WordWolf

"I spent six days in the lava caves. For five days I saw nothing. Then, on the sixth day, as I was preparing to leave the caves... Kahless came to me." "Kahless. The entity you invoke during the Klingon Death Ritual?" "When he appeared before me... he told me that I would do what no Klingon had ever done." "You did become the first Klingon in Starfleet." "Yes. It is as he said." "Why are you asking me about this?" "I have recently had an unexplained experience, which might be described as a 'vision'."

Never would have guessed it was THAT Doctor, would you? Neither would I, unless I remembered the scene. (Which I might have...)

Since you mean the guy credited as "Jeffrey Jones" in a number of movies, I have 2 that spring to mind to link to-with good links out. (I can do 3 with a bad link.) Ferris Buehler's Day Off (Hm, which actor can I name another movie of? Aha!) Ben Stein the Mask

I think you put words in his mouth. dmiller said nothing of them being "great" or "men of God" or "ordained of God" or they must have "respect." dmiller addressed "kicking a man when he is down." That is, dmiller didn't say "I would avoid repaying their evil by performing evil upon them" because "they were ordained of God and warrant special treatment." dmiller would avoid repaying their evil by performing evil upon them because that's wrong for ANYONE, and sees more value in praying for God to open his heart, heal him of his emotional and mental blindness, and possibly rehabilitate him as a Christian. (For God, nothing is impossible.)

I can't recover the information from the first post's link, but the Wayback Machine had this one. ============= Nobody Held A Gun To Your Head By Janey Ed, I'd like to make a few comments in response those who would mock former members of the Worldwide Church of God. Get over it, they say. Nobody held a gun to your head. I left the Worldwide eight years ago after enduring one of the most grueling events of my life; a thorough six-month analysis of Herbert Armstrong's theology. Using the references which Armstrong cited to support his doctrines, one will easily determine that his way of life was a crock. It is based on false premises, faulty scholarship, laughable suppositions, material taken out of context. It was a turning point in my life; knowing that, after twenty-five years as a true believer, I was free to leave the warm embrace of the one true church with a clear and educated conscience. This new beginning was made possible NOT because I had the church's permission to question and review its theology critically; rather it was done in spite of continuous pressure, cautions and veiled threats from the Worldwide ministry. It takes tremendous courage to stare into the face of the powerful forces that have threatened you for decades to not stray, or even listen to views that were other than what we "heard from the beginning" from Herbert Armstrong. Nobody held a gun to my head? You know what, Ed...that's not true. It seems to me that the work of the cult is accomplished in stages. I believe that the shaming of others in the group (and God knows there are stories we could tell on that account) is the classroom wherein all other members learn one thing. What is that one thing? It is what perpetuates the cult itself -self-control via other-control. In other words, the believer learns quickly that to differ from the group is to elicit undesirable results: public shaming, public expulsion from the group, isolation from the group, cut off from God, fear for your eternal life. The believer learns early on in this period of exposure that he needs to be very, very careful how he expresses himself because the consequences could be (or so he is told by his loving ministry) in terms of eternity, quite literally FATAL. Self-exposure is to be avoided at all cost. Hyper-vigilance prevails. It is this shaming work of the cult that I believe is most powerful and cruel. This evil work of the church and ministry eventually is taken on by the believer himself (stage two)...beating himself up inwardly for even thinking something the ministry would frown on, working himself up into so perfectly submitting to every mandate and whim of the ministry (realigning his thoughts and actions to keep in concert with the ever moving and shifting theological direction), so perfectly portraying and exemplifying (inwardly and outwardly) what the leaders want. The believer has witnessed that it is far better and less painful to do this work on HIMSELF (self-discipline), than suffer exposure as a weak fool at the hands of an unhappy ministry. In conjunction with stage two is stage two PLUS...where this believer (who is no longer individual, but realizes his relevancy only by virtue of his group status), takes on the shaming of others in the group, quite happily...thereby participating actively in the perpetuation of the cult mindset (and deflecting shaming attention from himself...self-preservation). This, Ed, was a gun to my head. It occurs to me that some might characterize this cult indoctrination -this discipline of the flock, and self-discipline of each member -much as a mother teaching her child right from wrong. Well, let me just start by saying that the church don't hug, it don't kiss, and it don't cuddle, it don't even bleed. It ain't your ma. It, in fact, interfered with your relationship with your ma... Key to understanding how the believer was setup in the cult system of shame is the perverted mother-child analogy (and by extension, the family of God analogy) which was used in so many clever ways to depict the relationship between the ministry and the believer, the believer and God. It has done SO MUCH DAMAGE. The church, its ministry, and God...none of them is your parent. Your parents are the ones that bore you, and reared you, and it is in the confines of that relationship that children should be disciplined in love, in the embrace of loving parents who stand firm in defense of their young's best interests (most particularly, especially when parties OUTSIDE that loving home would act against their child's best interests). Well, some would say that essentially this is what the church did...discipline the membership in the best interest of the believer. Before I puke, let me just remind you that the membership isn't made up of children. The membership is grown up and adult. The miss-use of this mother-child analogy which has been incorporated as a method of discipline within the cult serves NOT the best interests of the believer, rather the best interest of the cult itself...perpetuation of the cult. This isn't a discipline in love. It is a discipline entirely without love. I gather that most of the mocking (get over it, nobody put a gun to your head) comes from those who have chosen to remain inside the Worldwide and embrace the new covenant teachings. As such, it is probably helpful for the rest of us to consider where they're coming from. They've been isolated all their lives in the warm confines of the one true church. There wasn't much thinking necessary, and apparently the same is true today. The truth used to be defined by the whim of Herbert Armstrong. Now it is defined by the another guy who holds to an entirely opposing view. But that's ok for these folks, just as long as somebody else does their thinking for them, then the world is a swell place. As long as they can perch all huddled together in their little itty bitty nest and be fed little itty bitty spiritual worms by their mama, then all is right with the world. They don't want to hear about Herbert Armstrong's sexual escapades. For crying out loud...WE DON'T WANT TO KEEP HEARING ABOUT THEM EITHER. But we want those stories to go away for entirely different reasons. I am repulsed by these stories, but am equally relieved that now I understand the profound sexual shaming my generation endured under Armstrong's reign. He passed on to us his own sexual shame. They, on the other hand, don't want to hear it because it shakes the tree where their little nest abides. You see, to expose these things is to threaten them on a comfort level. I mean, so then you have to ask yourself how this ever happened if the man was filled with the holy spirit. And then you start asking who knew about it and find out that virtually the entire ministry was privy to these details for literally decades. And then you start wondering what spirit it was that took up residence in Armstrong's life, and what impact that might have had on your own growth and development spiritually speaking, and then you're embarrassed as hell, and disappointed beyond your wildest imagination. And then that warm cozy nest would start to feel kind of soiled and cold. So, it's easier for them to just say get over it, and instead just imply that we're just bitter, and that it's all lies, and that we're just making it all up to hurt their poor little mama. But we need to have compassion on these little itty bitty birds...you see, they are thinking and reacting just like they learned in the cult...to be mindlessly afraid. These poor people are still living the effects of the cult experience. They still can't think on their own, they still don't have the mental stamina to conduct thorough critical review of Armstrong's theology...hell, they can't even do it with the easy new covenant material. They need church literature to guide them to the latest version of the truth of God. And the new ministry of the Worldwide is just real happy to continue playing middle-man between the flock and their God. They just need to be needed, cause they don't know how to do anything else but feed off the flock (er, uh, isn't that feed the flock?)... Well, for all the cybervoyers from the outside looking in on the miserable wretched lives of those who contribute to Ed's site, I say this: the first stage to undoing what was done TO us is simply admitting that it happened. I can hear all the Global and Flurry supporters getting their panties in a bunch, going "oh my God, people are saying bad words, and blaspheming, and turning into god-haters and they're so vile the way they talk about the true believers and MRRR. grrrrrrrrrrrrreetings bbbbbbbbbbbrethren Armstrong....what an UNappealing and distasteful display of insanity." Yes...and your point is??????????? The work of the cult IS insanity...and ya gotta start where ya is!!!! The cult's work is by definition a work designed to center people outside of their own selves, rather than from within. And the cult's destruction of the individual is accomplished by masterful intimidation. I would suggest that the venting, the expression of pain, the naming the losses is part (simply one of the stages) of the process of undoing the work of the cult. Clearly the voyeurs expose their own illiteracy regarding the issue of mental and emotional health by ignorance of this process. But we're like really surprised by how little they know of the workings of mental health, aren't we??? It is so fitting that the defenders of "the way of life" would be shaking their fingers in our faces, either saying it never happened that way, or get over it, nobody put a gun to your head. Frankly, Ed, we NEED them to shame us this way -and I'm not yanking your chain. This is therapeutic. We NEED to hear their shaming words...because their words provide an important contrast -a point of reference. It reminds us how WE used to think, where WE used to be, how We used to shame others (doing our part). It's a powerful point of reference for those on their journey to freedom and reclaiming our minds. And most of us, no matter how little progress we may have made in our recovery, can clearly see we've come a loooooooooooooooooooooong way from where these mind-numbed voyeurs are. What I find so telling, as they shame us for what we're saying, for expressing our opinions, telling our truths...they even have the audacity to shame us for HOW we're doing all this hard work (now where did they learn to do that?)...well, that wagging of self-righteous fingers in our faces gives us lots of good FOOD (finger food) for thought and reflection...and it is a well of comic relief. Regards, Janey ======================================= Also from the defunct site, a list that sounds different in the specifics, but vaguely familiar in the generalities.... ======================== You know you were raised in the World Wide Church of God if ..... Your father called your mother a Babylonian whore because she niether attended services nor allowed him to force the children to go. Your father once punched your mother in the stomach for buying a pie shell made with lard. Your mother was a drunk, a drug addict, and the sane parent. You and your siblings quaked if she had to work late. You hid all the books you had to read for Advanced Placement literature in a hole in the attic so your father wouldn't find them. Your father believed the bible intended men to be dominant. Per church teachings your father assumed total control of the family finances resulting in the loss of the house and the car, but believing "God will provide." your father refused to leave the family home till you were evicted by local authorities. Your father tithed 30% of his income to the church and your mother sent you to stay with relatives for months at a time, sometimes relatives that were on welfare, so you and your siblings wouldn't go hungry. You worried for years that the church was right and Saint Nicholas really was a child molester. You can't look at a Valentines' card without picturing it as womans' butt turned upside down. Year after year, you, your siblings and your mother put up the christmas tree by yourselves only to have your father shove it over (it never looked the same once you got it back up off the floor) and refuse to allow the family to listen to christmas music of any kind. Your father stood behind the christmas gift giving scene muttering about how his family was all going to hell, except you both knew the word hell only means hole and you can't suffer throught eternity without everlasting life and that's reserved for the saved. You hid make-up inside a public statue halfway between your house and your school and you knew where every public restroom with good facilities for washing up were in the entire town. Your father refused to go your younger sisters' flute recital despite the fact that she had a solo because it was scheduled for after sundown friday. Your father missed your older sisters' wedding because the time conflicted with services. You thought divorced women were widows. Your mother decided sewing would be a nice hobby after your father forbid her to buy you and your siblings any clothes all ever again upon your 16th birthday because he wanted to increase his tithe. Your father, the same man who refused to clothe his own children, went to the houses of local "widows" at least once a week to take money, food, clothing for their children, do household repairs, and yardwork. Your father frequently intoned at the dinner table "Things are bad and they' re gonna get worse." You once got revenge on your father by ordering crab at a restuarant when his minister was treating in an effort to recruit your mother. The only vacation your mother ever got was going along for the cock-a mamie holy days and struggling to get out of listening to the sermons. Your mother and at least one of your siblings will not enter a house of worship for a wedding or even a funeral. They have requested that their bodies never enter any sort of sanctuary when they die. You still worry that the Pope is the anti-christ and nobody is doing anything about it. You still can't bring yourself to serve pork in your home. Your fathers' favorite admonition was "Someday your day will come and then you'll be sorry." and unlike your friends you knew he was referring to judgement day. You were told women should only be able to get and use birth control with their husbands' permisssion. The minister told your father that most colleges were full of communists and sexual perverts. So, you had to move out of your parents home at age 18 because your father kept hiding your books, stomping your alarm clock, etc. Complete lack of financial support of any kind resulted in a 6 year period to complete a bachelors' degree despite the fact you generally maintained a minimum GPA of no less than 3.5. Your father once prayed so long over thanksgiving dinner, his sister -- your most peaceful, soft-hearted aunt, flew into a rage and cussed him, his minister and the turkey. Only one person at school understood you, the boy whose family also attended the Worldwide Church of God services. The two of you relieved tension by spreading a rumor around school that your Dads' were having a homosexual affair. You'd stand by your open locker and sigh "I just hope Mama doesn't find out. It would just rip her apart." Each of you struggling not to burst out laughing. After overhearing your mother attempt to force your father to acknowledge your birthday, he once stormed into your bedroom, threw a generic birthday card at you and called you a greedy, worthless brat. You weren't allowed to dance. Your father attempted to forbid you to pursue higher education stating that the church taught that a womans' place in life was to be married to one of the faithful. The best part about moving out of your parents house was not having to meet anymore of the church bachelors your father sprung on you including one that freely admitted he thought it was within a husbands' holy rights to hit his wife. When you moved out on your own your father questioned why a single woman would want to live alone and asked you point blank if you were involved in prostitution. Your father made it such a habit to break into your apartment and search for "evidence" You had to pick up the phone in his presence, call the pollice and ask how to file a warrant. Your father once fired warning shots in the air behind two classmates who were attempting to get you to sneak out to an end of term school party. He then forced them to call the police and report themselves for attempting to break into his house.

What's my take on it? Mostly surprise. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition....

Hello, TGIFWU. (I'm not typing that whole name.) I trust you've looked at this forum's pinned topic, "Welcome to the Greasespot Cafe". If not, I'm recommending you do, first chance you get. There's a variety of offshoot groups. Some of the posters are connected with one or another, but most of us are not. Different offshoots have different answers. There's more scrutiny on the offshoots (aka "splinters") than the original, but in some cases, that may not mean much. If you ask about SPECIFIC offshoots, you could probably get more specific answers. There's a sub-forum about CES, and that's worth a look for you. However, I'd use the following rule of thumb: Unless an offshoot group is announcing its projects- what it's doing, where it's focusing work- and updating the announcements regularly- then it should be presumed that all its money intake is going into either overhead (which may be of benefit to someone) or salary/perks (which ARE of benefit to someone.) In case someone missed HOW overhead can be of personal benefit, I shall give examples. Let's say Group A decides it needs a headquarters, a home office. It starts small- it buys a house, a 3-story house. The bottom 2 stories become a local place to run classes, a place for informal get-togethers (living-room area), and 2 offices are set up. At least one full kitchen remains in place, which can be used for both. That means the third floor can be used as an "apartment" by one or more leaders, a leader and their family, and so on. When meetings are not in use, they can use the comfortable living-room area as a den, and who do you think will be using at least one office? All the comforts which sensibly benefit during meetings, and the supplies for the office, are all at the leader's disposal. (And if the paperwork is done right, he doesn't even have to pay any rent.) Let's say Group A decides its leaders need a few cars to get around. You get the idea. It's the same system vpw used- where he paid no taxes on the farm, his entire living area and work-area were completely paid for by twi's budget, and he never needed to spend on transportation or GROCERIES, nor-I expect- did he have to spend on his WARDROBE, nor even his alcohol and tobacco vices, and so on. And then he got a SALARY. Not that he NEEDED one, really. And on top of that were the gifts whenever he traveled. We all should live so well! There's no guarantee any splinter isn't doing the same thing on a smaller scale, and TRANSPARENCY and OPEN COMMUNICATION- like real churches have- are the best safeguards that show it's NOT being done. Hope you enjoy your stay here.

Neither Doctor appeared in this episode, AFAIK.

Praise God SOME of you had a place to go. Praise God SOME of you-me included-never faced that level of manipulation, coercion, evil head-games and general selfish practices where those at the top gained at the expense of the lives of those at the bottom. Remember, EVERYONE'S EXPERIENCE AT TWI WAS DIFFERENT, AND THEIR OWN. Not everyone escaped all that, and not everyone HAD a place to go. But for the grace of God, you COULD have been where they were- stuck, with NO ONE IN YOUR FAMILY BELIEVING YOU IF YOU SUFFERED AT TWI HANDS,(which DID happen to some) and no one to help you if you needed to run from twi in a one hour "bum's rush" when you were kicked off grounds (which DID happen to some) or need to run off under cover of night (which a few managed rather than get the "bum's rush".) So there you would be, no family or friends speaking to you because they were told you were a spiritual FAILURE (which DID happen to some), feeling defeated YOURSELF, and having been told you were outside God's protection until you "came back". Could you at least feel a little pathos for YOURSELF in that situation? Don't you think you would have been placed in an unfair situation DESPITE having had the freedom to make your own decisions? Don't you think you'd be facing a MISUSE OF POWER by twi's Powers That Be for shoving you in a corner and being told to conform or be a failure to GAWD ALMIGHTY?

Does anyone have a photo of vpw in this "sailor suit"? I would pay money to see the GSC host an image of vpw in a Village People outfit...

Beverly Crusher does not appear in either of the preceding quotes.

Raf chose not to take it, so there you go. Just go ahead and post it. Nobody's keeping score-we're just trying to keep this moving along...

Yes, it's a memorable line. (I could have gotten it from EITHER quote, actually...)

This was not an appearance of Dr Pulaski. No, but that's a nice summary.

A number of times, the record shows they fell far short of that. So, I'm curious- the sister who was suffering from severe mental problems, was she put on a Greyhound bus and sent home (as often happened on-grounds or on the wow field), or did they arrange a trip to her destination in a safe manner? I can't tell if the answer was "they put her on a bus", or "she was sent home safely and I'm using sarcastic humour". When one is rather convincingly lied-to, and convinced that the only choices are "stay and take whatever they give you" or "leave and horrible things will befall you and your family, and everyone will be told you're a failure", many people would consider that a form of COERCION. It is constructed of LIES, DECEIT, MANIPULATION and DISHONESTY through and through, but it was intended to coerce, and was successful in many cases.

I think this is the best summary I've read to date.

There's 2 ways to look at the manipulation that twi gave. One is to say the person rarely was drugged or had a gun placed to their head. The other is to say that one's view was often manipulated so that one saw the choices as being roughly equivalent to doing what was told or dying. I shall clarify. [Folks in the corps often were grossly misinformed as to the activities and contents of the corps. They made a free-will decision based on ex-corps and staff talking it up-sometimes- as the greatest thing they could possibly do with their lives- vpw said it was MORE important than going to college, was more important than ANYTHING someone to do. It's what GAWD ALMIGHTY wants! Don't you want to do what GAWD wants? Then people made the free-will decision to enter the program.... ...and that decision was based on bad information. Then came the next level- activities IN the corps. Anyone, technically, could have gotten up at any point in the corps, and said"I was lied to- this is not what I was told." When surrounded by one's peers and being heavily indoctrinated, some posters here were told that they had signed up for A LIFETIME COMMITTMENT TO SERVE IN THE WAY CORPS and not 4 years of the corps, followed by serving God on their own recognizance- a LIFETIME DOING WHATEVER TWI TOLD YOU TO DO- whether MOVE, perform manual labour, and so on, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE- some posters have pointed out that they were aware they were being hosed, and regretted, in hindsight, not leaving then. Why didn't they leave? Mostly, there was an executed plan to make that as difficult a decision as possible. Let's say you decide, at THAT moment, that the gross dishonesty is too much- so you're leaving no matter what. Now, the fun begins. You're on grounds, in the corps. You will be told in private that you made a committment-not to twi, but to GAWD ALMIGHTY, and that leaving the corps was disappointing God, and you'd be walking outside of God's protection, which meant that you'd be putting the lives of yourself and your family AT RISK of DEATH or PERMANENT INJURY. Still leaving? There's the PUBLIC HUMILIATION, where everyone's told in your earshot what a scummy quitter you are, and unfit and so on. Still leaving? After you leave, the public humiliation is SPREAD, so you're seen as inferior when you go home- a leper, to a degree. That means your ENTIRE FAMILY AND FRIENDS will be told horrible lies about you. You're in twi, and told to forsake all friends and family who didn't join, so once you had no friends when it comes to God's Word, and NOW you have no friends, if twi has anything to say about it. But, yes, you had the choice to leave, and go home. No one placed a physical gun to your head. They just destroyed your social life, savaged your walk with God, threatened harm to your family, and slashed your self-image. But you had the free will to leave despite all that. See the two points of view here? Just because there's no gun, does not mean there's NO COERCION. Turning aside from friends and family (see above), and outside the protection of GAWD ALMIGHTY-as many were told, some specifically, as in "Which member of your family do you want to die?" which, of course, frightened children in earshot out of their wits, and did little good for the adults. However, the adults had complete free will to leave. No one had a gun to their heads. COERCION does not equal a gun- then again, some of us consider COERCION to be a big deal on its own, and WRONG. BOTH concepts are true of all twi activities, especially the staff and corps, and the entire group from the mid-90s onward.

There's others of similar concepts, like "the Smiling Jesus by the Sea".

Give them another day, Hiway, I'm sure they'll get it...... "Remember the Boy Scouts' motto." "'Be prepared'." "It would do well to keep that in mind at all times." "Greek is still Greek to me." "It's Greek to a lot of Greeks too. It's one of the world's oldest, most important, most beautiful languages." "It may be, Aunt Harriet, but can't we take a breather and work out in the gym for a while?" "But the mind needs exercise too, Dick." "Well, my mind is getting muscle-bound." "Ahhh, there is an old saying, Dick. A sound mind and a sound body. A worthy goal." "I thought Lima was the capital of Ecuador." "As you can see, I was right. It's the capital of Peru." "Oh, I just love this game of capitals. It's just so educational!" "Not only that, if we don't know all about our friends to the south, how can we can carry out our good neighbor policy?" "Those look like honest eyes." "Never trust the old chestnut, 'Crooks have beady little eyes'. It's false." "Gosh, botany is tough. I'll never learn to recognize all these trees!" "Come come, Dick. Pine. Elm. Hickory, chestnut, maple. Part of our heritage is the lure of living things, the storybook of nature." "Stop fiddling with that atomic pile and come down here!" "Awww, heck! What's the use of learning French anyway?" "Dick, I'm surprised at you! Language is the key to world peace. If we all spoke each other's tongues, perhaps the scourge of war would be ended forever." "Cattail Lane and Nine Lives Alley. The Grimalkin Novelty Company is on that corner." "Grimalkin? What kind of a name is that?" "An obscure but nevertheless acceptable synonym for cat" "Go back outside and calm the flower children." "They'll mob me!" "Groovy." Wow, you'd think a show with appearances by actors/actresses like Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jerry Mathers, Alan Hale Jr, Edward G. Robinson, Art Linkletter, Rob Reiner, Don Ho, Sonny & Cher, Shelley Winters, Dick Clark, Teri Garr Jill St, John, and OTHER famous actors, would be remembered by my old chums MUCH quicker than this.

"Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise!" "Seize him!" "Seize THIS, honkus!" "Geez, don't ever say that to the COPS!"

"Did the table do something wrong?" "No." "I'm glad you weren't that hard on Ensign Lopez." "He made a mistake. The duty roster was inaccurate." "Would you like to talk about what's bothering you? Or would you like to break some more furniture?" "May I ask you a personal question?" "Certainly." "Does your hair grow?" "I can control the rate of my follicle replenishment. However, I have not yet had a reason to modify the length of my hair. Why do you ask?" "Just curious. Power conduits ready." "Is there something wrong, Doctor?" "You're breathing." "Yes. I do have a functional respiration system. However, its purpose is to maintain the thermal control of my internal systems. I am, in fact, capable of functioning for extended periods in a vacuum." "And you have a pulse." "My circulatory system not only produces bio-chemical lubricants, but regulates micro-hydraulic power. Most people are usually interested in my extraordinary abilities. How fast I can compute, my memory capacity, how long I will live. But no one has ever asked me if my hair can grow, or noticed that I can breathe." "Your creator went to a lot of trouble to make you seem human... I find that fascinating." "We're ready to begin the transfer." "The power connections are complete."

Gotta be logged in to see it.

You're supposing I saw the first one.... Ok, next movie..... "Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise!"

No.

The only movie that would be THAT obvious would be "Rocky"...