WordWolf

Here's where most of the quotes came in... "Okay you guys, listen up! People pay good money to see this movie! When they go out to a theater they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth! Do I have to come up there myself?" Hulk Hogan in the movie theater, when the Gremlins succeed in messing up the projector. (This was a LOT funnier to me, since I had seen a projector problem in the same theater recently, then saw this movie, so I had a second of thinking this was another projector problem....) **** "Fred, what we want is, I think, what everyone wants, and what you and your viewers have: civilization." "Yes, but what sort of civilization are you speaking of?" "The niceties, Fred. The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition... that's what we're reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that's what we aspire to; we want to be civilized. You take a look at this fellow here. (Shoots him in the head) Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized. Now, bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - we'll have to find out how to get tickets. There's also a lot of street crime, but I believe we can watch that for free. We want the essentials. Dinettes. Complete bedroom groups. Convenient credit, even though we've been turned down in the past." In an experimental lab in the building, one Gremlin drank some sort of intelligence-enhancing potion. He became "the Brain Gremlin" and was voiced by Tony Randall. The Brain Gremlin had GREAT lines, as you can see. **** "All they have to do is to eat three or four children and there'd be the most appalling publicity." **** "BUY! BUY! BUY!" "SELL! SELL! SELL!" "Well, it's rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns." Gremlins, and the Brain Gremlin, after taking over a financial advisor office in the Clamp Building. **** "Sir, I'm... I'm sorry about the building." "I'm not." "You're not?" "For one thing, we're insured for the damages. For another, maybe it wasn't a place for people anyway. It was a place for things. You make a place for things... things come." Clamp himself, philosophical about how his high-tech building was all wrong for people, to Billy. (Clamp seemed to be a pastiche of Donald Trump and Ted Turner, with a few more details thrown in.) It's the only movie I know of with a restaurant that serves CANADIAN food. (What?)

Ok, let's move this along. This is "Gremlins 2:the New Batch."

Ok, this is one of the few Voyager episodes I've ever seen. Voyager was trapped in a spatial version of a causality loop. The thing didn't actually start, but it went on infinitely- they detected a distress call, and went to investigate, finding an Intrepid-class ship like Voyager. They investigate, and get caught in a loop in space. (Drop a signal marker, go in a straight line, then run into the signal marker.) They also had a shuttlecraft trying to land on the present-time Voyager rather than the past-time Voyager so both could exit the whatever-they-called-it, paradox bubble is what I'll call it. Could have just had the shuttlecraft fly out too, but, hey, added pointless drama to the script. I appreciate that even Paris realized this didn't work and there was no origin-point that triggered the loop.

Please elaborate. HOW is Windows 7 "not as annoying" as Vista? Is it what 7 does that Vista does not do? Is it what 7 doesn't do that Vista does? Is it differences in how 7 does things Vista does? http://xkcd.com/528/

I'm not ignoring this thread. Sadly, I do not have my answers all typed out at present. I shall type them out when I can and join in. (In case anyone was curious. I think this warrants a better response than I can just rattle off.)

How successful was the wow program? It depends upon how one defines "success." Go back to the "founder." What he wanted, from the beginning, in his own words, was "everyone would listen to me." He wanted the 10% of people's incomes- people's tithes. ("CSBP" was mandatory.) He wanted women to have sex with- willingly or not. He wanted the blind obedience of insiders. He wanted money, sex, and power, creature comforts. He wanted to satisfy the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life. ======================= So, the programs were organized around vpw's sins. The participants in the programs were equipped according to what vpw could get ahold of, with a view towards what vpw wanted, and what would cost vpw little or nothing. NOW look at the wow program. What was the cost-in dollars- of the program? NOTHING. The wow program TURNED A PROFIT. The wows were required to SPEND MONEY to join. What were the expenses of the wow program? 1) Expenses of the program itself: NONE. wow "families" were set up so that participants would drive themselves to their assignments in the cars they already had. 2) Expenses of the pfal classes they ran: classes required a machine to play back classes (Beta or audio) and the tapes of the classes. Since classes required the registration income of 7 people MINIMUM, this, as always, was a considerable PROFIT. What were the manpower "expenses" of the wow program? Did the wow program "cost" them people? No-people who went "wow" were MORE loyal after their year, generally. (Some people went more than once.) =========== So, for a "family" of four wows, twi made a profit when they were sent out, and did NOT pay anything back to keep them out for the year. (If there were initial problems with housing, local twi-ers helped them out-of-pocket, and- rarest of all- local leaders did so. Generally, this was about housing, since wows were expected to get jobs IMMEDIATELY. Local leaders were known to help them canvas entire cities until they got jobs. This was not necessarily a bad thing, but should be mentioned.) At some point, they ran at least 1 pfal class, at a net financial profit to twi. They probably ran at least a few. For each class, it was expected at least one person per class (1 for at least 7) would remain in twi, to tithe, buy twi materials, run pfal classes, and otherwise remain longtime profit-generators for twi. The strength of the wow program is that vpw had virtually NO TRAINING involved in the wow program. The wows were sent out, told to succeed, and expected to succeed based on their own abilities, skills, and trusting God. Nothing's wrong with trusting God, of course, but neither that nor their own abilities had anything to do with the program! Was the wow program successful? With no investments into the wows, the wows generated income, and added (many or few) people to twi, who became regular sources of income. Some of THOSE people became more wows (as we saw), and a few joined the Corps. Of those that joined the Corps, they were secretly part of the pool of candidates vpw drew his victims to rape, molest, coerce, and groom into having sex with him. ================ The wow program was not particularly a success FOR THE PARTICIPANTS. (There's MANY programs that would have trained them better, and those aren't twi programs.) The wow program was not particularly a success FOR GOD. (Putting them through Leonard's class, and following up the way Leonard did, would have been better.) The wow program was a success FOR VPW, and thus, for TWI.

The lists were extensive, and included words that were barely ever used, even in slang. Conclusion? The lists were not intended specifically to make it easier for the students to counsel others. And your evidence for this is....? I assume you have a complete list of the words used in the class, from which you did your extensive research to see that in ALL PARTS of the country they were rarely used, and FOR ALL GENERATIONS they were rarely used. This means not only do you have a list of the words from the class, but you also have a lot of data on the use of words all over different sections of the country and for many years. Where did you get all that data? Hmmmmmmmm? Where did you get all that time to gather all that data and come to your clonclusion? Hmmmmmm? I remember that from the class itself. Long lists when slang doesn't dump dozens and dozens of synonyms a few years apart. Even the suggestion of updating the lists brought in as many as 2 terms in actual usage. Or did you just shoot from the hip and assume that the words were rarely used. My memory is that there were only a FEW words we hadn't heard of before and they made us laugh a lot. My memory was that there were LOTS of words we hadn't heard used that way before and made us laugh a lot. Where's YOUR list of the usages and locations? One cannot prove a negative- so I can't prove "it wasn't used" any more than I can prove no space aliens were involved in taping a class. So, if you're going to refute me, you'll need the corresponding evidence. I'm confident most people here weren't used to hearing the majority of the slang-terms used the way they were in CFS. Furthermore, there was never a set of requirements that excluded non-ministers, the neophyte who just finished pfal, nor the 13 year old who just took pfal. 13-year olds were able to take that class-and many did. Some have posted here about it. I agree it was to get people to be willing to discuss sex. WHY it was desirable to have people willing to discuss sex is another matter entirely. I noticed you skipped this point-which was important- to spend paragraphs saying "I remember differently than you" on the slang list. Was it to draw attention away from this point? What's indisputable to me is vpw showed the early classes a bestiality video, and that included MINORS. What's indisputable to me is that vpw described the bestiality video to the classes who didn't see it. I only remember hearing that certain behaviors were screwed up and that was one of them. If there was a film or still photos of that in the 70's classes they didn't make much of an impression on me. I do remember that at that time in our culture LOTS of porn and LOTS of "new" forms of perversion was coming to the surface with lots of sensational publicity and acceptance by the media and messing with people's minds. What we learned in those 70's video classes was to not let it mess with our minds. Yes, minors were to warned and instructed because they too were exposed to the flood of new style porn of the time. The biggest exposure I had to it at the time was in the CFS class! There wasn't a hammering on of right action and wrong action, what makes one right and one wrong, etc. We DID have a description of a pornographic bestiality film where some women were trying to have sex with a dog, and they tried to physically stimulate him, then get him to have sex, but that "the dog had more sense than the women" because he was trying to get away from them. I have yet to find people (other than Mike et al) who think this enhanced their understanding of anything other than that the guy who decided this should be covered was a major perv. If there were warnings, they weren't the thrust of mentioning that. What's indisputable to me is that vpw used that class to teach that the "original sin" was masturbation- and went on to say that NOW it was perfectly fine, but THEN it was enough to kick them out of paradise- and spun that out of VERY thin reed. I don't think this is correct. You have a right to think differently. Other people remember it exactly the same, however. That's come up before. What's indisputable to me is that LONG lists of terms rarely even used in slang were given to talk about sex and body parts. What's indisputable to me is that large portions of the class were a simple hygiene/sex ed class to which stills from pornographic movies were added. It was, by the standards of that day, rather soft porn. By today’s standards it was VERY soft porn. How do I know this...? Um... Ah.... ........I read it in a book! Yeah, that's the ticket, I read it in a book. So, a supposed Biblical research organization was showing "rather soft porn" (not counting the classes that saw the bestiality video). What's indisputable to me is that a man who had no training in biology, no training in counseling, was teaching this class-when those who WERE qualified were sitting it out. In the video Dr had Dr. Fritz Wiengarner come on camera and discuss medical and physiological things. If this was necessary at all-and no strong case has been made that it was- why was a man who had no training in biology and counseling teaching it, and the medical guy only brought in briefly? Should the BEST QUALIFIED people speak on Biology, Psychology, etc? If that's the actual goal.... What's indisputable to me is that it's been reported here that vpw had brought a pornographic pen to one class, and had one of the young women come up to see it.

The lists were extensive, and included words that were barely ever used, even in slang. Conclusion? The lists were not intended specifically to make it easier for the students to counsel others. Furthermore, there was never a set of requirements that excluded non-ministers, the neophyte who just finished pfal, nor the 13 year old who just took pfal. 13-year olds were able to take that class-and many did. Some have posted here about it. I agree it was to get people to be willing to discuss sex. WHY it was desirable to have people willing to discuss sex is another matter entirely. What's indisputable to me is vpw showed the early classes a bestiality video, and that included MINORS. What's indisputable to me is that vpw described the bestiality video to the classes who didn't see it. What's indisputable to me is that vpw used that class to teach that the "original sin" was masturbation- and went on to say that NOW it was perfectly fine, but THEN it was enough to kick them out of paradise- and spun that out of VERY thin reed. What's indisputable to me is that LONG lists of terms rarely even used in slang were given to talk about sex and body parts. What's indisputable to me is that large portions of the class were a simple hygiene/sex ed class to which stills from pornographic movies were added. What's indisputable to me is that a man who had no training in biology, no training in counseling, was teaching this class-when those who WERE qualified were sitting it out. What's indisputable to me is that it's been reported here that vpw had brought a pornographic pen to one class, and had one of the young women come up to see it. That's the intro. I can go on, with specifics. :)

For those interested in a side-discussion on abortion, we had one once in the Doctrinal forum titled "Abortion. What does God say?" http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=11237 Feel free to start a NEW doctrinal thread on the subject, as well.

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=283

Us heavier-weight comic mavens couldn't confirm this specifically to Ben Grimm. Possibly calling someone "greasespots" but not the "midnight" part at all. Now, THAT phrase I can find references to, at least in conversation.

lcm BEGAN by using it to refer to something that was a major failure. Around 1980, SNT 1055 was him teaching "Believing Images of Victory." He was explaining that when he tried playing football in college, it was a LOT more involved than high school football. In college, techniques were taught and expected to be used, but in high school, he was used to just relying on brute force. So, when he first tried to adapt to college football, he would get creamed in the first scrimmage. "Greasespot by midnight. They'd pick me up with a whisk-broom and a dust-pan." Where vpw ripped off learned Christians, wise Christian, or anyone he thought would impress, lcm ripped off folksy expressions.

Some people DID buy it. One of the tapes, I forget which, was called "Power for Abundant Living is the Word of God." The idea put forth was that the concepts were, in effect, one concept. Of course, they were also putting forth that twi's view of both were correct AND they were one concept.

Tools-AddOns-Extensions. There's thousands of "AddOns"/"Extensions" to add features to FireFox. Everyone's got their favorites. If you want to add security, it's worth the effort to get to learn to use NoScript. AdblockPlus, once set once, will screen out ads, and you can add more things for it to screen out for you. Download Helper, DownThemAll, FlashGot, MediaPirate add downloading features, as does DownloadManagerTweak. Flashblock stops Flash animation from running until you click on the button that replaces it. This makes pages load faster, cuts download bloat, and trims out distracting, blinking spots on pages. (Add this to NoScript and there's another layer preventing automatic Flash.) IETab allows you to simulate IE use on a page, so you won't need to open IE again except to download Windows Updates. ;) ImageZoom allows you to zoom on any image. NukeAnythingEnhanced allows you to remove any object from your screen. Redirect Remover allows you to go straight to the page at the end of a redirect, and skip the pages in between. There's more, but those I actually recommend.

Margaret Mc Donald keeps getting blamed for doctrines she never spoke, and Darby keeps getting blamed for passing along doctrines he never taught, based on the doctrines Margaret Mc Donald never spoke. That aside, there is nothing in Scripture that says "the Kingdom of God is different than the Kingdom of Heaven." Rather, the terms are used interchangeably. It's foolish people who have claimed they meant 2 different things. vpw photocopied Bullinger, but Bullinger was not inerrant, and in this instance, was completely wrong- although he could really put together a flowery claim that he was right.

He did a fine job in both the episode "Space Seed" and "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan." Some often-deleted scenes show his character (in "Space Seed") to be rather clever and manipulative, showing he's more dangerous than he appears. He will be missed. Of course, I also miss his "Fantasy Island". (And the other one, for that matter, but this is about him.) Yes to all that. Steve! is up.

It's a fundamental error in both YOUR theology and in vpw's theology. If you really want to discuss it, make a new thread, and I will gladly break it down in all its glory. In fact, since it's a fundamental error of vpw's theology, I'd appreciate a chance to highlight it. Instead, I'll be expecting you to mislabel it "unjustified criticism", blowing it off, pretending I never said it, and declaring victory a few months later. Feel free to surprise me. Now we get to the issue. Let's posit a theoretical church- a formal local organization with a building and a congregation. They have an official name, and an official set of rules. They will, perforce, begin with SOME set of rules, SOME standard. That's the nature of organizations. How AUTHORITATIVE is this? Perhaps I have an advantage over you in having been involved in drafting rules for an organization, interpreting standing rules for an organization, and AMENDING standing rules for an organization. Groups that cover all their bases make a notation in their practices, to the effect that anything they did not include will default to a generic set of rules like Roberts Rules of Order (specifying the edition.) That allows them to encounter things they never considered, and bring in SOME sort of rule to operate by. Adopting a set of rules is necessary for an organization- we agree on this. We disagree on the ROLE of such a set of rules. Adopted rules are not GUARANTEED to be the PERFECT set of rules for that group. That's why all formal constitutions and bylaws include a set of rules to cover how to CHANGE the set of rules. That's true in the US Constitution, and many other places, some of them having adopted them from the US Constitution. To have an UNCHANGING set of rules in an organization, a set of rules that CAN'T ever change, will, in the LONG term, enforce conformity- there is ONE set of rules and any thinking that doesn't line up is discouraged or PUNISHED, depending on the group and the specifics. To have an UNCHANGING set of rules in an organization, a set of rules that CAN'T ever change, will, in the LONG term, enforce increasing problems as external events are unable to be adapted to. It's like having an animal like the dodo, and introducing hunters with guns to shoot them down. If the dodo can't change- and the dodo can't (certainly it DID not) - it's going to be wiped out. Its UNCHANGING aspect guaranteed that external change would erode it. I am a person who says that rules are good. (Try driving through an area with lots of cars and no TRAFFIC LIGHTS.) I am a person who says that rules, policies and procedures must be INTERPRETED based on the situation. That's why this country has courts of law, where a professional expert (an arbitrator or a judge) interprets the application of laws, what they say concerning a specific situation. Some laws work for a time, and then it becomes necessary to abolish them or annul them. There's laws on the books concerning the behavior of the drivers of automobiles that concern horses. A driver is supposed to stop at a crossroads and fire a shot into the air to ensure carriages and riders are aware he is approaching. This is on the books as a law- except where it's been removed since it's a bad idea to do this NOW. Rules are a good idea, but I hold they are inferior to the people they are written for. In fact, I consider that to be one of the fundamental differences between YOUR approach on life, and MY approach on life. I hold that the law is for the people and less important than the people, and I think you hold the Rule to be more important than the people, and the people are less important than the Rule.

Confusing ALL of life with precisely calculable things like Math, Physics and Chemistry is a pretty consistent error of the twi system. That's why things like "you should believe God and trust God" was transformed into "If you decide that you'll be dead by this time next year, God would have to change the Laws of the Universe to stop you". It's also a common quibble with the "Social Sciences" and even the Biological sciences, since there's elements of UNPREDICTABILITY in dealing with both. Some people with narrow minds dismiss Psychology and Sociology as fields of study, since they can't be calculated to decimal places like the "hard sciences." There's no "one rule" for either Psychology or Sociology. I'm sure some will say that means they are "confusion". That, of course, will either indicate a bias, or a rank ignorance, on their behalf. *** You opined it on another thread. Your opinion that "this is new learning for most" was a blatant falsehood and a blanket insult. That you're unable to see the difference between Physics and Chemistry, and the things of God IS a "101" level of error. Even vpw himself knew the difference SOMETIMES. He asked what laboratory you could take "love" to and measure it. "As I said before, a young man in love with a lady. He can't take that love, bring it to a laboratory, stick it under a Bunsen Burner and come out with 'hot love.' You just don't get it that way, I suppose." (For those paying attention, the Bunsen Burner would go under the 'love' in this example. I'm considering this a simple slip of the tongue, and including it in the interest of accuracy.) Oh, and since our advocate of a supposed single unchanging source of truth, a supposed single unchanging source of rules for faith and practice, himself DOES NOT HAVE ONE EITHER, I consider this discussion rather limited.

"Thank you, Lads." "We've got to get Franklin out of there." "You've changed the resonator array... only three phase inverters..." "You were saying earlier that you were on your way to the Norpin Colony when you had a warp engine failure..." "That's right. We had an overload in one of the plasma transfer conduits. The Captain brought us out of warp... we hit some gravimetric interference and then there it was, as big as life..."

There's two entirely separate issues. A) The sins of a teacher B) Whether or not the teachings had merit Now, it is a tiresome old chestnut that about 3-4 posters consistently claim (suggest, insinuate and imply when not stating it outright- technically, this was another insinuation) that other posters claim that the 2 issues are only one issue- that the teachings turn to dust automatically as the result of the teacher being a poor example of a Christian. Few people IF ANY are saying that. This has previously been cooked up as a fiction stated "you're saying wierwille sinned, and therefore did no good." That's been shown to be an invention of those who never held that position- we had a poll and NOBODY took that position. Here's how it is. It's rather simple- for those people who don't want to grossly distort the positions other people hold. B) Do the teachings have merit? Whether the teachings have merit is a matter reserved to discussion of the material of the teachings. We've discussed a number of them. People have said the following: "If you put it down and look at Scripture without twi, what's true and reliable will still be true and reliable. Giving up the intellectual hobbling of oneself by limiting oneself EXCLUSIVELY to the limitations of any ONE teacher or method is a good thing. So, put it aside for a while and try thinking for yourself a while. Evaluate the works of other Christians. Spend time among Christians with skills you're unfamiliar with. Read it for yourself. What is of God will abide." That's a sensible approach for anyone who's not afraid to think for themself. "When examined, some of it is worth keeping, and significant portions of it are error. Drop whatever is error, which is significant." That's fine for anyone who doesn't require any belief system to be 100% free of error as if it was given by God. (That means only a tiny handful of posters should have a problem with it.) "I distrust whether any material taught by any person who has dedicated large swaths of his life to sin and lusts should be trusted at all." That's a sensible precaution when approaching material. That's a few positions-there are of course others. ===================== Now, discussing the sins of wierwille, we have a few positions that have been represented as well. 1) "Wierwille hardly ever sinned, and was a fine, upstanding Christian." Only the most sheltered, mentally-inbred ex-twi'ers still hold that position. As people begin to look at all the eyewitness testimony, the witness accounts, at the official releases from twi, that position is generally discarded as completely untrue. 2) "vpw sinned quite a bit, but it didn't affect his doctrine, policies, practices, etc." That's held by a minority of people. It's the default for people who want to believe the first position, but reality has prevented them. 3) "vpw sinned quite a bit, and it affected his doctrine, policies, practices, etc, quite a bit." Last poll, 1 in 5 polled held this position. Why would this position have any merit? How could the sins of a teacher affect his doctrine, his policies, his practices? Well, to go by what vpw HIMSELF said, someone can practice error. After a while, if they continue to practice error, then they begin to make a doctrine of it. If that person then begins teaching, that person will speak practical errors, and doctrinal errors. 4) "vpw sinned a lot, and it affected all aspects of his ministry, in greater or lesser ways." Last poll, 60% of the posters held this position. It differs from the previous position in a matter of degree in how MUCH sin, and how much effect it had. How could the sins of a teacher affect his doctrine, his policies, his practices? Well, to go by what vpw HIMSELF said, someone can practice error. After a while, if they continue to practice error, then they begin to make a doctrine of it. If that person then begins teaching. that person will speak practical errors and doctrinal errors. (I repeated myself because I've had people skip over an explanation stated once, and pretend it wasn't spoken at all. Now if anyone wants to pretend it doesn't exist, they have to be more overtly dishonest.) 5) "vpw did no good, but that's not because he sinned, it's because he was 100% fraud." Lat poll, 10% of posters held this one. If one doesn't believe vpw was anything BUT a fraud, then there's no reason to think his teachings or practices would be of benefit, except by accident. ===================== Now then, Do the sins of the teacher "negate" the truths in a teaching? NO. IF there are truths in a teaching, a teacher's sins don't "NEGATE" them. However, one's BEGGING THE QUESTION in this in the first place- by presupposing that the teaching had truths, AND one is misrepresenting what others say by using the word "NEGATE" (the Strawman.) Thus, it's a loaded-and dishonest- reply to legitimate discussion. Now then, do the sins of the teacher "AFFECT" a teaching? According to vpw, they do so. He said "the Correction Epistles" were designed to correct the doctrinal error found after they made a doctrine of the practical error they practiced. Could this have any relevance to vpw's teachings? Some would point out he soft-pedaled the issue of sin with Scripture many times- like downgrading sin to "broken fellowship" (a CONSEQUENCE of sin). Most would point out that comments like "technically, all the women in the kingdom belonged to the king" would be an example of something from the mouth and pen of vpw that specifically was an error that was the result of the Practical error turned Doctrinal error in vpw's life. He downgraded sins of the flesh in his own MIND (to legitimize or soften the sinful PRACTICES he practiced) and in the process, made a DOCTRINE of it, and taught that doctrine. That's a fast example of one of vpw's sins "AFFECTING" a teaching. If he says that in passing in 2 hours of material, does that mean the entire 2 hours is useless? NO- and NOBODY was saying it was. (If "the sins of the teacher NEGATED the truths of a teaching", then they would say so. This claim was an invention of those who made up an imaginary contrary position just so they could object to it and pretend they were being reasonable. Or, in other words, a Strawman.) ========== So, what do the posters here say? Generally, they say "If we knew the 1942 promise and snowstorm were inventions of vpw, and he was completely fraudulent in his claims of selection by God, we certainly would have examined his teachings more closely, his practices more closely, and been MUCH slower to give him 'the benefit of the doubt.' " A question still remains, however..... If, as some people seem to want to believe (but seem slow to come right out and say), that "vpw could sin quite a bit, but that had no effect on his teachings, doctrines, programs, etc", then why do they engage in lengthy processes of distraction when vpw's sins come up? Why is it not a matter of "yes, he sinned a lot. That doesn't matter at all"? Why the efforts to attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of a man who broke the law when he plagiarized and deceived others, broke the law when he drugged and raped women as well as violated his marriage vows and his responsibility as a pastor, who drank and smoked DAILY while criticizing the Corps for lacking discipline, who acquired all sorts of creature comforts at the expense of God's people? If his sins really mean NOTHING to you, why the smokescreen and pretend they don't exist? That claim was made in response to THIS post.... And a concise, honest reply to the attempt to change the subject:

Please fork the side-discussion. I think one poster may have been TRYING to push the thread into Soap Opera.

In many cases, vpw lifts Bullinger word-for-word. In other cases, vpw lifts Bullinger concept-for-concept. If there were no Bullinger, there would be no "Are the Dead Alive Now", no Orange Book, and the White Book would be thinner. Mind you, vpw also lifts Bullinger's MISTAKES. The claim that "God directed vpw to plagiarize all the correct stuff from Bullinger" ignores that vpw lifted errors that sounded good. One obvious example is "the kingdom of heaven" vs "the kingdom of God". Bullinger gave a detailed explanation of their differences in the Bible. vpw lifted his detailed explanation of their differences in the Bible. Both were wrong-in the Bible, the terms were interchangeable, and still are.

This is new to you. If you'd been exposed to 5 or more years of posts like this, it would be less shocking.

Well, you're incorrect, in that you're judging his statements based on a single source- the pfal syllabus- and pretending that was the SOLE source of comments from vpw. As has been pointed out before (by HCW), some books were transcripts of vpw speaking, that were then EDITED by people better at writing than vpw. Don has made this same point the other day. vpw said them lots of times, lots of ways. We all heard them. Pretending you somehow missed them is silly. Well, OJ pleaded 100% absolutely not guilty, so....