Charity

9 hours ago, Rocky said:

Never mind that the same argument has been applied to great effect against free will our own species, which is why some of history’s greatest minds—Plato, Spinoza, Darwin—doubted its existence. Free will just doesn’t fit the prevailing materialist worldview, as noted in 1884 by the prominent German evolutionist Ernst Haeckel:

The will of the animal, as well as that of man, is never free. The widely spread dogma of the freedom of the will is, from a scientific point of view, altogether untenable. Every physiologist who scientifically investigates the activity of the will in man and animals, must of necessity arrive at the conviction that in reality the will is never free, but is always determined by external or internal influences.

De Waal, Frans . Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves (pgs. 221-223). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. 

 

If the will is never free, then nobody would be guilty of anything.

The state of mind of someone charged with a crime is always a factor when determining whether they're fit to stand trial and the kind of defense the attorney will decide on for their client.  It also comes into play when deliberating a verdict and deciding on a sentence if the person is found guilty.  

The degree of external or internal influences are mitigating factors but the fact that a trial and verdict were still necessary proves that at some point, the defendant chose to act on certain negative influences over positive influences and therefore should be held accountable for their choice.

On 8/12/2023 at 4:16 PM, penworks said:

Another survivor testimony, this one from a 2nd gen. Way org. then offshoot survivor:

https://m.soundcloud.com/indoctrinationshow/mark-avoid-w-em-thomas?ref=clipboard&p=i&c=0&si=10E753EC055A4873A9843355FD563C52

 

Thank you for sharing the website.  It was pretty disturbing to listen to so I can only imagine what it was like for Em to have lived through it all.  I'm happy to hear of how she is doing today.

Living in Canada, we usually greeted one another with a kiss, but I can't remember if doing so on the lips was the norm.  Looking back on how the rod of correction was a taught and followed practice of disciplining children is painful enough, but a child being told he/she must greet "all" older people with a kiss on the lips which then opened a door for being sexual abused is atrocious.

Was this expectation mainly for children of the corps?  Did it stop when twi was told the rod of correction was no longer okay to use on children?  I remember reading another incident where a child was given the rod of correction for not greeting a leader as she was told to do (not sure if a "holy" kiss was involved here or not).  Even after being hit, the child cried and didn't want to "obey" the order.  

It seems the real problem was the embarrassment of the parent for the child's "disobedience" which was more important than what the child was thinking or feeling at the time.  How inhumane!

On 7/31/2023 at 9:30 PM, chockfull said:

This resonates with me.  I can understand an interpretation of Matt 22:39 in the sense of that expressing a healthy, balanced, and beneficial love that starts with a love of self and can be expressed freely as loving others.

An unhealthy, imbalanced, or maladaptive love does not have a healthy balance of self love and love of others.  Addictions fall under this kind of love.  Or permutations of abuse.

 Viewing love as an action verb helps IMO.  The more love is fueled by action and good will the more it catalyzes great things in the world.

The more love is relegated to an emotion, a feeling, or a passing state the more it is robbed of power and effect.  

To me it also makes sense to talk about love in the essence of a combination of logic and emotion, head and heart, and involving one’s entire being.

I guess that is my opinionated answer on what works and what doesn’t work. 

 

I'm glad you mentioned addictions.  An addiction does begin with an unhealthy focus on self and remains that way as it progresses.  Guilt* and shame become the main focal points and eventually one will end up wasting away in a pit of that stuff (it's heartbreaking to see).  Not only do guilt and shame add fuel to the fire, but they can also get in the way of recovery.

*Focusing on the guilt alone, without making amends, is self-destructive.

Because of the name of this thread, I'll mention the terms "love addiction" and "sexual addiction" [aka compulsive sexual disorder disorder] as well.  They are called addictions because the behaviors associated with each can become a major, constant focus in one's life, are difficult to control, cause problems in one's life, or are harmful to you or others.  However, neither are recognized as clinical terms or are included in the DSM-5.

Compulsive sexual behavior - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

Love Addiction: What It Really Means and How to Handle It (healthline.com)

Your point about love as an action verb is an important one to remember.  It's plain to see love when someone does volunteer work from their heart, but the opportunities to be kind and help others frequently come our way. 

I love Phil Collins and his song "Another Day in Paradise" speaks of the need to reach out and help - like the two videos Rocky showed about dogs - but with humans.   

On 7/31/2023 at 3:31 PM, Nathan_Jr said:

I knew there was a need for this topic, especially in light of the fountainous bullshonta developing in the other thread. Thank you, Charity, for starting it.

 

This resonates. I think this may be foundational to sociopathy and associated personality disorders like NPD and BPD.

 

This resonates with me, as well. Thank you.

------

 

Love is NOT conditional, transactional.

Love is complete acceptance of what actually is, not what we want or hope something to be. This is especially true for love of self, something I've struggled with my entire life.

 

 

I was looking at the statement of beliefs on twi's website and at the bottom it says,

For the Glory of God and the Accuracy of His Word
For Those Who Want to Know

Obviously, the first line is not true since they continue to teach the Word "according to vp," who according to their fictional description of the founder writes, "For over forty years, Dr. Wierwille devoted his major energies to intensive research and teaching of the accuracy of God’s Word."  (Makes you wonder what his "minor" energies went into .)

It's the second line, "For Those Who Want to Know."  To me, it strongly suggests exclusivity which we know they were famous for under the first 3 presidents.  Why not declare, "For all who want to know;" better yet, why have a second line at all?  

Is it trying to compliment people into taking pfalt?  If so, it reminds me of The National Enquirer's slogan, "Enquiring minds want to know."  Whatever their reason, it does not sound like unconditional love. 

On 7/31/2023 at 3:31 PM, Nathan_Jr said:

I knew there was a need for this topic, especially in light of the fountainous bullshonta developing in the other thread. Thank you, Charity, for starting it.

 

This resonates. I think this may be foundational to sociopathy and associated personality disorders like NPD and BPD.

 

This resonates with me, as well. Thank you.

------

 

Love is NOT conditional, transactional.

Love is complete acceptance of what actually is, not what we want or hope something to be. This is especially true for love of self, something I've struggled with my entire life.

 

 

I agree that living in denial or constantly coming down hard on ourselves is unhealthy.  Apparently, I'm so practiced in the latter that I can do it without even knowing I'm doing it .

There's the Serenity Prayer:  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Knowing I cannot change the past nor what others choose to do are two that come to mind.  Even some personality traits are probably beyond my ability to change in this lifetime.  

But there's the promise of 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."  

On 7/31/2023 at 2:01 PM, OldSkool said:

Great post and thanks! I disagree with her findings because I feel love is something we are given. We are given the ability to express human love by God and we the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the spirit he has given us..moving onwards here...

 

This paragraph is thought provoking for me. You know a lot of the issues Im dealing with as far as PTSD or even CPTSD in my case and a lot of this makes sense to me. So much of our disposition has been influenced by our verious environments through different seasons of life. Ive had to learn so many things because of my extremely dysfunctional upbringing. Ive had to learn how to love and how to trust and it's in the context of setting boundaries to help navigate relationships. But I feel for most people love is learned by example and taught primarily in the home. but love is something we are given...the question is do we know what to do with love and are we capable of expressing love once we experience it. 

 

My answers to your questions are yes some of the time.  Other times, I would answer each with a no.  It depends on different variables for me, but when the answer is no, a follow-up question of “Why not?” would be helpful instead of shutting down emotionally and missing out on what could have been a wonderful experience. 

3 hours ago, oldiesman said:

Yes it was.   Another high note of compassion was the gambling boss who could have cleaned him out but instead let him have his money back.   

I forgot about him - you wouldn’t think a gambling boss would be the compassionate kind, yet this one was. 

In the gospels, Jesus showed compassion when feeding the multitudes and healing people and even now he has compassion for us when we are struggling because he went through the same struggles himself.  And as the elect of God, holy and beloved, we also are to have compassion like Jesus Christ.  There was something obviously wrong with twi where it's 3 presidents were known for their hardheartedness and lack of compassion over and over again as shared by posters here.   

 “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” in Matthew 22 is also said to mean to treat others the way you would treat yourself.  That phrase is used 5 other times: Lev 19:18,34; Rom 13:9-10; Gal 5:13 and Jam 2:8 and their contexts are always about how to act kindly towards other.  

As for the mention of self-love in other verses, I only know of 2 Tim 3:2-4 which talks of loving ourselves in a self-indulgent way, “2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent (without self-control), fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady (reckless), high minded (puffed up), lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

It's easy to conclude that those "lovers of their own selves" in twi were not lovers of God and hurt a great number of people, many of whom were so confused by their fake form of godliness and others thinking if it's okay for the big chiefs to act this way then it must be okay for me to do so as well.

It's very difficult to truly learn to love or experience love in a cult like twi. 

On 8/5/2023 at 8:01 AM, oldiesman said:

This was rare for Twilight Zone episodes... pure thoughtfulness, affection and empathy for the feelings of one's spouse.     I hope you watch it someday.   One other treat of the episode that hopefully won't spoil it for you:    they lived in a time when the govt abolished credit cards... everything had to be paid in cash!!   

I listened to the radio version waysider provided.  It was a great story about the unselfishness of love between two people whose love lasted a lifetime.  Very heartwarming.  Thanks.

Love vs lovebombing (which is the action or practice of lavishing someone with attention or affection, especially in order to influence or manipulate them)

I can still remember how I felt at my first "twig" fellowship."  I had never been so "fully accepted and the center of attention (which I usually detested, but this felt different).  The two wow sisters were so excited I was there to hear God's Word.  I actually started to feel good about myself.  This continued right up to the Rock of Ages that year and then I went wow and things changed quickly.  The love of God was around and at times I became the lovebomber instead of the lovebombee.  But so much of the self-doubt returned along with a loss of knowing God's love.  The reason I was so happy to get my "wow" pin was not because of the great year I had, but that I survived it.  

If ministries (cults) like twi need to use lovebombing to lure people in, what does that say about their ability to simply love people?  

58 minutes ago, chockfull said:

Well that got my hopes up that it might be my favorite rendition of the song.  It is a bit SNL risqué lol.

Night at the Roxbury if you haven’t seen that movie it’s epic.

1 hour ago, chockfull said:

Well that got my hopes up that it might be my favorite rendition of the song.  It is a bit SNL risqué lol.

Night at the Roxbury if you haven’t seen that movie it’s epic.

Love it!  Watched it 3 times.  

1 hour ago, chockfull said:

I only do interpretive dance not interpretive math.  Sorry.

This is to say thanks for the John Carrey's What is Love! 

11 hours ago, Rocky said:

hmmm... intriguing distinction. keep vs obey.

 

hmmm... how so 

5 minutes ago, waysider said:

The radio version is actually quite good.

Cool 

9 hours ago, Rocky said:

hmmm... intriguing distinction. keep vs obey.

 

In general, I think "keeping" means holding something in your heart; interesting because a few verses say,  "for out of the heart flows the issue of life"; "out of the abundance of the heart, a man speaks"; and with the heart, one believes - that kind of thing.  Personally, having someone in my heart means I love them, they feel close by, and I think of them.  As a kid when asked to keep a secret, we'd cross our fingers and say cross my heart and hope to die.  

Whereas "obey" means to do what someone in authority tells you do.  Applying this to children, you have those who are bossy like my 4-year-old granddaughter; she is described this way at her day care but then again apparently her and a few friends like bossing each other around - I'm told it's quite cute to watch .

55 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

This was rare for Twilight Zone episodes... pure thoughtfulness, affection and empathy for the feelings of one's spouse.     I hope you watch it someday.   One other treat of the episode that hopefully won't spoil it for you:    they lived in a time when the govt abolished credit cards... everything had to be paid in cash!!   

I've placed in on hold at the library - just needs to be sent to my branch that I use.  I could listen to a radio version online like the good old old days.

2 hours ago, chockfull said:

The obedience factor is interesting.  Scriptures equate “keeping” commandments with loving God.  Not “obeying” commandments.

Keeping would involve the understanding and internalizing of the teachings to keep them in light of remembering and living them.

Obeying is more of a do what I say communication.

But the sheeples prefer the obey to the keep.

I quickly dug up some info from this website and it agrees with what you are saying above.

 Another King James Bible Believer - to keep vs to obey (webs.com)

__________

Consult all the Greek Lexicons you wish.,,They all list the meanings of this Greek word teereo as "to keep, to preserve, to observe, to give heed to, to guard, to hold, to not lose, to protect, to hold firmly" but not one of them lists "to obey" or "to do" as being one of the definitions of this Greek word. 

Why? Because it simply does NOT mean "to obey" or "to do". There are other words that mean "obey" and others that mean "to do", but not this one.

If you are playing basketball with some buddies in the park and you take out your wallet and keys and ask a friend to KEEP them for you, obviously you want him to hang on to them and not lose them. You are not telling him "To obey" them.

Many modern versions have completely changed the intended meaning of these two Hebrew and Greek words. It started with the liberal RSV and continued with the equally liberal NRSV, and has continued to some extent among the more recent NIVs, ESVs, Holman and NET versions. 

The NIV 1984 edition translates the O.T. word Shamar as "to obey" 29 times and as "to do" 5 times. It also translates the N.T. word tereeo as "to obey" 21 times and "to do" 3 times.

I believe this is due, not only to Satan's hand at work to promote a works-oriented religion, but also to much careless preaching. Legalism is natural to the human heart.  Martin Luther said legalism is like an oil in our bones.

__________

Being that I am tired, I do not have enough of a sound mind to add any of my words tonight except to say, it appears a biblical study is needed to see if the Greek words are being translated correctly.  (Oh no, the dreaded biblical studies, I thought we put an end to those  .)  j/k - it's a personal choice.  

On 8/3/2023 at 8:45 AM, Mike said:

 

That Deut quote does very much tell them to saturate their lives with God's Word, to the extent it was available. 

Everyone knows that books were not available then, and scrolls were very expensive.  But what about memorization skills?  I think they did not invent paper and pencils because they were far more skilled at memorization than we are in our culture. 

They also had less distractions. 

Psalm 119 tells us to saturate our lives with God's Word.

 

The highlighting above is mine.  A definition of "saturate" is "holding as much water or moisture as can be absorbed; thoroughly soaked."

To me, I find this to be a loaded word when used in the context of a cult such as twi where leaders demanded that many followers totally agree with and live according to everything they taught - absolutely no room for questions, critical thinking, or freedom of choice.  You can see this so clearly in the examples given in the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, shown before on GSC (website below), especially under the "Behavior Control" heading.  One of the techniques under "Thought Control" is:

"Use of loaded language and cliché which constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words."

The word "saturate" is only used 3 times and appears only in the NET version - twice they refer to tears and once to watering the fields.  The verses in Deut 6:6-9 that Mike was referring to are about God's word being in their hearts.   

Using the word "saturate" as Mike does is private interpretation of the scriptures and leaves the door open for cult leaders to define what "saturate your life" means for the purpose of lording over believers.  

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/

20 minutes ago, So_crates said:

Sarcasm off.

Thanks - it's not always easy to tell so it's helpful when someone does use /s. 

23 hours ago, waysider said:

Oh, but not when I did it. I was always sincere and selfless in my intentions. /s

Hi, what does /s mean?

24 minutes ago, Mike said:

 I disagree.  All three (smarts, intelligence, sound mind) are involved in (1) assessing what one's own will is, and (2) choosing words that properly communicate what that will is.  

There are people who fall short in these areas, and for them we don't have reliable and full knowledge of what their will is, due to inefficient communication.

 

 

You did not carefully read the definitions of smart and intelligent.  

"I want you to brush your teeth."  Is that smart enough for you?  Did I choose my words properly to communicate my will?  

19 hours ago, Mike said:

When BOTH trustworthiness and intelligence are both present in a person, THEN we can look at those smart trustworthy words from them, and know they accurately resemble the will of that person.
 

Only hate could reject "God's Word being God's will."

 

Mike, since you have doubled down above on what you said earlier, I will reply again:

Merriam-Webster gives the following definition for the words you have used:

Smart: having or showing a high degree of mental ability.

Intelligent: having or indicating a high or satisfactory degree of intelligence and mental capacity 

You do not need either of these to accurately make known your will.  I believe you do have to have a sound mind meaning having full, unimpaired thought, memory and cognitive understanding - an ability to think and understand for oneself.  (The Free Dictionary by Farlex)

Your last sentence in your post sounds like a defensive projection.  I, as well as others, disagree with "God's word is God's will" and have given specific reasons why.  

28 minutes ago, OldSkool said:

You can lump me in with Mike on this one because I believe we do have God's Word...I also lack emotional intelligence, etc because I stake my life in scripture and my all is God and his Son Jesus Christ.

Thank you for your post OldSkool.  This is where I stand as well, and you said it without injecting any of vp's deceitful words which Mike always does.  

10 minutes ago, waysider said:

Oh, but not when I did it. I was always sincere and selfless in my intentions. /s

I guess I could say I was too in that I sincerely believed the class would minister to them once they sat through all 12 sessions without being allowed to ask questions until the last session.  But then, asking questions at the end only meant you weren't paying enough attention the first time (as Mike often reminds us) and therefore you need to take it again.  Therefore, go out and sign people up (you're a grad now after all) so there's the required number to start a new class.  

I was usually excited about running fellowships (both adult and children's), teaching the Word often from the collaterals and lovingly undershepherding people, but the goal was always to have them sign up for the class and then after taking it, the "commitment to the word" stage would begin.  This is pretty much how I remember it.  

1 hour ago, oldiesman said:

That's a good one, thx.    Here's one that I find powerful from of all places the Twilight Zone, from the episode "The Trade-Ins".

"From Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet: "Love gives not but itself and takes not from itself, love possesses not nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love."   Not a lesson, just a reminder, from all the sentimentalists in the Twilight Zone."

As of today, I have never been a big Twilight Zone fan (meaning there's always hope for the future), but I love the quote.