, T-Bone. I always find these vignettes of the "good old days" fascinating - and so, so revealing! (I read the linked posts, also.) The obvious question (you know, the one victor loves to hate: his anti-idol) is what happened? After all that confusion and drama and victor's cups running over with the fear of being found lout, was there no explanation? What better opportunity to clear the shonta from the waters! Real leadership would have seized this opportunity to clarify. At that time, the dogmatic, five-senses, natural, privately-interpreted, old man doctrine should have been taught with mathematical accuracy and scientific precision. Was it?

I'm not making assumptions about what you think or believe, though I can. That's why I asked. What was taught to me in the class, and reiterated by you here, is God is weak and limited and fumbling and unsteady and incapable and always a step behind the adversary. I was taught that God is far away and incompetent and indecisive and waffling. I was taught he is a constructed image of a deeply carnal man's imagination. I was taught explicitly, and in the gaps, that the real power is the god of this world. I was taught above all that fear is the focus, not God. So much devil spirit was taught, so little God. That's why I asked.

Serving two masters.

Indeed. Lots of asserted claims. Lots of descriptive limits. Lots of assumptions and lots of conclusions. Not one omni- modifier. Not one. Still, the question is open. Just a simple "I beleeeve God is...."

Open question for anyone willing to answer. (I don't think Mike is able to handle it.) What is victor's concept of God? What does victor mean when he says God? What/who is God, according to victor?

Now, on to the first and most important question: What is your and victor's concept of God? Focus. Avoid distractions. Compose thoughtful sentences.

Oh, I don't feel bad at all. And he's copping out about God speaking audibly in the carnal universe to a carnal, natural, five senses old man who had lost all faith and believing. God can only community with what he his, spirit, except when he's speaking audibly so that your five senses ears can hear him.

Seriously, Waysider, your recall of all this never ceases to amaze me.

I'm perfectly calm. Just say so. Just say you need to think about it. I would that you gave my dead serious questions some thought and answer them directly with well-composed, intelligent sentences, than to attack, deflect and cop out.

Always with the cop outs and deflections. I'm talking about MY questions. My dead serious, relevant questions that go to the heart of the matter. It's very telling that you always avoid my questions and comments. I'll let anyone reading decide for themselves what it's telling of. My questions and comments must make you uncomfortable. Perhaps, they should.

Zero. You haven't answered any of my questions today.

Good point... brainstorming... Maybe the audible voice victor heard in 1942 was a devil spirit counterfeiting as God.

Let's say it took the rest of the week. If spirit can only talk to spirit, what was the audible voice victor heard with his five senses, old man ears?

We're talking about the limits of God's communication, right? Not snow.

I should have known you'd cop out in this way. You won't answer most of my questions. You're the only one. I suspect it's because you can't, but I don't know, because you won't. It took you forever to answer my question about what the word is. And you've left dozens more unanswered. Victor hated serious questions, too. HATED them. I suspect it's because his cup runneth over with fear. I'm unafraid to inquire. I'm unafraid of the truth. I'm unafraid to be wrong. My questions are serious. Dead serious.

Yep.

Either God didn’t REALLY speak audibly to victor’s natural ears, or victor didn’t REALLY hear from God and just made the whole thing up.

Always speaking the truth is limited? It's less than speaking both truth AND lies? This is a self imposed limit? God free will chooses to limit himself to always speak true? He could lie if he REALLY wanted to? HOWEVER, God has the self discipline to resist lying? (Well, thank God for that!) We will always talk past each other until I understand your answer to the following: What is your definition of God? What do you mean when you say God? What or who is God?

This is my favorite story of Jesus as a boy. It's from The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which dates to the 2nd century. Our earliest manuscripts of this apocrypha are from the 5th century. This Gospel should NOT be confused with the sayings Gospel of Thomas, which many scholars today believe is earlier than Mark, even earlier than Paul - currently, I'm convinced of their position. For me, the following story is as believable as the story of casting devils into pigs, but it's so much more satisfying, magical, full of wonder... and kind of funny. (Later in the Gospel, Jesus straightens that kid out.) We just don't know. But we can imagine. It's a story that was told. That's REALLY all that it is. And it's wonderful! ====================== 1. I Thomas, an Israelite, write you this account, that all the brethren from among the heathen may know the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ in His infancy, which He did after His birth in our country. The beginning of it is as follows:- 2. This child Jesus, when five years old, was playing in the ford of a mountain stream; and He collected the flowing waters into pools, and made them clear immediately, and by a word alone He made them obey Him. And having made some soft clay, He fashioned out of it twelve sparrows. And it was the Sabbath when He did these things. And there were also many other children playing with Him. And a certain Jew, seeing what Jesus was doing, playing on the Sabbath, went off immediately, and said to his father Joseph: Behold, thy son is at the stream, and has taken clay, and made of it twelve birds, and has profaned the Sabbath. And Joseph, coming to the place and seeing, cried out to Him, saying: Wherefore doest thou on the Sabbath what it is not lawful to do? And Jesus clapped His hands, and cried out to the sparrows, and said to them: Off you go! And the sparrows flew, and went off crying. And the Jews seeing this were amazed, and went away and reported to their chief men what they had seen Jesus doing. 3. And the son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Joseph; and he took a willow branch, and let out the waters which Jesus bad collected. And Jesus, seeing what was done, was angry, and said to him: O wicked, impious, and foolish! what harm did the pools and the waters do to thee? Behold, even now thou shalt be dried up like a tree, and thou shalt not bring forth either leaves, or root, or fruit. And straightway that boy was quite dried up. And Jesus departed, and went to Joseph's house. But the parents of the boy that had been dried up took him up, bewailing his youth, and brought him to Joseph, and reproached him because, said they, thou hast such a child doing such things.

My new favorite cop out is REALLY. When the gloves just won't fit, you've got to REALLY make them fit. Spirit can't REALLY.... You are REALLY born again... God can't REALLY... Well, maybe my REAL favorite cop outs are all the asserted opinionated claims of what God can or cannot REALLY do. Who or what is this little god who seems so powerless and ineffectual against the adversary? Seriously, WITAF does victor mean when he says "god."

Well, this just explains everything. All of it Not more. Not less. EVERYTHING Brilliant! If only victor could have heard this in the original. ”If you push something hard enough, it WILL fall over.” - Lifeline