WordWolf

I'm confident that most, if not all, of these "statistics" were entirely made-up. "90% believe in divine retribution?" That's more than double the polled number of those who believe in HEAVEN! Only 57% have had deja vu? I challenge that....

And if they ask to "borrow a rubber", they're not asking for a wake-up call, they're looking for an eraser. ========== This probably will be of no use to you, but might at least be interesting.... http://www.hp-lexicon.org/help/strictly_british1.html It's a lexicon of specifically British usages in the Harry Potter series.

Correct! I was saving that quote, and "Michael's going to be a lawyer of tomorrow!" "Oh? Well, welcome to the slammer of today!" Too easy, I take it.... Ok, let's see, next television show.... "We'd better hustle our butts!" Some episode involving a social worker. That phrase came up several times. Eventually, JJ got the social worker to say it. "If I do have hypertension, y'all gave it to me wit' all that nickin' and naggin' goin' on. Junior here's the only one who haven't got on my nerves. "That's because, one, I respect you, and two, I fear for my life." " I must give thanks to the good Lord above for giving us such a beautiful Christmas gift: a loving family and warm friends." Florida had her priorities straight. "Damn, Damn, DAMN!" Possibly the best-known quote. When James passed away, Florida had it completely together, until all their guests left. Then she allowed herself to actually respond. Very powerful moment. "Water? She aint drinkin' nothin' but the best from now on... Kool-Aid!" JJ was a big Kool-Aid fan. Go, Raf!

"Never mistake a slogan for a doctrine." -WordWolf. twi had/has plenty of cutesy sayings that have been inflated FAR out of all reasonable proportion...

EP, if you're tensing up, relax those muscles. :) I think all of us who've been here awhile have posted at least a few things they might have regretted later, whether for the content, or for the phraseology, the wording. If you stumbled like the rest of us, you'll manage like the rest of us. You should see what qualifies as "acceptable" in some of the REALLY contentious threads. :)

Ok, let's see, next television show.... "We'd better hustle our butts!" "If I do have hypertension, y'all gave it to me wit' all that nickin' and naggin' goin' on. Junior here's the only one who haven't got on my nerves. "That's because, one, I respect you, and two, I fear for my life." " I must give thanks to the good Lord above for giving us such a beautiful Christmas gift: a loving family and warm friends." "Damn, Damn, DAMN!" "Water? She aint drinkin' nothin' but the best from now on... Kool-Aid!"

The GSC is a general discussion board, primarily for twi and twi survivors. Some of those survivors are currently Christian, some are not. All are welcome to participate in the discussions. Politeness is requested and appreciated, and sometimes is even received! :) There's no doctrinal requirement for participation. Even CURRENT twi members are welcome to read and post here- so long as they follow the few rules and common courtesy expected on the average messageboard. Periodically, someone DOES get surprised that there are non-Christians here. However, many of them are courteous posters, and many posters who are NOT polite are Christians. There's no categorical requirement either way, it appears. I've found this is less of a shock for me, since I communicate with all sorts of people online, and there's no correlation between doctrine and manners. In fact, the most vicious attacks I've gotten online were from fellow Christians, for whom Christ died. Likewise, many of the most special communications I've received are from fellow Christians. We're not to withdraw ourselves entirely from the world-and it seems logical to me that this applies online as well as offline. It is said that travel broadens the mind, and I have found that it is so IMO. I will add that travelling ONLINE will likewise broaden the mind, if not so much and in so many ways as doing so OFFLINE.

CORRECT! At least, that is the song, and one of the artists who did the song. I compared 3 versions of the lyrics when posting the quote. Those of you who ever saw the beginning of "Joe Versus the Volcano" heard this song make it into this section. Go, George!

"If you see me coming, better step aside- A lot of men didn't and a lot of men died. One fist of iron and the other of steel If the right one don't get you, then the left one will."

"Reba"????

"In Your Wildest Dreams,", the Moody Blues. (Off "Sur la Mer".)

potato, I consider the last "real" ROA to be 1988, since the 1989 one was so heavily-monitored, and 80% of the people- including most of the ones that made it worthwhile- were gone. Of the ones that attended the 89 ROA, many of them attended it as their LAST ROA, as they came off the WOW field, hit the bookstore one last time, said their goodbyes, and so on. So, from 1990 on, you had brand-new people, establishment goons, good-hearted Kool-Aid Drinkers, and the stars on the mainstage. The new people and Kool-Aid Drinkers together weren't enough to float it as a worthwhile event any longer- especially with numbers down as much as they collapsed after lcm's "line in the sand." ======== And from what I've heard, 86-88 weren't as good as the ones that came before....

Bingo. And don't insult my intelligence by thinking I can't see that one.

"...One thing that bothered me, I guess in hindsight, was that the Church kept changing rules on me. This Law is Eternal-except for this weekend! SPECIAL DISPENSATION! Like, eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin- except for the people of Philadelphia-they were number one in our scrap iron drive! They'd give it out as a prize. If you donated the most money to the Bishop's Relief Fund- hamburgers on Friday! I've been out for a while. It's not even a sin any more to eat meat on Friday........ But I bet there's still guys in Hell doing time on a meat rap!!!! 'I thought it was retro-active! I had a boloney sandwich. This guy had a beef jerky.' How'd you like to do Eternity for a beef jerky?" Then he wondered about short-time clubs. (For those interested, I believe Sushi, because mine was also done from memory.) (Oh, Sush, the pictures they sometimes showed of Heaven- you'd sometimes find them in 'Treasure Chest', the comic with Chuck White. Whoever that was and whatever that was.)

Well, since you asked..... [WordWolf in brackets and boldface as usual.]

I am not going to fall for this one.

"I have the impression that we woke you about three-thirty this morning." "No, it was ten of four." "Did we say why?" "Uh, you said you wanted to sacrifice a virgin." "Did we?" "I was too sleepy." Beginning of one episode, the morning after Hawkeye and Trapper threw a BIG party. Radar showed up with the mail, and Hawkeye had a vague recollection. "Oh you...you..." "Who you calling a 'you-you'?" Frank Burns and Hawkeye, during "Yankee Doodle Doctor". " 'To the Far East Export Import Company, 27 Zapata Circle, Ti-joo-wana, Mexico.' " "Right, go on." " 'Mary had a little lamb. Stop. My dog has fleas. Stop.' " "Good, there's a bit more. 'Mairzy doats and dozey doats, and I'll be home for Christmas.' Got that?" "Uh..in just a moment. Uh, okay." "Sign it: 'Your loving son, Queen Victoria.' " Radar taking down a message for Colonel Flagg. He has "nothing to do with Intelligence." He's with the C.I.D. The REALLY memorable part was when Radar showed it to Hawkeye and Pratt, the OTHER spy. Radar:"You told me to keep you up on what he's doing." Hawkeye: "'Mary had a little lamb...'" Pratt: "He knows I'm here." Trapper: "How?" Pratt: "I'm Mary." Hawkeye: "I hate to tell you this, Mary, but your dog has fleas." Your turn, George.

Correct!

For me, I think most of what I honestly enjoyed were spontaneous, and not official. I really liked buying wares from the average "Joe Believer", and came away with a considerable haul back when. Without any real "official" status, I sat in on a number of teachings that were really good-with or without a podium. Just meeting other "Joe Believers" was often a LOT of fun. ========= I remember when stuff would come together and work before anyone had a chance to legislate God out of the picture. One year, a returning WOW was coming off the field, and flew back a day before the ROA begins, not sure how he was going to get there or spend the day before. But he prayed about it. There was precisely one other person going to that event on that plane. Their seating assignments put them next to each other. So he was promptly invited to attend the event, by someone who already had a ride, a place to stay for the night, dinner planned, and didn't mind sharing. I know this because I was the other person on that flight. (By even 1989, that was HISTORY, NOSTALGIA for me. Big and little things seemed over. Now it was all staged.)

It was 1989 if the attendance dropped by 80% since the previous year, it was the last one where Acts 29 played, lcm had that prop that cut up the theme on the podium (speaking the truth. In what?), and everyone who was vaguely related to vpw was trotted out on the mainstage at some point like they were the Kennedy clan or something. I don't remember a lunar eclipse. But I might not have even if it was there. I'd have noticed a SOLAR eclipse, but then, who wouldn't?

Giving a precise verse is a LOT trickier. If I was still operating under the misconception that the Bible was written specifically as a scientific textbook, then I might have a problem. I don't think God considers the nuts-and-bolts of the connections to be "need-to-know", and thus not needed in print at the present time. After Judgement Day, I'd expect something more in the line of a technical manual. I believe the current system is designed to operate under the limited understanding of humans across at least 2 millenia. If that is true, then I'd say it works pretty darn well. (Except for the people that insist on injecting their doctrine in it, and I don't think that can be corrected without doing something like having the book issue electric shocks whenever someone utters an error while holding it or something. "Classical conditioning" isn't God's style, it seems. He leaves that to Pavlov.

"I have the impression that we woke you about three-thirty this morning." "No, it was ten of four." "Did we say why?" "Uh, you said you wanted to sacrifice a virgin." "Did we?" "I was too sleepy." "Oh you...you..." "Who you calling a 'you-you'?" " 'To the Far East Export Import Company, 27 Zapata Circle, Ti-joo-wana, Mexico.' " "Right, go on." " 'Mary had a little lamb. Stop. My dog has fleas. Stop.' " "Good, there's a bit more. 'Mairzy doats and dozey doats, and I'll be home for Christmas.' Got that?" "Uh..in just a moment. Uh, okay." "Sign it: 'Your loving son, Queen Victoria.' "

No. And I'm glad it wasn't as easy as I thought.

Suda named it and said she didn't know the artist, then Dundat said "10cc" and that he was helping Suda and credited the answer to her. Waysider posted afterwards and did not correct her. I concluded Waysider implied agreement that was the correct song and we had moved on. Feel free to scroll to Suda's post and then Google title and artist Dundat gave.

I think it was Raf who I first saw carry the logic out on paper so that it was obvious what nagged one about that doctrine. By "that doctrine", I meant the one where "God can only speak to that which He is". The idea is that God, who is Spirit (and even vpw said, at other times "but He is other things too"), is unable to communicate directly with our minds, because He is Spirit, and Spirit can't communicate directly with flesh (and therefore, mind). So then God implanted spirit within us to overcome that impossibility. So God's Spirit interfaces directly with our spirit. Ok, no problems there. We have easier analogies now that we have the internet and related technologies, so I can follow all that easily. The NEXT step, however, is the problem. OUR spirit then communicates with our mind. HEY! You just said spirit and mind CAN'T COMMUNICATE! That's the whole idea behind the doctrine! So God's Great Big Spirit can't communicate with my mind (it's impossible), but my tiny-by-comparison spirit can do it easily anytime I want? Doesn't wash. ============= As to who and what God Almighty can communicate with, I think most of us monotheists here agree that God Almighty (being Almighty and all) can communicate with who or whatever He wants, whenever He wants. He's effectively got infinite variety in doing so. Download information directly into one's cerebral cortex? Why not? No verse says He cannot, no verse says He WOULD not. Burning bush? Disembodied voice? He's been there, done that, and got the t-shirts. I might say God MORE EFFICIENTLY communicates by interfacing Spirit-to-spirit. I could see logic in that and get behind it. ========= I think my problems with The Great Principle are not insurmountable, but would need to be addressed. First of all, this name. "The Great Principle"? If there is any one "Great Principle", I would say JESUS CHRIST gave it. "You shall love the Lord your God with everything you've got." The Second Greatest Principle, then, I would say JESUS CHRIST gave as well. "You shall love your neighbor like your own self." (From the context, this can be rephrased as the Golden Rule- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"- and the Silver Rule- "What you don't want others to do to you, don't do to them.") Compared to mLaSJC, any principle given by any man is a distant runner-up. So, I don't think this so-called "Great Principle" is that great. I think it's pretty good. So, let's see. How would I fix the Pretty Good Principle? "God is Spirit." I'm with you there. The idea behind it says God can only communicate with that which He is. No, with a little fine-tuning, we see God can communicate MORE EFFICIENTLY with spirit. "God, who is Spirit" I'm with you there. "Teaches His creation in you" Now I've got a problem again. This phrasing makes it sound as if the spirit in me is SENTIENT, as in "I can think, and my spirit can think, independently of each other." I can't get behind that one. I can accept God communicating with His creation in me, and that operating as a sort of "translator" (like a modem) to the rest of me. I can accept that "my" spirit has priorities hard-wired into it. Programming, so to speak. It can do anything it was programmed to do. (It has its own drivers, to use computer techspeak a bit more.) I don't think He TEACHES so much as COMMUNICATES, and the process is what teaches. The teaching is not confined to the step it's named in, but rather at the step where it reaches my thinking. And the teaching is not "my spirit to my mind", but "God who is Spirit" teaching my mind. Is there a step in-between where "my" spirit is involved? Yes, but that's besides the point, and is incidental to the teaching. Look, when I post here, I don't grab a pen and write on your screen. I type into my computer. My computer, which is technology, communicates my message to my ISP, and my ISP communicates to the GSC server, and that server communicates to your ISP, and thence to your computer. Neither your ISP nor mine is said to "write a post" or "read a post" here. They are part of the process, but incidental to the goals of posting and reading. So, Pretty-Good Principle. Nonsense? I would not say so. (Others may disagree.) Needs improvement? Definitely. (A few will swear it does not.) "God, who is Spirit, communicates with His creation in you, which is now your spirit, and then proceeds to instruct your mind." That's how I'd rephrase that. I find the rest of it a little idiosyncratic, but serviceable. "Then it becomes manifested in the senses realm as you act." Maybe something like "As you take action, then His Will is done. Or not, depending on your chosen action." I prefer to use terminology closer to what Jesus used ("Thy Will be done, as in Heaven, so on Earth") instead of more esoteric twi-speak ("manifested in the senses realm"). I also allowed for the possibility that God can tell you His will, and you can just blow it off and not carry it out. It seems self-evident to me that this need not be documented. Let me know if you need it broken down, though. There's examples in the Bible, and in the modern world.