WordWolf

Ok, I can easily see that. (Without getting into it, that wasn't exactly what was meant. )

A number of people, seeing unflattering things said about vpw, for example, will not ask "Can this be true?" but will instead say "I have decided this will not be true, and I will leave rather than permit myself to even consider it MIGHT be true." They're entitled to never post, or to leave, if that's their decision. Harassment. Hah. Tell you what. This is the internet. If you want a messageboard where your point of view is the pre-eminent one and you can set the tone, you can do what everyone else does and make your OWN messageboard. You can't tell Paw what to do with HIS messageboard. (I could swear I've mentioned this a number of times before.

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Were you the parent that was given the recommendation to take the kid out into the woods, thrash him just short of needing a hospital, then tell him if he stepped out of line again, you'd exterminate him? I know SOMEBODY said their leadership told them this. (I'm using my words but their concepts.)

My story is a lot milder than some. I got in because I wanted answers. I wanted to be right. twi convinced me they were right, and had the answers. When twi convinced me they weren't right, and didn't have the answers, I left. Pretty fast. It helped a LOT that this was in 1989, when 80% of the active members got up and left. Locally, everybody I'd hung out with had left at the same time. (I would have left without them, but this made it easier.) I still thought what I'd learned was the best out there. Of course, I was young and foolish. And the internet has REALLY made learning otherwise a LOT easier. I'm still a Christian, and I think Christians worldwide should consider the internet to have IMMENSE benefits, both for communication, and information. Of course, that's just my opinion-everyone else has theirs.

This was also during the same timeframe that every single person was REQUIRED to submit an agenda of their plans for the entire week. Filled out in 15-minute increments. And if the actual day ran differently, you were expected to file an update with the corrections. And this didn't chase ALL the people out. (Some, but not all.) It's like the story that says that if you put a frog in a pot of water, and increase the temperature very, very slowly, he won't notice the difference and jump out when it gets hot.

Sounds familiar, but I'm npt getting the song yet...

Usual rule, is naming a COVER of a song is perfectly acceptable, so long as the artist DID perform the song. Thus, when I posted "Little Red Riding Hood", a poster correctly named it, along with the artist Sam the Sham. If he's named the artist as "Bowling for Soup", I would have accepted it also, since they did a cover of the song. So, if Guns N Roses did a cover, then Sharon was the first to answer with correct title and artist.

Sounds familiar. (Especially the first two.) M*A*S*H*?

Mine appears to be working fine. Try all the "obvious" solutions. Clear your browser's cookies, clear your browser's history, close the browser window, then re-open it. If that doesn't do it, make sure you're using the latest version (which probably has nothing to do with it), and make sure you've cleaned out any adware, spyware and viruses, then restart the computer. (All of those can only help the computer, anyway.) One of those is likely to fix the problem.

Maybe they learned. Alarmingly large numbers of people who left twi DIDN'T. (Most, I think, DID learn, either immediately or eventually.) "When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Hans Neimoller (translated.)

Welcome, happyheart. Sounds like they said they cared, and that they were supposed to care, but what they did was heartless and UNcaring. Not everyone has such a horror story (I don't, WD didn't), but that doesn't change what they did to you.

Welcome, happyheart. It's up to you to decide your own opinion (Gee, already with the non-twi stuff! :) ) but it often seems that-when someone posts about something someone bad in twi did something, someone else IMMEDIATELY comes along to derail the thread completely, or to try to bury the information in a flurry of posts, generally claiming the person's post didn't reflect reality. They rarely come right out and honestly say "I think you're lying", but the intent is the same, just phrased with prettier words. Then they can honestly say they never called the person a liar, although the words they used said they thought the person wasn't telling the truth. (In effect, they called them a liar, but didn't use the WORD "liar" to do so.) Some people (the ones who are believed to do that) will be quick to say that they're trying to support "the truth" (whatever that means to them), and that they are trying to uphold some noble standard, and are immediately set upon whenever they speak, or when they recount some pleasant memory. Which is true? Are they both wrong? Well, you should read things and decide for yourself. (I say the first paragraph is correct, but others would not.)

Now, was this meant to literally say that God pays your bills, provides you housing, gives you physical, nutritious food, and so on? Otherwise, this sounds like a pat statement, a memorized slogan, used to close discussion or dismiss genuine concerns over something. Lots of us had those when we were in. Another slogan that dismissed actual concerns was "where's your believing?" The people who went in with ill-planned things expected God to take care of them just fine, but the manner they expected it in didn't quite work out... "Never mistake a slogan for a solution."-John Capozzi. Whenever I see genuine concerns, and genuine issues raised, and they're answered with slogans rather than solutions, I remember what I learned before, and make sure I'm not dependent upon the sloganeer, and begin looking for the back door. It's NOT a sign of where I want my thinking to be, and certainly not where I want my planning to be.

I disagree. I think vpw very carefully selected that example BECAUSE it would scare the lcm out of anyone who was accepting what he said. Don't take this class seriously? Well, then people you love could DIE! How's that for a motivation to complete a class? In 20/20 hindsight, most or all of us say that it "obviously" was meant as some sort of story. One thing we're NOW confident of, was that vpw put forth this actually happened, and we were to believe a) this mother existed and feared, and this caused her child to be killed b) her child existed-and was killed by his mother's fear c) this was an example of an operation of a principle that was effectively a Law of Physics (because for it to not work, "God would have to change the laws of the universe") We're also confident now that this didn't happen, and the entire thing is made-up. (Anyone ever wonder what town the woman lived in-the woman with the red drapes?) Lots of parents have lost children. Sad, but true. Some of the parents took pfal. More than one felt VERY bad-and blamed THEMSELVES for the deaths of their children.

This is a DISCUSSION forum. It seems silly to have to break it down, but some people need this from time to time. This is NOT a court of law. The rules for DISCUSSIONS- the customs, really- are what are used here. When people discuss, when people have conversations, they don't go around saying "I allege this happened yesterday..". They just tell their story. If someone calls them into question, THEN there's allegations. A professional made a claim once about something someone said at a specific place at a specific time. I commented later: "I was there at that moment and they didn't say that." A discussion followed, and, as it turned out, I was there exactly 24 hours LATER and missed the time and place that it was said. Since I was not there after all, I could not speak to what others saw and did. (So I didn't try.) Actually, it sounded like something they WOULD say, so my comment was only on the specifics. And this story had no connection to twi, the GSC, or anything related to it. When people just talk, they don't have to pretend they're in court, make a major presentation, or say "alleged" every 2nd sentence or something. When was the last time you heard "Sorry I'm late- I'm alleging there was a traffic jam on the highway?"

One of the things that bothers me about the BS stories- especially ones like this one- is that they were presented as FACTUAL- in this case, vpw said "I was there and this is what I did." Seeing this as just a made-up story- as, I think, we're all saying now- is seeing vpw as a man who had no difficulty MAKING UP LIES and telling them as the truth. It's one thing to hear a story and mistakenly pass it along as true. (They were harder to verify before the internet, for one thing.) However, to deliberately tell a false story (he knew he DIDN'T do this) is something entirely different. And, yes, it sprang from his specialty in Homiletics, or "making up little stories to use as life-lessons".

I just have one question. His mother, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

Or "Hope Floats", maybe? (And Tom was teasing.)

Think about it for a moment. I'm pretty confident that the same thread with the same title would get more people opening it to read if it was from you than from me. From me, it's a little predictable. From you, more people will be curious to see where it's going, which I think would lead to more participation.

John, are you interested in making a new thread, opening discussion on that? Not everyone who'd respond is reading this one. If you are, I'd recommend opening it in Open, the general category. I'd start it, but it's your suggestion, and I'd really just cut-and-paste what you just said. I don't know what would result, but I think opening a discussion on this would be a good idea.

If this was a court of law, that "burdon" WOULD be on all the posters. However, it is NOT a court of law, and, WD's impressions notwithstanding, people can-and are EXPECTED TO, PAW SAID SO- COME FORTH AND GIVE PERSONAL TESTIMONY, AS EYEWITNESS OR VICTIM, AND SAY "THIS HAPPENED TO ME, TWI DID THIS, VPW DID THIS, LCM DID THIS. They are NOT required to produce DNA samples nor videotaped evidence of same. Attempts to say otherwise are attempts to hide from what happened- or to SILENCE those who suffered. "...I have tried to keep memory alive, I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices... I swore never to be silent whenever, wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation... Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." -Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1986.

On women being raped, molested and/or coerced... "Just because you are coerced does not mean you have to comply That is a personal choice that each must be accountable for." http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...st&p=391443

Now you can read their minds, and know the SOLE reason they could elect not to go to trial is that they thought they could not win their case? Do you know what it's like to be dragged through a lengthy court-case, with the defense's attorneys calling the victim a whore and a liar? It's even worse than here when some posters keep suggesting that of the victims. "Just because you are coerced does not mean you have to comply." That's a remarkable statement that is both true and false. Technically, one is able to choose- however, in any practical sense, the choice is limited. During the days of slavery in the American South, a slave was coerced to work as a slave. That did not mean he has to comply. He can choose to try to escape, or elect to refuse to work. This will mean a whipping, and he may be scarred for life, and repeats could end with a crippling injury or a death, but he does not HAVE to comply. Being honest with the data would include NOT EXTRAPOLATING FROM NONREPRESENTATIVE DATA. It's easy to pull a nonrepresentative sample, and extrapolate to the general population. If one polled the chatroom at the right moment, one could extrapolate that 80% of the membership of twi was raped or molested by vpw, lcm or someone vpw taught to rape and molest. It's dishonest, but one could pretend it's not. Equally, it's dishonest to take the results of a poll where A FEW GSCers in the HISTORY of GSC have responded, and claim it represents THE ENTIRETY of GSCers in the HISTORY of GSC. In that timeframe, I'd say about 100 posters have been posting. So, 7 people out of 100, or 7%, would be represented here, and that's only counting the ones here NOW. And claiming 100,000 were ever "involved" in the way is also non-representative. It was claimed by twi based on the number of people who ever SIGNED UP for pfal. Not everyone who signed up EVER SHOWED UP. Not everyone who showed up at Session 1 completed Session 12. Not everyone who completed Session 12 was around for more than that (some took it and made tracks.) Not everyone who stayed after Session 12 stayed more than a few months. I'd say the history of twi included some 50,000 people EVER who were around for more than 3 months, and as many as 38,000 were around at the same time, as of its height in 1979-1982. Just because you "see" something with the data doesn't mean it's so. I'd suggest "re-examining" the data, but I expect you'd get the same results, since you'd approach it the same way each time.

This is "unsourced", meaning no attempt to find Einstein actually SAYING it has succeeded to date. (Per his "wikiquote" page-if you can find a specific SOURCE, a place and time where he said it, we can amend the wikiquote page, but I'd be rather shocked.) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein Einstein DID, however, verifiably say the following: "But let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind." "The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer." "Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot." "No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."