WordWolf

"If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract The Worm." "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain." "It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sappho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion." "The Spice must flow." "My name is a killing word."

"I met him hanging out at the park. I was scared 'cause it was after dark. And he wore fast street clothes And he was clearly posed. But he was oh-oh-oh-over me, oh-oh-oh." "His smile was rich although his clothes were poor. Something in his eyes of great allure. And I could not resist A calculated risk Since he was oh-oh-oh-over me, oh-oh-oh." "We broke the rules, but we won the game. Nothing to lose and everything to gain."

If one read the plain meaning of the verses, it's obvious the plants are given for food for human and animal. (Making the original plan vegetarian.) If one discards that and has to follow the pfal rules, then one falls back on Bullinger's rules which were transcribed over. Then, all Scripture must PRIMARILY explain itself right in the verse where it is written (according to vpw, over 85% of verses are straightforward and mean what they say- like John 3:16.) If one thinks this might be an exception, it's worth pointing out to them that the usage of the terms "as used before" is impossible, since these are the FIRST USAGES. In fact, according to Bullinger/vpw, these first usages RIGHT HERE set the meaning for LATER usages. Therefore, reading into them a meaning other than the clear one would then OBLIGATE one to distort the meanings of the same terms all over the rest of Scripture. ALL references to plants and fruit would then be REQUIRED to be twisted into the same bizarre explanation.

Thanks. In all fairness, everything from the bumper sticker comment on was mine, but the early paragraphs have already come up here years ago, so the post was more a recap of points of earlier posters (at least the first 1/2 was.)

"I met him hanging out at the park. I was scared 'cause it was after dark. And he wore fast street clothes And he was clearly posed. But he was oh-oh-oh-over me, oh-oh-oh." "We broke the rules, but we won the game. Nothing to lose and everything to gain."

No. And your feelings are incorrect here. It's very literal. Maybe if I change the punctuation slightly. I actually thought this would be easier. "If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract The Worm."

"If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm."

Sounds like an old school version of "20 Questions." (Not the show with the computer.)

The bigger nonsense-which is why they backed off quietly on it no matter how many times vpw said it, was "God is Spirit, and GOD CAN ONLY SPEAK TO THAT WHICH HE IS." Sometimes it was "God is Spirit, and GOD CAN ONLY GIVE THAT WHICH HE IS." These were, and still are, nonsense. God gives spirit. God is Spirit. (For the sake of discussion, I'll agree.) God gave manna. God is NOT manna. Follow me through this supposed "Great Principle." (Others have posted here about this before.) The idea is that God gives you "spirit". God then communicates with that spirit- since He can't communicate with flesh and blood. Then your spirit communicates with your flesh and blood. Wait, what? HOW? If GOD'S Spirit can't manage it-and we're talking GOD ALMIGHTY here- why should I think my own comparatively miniscule spirit can manage it? If MY spirit can communicate with flesh and blood, then so can God's, and the stated reason for me to have spirit is negated. (If I have been given spirit, communication is not the reason.) ================= God can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. If He wants to communicate with someone, He has lots of choices as to how to accomplish it,and is NOT limited due to being Spirit. (Too much work trying to simplify things ends up trivializing a TRANSCENDENT God into a God we can define into a neat box.) I noticed that this obsession with trying to simplify deep concepts into neat little slogans that fit on bumper stickers affects lots of teachings and lots of subjects. In the Advanced class, it ends up ruining other material. A made-up explanation is given as to how God communicates with non-believers who don't HAVE spirit. Supposedly, God has to ambush them with spirit, giving them spirit they never asked for nor wanted, in order to communicate with them. This explanation was given for the handwriting on the wall. ("Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.") Supposedly, the sole reason the false prophets and seers were unable to give an explanation was they didn't have spirit and the message was purely in a spiritual dimension. When one is not forced to make up elaborate rationalizations for one's doctrine, they are then free to seek the truth. FF Bruce had a better answer. He pointed out that these words were given without vowels, so the resembled a message something along the lines of "a dollar and change" rather than "weighed, numbered, divided." No need for an elaborate construct when the mundane answer works just fine..... ============= I also noticed that people were completely oblivious to the arbitrary nature of the supposed definition of "phenomena." Whenever something happened that wasn't specifically promised, twi feels compelled to give it a title-"phenomena." That's anything that happens that wasn't guaranteed by God. Instead, they smugly categorize the unexpected as "phenomena" and are unaware that this does nothing to actually EXPLAIN what probably was inexplicable to begin with. They're convinced this actually addressed the subject. the way international has found many ways to istill errors and blind obedience in people who deserve a lot better than twi...

"We broke the rules, but we won the game. Nothing to lose and everything to gain."

If it was pre-me, then it wouldn't be a gameshow like "Joker's Wild" or "Card Sharks"...

Never seen it, but the groundskeeper has to be in "Caddyshack."

The claim OF accuracy drew in some people. Bullinger's approach was used to appeal to the intellectual, partly divorced from mentioning it WAS Bullinger's approach, and claims it was primarily vpw's approach. Naturally, HE didn't understand it as well as he claimed, which is how he ended up trying to quote Bullinger and making mistakes as he went along. Example: Peter denied Jesus three times. Bullinger claimed Peter denied Jesus six times. In the taped pfal class, vpw (without mentioning Bullinger) claimed Peter denied Jesus "THREE TIMES THREE" times, or NINE times. vpw never actually covered 9 denials- all documentation matched EWB's 6 denials. For a man who supposedly knew the material well enough to never need a syllabus, even the very first time he taught "his" (Leonard's stolen) class, he sure made plenty of avoidable mistakes YEARS LATER in the tapes. He confused "anabolepto" for "eidon", he confused Felix and Festus- and then proceeded to quote AGRIPPA instead. "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." (And I quoted that from memory just now, complete with the names. It's not the easiest thing in the world, but if he really was the so-called 'master' of the material, he would never have made easily-correctible mistakes like that. the way international was-and is- based on nothing more than lies and deceptions, and the plagiarized work of others, larded with the personal errors of vpw who convinced himself that God was ok with ORGIES.

Right- they claimed two mutually exclusive positions at the same time, so they could invoke whichever was most expedient for them to claim at any moment.

"Diamond Dave" Lee Roth's "Just a Gigolo".

"Billy Madison?"

vpw was a conman who could bs convincingly. His OTHER skills were lacking. He wanted to turn preaching into a business. He succeeded through hijacking and plagiarizing. He ripped off what he saw. He ripped off the books of others to make "his" books. He ripped off the classes of another to make "his" class, supplemented by plagiarizing the books of others and adding it to that class. (Initially, "his" class was a Leonard's class with his name in front.) Once he had a product, he needed a flock to fleece. He had limited success with regular people. However, once he saw there were young people with Christian ideals, idealism, and casual attitudes towards physical contact, he used all his skills to recruit as much of their movement (the Jesus People) as possible. (Remember, part of his trip was about ORGIES-that's why he asked D00p about them specifically and in detail, asking for more information than D00p had and ignoring D00p's comments about being glad to be delivered from that sort of thing. He also told D00p is was ok with God and tried to use a Bible verse to rationalize it.) There's no current movement of idealistic youth to draw from. The current climate now includes THE INTERNET- so if twi finds kids, those kids can find out all about twi and read what I'm telling you now. So, twi can't repeat the past because the past is gone, and there's no pool of undereducated (can't find out about twi), idealistic Christian youth to draw from, apart from twi lacking anyone with the sheer skill at chicanery and flimflam that vpw had. Most people can't lie, con, and deceive as convincingly as he did. Exactly- twi has nothing to offer NEW followers except stifling control. Very few people actually WANT stifling control. twi offers the same to OLD followers, with a big dose of nostalgia and "we are the sole holders of the truth". Eventually, this won't work because the OLD followers are getting OLDER. twi lost 80% of its followers 1985-1990, then lost more people in the late 1990s when then tightened the vise on people's lives. With a few people leaving every year, and virtually no one joining, the average age (mean, median and mode) of twi'ers goes steadily up, up, up. The GSC actually gets more new people than twi does, and we don't go recruiting! Eventually, twi will be composed of elderly people in the top seats (instead of just rfr being the only elderly), supervising a staff of elderly, who pass along orders to the elderly rank-and-file all over the USA. I don't think it will take much longer, either. It's been 20 years since they lost most of their numbers. The last people to join were soon after that (in any real numbers), and were in their 20s. Those people are now in their 40s, whether or not they're still in twi. Those who were in charge in the 1990s were in their 30s-50s, which means they're now in their 50s to 70s, whether or not they're in twi. So, we now have people in their 50s to 70s overseeing people in their 40s to 70s, with a few feeble attempts to garner enough children of them in one place to displace water in a hot tub, let alone look like there's significant numbers of THEM. Then again, much the same can be said for most of the splinter groups...

Exactly! Then again, vpw never did have any actual TRAINING or EXPERIENCE with the kinds of programs he claimed to set up. He went to school, but was never in any sort of PROGRAM to teach leadership experience, or counseling, or anything else Christians expect from those who claim to be there to lead them. He also invoked references to the military with "his" program, but he also had no experience THERE, either, which is why "his" programs lacked any resemblance to the POSITIVES of being in the military. The only thing he had there were a few aphorisms about OBEYING WHEN GIVEN AN ORDER. In fact, over time, they did NOTHING to correct any of those things. There were additions to give people experience in HITCHHIKING, in optional training as a rodeo clown or bronco-riding or whatever, and in rock climbing, but no improvements along the lines one would actually use when dealing with Christians. The only "professional" training the corps ever got was Dale Carnegie training in SALES. That should make it obvious what the priorities were in training "leaders" in twi- they were to be professional SALESPEOPLE.

Small wonder vpw REDEFINED THE MEANING OF THE WORD "APOSTLE". When he was done, their personal witnessing wasn't an issue. Honestly, though, I see "apostle" as "sent one." Wherever vpw plagiarized "his" definition from, I find it interesting and irrelevant. Then again, when one is "sent", it raises the question of who "sent" them and how....

He pulled the entire content of the comma thing from Bullinger's work. vpw was fond of making up stories, or grabbing other people's life experience and claiming it for his own. If you read "TW:LiL", you'll see he'd claimed to "preach to the trees" when growing up, despite an absence of witnesses and of any PIETY when growing up. This story was lifted from BILLY GRAHAM's life- Billy did that to try to overcome shyness. He also made claims about a pair of imaginary businessmen who were generous in charity donations while being hated by their community they donated to, who got things done by sitting alone in a room and THINKING about them without actually DOING anything about them. Yes-if something was good enough TO PLAGIARIZE, THEN he listened to it, otherwise, you might as well not even bother with him.

If this show never appeared in syndication, then I never saw it. My television-watching days started in the 1970s. I'm wondering if it was something like "Spy-Smasher" or "Mister Scarlet". One or both of them had a short-lived television show. This wasn't an ANIMATED show, right?

*wild swing* "Sledge Hammer?"

twi and its affiliates thereof- and the Word-Faith movement in general- mistake 2 similar things for each other, with catastrophic results. A) Trusting God. Believing God's promises, believing the Bible. Those are good things we're supposed to do. (If you take the Bible as your standard.) B) Exerting a mental "believing-force" on reality to bend it to your whims- or worse, exerting a mental "believing-force" on God Almighty to bend HIM to your whim, believing He's some sort of Divine Genie, but only after your Believing has roughed Him up or put Him in his place. One is not the other. God doesn't need any more power than He already has. Go ahead and pray and trust God. If bad things happen, it's because this is a fallen world, and the sun and the rain fall on everyone, not because you failed somehow to exert sufficient "believing-force" to prevent it to happen.

Yes. These were all quotes from fairly early in "the Princess Bride." Here's where they were said. "We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?" Vizzini's first line to the princess, before abducting her. "I wonder if he's using the same wind we are using." Inigo Montoya, wondering about the ship behind them that kept gaining on them over time. "Did I make it clear that your JOB is at stake?" Vizzini yelling at Fezzik, about how much faster he wanted to move up the Cliffs of Insanity/ "He has very good arms." Fezzik, when seeing the Man in Black managed to get handholds once the rope was cut. "You are wonderful!" "Thank you. I've worked hard to become so." Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black.

"We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?" "I wonder if he's using the same wind we are using." "Did I make it clear that your JOB is at stake?" "He has very good arms." "You are wonderful!" "Thank you. I've worked hard to become so."