WordWolf

Groucho, maybe you should have used something like "peat bog" or "marsh bog"or "tar pit."

Incorrect. He stated that those who were called Jews nowadays were not the descendants of the Jews mentioned in the Old Testament, selected out by God. That's why the term "Judean" was used in twi-to avoid saying either "Jew" or "so-called Jew", either of which was an unacceptable situation, albeit for different reasons. As has already been pointed out here before-and you seem determined to remain in abject denial of- Koestler's claims were DISPROVEN. As quoted on the wikipedia entry on his book, "the Thirteenth Tribe", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Tribe "Recent genetic research studies have contradicted the main thesis of The Thirteenth Tribe. For example, a 2000 study of haplotypes by Hammer et al indicates that the Y chromosomes of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, yet are uncommon in the general European population. These results strongly suggest that most male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews can be traced primarily to the Middle East. A second study (2006) by Behar et al, based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), also indicates that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE." In plain English, modern Jews not claiming mixed heritage are descended PRIMARILY from the Jews of the Old Testament, the 12 tribes of Israel. Modern Jews are NOT descended PRIMARILY from the Khazars. There's genetic evidence of their 12 tribes heritage, but no genetic evidence of a Khazar heritage. That was wild speculation on the part of Koestler, and has been disproven. Your insistence on ignoring this is sad, but correctible. However, since you remain determined to miss this, we'll eventually have to have this same discussion again a year or so from now again, where you paste someone else's quotation of Koestler and someone will, again, have to link to and post the refutations that everyone ELSE can easily see disproved Koestler YEARS AGO. Well, that's better than no mention at all, but you didn't say what was YOU speaking, and what was JCOP. You didn't use quotes or otherwise indicate what was their words and what was your own. That's ok, it's almost traditional for vpw to take credit for the work of others, you're just proudly carrying on that tradition, I expect....morality and legality don't really figure in...

*counts* I counted 13 museums across the entire US. (My count may have been off by 1.) That's your idea of "every major American city"? And if you didn't have any better documentation than 13, why say "every major American city?" Posting rhetoric you cribbed from someone else- or rearranged the words on- isn't actually STUDY. It's regurgitation, and is only as reliable as the sources you use. In this case, you're relying on those who make other wild claims all the time.

Now, those of you arriving late may have missed some details. I shall recap, and you can see the documentation all over the longer Holocaust thread. For those of you wondering-because you never were there when vpw said anything denying the Holocaust- there's an amazing correlation on the GSC between the tiny handful of posters who've argued against the Holocaust- "it didn't happen" "the numbers were inflated" "there were no crematoriums used to incinerate Jews" "it's all a Zionist plot" and the tiny handful of posters who keep putting forth that vpw was some sort of spectacular guy. Every single Holocaust denier on this board is a vpw-promoter. Every single one. (I haven't checked if every single vpw-promoter is also a Holocaust denier.) I ask you, if Holocaust denial wasn't part and parcel of what vpw taught them, why the connection? vpw-apologists are often quick to claim that anything they don't like wasn't vpw's fault at all- but the fault of those who came along later. Why, then, embrace this faulty, demagogue-based ideology of Holocaust denial? I think this is at LEAST as strong a testimony as the poster who posted what they heard vpw say directly. In other words, "This is your brain on vpw. Any questions?"

Actually, it's a historical event where millions of people, many of them Jews, were imprisoned by the Nazis and most of them (the prisoners) were killed by the Nazis while imprisoned. That's so well-documented by now that only the most severe Kool-Aid drinkers can bring themselves to say "it didn't happen" "millions of Jews weren't slaughtered" and so on. But for some people, there was no mass-murder, just a media event decades later about some made-up problems. "Hardly a month." So, from the last 12 months, you can name 10 different NEW TV productions, films, or books, at least? Drawing from all 3 media? Shouldn't be hard if that's really happening, and not just rhetoric from a poster.... Got documentation for this claim? EVERY major American city? Is this hundreds of memorials, or are you creatively redefining "major" so that there's only a few "major" cities? I'd expect the bulk of them in Europe, CLOSE TO WHERE IT HAPPENED.I'm doubtful there's fully 250, but there's probably many that represent specific people, memorializing THEM, and those are being added together to make a false impression.... Wasn't in my education. How many American schools in this "many"? And ONE Holocaust museum for the entire country hardly suffices as emphasis. There's more than one museum in this country just for aeronautics, one in the same town as that Holocaust museum. And so on, for many other subjects (the American Indian, Natural History, Criminology...)

Sometimes it costs very little- just overcoming reluctance to step outside your comfort zone- to make a small gesture which makes a large difference to the person you made it to.

Ok, here's what we agree on, and what we don't agree on. "vpw got believing in reverse wrong"- check. "We should believe the promises of God"- check. "God made an immutable law for sinner and nonsinner of believing"- no check. Believing God? Good thing. Claiming that's some sort of "law"? Not so much. We agree on quite a bit, though.

As written, I agree with this post. As a whole, the 12 sessions of pfal are not atheistic- not in the usual sense of "antagonistic to religion" nor in the specific sense Juedes meant- which was technically correct- of a 12 session class where God was irrelevant. However, Juedes didn't say the entirety of pfal, all 12 sessions, were atheistic. He said the so-called "LAW" of believing was "atheistic", that is, God was irrelevant to the system. It required "laws of the universe", and occasionally mentioned God, but He was incidental at best to any practical application of these supposed "laws". Believing could get you RED DRAPES, or kill your child, or give a hypochondriac illnesses he never had-just claimed he did.

15-minute increments. I was long gone when they did it, too. It's almost like they deliberately were saying "Let's see how moronic and controlling we can make this VERY SLOWLY before they feel the boiling water and jump out."

CORRECT! Here's how they came in... "Offer me money." "Yes." "Power too-promise that!" "All that I have and more. Please." "Offer me everything I ask for." "Anything you want!" "I want my father back, you son of a b*!" Inigo Montoya caught up to the six-fingered man. "He didn't fall? Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Vizzini kept saying the man in black keeping up with them was "inconceivable", but obviously it wasn't....as Inigo pointed out. Actually, if it hadn't been part of your signature, that WOULD have been my first quote, either "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" or "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line."

All I know is, anyone wants to take off my head, that would be a terrible thing, a tragedy or a crisis.

No, it's a righteous mission to salvage an idyllic memory of twi, pfal and your own past there, getting your own memories out of bondage. Part and parcel of that is to attempt to crucify people like Juedes- whether that means ignoring almost everything he says, distorting what he says, or even distorting what vpw said. Who said we HATED vpw and twi? We all follow the dictates of our respective consciences- which respond as we have instructed them. This "people who criticize vpw are deeply emotional" thing isn't based on us, but, again, part and parcel of trying to discredit any criticism of vpw. Cold logic demonstrating his doctrinal error can't be countenanced, so it must be relabelled as emotional outbursts one way or another.

If you want. So far, we're at 1 promise not to respond if we post about Juedes, and 2 posts responding to not responding if we post about Juedes.

"Offer me money." "Yes." "Power too-promise that!" "All that I have and more. Please." "Offer me everything I ask for." "Anything you want!" "I want my father back, you son of a b*!" "He didn't fall? Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You added that to vpw's explanation. vpw said that believing brings down death, illnesses and other things. I disagree that vpw's explanation-without extensive rewriting- works. Acting- or failing to act- bring results. vpw claimed that CONFESSING illness (being a hypochondriac) will mean you will HAVE illness (you will acquire the specific sicknesses you claimed). However, hypochondriacs exist all the time, and most of the time, they are physically well but PRETENDING or CLAIMING/LYING that they are physically ill but they're actually not.) How do you interpret that their confession of specific illness gives them that illness? Adding that completely to the Orange Book and Blue Book. vpw HIMSELF didn't bring up PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS as to HOW his supposed "LAWS" would work. He said that it happened, and for it NOT to happen would be a violation of "THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE". For those who saw they failed to happen, he left it to people like you to introduce all sorts of outside considerations to attempt to legitimize his statements. He'd be impressed to what degree he succeeded, in my opinion.

I read you fine. You said if anyone besides Juedes responded, there's little point because you won't read it. "let him speak for himself. Even though I know I can't stop you from doing so I'll tell you now -- it will be wasted on me 'cause I won't bother responding to it." My response of "If we let whether or not you're willing to listen limit our posting, it would get pretty quiet on threads you post on around here." reflected an understanding of what you wrote, thus, no re-reading is necessary. Neither was rephrasing necessary, I understood you the first time.

While I agree that more love and compassion is needed, I disagree as to how it arrived. You're saying it "crept in." I say a lot of it was part and parcel of the framework. For example: vpw HIMSELF takes shots at this minister and mother who may not have even existed. Compassion? At a FUNERAL? Who would have that?

The system being in place, whether or not you receive something has nothing to do with any involvement from God. The laws of the universe are in place, and your receiving will be based entirely on what and how you believe. vpw: "If a person makes up his mind that this time next year he is going to be dead, God would have to change the laws of the universe for the person not to be accomodated." You're misrepresenting Juedes and ignoring when he explained your misrepresentation. Juedes clarified, attempting to shore up your understanding. Amazingly, you completely skipped this, although you quoted and criticized a few of his sentences following. Juedes: "It is striking to me how strongly people have responded to this article on the "law" of beleiving. Perhaps this response hints at how entrenched the idea was in TWI, and perhaps also at how much damage it has done to people (to themsevles or to people they know). My article does not say that VPW promoted atheism. It does say that "the law of believing" is an atheistic system. In VP's view, Christians and non Christians "operate" it to do good or to do evil. While VP mentioned God's promises, they really don't make any difference to the "law." He told the story of the mother who caused her child to be killed by her negative believing. Does that mean that she knew the promises of God were "available" and used her believing in God's promises to kill her child? Certainly not!" This IS what vpw said. "If a person makes up his mind that this time next year he is going to be dead, God would have to change the laws of the universe for the person not to be accomodated." God's involvement in this transaction is NONEXISTENT. The person believed and was killed by the interaction of his believing and "the laws of the universe." God set up these supposed laws millenia ago, and can merely watch in impotent fury if one of his precious children has determined they could die. The only thing he CAN do is send a prophet to try to convince them to change their believing, but if the person remains resolute, God MUST stand aside and watch them die. No fair making sense here, another spot. We're discussing how vpw's rules don't work- or attempting to rewrite them so that they DO work, depending on who's posting. Not that I don't agree wholeheartedly, but we're busy circling some nonsense.

Whether or not the mother taught the child how properly to cross the street is incidental to what vpw taught. Kindly quote-citing the page- where vpw said that in the Orange or the Blue Book. That issue didn't come up until raised BY US on the messageboards. vpw said his mother's fear killed him. Period. Orange Book, pg 44. "What one fears will surely come to pass. It is a law. Have you ever heard about people who set the time of their death? When somebody says 'Well, this time next year I will not be here," if you are a betting man, bet your money; you are going to win. If a person makes up his mind that this time next year he is going to be dead, God would have to change the laws of the universe for the person not to be accomodated." Orange Book, pg-43-44. "Do you know what killed that little boy? The fear in the heart and life of that mother. She was so desperately afraid something was going to happen to her little boy that she finally reaped the results of her believing." I would also like to point out that we have no documentation that this woman and her child EVER EXISTED. We know the attitudes vpw claims towards such people, but we have no guarantee they were REAL and not just made up to supposedly illustrate the so-called "LAW" of believing that fails to work as written, so people desperate to prop it up have to add all sorts of codicils to handwave away all the times it DOESN'T work or explain what happened.

If we let whether or not you're willing to listen limit our posting, it would get pretty quiet on threads you post on around here.

Very good points. I just wanted to note that I haven't glossed over other points, I will get to them in turn. I'm just tackling them in the order that I wish to, with no claims it's the optimal order or make sense to anyone else. I will get back to straight discussion on omniscience.

"If he had lived and stayed in power, he would have come up with more and more crazy stuff," I think it would have been more accurate to say that "every other so-called minister of God who placed themselves in the position vpw had placed himself in has come up progressively more and more crazy stuff, and it is likely that vpw would only have been just another one of them, hardly the greatest man of God in 2 millenia that he put forth that he was." Funny how oldiesman can comb over lengthy articles refuting error from the mouth of wierwille, skip over all of that, and find the one speculative sentence to object to. I think oldiesman is dedicated to thinking evil of anyone who criticizes vpw to the smallest degree and now resorts to ignoring 90% or more of someone's response and cherry-picking out only what he can object to. On every issue of his life not related to vpw and twi, oldiesman is probably quite reasonable.

Every morning, millions of parents send their kids off, worried that some terrible thing will befall their kids. Every afternoon, millions of parents receive their children back, their DAILY fears having failed to come to pass. One poster here has commented how his parents were FULL of fear each day, and nothing happened to him. Another poster here has commented how his parents DID NOT fear, and a horrible thing befell him. Johniam: "..is absurd to think that VP feared that he would die of cancer." vpw: "We are what we are today because of our believing. We will be tomorrow where our believing takes us." "Believing is a law. As one believes, he receives. On the negative side, fear is believing: fear is believing in reverse, it produces ill results. " "If one is afraid of a disease, he will manifest that disease because the law is that which one believes (in this case, what one believes negatively)." Johniam, we agree. The teachings of vpw would say that people who died of illness had 2 problems. A) feared they would catch the disease B) lack of believing that God would heal the disease Johniam agrees with Juedes that this is error- that this is NOT what happens when people get sick, so when vpw got sick, it wasn't due to fear, and when he didn't heal, it wasn't due to lack of believing, NO MATTER WHAT VPW TAUGHT. We're all in agreement that this was error. Glad we're all on the same page.

For those who will pretend to not see that point, or who will be unable to bring themselves to see it, I shall make it clearer. A child dies. Nobody rejoices. A minister performs the funeral, and MUST try to offer some comfort to the family. What does he tell them? He says their precious little child is in heaven, with God. Whether or not one believes this is true, few would be so slow-witted to miss that this offers comfort to the family. (Funerals, except for the most crass, are NOT places to correct someone's doctrine.) vpw then finds something to complain about there-even if he has to manufacture it to show how awful those wicked, nasty ministers can be. He changes the minister's message from "God now has another rose petal in heaven" to "God KILLED that child IN ORDER TO have another rose petal in heaven." Amazing how evil the minister's words were-once vpw changed them. Amazing how vpw can take a FUNERAL and begin finding fault with comforting the bereaved, the hurting, the suffering. Then again, if certain people here are correct, and vpw really DID say that every time one receives based on either believing or fear, that God Almighty's the one that makes it happen, the vpw HIMSELF said God killed the kid. If, as vpw said "Believing is a law. As one believes, he receives. On the negative side, fear is believing: fear is believing in reverse, it produces ill results." and "If a person is afraid of not being able to hold his job, do you know what will happen? He will lose it. If one is afraid of a disease, he will manifest that disease because the law is that which one believes (in this case, what one believes negatively), he is going to receive. People have a fear of the future; they have a fear of death. Fear always encases, fear always enslaves, fear always binds. This law of negative and positive believing works for both Christian and non-Christian. When we believe, we receive the results of our believing regardless of who or what we are." and, supposedly, he ALWAYS claimed that "You say it, you believe it, and God will bring it to pass.", then, yes, the mother feared, and God granted the results of her fear and killed her child. Mind you, that's not what the minister said. If vpw did say this, then I think it would be appropriate to reply to him "Imagine that! That the God who created the heavens and the earth should kill a little boy!" Then again, this whole "vpw said it was ALWAYS from God" thing is untrue, and misrepresents vpw's words in order to make him sound more Biblical. He was inconsistent-sometimes it was of God, sometimes God was powerless to prevent us from reaping the consequences of believing.

And, oldiesman points out that vpw was INCONSISTENT in his explanations. Sometimes he said it was God, and sometimes it was about the laws of the universe.