WordWolf

[NOW I think we hit upon why you were invited. You were in the community, you were interested, and you were not an academic in that field. So, having you in the room looked good when they asked for grants. Just don't cause trouble in the room, and there you go. Exactly how much you understood was debatable, but that wasn't the point for them. Naturally, from your POV, you're confident you got it all.]

A) Most scholars are actively looking for the truth. That's why researchers research and experimenters experiment- they're looking for some form of the truth. B) This black/white thinking you laud is incredibly harmful, and is obvious in moments like this. If one has "found the truth on an issue", one must maintain the POSSIBILITY that one is wrong, and that a greater truth is out there. Otherwise, when greater truth arrives, one will actively SUPPRESS it and be HOSTILE to it. I've changed my mind when greater information overrode what I previously believed- and wanted to believe. When they discovered the atom, they believed it was insplittable, and named it so- "atom", uncuttable. Then someone figured out how to split the atom. Were they taken out and beaten to death with a rock? No- tentatively, scientists looked to see if he was right. When he demonstrated he was correct, they changed their thinking. Scientists used to be Lamarckians. They used to think that DNA or whatever was simple, and easy to change. They believed the agent of change was activity. When a proto-giraffe stretched its neck to reach leaves, its offspring would have a slightly longer neck. When a bird needed a sharper beak or a harder beak, his offspring would inherit it. And so on. (Charles Darwin was a Lamarckian.) Since then, they've discarded Lamarckianism because DNA is FAR more complicated, and does not work like that. So, for the rest of us, it's possible to change our minds- even if it will take a lot. This keeps us from missing something greater, more fundamental. You're proud nothing can change your mind. I wouldn't brag about that.

I can buy that you knew the lingo and that you spoke on the telephone for 10 minutes.

"Headaches are like resolutions. You forget them as soon as they stop hurting." "So far of those I've used, I haven't had much luck with any of them. Well, let's see what they say about this one. They tell you what it's ingredients are, and how it's guaranteed to exterminate every insect in the world, but they do not tell you whether or not it's painless. And I say, insect or man, death should always be painless." "Sam, this is the last time." "For what?" "For this. Meeting you in secret so we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips, the occasional lunch hour, and I wish you wouldn't even come." "All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters? I can come down next week." "No." "Not even just to see you? Have lunch? In public." "Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner, but respectably — in my house with my mother's picture on the mantle, and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three." "And after the steak, do we send sister to the movies? Turn mama's picture to the wall?" "Sam!" "All right. Marion, whenever it's possible I want to see you and under any circumstances, even respectability." "You make respectability sound disrespectful." "Oh no, I'm all for it. But it requires patience, temperance, with a lot of sweating out. Otherwise though, it's just hard work. But if I could see you and touch you, you know, simply as this, I won't mind." "You've never had an empty moment in your entire life, have you?" "Only my share." "Where are you going? I didn't mean to pry." "I'm looking for a private island." "What are you running away from?" "Wh-why do you ask that?" "People never run away from anything." "The rain didn't last long, did it? [Pause] You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch." "Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps." "I was born in mine. I don't mind it anymore." "Oh, but you should! You should mind it!" "Oh, I do, [laughs] but I say I don't." "You know, if anyone ever talked to me the way I heard — the way she spoke to you..."

What? Oh, right.

Warren Sanchez was introduced to a poor man who asked Warren: 'Brother, what is the meaning of life?' Warren answered: 'The meaning of life I will tell you In four words: How would I know?" What did Warren wish to tell us with this? Let us analyze the phrase. "I" , ego. It would appear to indicate egotism, worship of the self, haughtiness. The thing is that here, Warren uses it through opposition, to tell us precisely the opposite. In other words, humility. So that it is quite clear here, when Warren says "I", he is saying "humility." But Warren says something further. Warren says, "How should I know?" In other words, "I, who should know." In sum, brethren, Warren knows the meaning of life, but humility keeps him from saying it.

Assuming inerrancy on the behalf of wierwille leads one to post drivel like this. if wierwille comes up with something easily proven as wrong, then wierwille didn't actually MAKE A MISTAKE, no, he secretly USED A FIGURE OF SPEECH.

Actually, that's exactly what we're getting. Called it.

You added the word "really" to the word of wierwille. When you add to the word of wierwille, you no longer have the word of wierwille. There's a certain irony of taking face-to-face, or mouth-to-mouth, as God put it, in this context. You said communicating in the "5 senses", like an audible conversation, is CRUDE and LIMITED, and that it is "far from a face-to-face conversation." Don't you get it? God confirmed that "face to face conversations" are personal, but since they're by the senses, you're categorizing them- inadvertently- as "CRUDE and LIMITED." Don't you listen to yourself? That's an internal contradiction- and it came from trying to make obvious errors into secret truths.

When beginning the discussion with a given of an ALMIGHTY God, the idea of that ALMIGHTY God having "difficulty" with ANYTHING is a ludicrous one. "Less efficient", to one with infinite resources, is equally ludicrous.

I was going to guess "It's My Life" by the Animals, but that's obviously not it.

*wild swing* "From Here to Eternity"???

According to vpw in pfal, God is Spirit, and can only communicate with that which He is-which is Spirit. (That's the 2nd of the 2 mutually-exclusive postulates he gave. the less-limiting one.) vpw's standard explanation for revelation to people not born again and not prophets was that God Almighty would put spirit upon them conditionally in that instance only, and remove it shortly thereafter. (That's how he explained "the writing on the wall." BTW, FF Bruce explained it better, and that explanation doesn't require discussing revelation.) So, to follow vpw's rules for spirit strictly, What happened here was that God Almighty, since he was unable to communicate directly with the mind of the donkey, put some spirit conditionally upon the donkey. Since that was not sufficient to make the donkey able to speak and make sense, God also had to perform a miracle and temporarily increase the donkey's wit and make him able to utter intelligible speech. Once He had done that, He could communicate with His Spirit to the donkey's temporary spirit, which became manifested in the senses realm when the donkey spoke. To discard vpw's explanation, God Almighty performed a miracle that raised the donkey's wit, and allowed him intelligible speech. Nothing further was needed. That was pretty miraculous as it was.

We never really made a thread on the subject, because it was so easily proven wrong. First of all, it wasn't even consistent. "God is Spirit- and God can only give that which He is, which is Spirit." -vpw, pfal. "God gave manna. God is not manna." -Raf, GSC. "God is Spirit- and God can only communicate with that which He is, which is Spirit."-vpw, pfal. Several people pointed out the obvious problems with that, as it doesn't even work on paper- especially when what vpw called "The Great Principle" comes into play. "God is Spirit, and God communicates with his spirit in you- which is now your spirit, and your spirit teaches your mind. Then it becomes manifested in the senses realm as you act." So, now God's Spirit IS UNABLE to communicate with my mind directly, because God is Spirit, and Spirit cannot communicate with mind directly since mind is not spirit. So, God's Spirit communicates directly to my spirit. The next step is that my spirit teaches my mind. To do that, it MUST FIRST COMMUNICATE with my mind. So, my spirit can do what God Almighty's Spirit is UNABLE TO DO. Seriously, if you spend time trying to save "the Great Principle" with your usual method of "that's the version for public consumption, but even the Corps and the inner cadre never REALLY heard the secret, occult meaning behind that- of which the version in pfal is an oversimplified, understated version", you're not going to get any converts to it, and you're just going to sink deeper into the rabbit hole. But, if you really want to discuss it, sure, start a new thread in Doctrinal. (That's when you make a new thread yourself specifically to discuss something, that's not when you take a different, existing thread with a different subject and start posting your new subject on it.)

[False Dilemma. "There are 2 types of people- those who divide people into 2 types, and those who don't." (BTW, that's another false dilemma even while it's a joke.) False Dilemmas are a lot like the postulate "You can't go beyond what you've been taught." They limit discussion and they limit THINKING into narrow channels, when other answers may work better. (Oh, and for those who are just skimming me for finding cut-and-paste to use against me later.... Just because only two options are offered is NOT a guarantee something is a False Dilemma. Sometimes there's only two possibilities, and often there are a lot more. One actually has to make the effort to determine which they are dealing with. Since that's work, some people will just guess. In the case of those who fence themselves in with a postulate (like "I can't go beyond what I've been taught") will find they don't really have an option without stepping outside their postulate.) ]

This was a perceptual flaw that was inflicted on you. It was inflicted on me, too, but I actually blew it off the first time I heard it, since I knew it was wrong. "You can't go beyond what you've been taught."- vpw False. "You can't go beyond what you KNEW- but you can learn more and THEN go beyond what you KNEW." - WordWolf What's the difference? vpw's version inflicts the "need" for a teacher on someone in order to learn ANYTHING. vpw was fond of inventing problems- and then offering the solutions for them- for a price. it was a lucrative, if unprincipled, business for him. So, if you begin with "You can't go beyond what you've been taught", then the next thing is needing to find a teacher, and only going as far as they can teach you. If you truly seek "mastery" of something, you have to completely discard that postulate and go FAR beyond what anyone can teach you. That's what "masters" of a thing do. Bruce Lee developed Jeet Kun Do in private, having gone far beyond what others had taught him. The Gracie family took Jiu Jitsu- a striking style- and added large amounts of grappling, holding, throws, and ground-fighting to it. The result was "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu"- which is a lot more dangerous than the conventional kind. (Check the octagon if there's any doubt.) Those who DECIDE that they CAN'T go beyond what they've been taught will discover they are correct, and those who decide that they CAN go beyond what they've been taught will discover that THEY are correct as well.

According to one method of thinking.... Provided that you're born again, Matthew 18 doesn't apply to you. Since it was before Pentecost, "the church of God" HAS no penalties. However, Jesus gave strong warnings and he didn't qualify them. So, this "sin all you want and God Almighty will give all the Big Jobs and exempt you from punishment" thing is invented- and the first man who set it up, big surprise, was vpw, who sinned all he wanted, claimed God Almighty gave him the Big Job, and genuinely wondered on his deathbed where he'd stumbled and why he was unable to get healing. Seriously- DECADES of sin and he couldn't find one. Then again, he also claimed he'd never taken an aspirin IN HIS LIFE and never taken a sick day IN HIS LIFE. There's a story where some Native American is asked what a conscience is. He replies that it's a 3-cornered thing in here, signalling to his chest. He said that when he did wrong, it turned and the corners hurt him. But if he KEPT doing wrong, then the corners wore down and it STOPPED hurting.

There's a certain futility in answering you in according to your posts, Mike, and Rocky acknowledged that. He also pointed out that, once again, you hijacked a thread. Unlike you, the rest of us can learn from each other, and read and respond to each other's posts accordingly. With you, it's always "what can I pick and choose from what they said and use to push my agenda", so you tend to miss the content, and sometimes who posted it. (I never posted about John the Baptizer's diet nor his outfit, someone else did.) It's a lot like how John Lynn would "advertise" here and refuse to post in threads. He'd post the initial post and run off, or have someone else post something to us, and insist all communications with him be by phone. Whenever someone phoned him, they'd be subjected to a continuous ad of "take my classes and buy my book." In between, he'd criticize us anonymously and pretend he wasn't advertising to us, wink-wink- as if it wasn't plainly obvious to EVERYONE. Looking back, I honestly think he thought we didn't notice, so everybody but him got what was going on and why his advertising wasn't translating into increased sales. There's a lesson there, for those ready to receive it.

Since someone's posting who could benefit from the contents of this thread, I'm bumping it up in case they've missed it before.

Has the leopard changed his spots?

I also notice how Mike can see it that way- but when another thread has actual discussions that address how Charlene was correct and that the Bible does NOT interpret itself, that's when Mike "gets busy" again, and never DIRECTLY addresses anything that refutes his position. He responds with emotion and ad hominem attacks ("dim-witted"), but the actual discussion he ducks. This reminds me of an old saying. "If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have neither on your side, hammer the table." We're getting noise but a skipping of substance- and that tells us a great deal.

That's it.

Since I'm 100% sure of my answer, here's the next one. "We don't need no education."

"Unchained Melody", by The Righteous Brothers.

That's it. Too easy?