WordWolf

So, CM, do you have some compelling evidence arguing for the figurative/spiritualized interpretation of these verses? I've noticed you've divided us into "those who take this as non-literal" and "those who worship vpw's position". Other than CM's say-so, what "argument" do you offer for a change of position? Hey-I'm open to reconsidering my opinion- but I need a better reason than the ones for my CURRENT opinion.

(I'm sure you thought that was funny.) ====== As for a realistic relationship with God, NO! twi taught a MECHANISTIC relationship with God, where you throw the switch and get the result. God is neither a factory "wish" machine nor a divine genie, slapping down our wishes at our whims. vpw also had an interesting bias. While he was correct (IMHO) that "a feeling" was not a REQUIREMENT for a relationship with God, he went further and encouraged the switching OFF of our feelings. Humans are messy and emotional, and twi found that inefficient. So, if we didn't just switch off our emotions on command, then we faced insult added to injury as Job did- where we suffer AND twi people CONDEMNED us for suffering. So, our relationship with God was bleached clean of FEELINGS, which siphoned much of it out. Worse, with us hiding our emotions, we didn't even have a healthy relationship with OURSELVES, let alone EACH OTHER. Even Job's miserable comforters "sat shiva" with the suffering Job for 3 days before they went in and attacked him. In twi, that was 3 days too long to wait. And if you think it's changed now, only the LABELS have changed.

I had to rush the conclusion, but I'm getting back to it. [False dilemna. Mike is saying one can ONLY choose between mediocrity and the Mikean message. A) Not only are there MANY other options, but B) The Mikean notion of "prosperity" rewrites the pfal explanation of "prosperity" so that you can be broke and "prosper", which is the opposite of what pfal said.] [A) What is actually written there is NOT the Mikean message. By all means, reread it again if you wish. You'll be surprised that it's not as sparkling as you remember. We saw that happen with TW:LiL, after all. C) Almost NOBODY has been saying "don't read pfal." However, they HAVE been saying "don't drink the Mike-flavoured Kool-Aid." One can read the pfal books just fine without the Mikean spin. D) Who actually said they "hated pfal" here? Mike keeps relabelling both the opinions and posts of others, and keeps claiming pfal contains the Mikean message. Reality is under no constraint to conform to Mikean rewrites. Any healthy person should have no difficulty understanding what's been said plainly TO Mike for page after page. That Mike either knows it and exercises deceit, or is not sound enough to know it, is a matter of opinion. The readers can judge for themselves.]

[Notice how he transformed the accounts of the victims. Women who all came forward saying they personally were assaulted, drugged, or drugged and assaulted. People who were part of vpw's criminal gang that set up these crimes and covered them up came forward, ashamed of their actions. What do we call this? In a court of law, we call it "a conviction." In Mikeworld, we call it "gossip/rumours", and "harping". Also, it's amazing how ignorant Mike is about the wrongness of sin, and how leaders are supposed to set the example. Now, being outraged about a minister drugging and raping the flock is "being uptight", and to be chided, and God may or may not mind it. Wow. Even the slowest-witted student in catechism can run thru the Ten Commandments and find "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife". No, God may not be "uptight" about ministers drugging and raping the flock... Incredible.] [so, the fact that one minister may cheat on his income tax, and a different minister stole a box of paperclips from an office shows they sin. What's the difference between THEIR sinning and vpw drugging and raping the congregation? That the Old AND New Testaments have standards a minister must follow are "a big leap of theology", see, because Mike needs to belittle them and explain them away. Now they're not in the Bible, they're instead in your "theology". I imagine the devil's always trying to "take down" men (and women) of God. And when one of them abuses his office and uses it to facilitate drugging and raping women in the congregation, I call that a successful takedown-that minister is UNFIT. Guess what? So does the Bible. But according to Mike, this is just me making noise.] [He taught some good stuff, therefore he gets a free pass from following the standards set by God and given to His people in both the Old and New Testaments.] [While we're at it, let's dump the testimony of EVERY prophet in Scripture-they were all so negative, so dark, so condemning. Ever read Jeremiah or Lamentations? Such a downer. So, let's scratch out 2 entire books of the Bible. Of course, vpw condemned such removals right in the pfal class, but Mike's announced that depressing-sounding stuff is NOT to be heeded. So, no prophets, no warnings, no safeguards of any kind. Let us be consistent! Mikeworld has no warnings!] [The warnings of the Bible are "the dark condemnations of religion." If there were police reports and rape kit results, they too would be "the dark condemnations of religion." Anything that gets between Mike and his message is "the dark condemnations of religion."] *** [in case you missed it, when Mike says "God told thousands to master PFAL", he means-in this instance, that vpw said to master the White Book, and Mike has concluded that this means GOD said to master PFAL. The heavens didn't open and a voice issue forth...] *** [Translation: YES, Mike IS ignoring the possibility that it's just for HIM and not a mandate to convert the GSC.] [Note that he hinted, suggested, implied. Mike rarely attempts to make a case from the books he claims are Divine because every time he does, everyone can clearly see that he's distorting the plain meaning of sentences, and joining them to other sentences he's isolated and distorted, resulting in as honest an approach as quoting half a verse to say that "there is no God."] *** [Of course, in this case, our Bible also said this can't be, but don't let that stop you-Mike never does...] *** [Of course, WE tried conversation, too. So, it's only a matter of time before you must either conform to Mike or be labelled "cold" "scolding", etc. Meanwhile, the lurking readers can read for themselves...] [CONVERTS. He's here for CONVERTS.] [in other words, NO, Mike will NEVER accept people can disagree with him and be right with God. Nice try.] [That has little, if ANYTHING, to do with ANY objections we've ever voiced. We've pointed out he contradicts his own "Bible" as well as the real one, and so on. He's rewriting our own comments just as he rewrites his "scripture".] [Or the oldest sex rules, like "don't rape God's people"...] *** [Mike's dedicated his life to wasting it in this fashion and will not be stayed. If that befuddles you, so be it.] [Label the people and the content of their posts...classic Mike diversion.] [This is still a public messageboard...] ["They disagree with me so they serve Satan." Classic Mike...] *** [Mike's said his message was anti-intellect. Now it's anti-feelings. Must not be much to it...] [Feel free to actually READ it and see where it disagrees with Mike!]

Tough to say. ====== Anyway, next movie. "You'll be seeing a lot of changes around here. Papa's got a brand new bag."

Plus, all the other boards with OLGs kick him out, so this is all he has left for his "evangelism".

[This is where your system of "hidden messages" falls down. When we "read what is written" and use our intellects as we can, pfal clearly says one set of things. You've just said that the intellect is useless, for YOUR system can't be intellectually-justified. Which is true-intellectually, your system is nonsensical. However, trying to use a book like the Orange Book as a guide MUST, by DEFINITION, involve the INTELLECT. That's why your system and the actual text of the Orange Book part company. Since the intellect's approach to the Orange Book leads to results DIFFERENT than that of the Mikean system, you've rejected ALL intellectual approaches, EVEN THE KEYS TAUGHT IN PFAL, like "at least 85% explains itself right where it's written." Therefore, the Mikean system says to "master" books in a non-intellectual way. And you wonder why you get that look. No, it's not because we're all lousy Christians. But hey, if it makes you happy, you can keep telling yourself that...] [but when the intellectual understanding refutes Mike, then it is tobe "held in abeyance" or discarded. We fell for that ONCE, not again. "In vain is the net spread in sight of any bird."] [Actually, since vpw claimed FINANCIAL prosperity was one expectation of understanding God and acting within that understanding, one of the BEST ways to get our attention would be to erupt into great financial wealth, just like vpw said. Then maybe you'd illustrate: A) you "arrived" at what he was talking about B) what he was talking about actually WORKED I won't hold my breath on that one. And I'll let Raf refute your mangled misunderstanding of how he operates on his own.]

Mike insinuated I was drawing attention from his other posts. So I shall draw attention to some of them... For the complete contents, you can scroll up (you have the original date/time intact) or click back to view the original post. This way, you can see if I'm representing his comments fairly. [The standard Mikean message, Part I: that God was silent for nearly 2000 years, working with NO Christian leaders in any appreciable fashions, not even the ones vpw plagiarized, nor the ones that vpw learned everything on the holy spirit field from, but chose out an alcoholic, chain-smoking sex-addict to bestow the greatest revelation in 2 millenia on, which consisted of a holy cut-and-paste of the work of Stiles Bullinger Leonard Kenyon and Lamsa. This "greatest revelation in 2000 years is the pfal books." I KNOW Mike would prefer I phrase it differently, but that IS exactly the Mikean message. (The only difference is rephrasing the description of the alcoholic, chain-smoking sex-addict into something regal-sounding.)] [dmiller learned a costly lesson. Seeing vpw's source-material, and learning that he lied about miraculous snowstorms-which were the sole witness to his divine revelation that turned out to be a photocopy of the works of others- taught dmiller a costly lesson. The disgusting morals of the man who labelled himself a man who received "the greatest revelation since the First Century" was ANOTHER lesson-those who serve God don't live in sin, and make occasion to serve the lusts thereof...and if they did, they would be operating at cross-purposes with the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's some of what dmiller learned since his foolish youth.] [dmiller accepted that he'd lost enough to this costly error and cut his losses, rather than dedicate the rest of his life to attempting to legitimize it and use it to give the sole meaning to his life. As such, all the memorizing of the White Book ceased. The essence of the differences is here:] [Having seen the dramatic failure of vpw's work on a personal level and an organization-wide level, having taken a look at the man behind the curtain, dmiller saw that he'd been taught some good Bible and some vile doctrine, and jettisoned the idolatrous, vile doctrine. Having seen the dramatic failure of vpw's work on a personal level (vpw claimed ALL Christians should be financially prosperous, and Mike, the supposed most advanced one of us here, lives with NO financial prosperity, showing this to have been either a failure, Mike to be a fraud, or both; plus vpw himself failed to walk in the calling wherewith he was called, making occasion for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof, costing much money in dollars and unpriceable harm to the beloved sisters in Christ, AND TAUGHT OTHERS TO DO THE SAME), an organization-wide level (vpw set up a structure that was unhealthy and lacked checks and balances, then put the most defective leader in several states as the absolute authority IN that organization, which led DIRECTLY to the cataclysms which destroyed the thing and caused it to lose more than 99% of overall membership), having taken a look at the man behind the curtain, Mike decided that the fault could NOT have been in vpw NOR pfal, and devised a set of doctrines that absolved both of error and mistake, AND elevated both to an idolatrous level ABOVE that of the Bible. Mike invented a new Gnostic path in order to salvage his happy memories of his youth.] [Here's the similarity: They claim to pick up where vpw left off, and so do you. They claim to be the best at interpreting the next step, and so do you. They added their own doctrines and changed things as suited them, you added "hidden" messages and changed the plain text as suited you. You can claim YOUR path of "hidden wisdom" is superior to theirs, but it's just ANOTHER Gnostic path among many. Might as well be elevating JUDAS as elevating vpw...] The Introduction of the Orange Book said it's a book on KEYS to Genesis to Revelation, NOT a replacement for it. The renegade, reprobate Mike says the Orange Book REPLACES Genesis to Revelation. [The plain meaning of the passages and Mike often run at cross-purposes with each other, thus the "HIDDEN MEANINGS" even Mike admits he uses. The PLAIN MEANINGS being INSUFFICIENT to support Mike's doctrine, he thus "finds" "hidden" (occulted) meanings that work for him.] [Lacking the connection that they can claim-of actually KNOWING vpw and interacting with him for YEARS that they can claim, the renegade, reprobate Mike does not claim to be their equal in that respect. He DOES, however, claim to be the only one among all of US that has THE special message, the special connection, the special knowledge. The Mike claims his special Gnostic path.] [bUT, whenever other look in the books and study their meaning, WHEN THEY COME TO OTHER CONCLUSIONS THAN MIKE, "meekly mastering" Mike blasts them as unfit researchers, bozos, and so on. The renegade, reprobate Mike will tolerate NO vision, NO reading of pfal other than the meanings HE agrees with, that HE finds.] [but if he ever had enough people to support him, what would we see? We do not know at this time, and Mike can't claim we DO, either way.] [Recent examples of Mike "civilly discussing our differences"... from ONE post... "stupid comments" "mindlessly complain" "idiot" "I don't give a rat's foot." "None of your business!" "your mindless preferences" "you condescending xxxx!" "poorly thought through" "very insulting derogatory terms" "trivialities" "I have a life" (unlike you) "stupidity"] ***************** [skipping several paragraphs that simply say "all the leaders out there are inferior because they fail to pass the standard invented and implemented BY me of endless review of books they lack access to", we have the typical Mikean commercial again...] [Mike's message, in a few paragraphs. There's some other stuff, but that's the essence of what Mike wants us to buy. (Leaving out the snow and the lies and the cut-and-pastes and so on.)] [Of course, Mike has completely missed that he has given God only TWO avenues thru which to work- vpw/pfal and twi-leaders who learned from vpw/pfal, and is convinced only ONE or the OTHER- and no THIRD choice- could possibly hold The Truth. Mike also misses that others have seriously evaluated Mike's claim about pfal USING the TOOLS of pfal, and the use of pfal has led them to a conclusion radically different from his. Since they disagree with what he wants to believe, they MUST be wrong. Otherwise, Mike's entire life is a waste and an illusion.]

[Actually, dmiller is CORRECT. If this WAS in pfal, you would believe it completely AND call it 'revelation'. I'd go the extra mile and say that if you thought it was mysteriously HIDDEN in pfal and ONLY YOU SAW IT cabalistically occulted in its depths, you'd not only call it 'revelation', you'd glory in your ability to see what none of us could, and call yourself more erudite for it.] [Or, he made a legitimate observation which stood on its own and did notrequire discussion. He WAS RIGHT, and you COULD have just let it go even if you refused to evaluate his comment on its own merits. Since you brought it up again, you ARE perforce inviting us to comment on it and evaluate it ourselves.] [behold the Ubiquitously-Hidden desperation in everyone else's posts! Any post Mike doesn't like is now "Desperate". dmiller's posts are desperate, Tom's are desperate, WW's are desperate... Reminds me of a story I read once...] [Your message, frankly, nullifies itself. All dmiller did was make an observation.He didn't "flay", or show "desperation". Further, you didn't "hogtie". Labelling a jar of pickles as "apple butter" does not change the pickles...] [No, he was extrapolating based on what YOU YOURSELF CLAIMED of YOUR OWN BELIEFS. You claim that the contents of pfal-no matter what they are-are 'revelation'. So, if ANYTHING was suddenly found there, no matter how outrageous, you would make the same claim of it.] [Well, you claimed OF pfal that Jesus Christ was studying it and thathe would teach us from it upon his return. Concerning its contents, you're insistent that "believing" is a "Law" and that it is thus "immutable" and, according to pfal, that "God would have to change the laws of the universe" for it not to work, when it fails to work ALL THE TIME. You've added all sorts of caveats and codicils to it that nullify its usefulness in order to not say "it doesn't work". Do you need page numbers about this "Law"? We've discussed it LOTS of times....] [besides the "law" of believing, dmiller, feel free to add your own. You might mention that it makes the terms "all without distinction" and "all with a distinction" completely synonymous if his "the written pfal is all God-breathed" is correct. Or you can pick your own.]

[And Mike has yet another career-now he's some sort of internet virtual veterinarian, inexplicably qualified to identify and diagnose animals and their situations... Apparently, Mike is Tom's "master" and Tom is some sort of puppy. Other than his cold nose (which means he's healthy), I don't see it, myself. But whatever.] [Remaining on the SAME PAGE as I did, and leaving the link intact,it should be child's play for any poster to examine the context of each comment. I thought of including the uncut version below it, but I said to myself "my fellow posters are smart enough to scroll up and read for themselves, or click and read for themselves." And they'll see that the original post-while not according to "Miss Manners", hardly qualifies as "insulting" AND "demeaning" AND "condescending" AND "idiotic." Arguably "condescending" (maybe, maybe not), but certainly none of the others (unless you're trying out a new thesaurus.)] [Neither, since the original post was RIGHT THERE. Are the other posters incapable of scrolling up? The original poster name and time were RIGHT on the post (which I included), as was the click-link. If they were a misrepresentation, surely most posters could EASILY see I was not intellectually honest....] [Or maybe I meant EXACTLY what I meant to point out- your own comments demonstrated an INTERNAL hypocricy, AND were dripping with venom while SUPPOSEDLY representing the God who so Loved that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whomsoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Christ died for Tom, and it looks like you wanted Tom dead as well.]

Now, on this one, I know the artists, but I haven't heard it enough to know the name...

This must be the "easy-to-be-entreated-love-of-God" Mike claims to have. Some highlights from ONE of his latests posts, counting only the replies and not the quotes he's replying to... "You have beaten me to the punch at being rude by a longshot!" Hardly, Mike. This post seems to have been dedicated ENTIRELY to "being rude." I'm sure everyone else can see the irony of spending an entire post on insults- which contains the quote "You are just demonstrating for all that you have no logical response to what I post so you resort to trivialities, and illogical ones at that."

Sometimes that's exactly what you feel. Other times, you may feel up for a light chat. Neither is wrong for that situation. (Now, make a doctrine where either is MANDATORY, and...)

I'm fine with ANYONE going, at the moment... preferably without anything requiring cheating/checking online...

Fine, then I'll do it. I could only think of 2 offhand, and that was one. Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck DareDevil There's one or two good possibilities from there...

The last one's obviously "Finding Forrester." Never saw it, and I know the book quote and "You're the man NOW, DAWG!" are from it...

Correct. Actually, LOTS of books have done that. I've got 3, all decent to excellent reads. If Dan Brown had just left it as a work of fiction, that would be one thing. However, he's put forth that the historical details of the book are all correct, and even the easy-to-check-with-Google stuff (like when the Olympics started and WHY) are incorrect. The truth of the matter is the book is completely invented from whole cloth. Had Brown claimed that, I'd just move on. There's been no lack of refuting his claims, both in a small way and in a large way. Worse, at least one writer had a book already out-of fiction-that this seems to almost rewrite- "the DaVinci Legacy"- which is here. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...DDGB45S7JV1.DTL Some of the refutations: http://www.irr.org/da-vinci-code.html http://chem.tufts.edu/science/Shermer/E-Sk...aVinciCode.html http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040618.html http://www.catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp In case you're wondering, yes, I've read each, and saved the links a while back because I thought they were worth reading. They're shorter and cheaper than the books, anyway, and I have a few of those.

What can I say about him... We never hung out socially. I have my own observations and those of others. Here's what I have. I have never seen him use the podium to bullyrag. In the cases of vpw and lcm, they both (lcm mostly) had times when they yelled when they had the microphone. I've never seen cg yell at the podium, nor claim hatred for others or delight in harm coming to them. Nor have I seen him make political commentary. cg believed/believes that it is possible to improve on pfal, which means he did not believe that pfal was by "divine dictation" or anything like that. cg believes/believed that pfal in and of itself as the class of that name is/was not holy and required, since he made his own class with a different name. Since cg's class is largely cloned FROM pfal and is simply an ITERATION of it (pfal with tinkering), cg obviously thinks that a class LIKE pfal is important and useful, and should be disseminated. Based on his marketing of it (he gets paid before the classes even roll), it's obvious he knows it can be a moneymaker, and teaching the information to others is neither his SOLE nor his PRIMARY concern. It's more along the lines of "I'm performing a valuable service here. You are free to agree or disagree. If you agree it is valuable, then I expect to receive compensation accordingly." cg's personality largely seems organized around expectations of conspiracy (he was one of THE prime conspiracy pushers AND believers at twi), and obsession with minutiae (he was seen spending many times the practical time and energy doing something HIS way when it would have been more practical to do it ANOTHER way which was just as effective.) That applied to both physical details (working with equipment) and organization-level details (he claimed he was the only man in all of Europe in twi who was of any use in setting up their UK hq, even for cooking, wiring, etc), and class details (he "improved" some things beyond accuracy in his nonstop "tweaking".) Do I think he can be an effective teacher? Sometimes I think he can be EXCELLENT. Other times, he's come out with full-scale boondoggles. The fact that he previously had no problem considering ANYTHING justifiable if it was for vpw (situational ethics to the extreme), including drugging women for vpw's sexual enjoyment, and he has never come out with a public statement that such things are VILE and ABHORRENT (reversing his position if not admitting any involvement) is possibly an indication of LACK OF REMORSE, at least of sufficient to do something about it. Now that HE is in the big seat- where vpw was justified all those things- is he above claiming them for himself? I can't say. I AM aware we have the internet now, and if he tried a fraction of what vpw did back when, he'd be nailed to the wall like vpw would have been if we'd had the internet when he was alive. Perhaps that has nothing to do with it. That's what I know, what I consider reasonable to suppose, and the things I wonder about.

Sometimes I even wait until the next time I'm logged on and see if it still seems like it should be said. I'll accept that-but that's what was SAID anyway.It was not MEANT to say it, but the wording should have been reviewed before the "ADD REPLY" button was clicked. That usually saves ME from having to explain or defend my comments, and I recommend it for all posters not currently doing that. Looks like 4 simple steps would radically reduce the stress one poster is feeling: 1) Don't post angry. Take a break FIRST. 2) Reread the post before submitting. Others will read the post and not your mind. Was what they will READ what you meant to SAY? 3) Ease off off all-inclusive terms, language and concepts. All people eat, grow old, and go to the bathroom. Beyond that, most things are in the category of "MOST PEOPLE" and not "ALL". 4) Remember to turn off the computer and live. Life is neither the internet NOR any one board. If your self-esteem derives from one board (or several), time to take a break from the internet and just LIVE. In case anyone's wondering, these are among general tips on the internet. I've posted these elsewhere before, in fact. (Although I've rephrased myself.)

By taking a few sentences out of their context from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi WTH was able to suggest the opposite of the article. The evidence IS there. It's even IN THE ARTICLE. "The Jews who are Jews share genetics with the Jews who you say are not Jews, proving that Wierwille was wrong." Correct, Raf, and the proof is right in the SAME ARTICLE, if WTH was willing to read down to "ETHNIC DEFINITION" and didn't stop at the "RELIGIOUS DEFINITION" and pretend it spoke for CULTURAL and ETHNIC definitions as well. According to "ETHNIC DEFINITION", "Human geneticists have identified certain haplotypes in Y-Chromosome and mitochondrial studies that have high frequencies among Ashkenazai Jews, but not in the general European population." Hm, look at this-they CITE THEIR SOURCES. Imagine that! Further down, we see "DNA CLUES", which is the direct refutation of wierwille AND WTH. "A study of haplotypes of the Y chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al found that the Y chromosome of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews was of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced primarily to the Middle East." It also addresses the other side, the mitochondrial DNA. "A 2006 study by Behar et al, based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA, suggested 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." (More information pending as more studies are done...) If he looked at "POPULATION GENETICS", he'd see the list of genetic disorders that are more common in the Ashkenazi Jewish population. Genetic disorders, aka hereditary diseases, increase when you LIMIT THE GENETICS OF THE POPULATION. That there are any AT ALL is direct evidence that the population is NOT homogenous with the whole of society. If he'd just read thru "ETHNIC DEFINITION", he'd have seen that one of the concerns OF Ashkenazi Jews is the limited genetic variety as the result OF being what he claims they're NOT, and why artificial insemination cases AMONG the Ashkenazi Jews SPECIFICALLY seek out non-Jewish donors in an effort to avoid genetic disorders that Ashkenazi Jews are already prone to. Of course, he would have needed to evaluate the implications of what he read, which seems beyond the skills of our specialist at cutting and pasting. ===== BTW, the reason WTH is obviously not posting any refutation of the EVIDENCE AND EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY of the historical FACT that MILLIONS of JEWS were killed by NAZIS in WORLD WAR II in an attempt to deliberately kill Jews, is that he can't find any to cut-and-paste. So far, he's cut-and-pasted from Answers.com and Wikipedia. Neither of them has listed any nonsense indicating the Holocaust, aka the Shoah, never existed.

It helps to note he's just cutting and pasting lines from the wikipedia entry for "Ashkenazi Jews" right now. Without attribution, which means, of course, that he's plagiarizing their entry. As usual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi If WTH actually wanted to LEARN about the Ashkenazi Jews, he could have just FINISHED READING THE ARTICLE HE COPIED FROM, rather than just picked out what he thought would defend his position. He might have noted that the rest of it REFUTED HIS POSITION in general, but quibbled over specifics.

ACTUALLY, we had a single discussion directly relevant to the HOLOCAUST and the FACTS of the HOLOCAUST themselves when you introduced a SECOND discussion into the mix.... on page 1. One might think you were trying to draw attention away from the main discussion and the irrefutability of the deaths of millions of Jews in WW II as systematically planned and executed by Nazi Germany....

If I explain dmiller's post, (as I am now), I am perforce offering my opinion as to its contents and the MEANING of said contents. My opinion, by definition, is my OWN opinion (unless I'm just parroting what vpw/someone said). My opinion is therefore my own PERSONAL opinion, or, to put it differently, my PRIVATE opinion. I don't think dmiller went far afield on this one. I dunno, Shellon. ricky made some claims and Georgio gave counter-examples from PERSONAL TESTIMONY. I suspect the PERSONAL TESTIMONY he gave is "what's going on" in the incidents and locations he's mentioning. Looks like "what's going on" to me.... (Emphasis mine.)

I trust and respect you, and will play by the rules you require, but I reserve the right to disagree on a case-by-case basis with you. When she spoke on her own experience, she spoke for herself. That was not made an issue. When she took HER experience, and extrapolated from it, she expressed an opinion. Had she applied it to SOME people, she almost certainly would have gotten a caveat, that is "of course there are lots of people this did NOT apply to, and this should not be used to claim it was true of all people by anyone seeking to tar VICTIMS-whom this does NOT apply to." However, she made no attempt to limit the scope of her claim- which means she was saying "this was true for me, and is true for everyone". When she said "it was true for me", that limits the room for disagreement. As soon as someone applies a rule to EVERYONE, that's tantamount to inviting disagreement. Watch the difference between these 2 statements. "I didn't vote for him. I know he's a crook." and "I didn't vote for him. Everybody who didn't vote for him knows he's a crook." How about "I work full-time. I feel the taxes on big business should cover all the government's expenses so that citizens should not have to pay tax." and "I work fill-time. Everyone who works full-time feels that taxes on big business should cover all the government's expenses so that citizens should not have to pay tax." In both cases, I'd expect the exceptions to begin replying immediately. The reason I usually don't get this complaint about MYSELF is that I try to avoid "all-encompassing" words and expressions, by suggestion, implication or direct statement. There will almost ALWAYS be exceptions to ANY generalization. I also often reread before I hit the "Add Reply" button. Some people would be surprised how much that one step would improve one's posts. This was an exception case. The attitude is "protect the victims."Always was in the GSC (in my experience, since after ezboard, anyway), and remains so today, for the usual suspects. Why did they all react? This post went at cross-purposes to that, and suggested that the VICTIMS were not VICTIMS, but willing participants in ALL CASES. Why be surprised that was challenged? Frankly, I didn't join in because it was already said. ============= Entirely different situation. I saw no reason to react the way some people did. I didn't join in on that one because I saw no reason to agree or prolong the digression. I wouldn't blame them for not returning, but I don't see the reason for running them off, either. The people I'd recommend running off go after posters in an antagonistic fashion, and neither of those posters did anything of the kind. Nor did they even warrant any sort of warning or caution. Watch their posts? Sure. Watch mine while you're at it. Always a good idea. Posting with civility beats the alternatives.

I've run into a number of Christians who don't lose sleep over the issue. Then again, I've also had one scream at me in the street. So, I'd call that "a mixed bag of responses." Offhand, I think that's about as extreme a set of responses as I could expect-indifference vs screaming in public. ====== Frankly, I suspect the TRUE answer might be in NEITHER position as stated, but somewhere in the middle. (A corollary to Ockham's Razor states that if NONE of the possible answers FULLY explain something, then all of them are WRONG.)