WordWolf

lcm didn't do it on purpose- he just didn't care. He was taught by vpw (approximately) that whatever fool thought passed through the head of the man on the throne was anointed by Gawd Almighty no matter how silly or stupid that thought was. So, lcm just spewed them out without polishing or any kind of quality control. vpw knew he himself was a fraud- and calculated the best words to appeal to each audience. In public, that meant not cursing. (Once the cameras were off, he indulged himself-in every sense of the word.) So, in private, "closed" meetings, vpw could have a filthy mouth and/or be verbally abusive, but when the cameras and microphones were on, he was a sweet grandfatherly sort. So, lcm just spewed all sorts of curses no matter who was around because he didn't care, and if anyone DID care (not him), he considered the fault to be THEIRS, since he was immune to making mistakes. So if they were offended by something, it's not because he was offensive and violated good taste- it was because the other person was oversensitive, carnal, and needed to renew their mind. Once lcm ran off everyone who was unwilling to bow their knee to his image, the remaining "leaders" aped him in all sorts of ways, growing facial hair when he did, carrying a briefcase when he did, and indulging in immature screaming and filthy language whenever they wished rather than exercising self-control because that was lcm's style. They would have followed him off a cliff if he'd have jumped first.

The account in Acts 9 is a "this is what happened" account. The account in Acts 22 is a "this is how Paul recounted it" account. They say MOSTLY the same thing. Is it possible Paul's recounting might have been off? Is it possible we can move on? I'm still wondering if we all were beginning with the same premise, but expressing it in radically different ways.

lcm said often that if you didn't give AT LEAST 10%, God wouldn't even SPIT in your direction. (Never explained why this was a desired result.) In twi, we had freedom from the world outside twi, but eventually, one restraint after another descended FROM twi. We were required to give protection money to God- 10% or something bad would happen to us and family. We were required to give time- or be disobedient, and something bad would happen to us and family. (One person hesitated and a family member died at the time- it happens, people die and we can't stop that- and someone in leadership held that over their head and asked which family member they wanted to drop dead the next time they didn't jump when he said so.) Eventually, it looks like it's safer to be disobedient to God and just be a bad Christian. To be a twi Christian means that God, the devil AND twi are ready to inflict things on you. Of course, those of us who survived twi thrived once we recovered from the experience.

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." - Hans Niemoller (translated) ===================== Some people are scared of EVERYTHING. twi has terrified them of the world outside twi. twi had them terrified OF twi. So, they're scared to leave because they think they'll be outside God's protection. So, they stay in twi and huddle together, afraid of twi but hoping twi won't hit them. It's like an abusive marriage, and rationalized the same way. "It's nice most of the time, if something happens to me, I deserved it...."

A number of parents reported that their child learned to swear and curse from exposure to lcm's raving lunacy, his unprepared rants delivered off-the-cuff all through the 1990s. lcm, of course, was prone to doing that a bit in the 1980s, also, but at that time he was actually a bit apologetic when he began yelling at his audiences. (I heard him apologize on tape once immediately after one- he said that the people he was talking about-in denominations- got him mad.) lcm, of course, didn't originate it himself. He enshrined and institutionalized what he learned and observed from vpw. lcm seemed to legitimately think everything vpw told him was of God- and vpw seemed to know when he was bs-ing and when he wasn't- which was why vpw's style was more effective. He knew WHICH lies to tell and when. lcm thought he was doing the right thing. So, we trace it back to vpw. vpw claimed it was our liberty in Christ that he was preaching, which allowed him to, in effect, do whatever he wanted and it wouldn't touch him spiritually. So, he rationalized his drinking, smoking, sex mania, and of course, his foul mouth. Oddly, he kept his foul mouth hidden whenever a microphone was around- but in private would curse up a storm when he wanted to.

I'd like to see if we aren't all saying variations of the same thing, after all. So, let me take it from the top. Are we all, to some degree, mulling over how an Infinite God conveys His Infinite-ness and His Infinite Wisdom to finite people using finite words in a finite book/codex? (The Bible's always presented to us, in the US in the 21st century, as one book, but it's technically one codex- a book of books.)

============================== 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. Here's some of his beliefs: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong#Twelve_points_for_reform "1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found. 2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt. 3. The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense." "5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity. 6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed. 7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history. 8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age. 9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time. 10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way." 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. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Theism "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." ================= 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.shroudstory.com/faq-spong-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.)

From what I'm seeing, it seems to hold up on the more erudite websites. I've found this more or less the same on several less flaky sites, at least... http://www.truthonthenet.com/sanhedrin_reference.htm "Similarly, the members of the Sanhedrin must command respect as mature individuals. Therefore, it is preferable that each member be at least 40 years old, unless he is incomparable in wisdom and universally respected. Similarly, it is preferable that the head of the Sanhedrin be at least 50 years old. Under no condition should a person under 18 be appointed to the Sanhedrin." "A person who is very old may not sit on the Sanhedrin, since he is apt to be too severe. The same is true of a man who is sterile, or even childless. A Sanhedrin containing any such member is not validly constituted." Technically, they did not state outright that he not be MARRIED- just that he not be CHILDLESS. In this particular context, however, I think the meaning was that they expected any such candidate to be married with at least one child. The idea of a divorced man with a child seeking membership in the Sanhedrin probably struck them as too far-fetched to even entertain-so they didn't bother to write it down. "Every member of the Sanhedrin must be of unblemished family, as was the first Sanhedrin under Moses. Therefore a bastard (mamzer, i.e., the son of an adulterous or incestuous union) is ineligible for membership and renders a Sanhedrin invalid..." The most obvious meaning is that a candidate for the Sanhedrin was ineligible if he was seen as either physically or morally blemished in any way, and was expected to have the respect of his local community. So, unmarried men with children would have been right out. (I'm getting that from the WHOLE page, not just what I quoted. It's the "tl;dr" version of the page. ;) )

[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. Second, this person said a lot of things. I will reply in boldface and brackets, as is my style. And so I don't trip the "too many quotes" error in the software.] Was the Apostle Paul... Gay...?by Pope Reverend I, BV (no login) [No, he was not. And this was quoted from someone arrogant enough to stack titles in front of his name, and yet timid enough to "post a drive-by." (He didn't LOG IN to the forum he posted this to, thus admitting he was the same person who posted this.] What accounts for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body? An Episcopal bishop mulls the issues. BY: John Shelby Spong Comments (36) Excerpted from "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" with permission of HarperSanFrancisco. [Actually, HarperSanFrancisco gave no permission for THIS POST in any form, so the original poster was deceitful in this. He was quoting someone who had permission to print the excerpt. Supposing even that is true. As for Paul's "rhetoric" being "Self-judging", we can already see a HECK of a slant in this article. If an "Episcopal bishop" can read Paul's struggles with life and imperfection on top of the external suffering he dealt with, and call it "self-judging", "rhetoric", and say the issue was Paul having issues with his body, then this "bishop" is not worthy of his office.] Nothing about Paul was moderate. He was tightly drawn, passionately emotional, filled with enormous feelings of self-negativity, seeking to deal with those feelings in the timehonored way of external controls, unflagging religious zeal, and rigid discipline. He could not, however, master the passions that consumed him. [Paul had a thirst to do what he believed to be RIGHT. He began as "a Hebrew of the Hebrews", a by-the-book example of a member of the Pharisees, and one in a family line of Pharisees, which meant he had a lot to live up to. He prepared to put these "rebels" in prison and didn't mind death to "heretics" like Stephen. When he received a personal visit from Jesus, Paul changed his mind, and after several days to adjust, became just as obsessed a Christian as he had been a Pharisee. He was educated, disciplined, passionate in his beliefs, and rueful that his own body could not be reasoned with the same way the mind is reasoned with. Others could injure him, he suffered the usual aches as age advanced. Those are perfectly understandable frustrations to any intellectual who is over 30. If he cares to think it over. To take all of that and to say he had "enormous feelings of self-negativity" or that he overcompensated against imperfection by retreating into religious extremism is to leap to amazing distances for no reason. Look- Jesus appeared to him PERSONALLY, knocked him off his horse with a beam of light, and chatted with him- when Paul didn't believe Jesus was anything but a dead man (or possibly a dead prophet or a dead insurrectionist.) Paul was fully convinced by this that Jesus was the Messiah. If this is hard to imagine, one is not trying very hard... possibly because one wants to discard the truth and push an agenda even if lies are needed to advance that agenda.] What were these passions? There is no doubt in my mind that they were sexual in nature, but what kind of sexual passions were they? [What is provided to support the bald assertion that Paul had sexual issues? Oh, it's obvious to this man's mind. Period. That's it. It's equally obvious to someone else that Jesus Christ will appear in glory holding an orange pfal book in his hand. Why should I believe EITHER of them just on their say-so? And on this only, the guy keeps going. Having ASSUMED Paul had sex problems (was this projection? Does the writer have sex problems?), he then begins to SPECULATE on top of his ASSUMPTION about the TYPE of sex problems he IMAGINES Paul had. This is hardly off to a rousing start...] Searching once again through the writings of Paul, some conclusions begin to emerge that startle and surprise the reader. Paul's passions seemed to be incapable of being relieved. Why was that? [Paul burned to see Jesus Christ return to Earth during his lifetime. How do you relieve that passion without Jesus returning bodily at that time? Paul wanted to "be present with the Lord." This is not difficult to see. Look- if a dearly loved one dies, you ache to spend time with them again. Until you do so (for those who believe there is any way to do so ever), there's no way to truly relieve that ache. Oh, you do other things and focus on other things, and possibly have other loved ones, but that doesn't RELIEVE it, it exists alongside it. It's the same reason a minority can't get past their twi days. They miss the honeymoon phase so much they can't have another "relationship" with other Christians.] Paul himself had written that if one "could not exercise self-control" that person should marry. "For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Cor. 7:9). But we have no evidence from any source that Paul ever married. [Except, of course, that members of the Sanhedrin were expected to be married, over 30, and in good standing in the Jewish community. What we DON'T know is what happened to Paul's marital status between that point and the point where he's obviously single and remaining so.] Indeed, he exhorts widows and the unmarried to "remain single as I do" (1 Cor. 7:8). A primary purpose of sexual activity in marriage, according to Paul, was to keep Satan from tempting people "through lack of self-control" (1 Cor. 7:5). [And he's correct. People who are in a working marriage relationship channel their base passions into the "one flesh" God declared at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. By contrast, the Corinthians he addressed this to were sex maniacs who were likely to have casual sex whenever they felt like it and had time. The Corinthians were distinctly LACKING in self-control and moderation- so he urged them to both- and not because he was "obsessed" with self-control. He controlled himself just fine and had no need to obsess over it-nor did he have TIME. Why does an Episcopalian BISHOP not understand that ONE of the purposes of marriage is to channel base impulses into a beautiful union, and that God set it so, and said so all over the Bible? Has he not READ the Old Testament?] Why, when Paul seemed to be so consumed with a passion he could not control, would he not take his own advice and alleviate that passion in marriage? He did write that marriage was an acceptable, if not ideal, way of life. Still, however, marriage never seemed to loom for him as a possibility. [Again, ASSuming Paul was obsessed with sexual passions based on nothing except the man having zeal and drive, and the writer projecting those as sublimated sex urges.] Paul has been perceived as basically negative toward women. He did write that "it is well for a man not to touch a woman" (1 Cor. 7:1). [He told the CORINTHIANS that the guys shouldn't just go up and feel up women. That's "BASICALLY NEGATIVE" towards them? Ok, try it tomorrow. Walk up to a woman on the street, a total stranger, cop a feel off her, then explain how that's basically POSITIVE towards her. Then get back to us and tell us how the food tastes in jail. (I just checked with a woman offline. She would be offended by this, and I suspect she's typical in that respect.)] The passion that burned so deeply in Paul did not seem to be related to the desire for union with a woman. [Why does an Episcopalian BISHOP not understand the zeal that can overcome a person who has an encounter with God, an angel, Jesus Christ, etc.? Why did he even seek the PRIESTHOOD?] Why would that desire create such negativity in Paul, anyway? Marriage, married love, and married sexual desire were not thought to be evil or loathsome. Paul's sexual passions do not fit comfortably into this explanatory pattern. But what does? [Paul never said he had sexual passions-and he was not a young man when we even pick up his story. Surely any man who's over 40 can understand that it's possible for a man to master his lusts more effectively when he's no longer a youngster. If that man WANTS to understand.] Obviously there is no way to know for certain the cause of Paul's anxiety prior to that moment of final revelation in the Kingdom of Heaven. But that does not stop speculation. [Oh, nothing even slowed down the most WILD speculation, as we can all clearly see...] The value of speculation in this case comes when a theory is tested by assuming for a moment that it is correct and then reading Paul in the light of that theory. Sometimes one finds in this way the key that unlocks the hidden messages that are present in the text. Once unlocked, these messages not only cease to be hidden but they become obvious, glaring at the reader, who wonders why such obvious meanings had not been seen before. [Actually, looking at the evidence the speculation may be incorrect often saves a lot of time wasted on wild speculation. There's plenty of evidence this silly dissertation contradicts the Paul of the Epistles, let alone the Paul of Acts. However, he's ASSuming this is correct and then looking around to see if anything MIGHT agree with him, maybe. That has often led to some wild doctrines. twi has had a history of this, and ex-twi groups have as well. This is what led to "God wants you to have sex with the leader" and "God wants you to have an abortion" and "I saw a vision of spiders coming out of your nose."] Some have suggested that that Paul was plagued by homosexual fears. [some have suggested just about everything. Without anything more than suggestion, the whole subject of each suggestion is of no more value than speculating on whether Harry Potter would be better off marrying Ginny Weasley or Hermione Granger.] This is not a new idea, and yet until recent years, when homosexuality began to shed some of its negative connotations, it was an idea so repulsive to Christian people that it could not be breathed in official circles. [The repulsiveness of an idea is no guarantee it won't be heard. I've seen speculation that just about every man in the Bible was homosexual- speculated by people eager to try to twist the text to approve of something it calls a SIN. Except for twi, I didn't see adulterers pulling the same thing....] This is not to say that our cultural homophobia has disappeared. It is still lethal and dwells in high places in the life of the Christian church, and it is a subject about which ecclesiastical figures are deeply dishonest, saying one thing publicly and acting another way privately. The prejudice, however, is fading slowly but surely. With the softening of that homophobic stance we might consider the hypothesis that Paul may have been a gay male. [The phrasing of this makes this plainly obvious. The writer is eager to advance a pro-homosexuality agenda and will not hesitate to make up "supporting evidence" out of whole cloth, and bash any more direct reading of what the Bible says on a subject he's obsessed with promoting.] We might test that theory by assuming it for a moment as we read Paul. When I did this for the first time, I was startled to see how much of Paul was unlocked and how deeply I could understand the power of the gospel that literally saved Paul's life. When I suggest the possibility that Paul was a homosexual person, I do not mean to be salacious or titillating or even to suggest something that many would consider scandalous. I see no evidence to suggest that Paul ever acted out his sexual desires and passions. He lived in an age and among a people that cloaked the way he would have viewed this reality with layer after layer of condemnation. But for a moment assume the possibility that this theory is correct and look with me again at the writings of Paul and, more important, at the meaning of Christ, resurrection, and grace in the life of this foundational Christian. Paul felt tremendous guilt and shame, which produced in him self-loathing. The presence of homosexuality would have created this response among Jewish people in that period of history. Nothing else, in my opinion, could account for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body, and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change. The war that went on between what he desired with his mind and what he desired with his body, his drivenness to a legalistic religion of control, his fear when that system was threatened, his attitude toward women, his refusal to seek marriage .as an outlet for his passion-nothing else accounts for this data as well as the possibility that Paul was a gay male. Paul's religious tradition would clearly regard gay males as aberrant, distorted, evil, and depraved. When discovered, gay males were quite often executed. The Law stated: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev. 18:22). Do not defile yourself by these things, the Torah continued, for God will cast out those who defile themselves. God will punish, promised the Law, and the land will vomit out those who are thus defiled (Lev. 18:24ff). To do these things is to be cut off from the people of Israel (Lev. 18:29). Later in the Torah death is called for as the penalty for homosexuality. "If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death" (Lev. 20:13). Paul was a student of the Law. If homosexuality was his condition, he knew well that by that Law he stood condemned. His body was a body in which death reigned. He lived under that death sentence. What Paul knew himself to be, the people to whom he belonged and the Law to which he adhered called abominable, and Paul felt it to be beyond redemption. Is it not possible, even probable, that this was the inner source of his deep self-negativity, his inner turmoil, his self-rejection, his superhuman zeal for a perfection he could never achieve? Could this also be his thorn in the flesh, about which he wrote so plaintively? With this possibility in mind, listen once more to Paul's words: "And to help me keep from being too elated by the abundance of revelation, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I sought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness' " (2 Cor. 12:7-9). On another and perhaps earlier occasion, Paul had written, "You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first; and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus" (Gal. 4:13). The word angel can also be translated messenger. Paul is the possessor of a condition that he believes to be incurable. It is a condition for which people might scorn or despise him. I have heard and read of commentators who suggested that this physical condition was some kind of chronic eye problem. This is based, I suspect, on Paul's words to the Galatians that they would have "plucked out their eyes and given them" to Paul (Gal. 4:15). But chronic eye problems do not normally bring scorn or the activity of despairing, and through the eye, which Paul called "the window of the body," life and beauty as well as death and pain enter the human experience. Paul, in these words to the Galatians, told them that he had now "become as they are," one in whom "Christ has been formed," and assured them that they "did him no wrong" (Gal. 4:12, 19). That refers to an inner healing not an external healing. Others have suggested that epilepsy was the condition from which he was not free. Epilepsy was thought of as demon possession, but it was a periodic sense of being possessed by an alien spirit, not a constant malady. Also, in the biblical narrative the epileptic elicited a sense of pity, or at times fear, but seldom did it elicit despising or loathing. Epilepsy does not appear to me to account for the intensity of the feelings that Paul expressed. The realization that he was a homosexual male does. It is a hypothesis that makes sense of the data and accounts for the tone, the fear, the passion, and the behavior. If this hypothesis is correct, it also illumines in powerful ways Paul's experience of conversion, his understanding of Jesus, his view of resurrection, and his move toward universalism. Furthermore, it provides us with a means to step into Christ as Paul did and to see the Christ experience outside the context of limited words and in the context of a universal human experience. It thus becomes for us a point of entry into a universal spirituality inaugurated by Christ that may endure into the unlimited future in a way that the narrow and brittle religious forms from our Christian past no longer seem capable of doing. [Obsession bred speculation, which bred speculation, which bred wild stories, and any evidence he might be completely off-track lies discarded on the road-side. That's disgraceful for any Episcopalian Bishop, moreso than someone like myself who claims no leadership capacity. This was disgraceful when twi leadership did it to push a "sex with me" agenda, and it is disgraceful when this sex maniac does it to push a "sex with him" agenda. I'm mildly curious what's in it for him. Paul was obsessed with Jesus because what was in it for him was Salvation and following The Truth. Why is this bishop obsessed? And how did he get to BE a bishop with such shoddy research skills?]

BTW, PatAnswer, (May I call you Pat? I'd say "Patrick" or "Patricia" if I knew if you were male or female, but Pat works as a screen-name, either way....) We discussed some aspects of this on a thread some time ago. The thread was in Doctrinal, and called "What Does God Know?" I started it. Here's the link: (If that link ever breaks, you have the title, author and section, so you can find it fairly easily.)

Most people here will try to answer any question, as long as they have time, it's asked in a civil manner, and the person seems to really want to know. (The rare exceptions generally relate to details on specific members of vpw's family who do not post here and probably want to get on with their lives.) Geisha can answer for herself. I'll take a shot at it, any way. (Hey, it's free.) If you posit a God who knows the immediate future as much as the present (and the distant future), then He knows the result of every conversation, and every deal. That means that God knew Israel would be unfaithful to Him each and every time they were going to be unfaithful, and, knowing that, He still treated them faithfully and kept up His end of every agreement. He also acts as if He exists in linear time-when, technically, He does not-He knows the results of all discussions and interactions before they happen. For the benefit of us humans, he interacts down at our level of understanding so we can deal with Him. (This reminded me once of the scientific construct "Flatland." But that's another thread.) So, when He speaks to Adam and Eve, He knows full well what they have done-He's using a "VOICE" when previously the 5 senses weren't specified-He knows their spirit's dead. He asks each what they have done. Doesn't He know? It's blatantly obvious He knew- but He asked them for THEIR understanding, not His own. He was going to hold them to account for what they did- and made sure they understood it was their own fault for breaking the rules they clearly understood. When Abraham negotiates with God concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham gets God to agree to spare them if 50 righteous can be found there-then 40, then 30, then 20, then 10. God knew all this, but permitted all this for Abraham's sake- and stopped before Abraham asked Him to spare them for the sake of one, because God was not going to do that. And so on. God has delivered warnings to people- "You will die shortly"- who repented and returned to faithful paths- then God told them they would live longer. Did God change His mind? No, He had to give them the first message knowing that would get them to the point the last message would apply. Simply put, He deals with us as if He exists limited as we are, for our sake. He is not, but, in a sense, He limits Himself for our sakes.

What reason do people have for saying the Bible-or God- contradict themselves? Is it because they're intellectually lazy? Look- a small child, at one time, is humored by his parents, and at another time he is dealt with sternly. Are his parents contradicting themselves? That's possible, they are human. It's more likely that the limited understanding of the small child THINKS they contradict, when he is simply unable to see the higher-order considerations in effect. The parents don't allow a child to do things that run a risk of injuring him. The child may PERCEIVE that as them contradicting themselves (or being mean.) When it comes to God, we are less able to perceive the grand scale He does than a young child can keep up with adults having a philosophical discussion on the nature of good and evil. To conclude that God DOES contradict Himself just because he has the capacity to do so- and cnclude he WOULD just because he COULD- is as just and fair as accusing you of rape just because you have the necessary tools to do so. Of course, you would not rape because it would be wrong for you to do so..... Come on, follow it one step further... God CAN produce wildly imaginative species every day- winged hippopotami, landsharks, and so on. He does not-because that upsets the order He put into effect, and He's better than that whether or not we perceive it. That was either all very sloppy, or examples of someone who decided they knew the answers before asking the questions. I'm willing to try to address any or all of those- and I would- for someone who honestly wants to know. Sounds like if I bothered to try here, however, it would be a waste of typing. I see a God who, at ultimate levels, makes perfect sense and NEVER contradicts- He plays by His rules and is faithful to them. I'm willing to admit the weak link in the chain is my stupidity and not God's constancy. I don't know if you realized this, but Steve L did it and Geisha responded to him. If you want to "blame" someone for the expansion of the topic (it's still on "inerrancy" and "contradiction", you might point that at Steve and not Geisha. Me, I thought both of them were on-topic as far as this discussion has gone.

Tzaia said it better when she pointed out it wasn't that we were taught THE BIBLE was inerrant, but when we were taught TWI was inerrant, that the problems start. If you teach the Bible is inerrant, I can accept that and reject some of your other teachings- you are not the Bible and there's no guarantee you'll agree with it on all points. (Statistically, it's likely you'll diverge SOMEWHERE.) If you teach that YOUR INTERPRETATION of the Bible is inerrant and that the Bible is inerrant, and I accept that, then any fool thing you say, you can slip past me because THEN I "switched off my critical thinking."

Glad you asked my assistance to get this straight. Although the incident itself was disquieting to say the least (and worthy of an arrest otherwise), it was the "unaltered response of someone who SUPPORTS the idea of the original and the current programs" (to be clearer-YOUR response, the response of someone who supports both ideas) that I felt illustrated how dysfunctional (and TOXIC, for reasons I think are clear) than any argument I can make against either program. That's not an "objective" opinion-but it is an INFORMED one.

Just so I'm clear about what you meant... Is "the rude truth" you're referring to that "she needed to masturbate more"? This is the unaltered response of someone who SUPPORTS the idea of the original and the current programs. Personally, I think it makes a stronger argument that the thing is TOXIC than anything I can post.

Ok, I can get behind this, totally. Ok, I can agree that being taught twi's doctrine was inerrant was what hurt everyone- THAT led to misrepresenting adultery, fornication, and God's "protection plan" of tithing. As well as other stuff....and led to us letting twi think FOR us. (To greater or lesser degrees, depending on which of us was duped, where and when.)

Depending on what you mean by that, I might either strongly agree, or strongly DISagree. After years of being exposed to the pablum of "Sunday" school, I became agnostic, and waved away the Bible. They convinced me they supposedly knew the Bible and based their doctrine on it. Since their doctrine was bushwah, I concluded the Bible was, also, and discarded it for life. When I was college age and exposed to what the Bible actually says, instead of the atheism and agnosticism I was pointing towards (as well as other stuff), I believed its contents- nicely ironic considering how dismissive I had been of it a few months previously. After DECADES of being exposed to atheism and agnosticism growing up, as well as some of the pablum taught in "Sunday" school, an intelligent person I know has actually picked up the Bible and begun reading it. So far, they've concluded its contents contain more sense than the pablum they'd been exposed to- and is more internally-consistent than the atheism/agnosticism framework they were brought up to use.

I agree. Some of those killed people (by suicide), ruined lives, and so on. Some people still can't get out of the "vpw's doctrine is correct no matter what" mindset, and remain "casualties" to this day. Raping or molesting God's precious gems because twi doctrine made it all right, IMO, is MUCH worse than "is inerrancy an accurate doctrine"? As I see it, priorities go like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs- first we need food, water, shelter, relative safety, and THEN we can address philosophical point or worldview points. If I had one wish and could retroactively erase exactly ONE doctrine from twi so that it was never thought or acted on, "Is the Bible contradictory" wouldn't even make the Top 10 list. I'd put the stuff that allowed rapes, molestations, abortions, and so on all before it.

See below. Nicely phrased. Looks like you're using a different definition of "contradiction" than some of us. Geisha's usage: "The Bible does not 'contradict' itself- one God gave all the text and all the meaning. All of it is consistent within its own framework. If it 'contradicted', then it would not be internally consistent." Steve's usage: "The Bible 'contradicts' itself- God's usage of irony (correctly used) is but one example of how He uses dramatic figures and other things to communicate a consistent message." I still think this is nicely phrased. I think we can all (almost all of us) agree on this last part, which I hope is where you meant to go.

Well, that's the difference between most Christian groups and twi. Since twi was founded by the sex maniac victor paul wierwille- who went to Haight-Ashbury to try to recruite "the Jesus People" (Christian hippies) to twi- and kept asking one of them to describe what AN ORGY is like- then claimed the Bible said ORGIES were permissible by distorting the meaning of a verse- and embarrassing the Christian he was speaking to. Most groups would have drummed out vpw for his sexcapades when they caught him... then again, that appears to have been what prompted his exit from his previous group... A sex maniac starts a religious group. Naturally, he's going to try to use it to get cheap thrills. Which he did get, eventually. (Well, they were "cheap" for him, but worth the lives of my beloved sisters in Christ, for whom Christ died. For THEM it was expensive.) I'm sure vpw Jr has no idea there were any "irregularities" with vpw I- he's being given the mushroom treatment- keep them in the dark and feed a steady diet of manure. (Hey, it worked in twi-1...)

They didn't ALWAYS throw darts. One eyewitness account here documented them deciding between 2 locations with the toss of a coin.

Ecclesiastes is not about simple, pat answers. Among other things, Ecclesiastes is about the search for the answers to the great questions of life, and the difficult things to understand-so long as we are limited to our limited human perspective (which, pretty much, is us for life.) Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 13 The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Nice one.

{THERE'S one difference between twi experience being a "costly lesson" and "mistakes one can repeat across a lifetime." We can RELAX around our family and friends. That does not mean we SHUT OFF OUR CRITICAL THINKING around family and friends. That's the difference between having "wait a minute" moments a few hours after someone says something clever yet manipulative, and SILENCING ANY DOUBT when someone says something clever yet manipulative. Someone might fool me for a minute or even a few hours, but let me get in a good night's sleep, and I'll have their clever game figured out. When I was young and naive, I learned too many lessons about people being clever in many ways and manipulative in all of them. Now I may RELAX but I don't shut off my critical thinking skills. I know I'm not the only person here who's been lied to by family or had family ATTEMPT to manipulate them. I know I'm not the only person here who's had friends lie to them or attempt to manipulate them. When it comes to "spiritual family", I know I'm not the only person here who's had "spiritual family" lie to them or attempt to manipulate them. There was a thread recently on how some wayfers had to take to court a member of their "spiritual family" because he lied to them and manipulated them. It worked because they shut off their critical thinking skills with their "spiritual family" and got taken for a LOT of money. "Trust but verify" is a famous saying in many languages, down the centuries. When it comes to family, we can do that. To shut off critical thinking is to set up self and others for ANOTHER big fall. It's how we all got taken the first time with twi- and if we can't see that, we set ourselves up for people to do the same thing to us over and over....in splinter groups, other so-called Christians, outside religious contexts.... Confidence men and snake-oil salesmen LOVE the naive-those who have a criteria for shutting off their critical thinking.] [Actually, the SOURCE CITATION Jesus did was "It Is Written." The "critical thinking" Jesus used at the time was to EVALUATE THE SITUATION. Even when satan ATTEMPTED to quote Scripture to Jesus- AND MISUSE IT because he MISQUOTED IT- Jesus saw past the MISUSE OF SCRIPTURE, no matter how cleverly done, and evaluated the quote, the situation, and the rest of Scripture independently. Eve, on the other hand, "thought" with her lusts. She did NOT use "critical thinking." A cold analysis of the situation would have told her that her conclusion required her to consider God a liar- which was inconsistent with everything she knew about Him. Therefore, the one who contradicted God outright was a liar- and could not be trusted to give a reliable analysis of the situation. However, she heard what she WANTED to hear- and shut off her "critical thinking." People who hear a bunch of speeches about how the organization is a loving family and how its leader loves them so much- and turn off their "critical thinking" in response, are people who join groups like the earlier days of twi, or Jim Jones' group, or so many other groups founded by liars, cheats, and confidence men. How can someone confuse Jesus' careful consideration- and "critical thinking"- for "mind control", or "bibliolatry" or not even know what it was? The most likely possibility is them misunderstanding what each term even means-thus making it easy to make mistakes. Other possibilities include understanding them fully but choosing to blow smoke at the issues by throwing in irrelevant phrases and consideration.]

[Hey, that guy's just as capable of deceiving himself as anyone else.] [Highly doubtful. He probably came away thinking that at least SOME Christians are HYPOCRITES and have no problem being hateful or attacking someone just because they don't like them.] Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. ["corrupt communication". Words that tear down. Ministering grace to someone with words never involves telling them to go flock themselves. It may make the speaker feel good or make someone else giggle, but not because it ministered grace to either of them. This is obvious to many non-Christians if not most, and most non-Christians. Why have you convinced yourself this was a good thing? Just because it was done by someone you liked? The man had a high batting average but has never been the Lord Jesus Christ.... Just because Ralph did it doesn't automatically make it right.] [Actually, this thread includes the subject of self-deception, so this is right on-topic, accidentally.]

[i liked Ralph D at the time, and liked him later. He didn't do that "just to be a jerk"- but was a jerk when he did it despite that. Saying what's in your heart means you're genuine-not that you're right. Members of NAMBLA speak what's in their hearts-but that doesn't make their words "right." It means they are genuine when they talk about molesting children. Again-saying what's in your heart means you're genuine-not that you're right. Furthermore, being "passionate" is no guarantee of being genuine OR right. Every con artist sounds extremely passionate-and he knows he's lying. David Koresh was passionate-and probably genuine- but he most obviously was wrong. Why is it not obvious to everyone that snapping at someone in public and cursing at them-especially where small children are in obvious earshot-is wrong? it may not be as wrong as murdering them, but it is wrong.] [When he was in twi, he thought he was doing the right thing-even when he was being a jerk. After all, the supposedly most spiritual man in the organization was open about yelling and cursing at people when he wanted to. When he realized twi was wrong, he moved away from it. When he realized twi had always been corrupt at the heart, he moved further away from it.] [Hardly. Any con artist fakes something- most never heard of twi or its spinoffs. Many people joined twi to try to do what God wanted- and were genuinely tricked. They MEANT to do the right thing. All accounts are that lcm MEANT to do the right thing- even when he was kicking people out and cursing them out. He was GENUINE but he was not RIGHT. We've discussed that sort of thing lots of times. Many of us who post all the time were GENUINE-at least in all the big ways- when we joined twi. What we're discussing now is how twi taught many of us to spend time NOT being genuine. The worst part of that was lying to OURSELVES and DECEIVING OURSELVES. Until we use BRUTAL self-honesty, anyone who leaves twi is doomed to KEEP lying to themself, possibly for years or even the rest of their life.]