Mandii

Lemme see, got involved in Oct 1975, took class in Jan 1976 and left in March/April 1989. Does that put me anywhere close to TWI 1? And if so, may I point out that relatively FEW of us had children then...the majority being right out of highschool, flower power type people, hippies??? So........of course there were very few incidents of rapping children with a wooden spoon as there weren't as many children around as there were as we grew up,got married and started producing. What was the all over consensus of TWI towards children??? I mean was there an atmoshphere already in place that this could have happened at all levels of TWI?? You betcha. Some have already testified that VP had corps time with them and said that if anything happened to them, that they, as parents and carriers of God's Word (sounds like a disease) should take care of themselves first since they carried the WOG. They could always have more children if anything happened to the children. Yeah, they could be restored by having more children to replace the ones that died...so where did we hear that before?? Were children, a heritage from the Lord placed above doctrines and practices and programs? No. Many couples were counseled to abort. How many times when a couple announced that they were pregnant, were they asked if that was a good thing OR if they planned to keep it rather then the news being greeted automatically with a heartfelt congratulations????? Now where or where did anyone get the idea of it being okay to smack children?? Did it happen in a void of someone not knowing better OR as a natural progression of a lousy attitude towards children?? When I had my first child, I was also told, as another poster posted here that VP said raising children was just like raising dogs. I was told that by TWI CLERGY. Now, how come people don't ask to see chapter and verse on that? I was told by TWI CLERGY that while VP and CG were out with the hunting dogs, VP did a speech on raising children and used the analogy of training the hunting dogs and it was all the same. Yeah, right. Quite frankly, I would never hit my animal with a book unless in self defense or with a wooden spoon sooooo they treated children, human children WORSE than the rest of the sane world treats their pets. I was instructed to use a wooden spoon for when my daughter, baby daughter, under a year old would wiggle when I tried to change her diaper. I didn't and it was all this that turned my stomach, especially coming from a background of being abused. Then a mother has to get the house all ready, dinner cooked adn dishes done cause the debil will get her if she doesn't (talk about paranoia and superstitious) and pack the diaper bag to go sit in the back room away from the fellowship so the baby doesn't disturb the carriers of the Word. How righteous. How godly. I quit going realizing that I as a mother with a child were really no longer welcomed. Or how about being pressured to rip your napping child out of the crib for a meeting??? I refused to and got blasted for it. What moronic thinking did we have that children could and should sit silently, TWI silent, through an entire twig????? Absolute silence? No fidgeting or moving? How normal is that? And if they can't, they get hit or slapped or sent out of the room????? I don't care who does that, it IS not only child abuse and it is spiritual abuse as well as emotional and mental abuse. God loves you sooooo much I'm going to whack you with a spoon to keep you silent. Or smack you in the face with my bible (probably a hefty study bible) because you forgot yours. All in the name of God. Yeah. And Jesus did what to the little kids...??? Did he send them away? Did he yell at them??? Did he demand the parents to smack them for interupting his ministry???? NO. He rebuked those who rebuked the kids and took them into his lap....and hung with them and said god help those who offend this little ones. God help those who offended them in god's name.

Well for chapter and verse, you should know as a once faithful TWIer it was the rod scripture....and beter than chapter and verse is the living , breathing testimony of those who suffered under the hands of those that abused and who justified their actions in teaching children to obey, without question and without hesitation because it would help the children learn to listen to and obey God and therefore save their lives. Unfortunately, most people don't just walk away from abusive situations or institutions or relationships but then that is the direct result of being abused....make it hard to walk away. Futhermore, how can you level that charge at the minors, or who were minors at the time when they had no other place to go, being minors other than the state system????? And that doesn't even take into account the loyalty and devotion of children that they have, even towards them that have hurt them.

(((((((Lindy))))))) Actually, I'm angry after reading your story...angry with those who abused you and the system that encouraged it, promoted it and did nothing to stop it. I am truly sorry.

(((((((CoolWaters))))))) (((((((Karmic)))))))

Happy Birthday, Wacky!

Just Thinking and Abigail....Both of your posts make sense and definitely are more rational than looking at the OT as being totally inspired by God but does the recording of the actions of the people. While we were taught that a host would go to great lenghts to protect his guests in that culture, we all know that there is something wrong with LOt's actions; I was heard a Rabbi tell that the culture of the city that Lot lived in perverted his judgment and decision making and thus why he offered his daughters as he did. Now that makes sense.

that is a darn good question, dmiller. John 3:16 said that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son and yet Jesus said that he only came to the lost sheep of Israel....which one was it? (the last part of Mark about going into the world to preached was added by the second century and approved by the Council of Trent) ****** I'm with you, Rascal, on that one as well. Lot should have offered himself to the mob outside his door rather than sacrifice his daughters and then would have provided safety for his guests as well.

dmiller, thank you for taking the time to explain what you thought about the passage. :-) Cool, I knew where you were coming from also and was basically what I had thought about God telling someone to kill their child. The OT taken literally as a God breathed document, ie this is the will of God as opposed to these are the people in the OT story, of trying to find and please their God in the way they thought was right in the manner of their time...they thought God wanted all the 'ites' dead as they took over occupied land, Abraham thought God wanted him to kill his son, Jeptha thought he HAD to sacrifice his daughter, that he would be held to the vow he made... it definitely paints a dark side to God as opposed to the NT version of neither shadow of turning, all good gifts come from the Father of lights, no tempting....no darkness at all. I was thinking if Abraham had been told as a parable like the Prodjidal Son or Forgiving Father who was willing to sacrifice his son but then God rescued him by providing his own son as in God so loved us He gave that instead of Abraham literally walking his son to his death...well.... I know many believe that Ishmeal (sp) doesn't count, I believe I got the same impression in TWI because he was the son of the slave woman..yet that didn't stop Sarah from agreeing for Abraham to go to Hagar to raise children and it didn't stop Abraham and it didn't stop God from finding Hagar and her son in the desert when they were cast out and God made provision for them as well so they did matter. As Christians believe that Issac was the one truly chosen and Ishamel rejected (although I don't see that) it still wasn't Abraham's ONLY begotten son, so the allegory or comparison doesn't truly fit. And some of Islam believe that it was Ishmeal who was to be sacrificed as the beloved son and Issac cast out.

Okay, here's another one that has always bothered me and it's a little harder to admit to than the Job and Garden of Eden story. Abraham and Issac. Abraham being told by God to go kill his son for a sacrifice. One it doesn't jive with TWI doctrine of that God never tests us and doesn't jive with James scripture of saying that God doesn't tempt...well the way we understood that in TWI. And it doesn't jive with my understanding of that there is no shadow of changing with God, no darkness in him. Asking someone to kill their son, their child is pretty dang dark to me and it caused me to like just try to ignore that whole section of the bible cause it just didn't fit. I don't care if Abraham believed god would raise Issac back up from the dead. I don't care if God needed an 'arch type or proto type' to signify the coming of Christ and the sacrifice of giving his only beloved son. Abraham had more than one son, so that doesn't fit. It is just a very weird story, killing someone in sacrifice to god at god's command. Or, in that story, was just about to until God intervened. I know TWI or VP said that Abraham got it all backwards. No, he didn't. He did as the story goes. Jepath (sP) also sacrificed HIS daughter when she was the first thing that greeted him when he got home from the battle. By the way, WHO exactly did Jepath think would be the FIRST to greet him if NOT a human being? And she was sacrificed, she was not put in a temple for the rest of her life like VP said. I'm sorry but if children are a blessing, and we are endued with parental inclinations and instincts that I can turn into a fire breathing dragon in defending my children, why would God have us recant that to sacrifice our children for him or to him?? Easy come, easy go? I don't think so...and I know that unless someone is deemed insane, it doesn't happen nowadays BUT then we do have bible stories being handed down as god breathed to tell us just how much we should love god that we would lay down our kids lives. Sorry, but I am not giving my kids up for anything or anyone; at least not without one heck of a fight.

{{{{Cool}}}} that is so sweet, thank you!

Hi, I just went and read it. I was going to upload the faery you made me the other day but was too lazy to go to my geocity site to get the link so will wait while you are 'net moving.' I think you may have said something close to what I am about to say or someone did on the MoW thread, but the saying, "The One True God" and going after or following that promise/offer whatever, has gotten me into nothing but hotwater spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. Nothing but trouble, one true god, worship the closest to god, doctrine is the most closest to the original/bible/first century church. I now hear that phrase akin to and with the same ears as I listen to an infomercial promising wealth or thiness or a younger looking face and with the same disdain that Ponce De Leon should have treated the myth of the waters of everlasting youth and Coronado should have treated the tales of the cities of Gold with. But I guess every age has its mythical, all elusive yellow brick road promises.

And it always drove me ape wild that the rationale for Job being completely restored was that he got more children. I thought that was never restored in that he never got his original children back. So what's the moral of the story?? Children are dispensable before God and easily replaced so that a 'believer' can consider themselves restored if granted another child? Something is wrong with that 'written picture.'

Great posts, CW and makes more thorough logic then a lot of bunk handed down in the guise of religion. I guess one of the most freeing things I have found is to openly question those things that don't make sense to me, never made sense and actual say that without fear of lightening bolts or the ground swallowing me up. Which, I supppose, such thinking would also qualify as magical thinking. I question and calamity results just because I questioned. It is great to be rid of that burden. I also love that definition of mysticism....it is a convenient little tool to make one into the teflon religion guy....either way it is used to one's benefit of not owing up.

Well.....if reincarnation were possible.... . . . . . . . . . . . "I'd" come back as a flaming beauty and filthy rich.

LOL I raised an early morning eyebrow over it, too!! LOL

I've had my fair share of waymares. They were 'abundant' when I first left TWI. The dreams mostly consisted of trying to get out of TWI and having local leaders laying in wait to keep me from escaping, to jump me when I wasn't looking and then being in a prison setting with these people who are trying to keep me lock in. The good news is that I always got out but not without much stress, fear and sometimes got to tell the bullies off. Throughout the years there have been a trigger to set off a waymare, usually finding myself in a twig and wondering what the hell I am doing there, and thinking that I needed to get the heck out before I got sucked in again. It is just issues that sometimes haven't been fully resolved or it has just having been awakened to the nightmare I what I was in by reading some posts throughtout the years on exway boards that have triggered dreams. Heck, last night I dreamed I was reading and posting here on greasespot!!! lol

I am posting this in the friendliest tone, but I don't want answers. I am not looking for any answers as I posted these posts to show that what "I" once accepted as 'answers' were merely, 'to me' broken logic. I don't accept and cannot accept statements such as 'it's spiritual,' which losely translates into "I don't know the answer but will pretend it's too over your head to explain" or that we will know it 'over there,' or 'take it by faith,' or anything of that sort. Now, how can I rejoice as others who have no hope of not seeing their loved ones again (Thessalonians) if I won't recognize my family at the supposed return and be able to live with them?

Dust in the wind.

Yes well that would just be a re-run of the real thing of one time but with the prize money....oooooh!! that is probably what you meant all along!! Most evil? Easy. FOOTBALL hehehehe

And if the devil was kicked out out heaven and from God's presence like we were all taught when he rebelled against God wanting to be God and waged a war, 1/3 of the angels siding with him, then how is it that the devil was able to enter the presence of the Lord in the book of Job to present himself before God with the other angels if kicked out from God's presence and how did Jesus see the devil fall from from the skies like a star in the gospels?

If believing is an universal law that works for saint and sinner alike, then why do we need God, PFAL, VP, WOW, Corps, and stupid twigs???? If we were ambassadors for Christ then why was the main tool, main outreach tool of TWI PFAL? I mean, how much of it centered on the life of Christ, prophecies regarding his birth, his life, his ministry...and cruxcifion and ressurection?

broken logic 1. Eve was in the transgression because she was deceived when she ate the fruit, Adam wasn't cause he just went ahead and followed his lady into the soup. Therefore being deceived into doing wrong is worse then knowing it is wrong and doing it especially when you can blame the woman. 2.The devil got the title deed to the earth when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. Why didn't he just get the GArden of Eden only? I mean, all Adam had control of was the Garden of Eden....Adam never had control over the whole earth and yet when he sinned, somehow all of earth went under the control of the devil. I think someone should have hired a better lawyer to fight the grand daddy clauses in that transfer of property. And why did it go to the devil? How did he fit into it? Why didn't the control and ownership go back to God who originally owned the earth? 3. Why did God set up Adam and Eve to sin? Don't tell me free will and God wanted someone to truly love him. All God had to do for freewill is say, "Stay in the Garden." If man left the garden, it would have been free will and an indicator that he didn't want to love God. Putting a tree up and saying you can't eat it is just entrapment and what person wouldn't have been tempted? 4. Why are women always blamed for bringing evil into the world? Pandora and her freakin box spilled evil into the world and Eve and her damn fruit diet. Who writes this stuff anyway? 5. Why does God hold people responsible for stuff they didn't do? Oh yes he does, original sin which I think the doctrine did originate with Paul.. Because Adam sinned, the rest of us are doomed to insanity, evil, disease, death....not fair.... And speaking of thou shalt surely die..if that was the case, then why were they expelled from the garden BEFORE they could eat of the tree of life????? Forget what number we're on...but if the world and us were redeemed back from the devil... why was he referred to as the god of this world in Corinthians..should he be referred to as the former landlord who got foreclosed on instead of one being in charge? And if the earth is redeemed back...why the obeyance of that being shown instead of good people being killed, dying, suffering..???? Now all the subclauses come in..well because you don't believe, a cow believes better than you, you are possessed, your mother is possessed, all excuses to show that we are more powerful than the all powerful redemption Why? When I bought property, I set up housekeeping immediately...I didn't wait. A short time in the garden and centuries of hell afterwards... Hey how about the famous quote from Phillipians about forgetting those things left behind and reaching for those things that are ahead...used whenever we needed to forget the past..a mantra...YET in context..Paul wasn't putting bad memories to rest...he was putting GOOD memories of how good his life was, how he had it all...high station in life, everything he needed and how he just counted that to be cowmanure compared to having the gosepl of Christ without all the good things...a little out of context was the way we used it.... We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus our Lord..but dang it, don't forget your big wow nametag to let the whole town know who you are and tell them about PFAL. Is PFAL a code word for Jesus? How about ministers being servants and if you can't wash feet and be least of all...you're not a leader according to the gospel because you're supposed to minister TO others and not be ministered to....please let's have a show of hands on how many of you served by cleaning leadership houses, watched their children, did their lawns and gardens, fixed their cars, fetched them coffee mints and cloves...made sure you had their favorite coffee and creamer and god forbid you ever eat before them?? all those who experienced that please line up to the left....yeah well can't be a good leader if you can't be a good follower mantra replaced the saying of being least if you wanted to lead... okay okay how sane was it to scorn the wife of Job who lost all her children in one day...her living, her houses, her food? Why did TWI see nothing but unbelief in her words of curse god and die rather then the lament of a broken hearted women who lost all those she loved and ended up with a bumpy infected husband who sat in a pile of whatever he was in??? No believing..we were told, she wasn't faithful. Yeah, well guess what,neither would I be either and I bet I would have something less than joyous to say after experiencing all that. But then how sane is the story of Job being pulled apart by God's arch enemy just to see if he would scream uncle and lose his faith. Lovely. Let me make a long story short, I will squeal like a stuck pig if that happened to me, so don't bother doing it to me. [This message was edited by Mandii on February 05, 2004 at 17:36.]

Gee, The End *huggggsss* I am so so so sorry. This should not have happened to you at all. It is NOT your fault you were ill, it is not your fault it took awhile to get a proper diagnosis. I will pray for you and this situation

I know what you mean, Rascal. When we left, we still acted like TWI zombies..always walking around with a smile on my face...some would ask what is wrong with that? Well, normal people don't smile all the time and it was not spontaneous but rather conditioned behavior...seriously...I was reprimanded more than once and by different leaders for not smiling enough. I hated my teeth then, I didn't show them off. All of our responses and body languaged was conditioned by TWI. Oh and the virtuous woman crap....crap it is...I am stubborn as hell...really and been told that virtuous women were never stubborn, of course this was applied to me when I bucked leadership and what THEY wanted for my life as opposed to what I wanted for my life. This is a problem I have with religion period...the way they try to make women over in the mode of those women who lived back in the veil times of the bible. Doesn't work. Different society, different norms and different side of the world. Then religion, at least most of those that I have met, deny common human emotions and plaster them as sin, anger being chief on their list. Personally, I think religion, as a whole, fosters some very unhealthy and repressive mind sets in people and does more to harm people then help people. Especially when they make people afraid to have these emotions and cause a guilt trip for having them or a fear trip of being possessed of an anger/bitter/blah blah demon.

Rascal said: "Seriously...One can detest evil wrought ........really it is ok....it`s apropriate!" Not only is it appropriate...it is right. Injustices should anger us... that anger can lead to some pretty righteous and good actions, and 'never again' is one of them. Besides, one should never mistake a passionate personality for being one full of bitterness and anger. Passionate people, like Rascal and myself, feel deeply (and I know there is a host of us here who are lie that and then others who aren't and that is okay). Whether it is good or bad, our makeup that GOD gave makes us like that, or our dna or whatever..we are special in our own way. It is the confines of TWI and every other controlling cult like group that tries to get people to modify their personalities to fit one standard jello mold so that NOT only do we think the same, and believe the same but try to make us act and react the same. Vive le difference... okay, I don't speak french...but I think you know what I mean.