WordWolf

I think a healthy response to Campbell's work is a healthy response to just about everybody's work, including mine. Read it over, consider it, evaluate it, and where there's value, use it, and where there's error, correct it and discard it (or correct it and use it.) Otherwise you can end up doing something like fleeing vpw and endorsing Campbell like he's some sort of guru, even though he was wrong in many places. What he wrote, IMHO, is interesting and has value, but it doesn't seal up the sum. Or you could survive vpw, then endorse lcm, then reject lcm and endorse ccg or v2p2 or someone else. We've got a lot of people who left twi and reject SPECIFIC gurus but retained the ERROR that one NEEDS a guru to do their spiritual thinking FOR them.

Ok, while we're waiting.... TV game shows have hosts asking questions of the contestants... but this TV game show also had the host answering the questions alongside them!

That's it. It made more sense in my head last night when I posted it. (Because of time-zone differences, it's hours later here than the posting time notes.)

"You've made me acknowledge the devil in me. I hope to God I'm talkin' metaphorically. Hope that I'm talkin' allegorically. Know that I'm talkin' about the way I feel." "This old town's changed so much. Don't feel like I belong. Too many protest singers. Not enough protest songs." No vibraphone fans online this week?

While we're waiting.... This is a TV-movie starring Fred Dryer as a President of the United States, who goes to work alongside the LAPD in order to kill bloodsucking undead before they take over the US.

"Let's work the problem, people. Let's not make things any worse by guessing." "I don't care what anything was designed to do. I care about what it can do. So let's get to work, let's lay it out, okay?" "With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour."

Steve Carrell Over The Hedge William Shatner

What about my "up"? ("Your turn" or "you're up" would be correct.) Ok, let's see..... "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

It's the closing line of "Back to the Future." I once contemplated getting that line on a t-shirt and wearing it to Christian functions.

It's still your turn since you posted the last correct answer. (Gilligan's Island.)

"This old town's changed so much. Don't feel like I belong. Too many protest singers. Not enough protest songs."

Feel free to fire away. BTW, I'm well aware that I expounded at length without providing the verses. I did that because it would have taken a few pages and significant exposition all the way through. IMHO, satan's history is not meant to be a line of inquiry for us, so it's not that easy to track. So, I'd need to get into, a bit, why certain verses are read as references to him when they don't have any of his names all over them. Personally, I think it's a shame that the Bible was not written like a 21st century textbook. True, it would have been MUCH less useful for people from the previous millenia, but for me here and now, it would be a LOT easier to dig out the more obscure details. ;)

James 1:12-14 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. =============================== What was satan doing in the Garden? That question may mean a few things-I will try to touch on a few of them. Again, all of this is AFAIK, IMHO. The being known as satan was originally the right-hand "man" of The Creator. Full of pride and conceit in his own (created) greatness, he decided he should be exalted about all other "angels" and should get worship that was going to his Creator. So, he convinced 1/3 of the "angels" to rebel, and led a ridiculous rebellion in heaven. His forces lost to those of Michael, and were cast down to THE EARTH. After this come the "days of creation" of Genesis 1. (Some believe they were needed as a result of the war in heaven. Myself, I think the evidence shows that something struck the earth and destroyed the ecosystem, triggering a major extinction event and requiring the "days of creation" of Genesis 1.) Nothing indicates this has changed when Man arrives, "Adam" and "Eve." Adam was given dominion over the Earth- in effect, making Adam "god of Earth" subordinate to God Almighty. Physically, satan arrived to Earth and never left it. So, that's the answer to how satan got to Earth. As to what he was doing "in the garden of Eden", that's a different matter. satan knew that he thought he deserved worship and to be God. Adam had a position somewhat like a sample of what satan wanted. So, satan set out to steal Adam's office which he felt was rightfully his. He succeeded. He's later referred to as "god of this world", and has authority over the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. When Adam sinned, he lost his connection to God, AND he lost his Office and title. Afterwards, we know satan has it, and there is nothing to indicate anyone else had it between that. The logical conclusion is to at least speculate if Adam lost it and satan got it at the same moment. So, that's the answer to "why did satan want to be there?" Was there something else? I've given some thought to satan's faulty logic chains in the past,

I won't disagree with anything H w/o B just said, but I think a different question was meant, so I'll try to cover as much ground as I can as briefly as I can. Ok, what are the questions? "1. can somebody give me an idea of WHY the devil was in the garden of Eden in the first place? 2) why did he take on the form of a snake? 3) why would God curse the serpent? if the serpent didn't crawl on his belly before he was cursed, what the hell (scuse the pun) was he doing before? walking on 4 legs?" Ok, I can answer 2-4 together. This is all IMHO, as I understand it. Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes within her are roaring lions, Her judges are wolves at evening; They leave nothing for the morning. (Personally, I think "wolves" rather than "jackals" is poor translating on behalf of lazy Eurocentric translators who never wondered how wolves ended up in deserts and so on, but that's drifting off-topic.) Here we see that people can be addressed, metaphorically, as animals whose supposed attributes match those of the people. To this day, we might call an untrustworthy person a "snake-in-the-grass" or a "sidewinder" or the like. The former Lucifer, the former lightbearer, the former bright and morning star, was treacherous and sneaky, traits attributed to serpents. If someone lies a lot, I might consider calling him "Rug." Now, The Serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. He wasn't LITERALLY a beast of the field, LITERALLY a limbless animal. Genesis 3:13c" “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:14 The Lord God said to The Serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life;" That wasn't a literal animal God was referring to- but a sneaky, conniving being. satan, the accuser, was cursed more than any cattle or beast of the field, and-although he vaunted himself up as the greatest and highest, he was humbled and made low. That had nothing to do, in and of itself, with any actual animal. That's what was said to "The Serpent", aka satan, etc. Why does it all sound like an actual serpent? God needed to explain it to people in ways people could understand. Jesus taught with parables mentioning lillies, grass, birds, and so on- things people were familiar with, imagery they could relate to. So, the accuser was likened TO a serpent, a snake-in-the-grass, and his punishments were likewise compared to the activities and reputations of a LITERAL snake in the grass. So, that's what the deal is with "serpent"-it's an extended metaphor. I'm not a LITERAL wolf, either. :) I'll get back to you on the first question within a few hours.

Give me 12 hours-I'm on the run this moment.

"Interpret the difficult verses in light of the clear verses" is a rule of thumb, not an etched-in-stone "Thou Shalt." When trying to understand something-especially something like a subject in the Bible, it is important to begin with what is straightforward and obvious, and THEN take a look at what isn't so straightforward. When you have almost everything clearly saying something, and 1 thing that says the opposite, then it's good to take a closer look at the last one, since you may have misread it, or brought a preconceived notion to it, or it may be poorly translated, or it may not even be in the critical texts but was added by someone who meant well. I often found that was handy when trying to study something. And yes, I deconstructed that method to confirm I wasn't just finding what I wanted to find- when I examined the clear verses first, I found there was nothing to find there in terms of changing the meaning, so then I checked the unclear verses and got the same results as before.

People were sold the corps as both an education for life-a definitive one, and the graduation as a sign of "arriving." It's a rude awakening to be in such a program and realize you're spending 4 years and lots of money for things that should take less than a year to cover. (The "college division" did all the classes in 1.) It's a rude awakening to have graduated a program that supposedly trained you for 4 years as a Christian leader, only to discover you don't know how to actually help people when you graduate- except to redefine what they need and how they can be helped. I can "help" anyone as long as I get to define what "help" is and what the conditions for "helping" are.

"Read OR enjoyed?" I guess the PBS viewers (mentioned above) have enjoyed it without reading it, and a manadatory school assignment can mean someone read it without enjoying it. I've owned a copy of "Hero With a Thousand Faces" since the early 1990s. It's an interesting read for fans of "the monomyth". I think people tend to decide where to cut off their horizons- often while claiming they have no such cutoffs. As a student of Psychology or Sociology, I found "A Hero With a Thousand Faces" to be an interesting read, especially the last chapter. Judging from your reaction to a small clip of the Moyers show, I'd recommend sitting down with the actual book or books and seeing if you still like it/them after reading it/them for yourselves. A well-read and well-educated fundamentalist can find such a book as I read enriching without finding it troubling.

"Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard," Paul Simon.

It is "Gilligan's Island." The first cartoon was an adaptation of Gilligan's Island, and added a little monkey. The other cartoon showed the Professor MADE A SPACESHIP FROM WOOD to escape the island- and Gilligan knocked them off course and into space. Then again, with a wooden guidance system, that probably wasn't too hard. That's how they landed on "GILLIGAN'S PLANET." I sh* you not. Fonzie and the Happy Days Gang traveled in TIME. The Brady Kids stayed in the present.

I don't think the difference was the campus, per se. The difference was in the parents and the kids. With responsible and good parents, the kids had a better shot of being healthy and having healthy boundaries. That means they didn't need someone to shove them around to keep from doing the wrong thing- they could avoid it willingly. ========================= Reminds me of how the Bible says leaders are to manage their own homes and families, THEN we consider them for leadership positions after they can handle that competently. So, with the kids of some leaders out of control, what would the Bible say about those leaders who were their parents?

You caught that, eh? With both men falling FAR short of responsible leadership, the way to make geer look good is to compare him to a much crazier "leader" also trained personally by vpw. It's like the idea that an insecure woman can feel better by hanging out with a much uglier friend or thinner friend so she can look better by comparison. It's an illusion, a lie, a deception- but some people sleep better at night deceiving themselves.

This classic sitcom actually spawned two animated series. One of them added a loveable animal companion to the cast. The other sent the characters into space!

It's come up in parts before. If you were a kid on grounds in twi, you were a target for every adult to swat with a wooden ruler for any cause... unless your parents were in the cadre. Then you got away with a lot-and could try to order a few peons around. I don't know how successful the attempts were, however.

I knew enough to guess about "Girl Interrupted" but not about the TV show.