WordWolf

"What is it?" "The sound of treachery." "We'll be at this all day." "Empires crumble. There are no exceptions." "You're sweet... and you're young. Neither are traits that I hold in high regard."

Some of the evidence I'm working with, you don't have access to. Therefore, our conclusions need not agree. If I were to try to reach an agnostic or atheist position, I'd need to discard too much evidence that can't be accounted for by either position. You, of course, may reach any position based on any evidence you've accounted for. The most extreme position I can adopt would still fall under a monotheist or a Deist position. You're putting me on. Really? Ever toy with the conclusion I ended up concluding?

I would agree with this. I would not discount God giving revelation at any PARTICULAR moment, as sometimes what seems like a trivial detail may later prove to have been critical (I'm thinking of my own life here, some time ago), but the idea that someone's "channelling" Heavy Revelation 24/7 is just plain preposterous. God gave you a brain to use. I mean, if something's up with the breakfast, He may say something, but otherwise, you and your shredded wheat are on your own.

I don't think I've chimed in yet. So, here's my current thinking, which is likely to anger ALL positions evenly. Fair's fair. ;) Ockham's Razor states that when seeking to select between 2 or more possible answers- like A) Jesus is God the Son, part of God and B) Jesus is the Son of God, a separate being one is to examine both answers. If both completely answer the question, then between the two, you select the most simple, straightforward of the two as correct. That's a rule of thumb, not an immutable "Law". Now, I've observed and studied for years, on and off, on this. I've seen that both positions have answers which I find less than satisfactory to settle specific questions that are raised to their positions. So, I proceed to a corollary on Ockham's Razor. I was unable to select either as COMPLETELY answering the question. One corollary states that if NONE of the answers FULLY answers the question, then ALL answers are WRONG and the CORRECT answer has not been raised yet. This came up when studying light. Is it a particle-photons? Is it a wave-lightwaves? It has attributes of both, and either fails to account for some of the evidence. Therefore, some people memorize answers like "it is a particle that travels like a wave", which, frankly, is a cop-out on admitting NEITHER answer really works COMPLETELY, and they ARE mutually-exclusive. Since I find neither position in this discussion to FULLY answer all objections to them in a manner I consider intellectually satisfying (meaning they ALL work on paper), based on the corollary to Ockham's Razor, I have concluded BOTH answers are WRONG. The answer is something that has not been discussed yet. Member of the Trinity? No. Began existence in Mary's womb and no sooner? No. So, what IS the answer? I wish I knew. I can perceive I'm not smart enough to find it at this time. I'll keep trying, but I probably WON'T know until we ALL know.

They can follow their own path.

I thought revisiting this for a moment might be fun.

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 12: "Anything worth selling is worth selling twice."

No.

"What is it?" "The sound of treachery." "We'll be at this all day."

*checks* That would be HCW's thread there, "The L.E.A.D. accident. What happened?", http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=4877

Including the closing line of the series DID make it a bit easy to bullseye....

No. I'm watching, and they're getting a lot of things WRONG, and getting right the things they have been seeing regularly, like the formula for calculating area and so on. I must try out for this show....

*pokes* WASWAY, your turn...

"BIG!" What other movie does a man cash his paycheck and ask for it in denominations that fit into video games? In some cases, I HAVE gone from memory. With DC Cab, I found NOTHING and worked hard to remember lines. With "Stand and Deliver", I popped in the DVD and paused when I found some good lines. With the others, I Goggled. I put the name of the movie in quotes, I put the word "quotes" in quotes, and then looked up the results. In the case of Yellow Submarine, that gave me 2 pages. In the case of the Highlander tv show, I ended up on Wikipedia pages. Most movies, you'll find yourself on its IMDB page, written up by fans of that movie. In the case of the Star Trek episodes, I Google for the SCRIPT. Many episodes' scripts have been posted entirely on webpages. I remember the line about spelling the hyphen, but that didn't tell me which movie like the paycheck did. (Yes, technically, dollar bills won't fit in a game, but in any arcade, you'll give singles to get handfuls of quarters. And if you're on a roll, a worker there will stay nearby as you keep flagging him over for more change. Ah, memories...Revolution X.... STUNrunner....)

The thief's name was Rasmussen.

Here's how I answered previous objections earlier in the thread, when they came up.

Let's face it- vpw set out, from the beginning, to be obyed without question, and to never have disagreements. That's why he dissolved the Board of Directors and set up a trio that he could control. That's why he put forth he was the sole Christian in 2000 years to hear the voice of God and teach God's Word like it hadn't been known in that time-while taking all his teachings from material already in existence. That's why the corps was set up to FOLLOW ORDERS WITHOUT QUESTION NO MATTER WHAT. (We're still hearing horror stories about that.) That's why he was "The Teacher"- even long before he ever taught a pfal/rthst class. That's why "the suggestion of a general is tantamount to a command." etc. etc. vpw wanted people who were-in terms of judgement and free will- HELPLESS. That way, he could tell them what to believe and what to do- and they'd believe it and do it. Was he successful? There's still people believing everything he said and he's been dead for 20 years. How's that for a successful salesman and conman? To work on staff was to be subject to his rants when he felt like ranting-without warning, without pattern and without good cause, and to be paid less than minimum wage AND not contribute to a Social Security fund, thus ensuring you would NEED to "work until you die." (That's only been corrected for the last year or two.) To be a corps grad was to follow any orders that came down, to work on your own, send in 10% of your salary, to take 2 weeks off work, travel on your own money to hq, then spend 2 weeks of manual labour setting up and putting on the ROA- or earn vpw's wrath for having a life. To be a corps student was to spend 4 years paying tuition, live in a walk-in closet, eat disgusting food I've never HEARD of because it's cheap, perform manual labour while paying for the privilege, and risk life and limb hitchhiking to sell pfal or climb mountains under unsafe directions and unsafe instructors. How many people do you know came out of the way corps looking malnourished and wearing cast-off clothing and second-hand suits? For which they paid tuition for.... To be a wow was to pay them for the privilege of going wow, be sent somewhere with no say on the location, travel on your own expense (carpooling with wows in cars), work fulltime and sell pfal, run pfal classes on your own time and at your own expense, then return at the end at your own expense, having brought in pfal class tuitions and new people expected to pay 10% of their salaries, for which you received a lapel pin. To be none of the above was to be told what to do by those who WERE in the above categories (except wows), and to be told to give 10% of your income and believe whatever vpw said- and encourage others to do the same. All levels of involvement in twi were constructed to benefit vpw, accomplish his goals, and to do whatever he said and soak up whatever punishment he sought to dish out. And those closest to him were hardly immune to this- cg admitted in pop that he (cg) and ha put up with a lot of abuse from vpw. A read-thru of "vp and me" shows lcm put up with abuse from vpw when they were in contact. God only knows what Mrs W lived through.

Bingo. twi taught EXACTLY what the Bible said, still practiced completely the opposite, and somehow reconciled the two in their/our minds. That's why some people STILL claim that all their dealings were completely above-board and fair- because they were fair ON PAPER, and can't conceive of the idea that they'd WRITE ONE THING and PRACTICE ANOTHER.

Actually, I'm just one poster with one opinion. Others have their own. The staff makes their own decisions and carries them out, partly in accordance with the policies they've enacted. If you think you can sway them, go ahead and contact them. If you object to a specific post, you can click on that post's "Report" button. If you think you can sway the opinions of most posters, go ahead, post your "argument", and see if it moves anyone. Your posts objecting are as welcome here as posts that you perceive as tasteless but are not illegal. The internet-and the GSC- are sorts of "free market economies" of ideas. Of course, you can always just let this particular one go- I do that all the time, choosing what to respond to and what to leave alone when I don't think I can add to the discussion.

Then I'm probably mistaken. I doubt they'd reuse it.

Scourging alone produces some horrific damage. It won't KILL you as fast as it MUTILATES you, because it's designed primarily to TEAR SKIN and not PENETRATE FLESH so much. But being horribly beaten, at the time, was not as isolated as some people think or portray. (Not COMMON, but not unknown.) I came across some references a number of years back concerning their gladiator games. Some of them were man to man, weaponless combat, which is no less brutal for using fists rather than swords. Leather caps were instituted later to preserve ears from being bitten off. Anyway, one poet wrote of a fighter who came home so brutally beaten up that his own dog didn't recognize him. Whether literally true or not, the concept was at least feasible to them at the time.

Last I heard, twi owns the house where he lives, and he either lived with or currently lives with a twi doctor, who could keep an eye on him if needed. If they're laundering some cash and handing it to him in an envelope, we haven't seen proof of it. Perhaps some GSCer can get some video of it and put it on YouTube or something. THEN we'd have something on the subject.

I've been waiting until I had something to add before responding. All I can say is, Every time I think I've read the WORST thing vpw or twi people have ever done, someone else posts something WORSE that they were an eyewitness to.

The name Kivas Fajo is coming to mind here....

Gee, and I'd hoped Mike might have grown beyond this when he stopped shoehorning it into every thread. Mike, continue to derail this thread and I will start replying to your posts.