WordWolf

Once beneath the stars, the universe was ours. Love was all we knew, and all I knew was you. I wonder where you are, I wonder if you think about me Once upon a time, IN YOUR WILDEST DREAMS. It might have been "still remember" instead of "think about me". The Moody Blues had some good stuff on "Sur la Mer." At least this song and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" should be considered mandatory listening for occasional listeners of soft rock.

There was an exchange and nobody wanted to add to that. www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/4698-the-l-e-a-d-accident-what-happened/page__st__240__p__117670#entry117670 "TWI's pervasive culture of secrecy, its claimed monopoly on truth, its reliance upon personalities (VPW first, later LCM and the list of Way celebrities), its alienation from society (the "world"), its hierarchy of initiations (through classes and programs), and many other behaviors follow the pattern. Why do you think the in-res Corps sang childrens' songs at every meal? Why were so many in-res Corps meetings held sitting on a floor, with little room to move? These are strategies for conditioning human behavior. They work, too." www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/4698-the-l-e-a-d-accident-what-happened/page__st__240__p__117678#entry117678 " quote:Originally posted by vickles: Wow Satori, that is the best explanation of cult I've seen yet. Sitting on the floor all the time was a strategy of mind control? " "I'll agree that's a great explanation. ==== I'll even try to answer your question. (Mind you, I could be completely off-base since I can't read Satori's mind.) children's songs, sitting on the floor..... I've been given to understand that there are adults out there in the USA that like to pretend they're little children in private. (I'm thinking they don't remember childhood very well.) Now, leaving aside discussions of what motivates someone to do this, I think we can agree, if a grown adult male wants to dress up as Little Lord Fauntelroy or Buster Brown in his living room, and ride a wooden stick "hobby-horse" around and pretend he's a little kid, well, whatevah. Just make sure you pull the shades/blinds/curtains closed first. On the other hand, Vickles, let's say some guy (husband, fiancee, steady boyfriend) says to you that he wants YOU to dress up like Punky Brewster or Pippi Longstocking or whatever and ride a hobby-horse around the living room. You would probably say "HAHAHAHAHAHA! No, wait-you were SERIOUS??" You'd back up a few feet, and say something was wrong. Why does this guy want to infantilize you? What sick purpose does he have to make you like a child? Well, guess what? If you were in the corpse, you sat thru something like this! Not to the same degree, and not for the same reasons, I hope, but you were infantilized. Your erstwhile "Father in da werd" kept calling you "kids", had you sing children's songs, and had you sit around while being taught, all to evoke childhood? Why? This evokes the responses of childhood- the reactions that the "adult" knows more than you, and you have to obey, the idea that you know nothing and have to be told what to do, that you have to "be a good boy/girl" and obey. Subtle, yes. Insidious, yes. Intentional? Well, could it possibly have been accidental? Think carefully before answering. Could they possibly have been deliberately training people not to be good LEADERS, but good FOLLOWERS instead? " www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/4698-the-l-e-a-d-accident-what-happened/page__st__260__p__117719#entry117719 "To me, to jump on the "cult experts'" train is to jump from one group's set of pat answers (twi's) to another (the so called "experts"), and it isn't much of a leap. That's why I call it the "anti-cult cult." These "experts" seem to work from the premise that every wrong thing done by every non-mainstream religious group is based on some evil, well-thought-out plan. Good grief, it sounds like there's a cult handbook that everyone who starts a controlling religious group buys from Amazon.com and then follows: I can see it now. "Okay, I'd like to start a cult. I want people to follow and obey me and give me all their money. What ever shall I do? Oh I know, I'll check the cult-leader's handbook!" (sound of pages turning) Step 1. Sit them on the floor. Step 2. Get them to sing some children's songs (which, by the way, we did not sing at every meal in residence, and we were in the Family Corps, with kids present who LIKED singing children's songs. This kind of exaggeration hinders "innies" from giving credence to the ACTUAL crap that went on in twi, IMO.) Step 3. Call them "kids" (never mind that you're old enough to be a grandfather to many of them and old enough to be a father to most). Step 4. "Love-bomb" them. Step 5. Have a personality. No cult will go far without someone with personality at the helm. Etc., etc." ================================ So, 2 people who said "yes", and 1 person who said "no", and that's as far as it ever got, AFAIK.

Like when a kid needed medication to balance his blood chemistry and calm his behavior (which worked soon after they started taking it) and "leadership" saying the way to calm the kid was to beat him with a stick if he didn't calm down, and threaten to abandon him in the woods if that didn't work? I prefer lcm's own account of how a man had a psychiatric episode right in the middle of vpw's teaching. Instead of doing anything to get him medical attention, vpw tried confronting him (as if the guy could even understand that), and then sent the guy home on a bus a few hours later. When the guy left, lcm worried about him. vpw insisted he forget about the guy and he'd arrive home sooner or later. A WEEK later, he arrived home, and was hardly the only one who left hq a wreck and was tossed on a bus. A POSTER here related how vpw did that to them, and they wandered away at the first connection and EVENTUALLY showed up somewhere. vpw considered people DISPOSABLE. ====================== "Dr and LCM always fought for people to stay in the Corps. There was an incident of a guy in the Corps who all of a sudden went "gooney-bird". He started to babble and not make sense. LCM worked hard with the guy to help him but he was incoherent. Dr, when he met him, confronted him by asking- 'Son, how come you're letting your mind get all scrambled?' The guy answered unintelligibly and Dr told him that it would be best for him just to pack his bags and go home. The guy understood that. He left. LCM spent many hours and many long distance phone calls trying to make sure the guy had gotten home from his bus ride home safely. Not being able to verify his location, he was concerned. Dr told him to move on. There's nothing you can do, he'll show up at home soon enough. A week later the guy did show up at home." www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/8019-vp-and-me-in-wonderland/

Socks was neither lying nor prideful. Socks never said he had zero unbelief, and he readily posted he did when that came up. Socks never claimed he was, say, an expert astronaut, either, so it would not be fair if someone claimed he said he was. Socks pointed out the original post has problems with it, and sets up people with the opposing point of view as if ALL of them are idiots and NONE of them ever examined their beliefs. Disagreeing is neither "being prideful" nor anything like what twi did. So, either Socks, Geisha and myself agree with you, or the ONLY reason we disagree is because "pride is getting" in our way? That's called a "false dilemma." You're refusing to consider there might be plenty of other reasons- which is something that happened with the original post. The guy refuses to consider Christians may logically and intelligently consider things and be stronger in faith for them- or actually BECOME CHRISTIANS because of it. As Geisha pointed out, Lee Strobel set out to DISPROVE Christianity, and eventually became a Christian because of what he found. He BECAME a Christian because he didn't let his pride get in the way of changing his mind. No, that's Socks DISAGREEING and GIVING HIS OPINION. Don't mistake DISAGREEING for PRIDE. We all had enough of that in twi, where DISAGREEING was considered sinful and crimes against God- and still is. We've learned a lesson or two about that since then. Jesus confronting Peter is nothing like anything that happened here. Neither Peter-in that instance- was being prideful, nor was Socks in this instance. And Socks never said he had no "unbelief." We all have "some unbelief". All humans have "some unbelief" as well as some "belief". Billions of people believe the Eiffel Tower is in Paris but have never been there and seen it. Billions of people believe the pyramids are in Egypt but have never been in there and seen them. We don't fly into a panic when someone is 3 minutes late meeting us, phoning the hospitals to see if they are dead and in a morgue. Nobody here claimed to have no unbelief. Nobody here WOULD claim that, AFAIK. We all freely admit we're human beings and have some unbelief. We don't need someone to point it out and convince us of that. We all know that. We all also know objects dropped on Earth will fall towards the center of the Earth. We don't need someone to point THAT out and convince us of THAT. We all know that. Furthermore, the original post had nothing to do with us having any unbelief- it was someone claiming Christians have a sort of "BLIND faith" and don't believe for any logical reason, and if we used logic, we'd all become atheists or agnostics like whichever one he is.

From time to time, we got up on what seemed an average day and...... nothing happened. vpw and company then celebrated a great victory. They'd made up some horrible disaster coming up. When it didn't happen, twi'ers stopped it from happening with their great believing. www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/148-vpw-superman-green-lantern/ "I was told, back in 1989, one of the reasons there were problems after vpw's death was that, as a direct result of his death, "that huge network of believing vanished." That is, an ex-corpse person, who was in "active rebellion" against twi's draconian statements in 1989, had said that during vpw's life, his believing, and his believing ALONE, acted like a huge net over the entire USA, thwarting the devil like some huge construct of Green Lantern's ring. Once vpw died, it vanished, forcing the rest of us mortals to deal with things as best we could." ================================ "In 1976 I attended my first ROA's in Sydney Ohio. I remember the WOW's with whom we travelled saying that VP does not sleep during this whole entire event. He was so 'spiritually' wired that he was awake for the whole 4 days, praying and teaching and meeting needs..." ================================== "It was TWI that caused the fall if the Soviet Union. If it had not been for Wierwille's stand on the Word countless countries would have fallen to communism, California would have slipped off into the Pacific Ocean, and we would all now be speaking Russian..." ================================== "When Squeaky From went to shoot the President and her gun did not fire, it was because VP had the foresight to send WOW's there that day. Because of the WOW's presence, under the direction of VP, our President was saved." ================================ "God told VP to put WOW's on the San Andres fault in California. This prevented the HUGE earthquake which otherwise would have happened. I recall someone in CA said something bad about TWI and VP said, "I should just take my WOW's off the fault and see what happens to them." ==================================== "Did you know that TWI prevented the certain overthrow of the USA by all the witnessing we did and by the production and promotion of America Awakes? It was all going to happen by the bi-centennial in 1976. Heck, I still have my copy of "The Secret new Constitution" which had been drafted by the evil powers, the Catholic church being foremost among them! America Awakes drove back the spirit power. Our country was saved! Thank God all those WOW's signed up. Just in the nick of time. Their door to door and street witnessing changed destiny! A more recent example in TWI II was Y2K. Quote from LCM and other leaders: "It was the preparation on the household of The Way that kept anything from happening." ============================= I recall them discussing that Richard Nixon had a plan to eliminate states and instead divide the country into regions. It was all in preperation of the "take over". I remember storing food in the early 70's when I was frightened of a "take over" the first time by TWI. And yes we all stood on the WORD and stopped the evil! ============================ What about the story that it was a Corps Prayer meeting lead by VP that resulted in the death of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The story goes that he was the lead conspirator in the drive to replace the Constitution and that the prayers of VP and the Corps (Superman and the Justic League) brought the hand of the Lord down upon him. =========================== This one isn't in the Superhero category, but I remember being told that VP prayed for each W.O.W. Ambassador each day. The year I went, there were over 3,000! I remember wondering how the heck he could find time to pray for 3,000 individuals each day. It was because he was SUPERspiritual, no doubt. =========================

I agree that vpw was an extreme narcissist, in addition to sociopathic. The narcissism, in short, says that the world revolves around HIM. The sociopathic patterns say that others are insignificant insects and merely things to be used, manipulated, etc. Narcissism is what causes things like the explosion at people and storming off, i.e. "How dare they have lives that don't revolve around my every word!" He was pricked in his vanity and stormed off to salve it. Sociopathic behavior is when there's things like the OTHER incidents- where he's chatting casually with someone, suddenly verbally attacks someone else, then resumes his place chatting. He saw nothing wrong, nor NOTEWORTHY about just blasting someone for no real reason, since they didn't matter to him- he felt NOTHING about them. He didn't need to catch his breath and pause to resume chatting because the yelling was merely surface behavior, and his heart was absent from it- as it was from the chatting. Interaction between him and other people was always some sort of acting, staged in part, because he PRETENDED to care, PRETENDED to be stern, etc. Since sometimes it was one thing, sometimes it was the other, you could never predict with 100% accuracy which pathology would shape his behavior at any moment from among the two.

Oh, one from Column A, one from Column B. vpw was OPPORTUNISTIC. He saw an ad for a class, went and bullied his way into the class, then plagiarized it and charged money for it, calling it "his" class. He met a man who understood The Spirit, read his book, then had it retyped and charged money for it, calling it "his" book. He read an article about preaching being an up-and-coming field, and he went into preaching. He read an article about young Christians in a sexually-permissive environment, went and impressed them using material from the class and book, and co-opted their ministries into his own, calling them "his kids." He once claimed that the "night owls" began BY ACCIDENT, and I think that was true. He went to relax after an evening teaching, and people, excited, came over to talk to them. This provided a great INFORMAL opportunity to indoctrinate and pass on his opinions on many subjects. Eventually, he formalized them, dividing them into night owls and hoot owls (AFTER MIDNIGHT), and made them a more FORMAL opportunity to indoctrinate. But at first, it developed organically, then vpw came along and formalized it, strangling the life out of it. Pretty much the same scenario as he did with everything else.

Naten brought it up. He seems to think- and correctly, IMHO- that the Goodness of God is tied up with His conduct, and that this relates directly to whether or not an explanation is needed or warranted to account for what Bullinger and others explained this way. However, I'll spin it off or revive an old topic, whichever works. (If we discussed this ever.)

(I'll address the rest later. I'm in a hurry right now.}

You might want to expand your search parameters. This was just off the top of my head. KJV Matthew 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. And those same verses in the CEV? Matthew 19:17 Contemporary English Version (CEV) 17Jesus said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? Only God is good. If you want to have eternal life, you must obey his commandments." Mark 10:18 Contemporary English Version (CEV) 18Jesus replied, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good.

Once upon a time, twi was depicted as groovy, cool, hip and edgy, the opposite of fossilized, dry religion. Today, all twi HAS is fossilized, dry religion.

I'd also like to point out that the exemplar of "leading with the first thought" because "the first thought is always from God" was lcm, and examples include "God's Word is now over the world" and "All corps will now go full-time" and others of his boondoggles.

It's a children's song. Someone pointed out once that a number of things were all a part of treating twi'ers like children and vpw as the sole father-figure.

First of all, this should be in DOCTRINAL, because this is about DOCTRINE, and is clearly not "ABOUT THE WAY." So, I'll ask the mods to move this thread. As for Spong himself, I'd have more respect if he just came right out and said he wasn't a Christian- or even a THEIST, as he denies anything that gives either term meaning. So, he denies the fall of man, Theism, miracles in the Bible, the sacrificial substitution of The Cross, Jesus' resurrection AND ascension, the Bible as any type of authoritative book, and the efficacy of prayer. I had more in common with Christianity when I was young and stupid, and rejected all of Christianity and the Bible. I still believed there WAS one God, but didn't think I knew anything about Him other than that He was The Creator. I was still, technically, a theist. In other news, Spong's been unconscionably sloppy in his theology in all sorts of subjects. In a quick search of his name, I found someone providing evidence against a different flat claim of his- that the Biblical account of Jesus' burial was historically unlikely. http://www.shroudsto...g-on-burial.htm "The probable fate of the crucified Jesus was to be thrown with other victims into a common, unmarked grave. The general consensus of New Testament scholars is that whatever the Easter experience was, it dawned first in the minds of the disciples who had fled to Galilee for safety, driving us to the conclusion that the burial story in the gospels is … legendary … " Reply: "...unquestionably, by the pattern of your argument, you want us to accept that the consensus of New Testament scholars think that Jesus was not buried in a tomb. That is certainly not true and you know it, Bishop John Shelby Spong." (Several quotes follow, refuting Spong's claims- including quotes from Jesus Seminar writers who otherwise would agree with Spong that the Bible is outdated and archaic.) This whole article comes from the position that intelligent, educated people can't possibly be fundamentalist Christians of ANY type- despite quite a number being just that, including rocket scientists and notables like Sir Isaac Newton. It ASSUMES that the 2 can't be reconciled, and derides anyone who has attempted to reconcile them and succeeded. That's the kind of thinking that STIFLES scientific innovation- the notion that answers might NOT be somewhere just out of my immediate reach, and someone else might find them today, or I might find them tomorrow, and we might all need to re-evaluate our thinking next month because of what we learn today. By ASSUMING one has arrived at the ONE answer, one stops the search for deeper knowledge. The writer may accuse the Christians of being close-minded, but he's exposing his own bigotry and narrow-mindedness in the process.

Substituting the passive tense with an active tense is what it is, and in this SPECIFIC case, it means turning PERMISSION into INITIATION. The average person who understands the figure would never recognize it as "idiom of permission."

{b]I'd like to have a discussion on the actual topic. You know, the one where we discuss what the Bible says and what the Bible means. Quite a few DIVERSE groups who actually care about the Bible render "fear of God" as a concept COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the modern meaning of "fear". We could discuss that, or we could discuss why some Bibles use words like "respect" when translating "phobos"- and that's not the work of ex-twi'ers. However, it seems this thread just can't progress without one of the posters being determined to keep introducing and RE-introducing vpw into the discussion, and refuting the claims that everyone already agrees are refuted. Is this because the poster is trying to fog the issue by misrepresenting the others? I strongly doubt it. Is the poster unable to approach this subject without it revolving around vpw? I'm seeing sufficient evidence to believe it's that rather than something else. Can someone signal me when (if) this thread can depart from revolving around vpw for at least 2 pages straight?[/b]

======================== "Let's make sure that history never forgets the name...Enterprise." "Federation ship Enterprise, surrender and prepare to be boarded." "That will be the day." "Mr Castillo?" "Yes, Captain?" "Inform the crew - we're going back!" "A warrior's drink!" "Military log, combat date 43625.2."

I DID, but it probably would have taken MANY quotes to hit one that would have intersected what little I know about the episode- draining phasers for power for a shuttle.

Hook Robin Williams Hamlet (Branagh version) (There's quite a cast to choose from in that version.}

You'll guess correctly. You're up!

My ability to name TOS episodes is not impressive. I currently don't know much about this episode, and what I DO know wasn't in a quote. ======================== Ok, next round. "Let's make sure that history never forgets the name...Enterprise."

"It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact."

My usual rule of thumb (not an official rule of the thread AFAIK) is that the quote may be recognized by someone who never saw the movie. I'm fairly sure I could have gotten this from "laces out" if I was in the right frame of mind, but even the longer quote wouldn't have gotten me to "ACE VENTURA PET DETECTIVE" if I'd never seen it.

White Men Can't Jump Wesley Snipes Demolition Man