WordWolf

We already discussed this in this thread. Cowgirl mentioned it most prominently- and you cherry-picked off her post to find what you WANTED to see- and NOT the entire contents. Here is what SHE said.

Every time someone has brought up a situation, when it comes to you, the organization is NEVER to be blamed. twi puts people on an unsafe vehicle in unsafe travelling conditions, requires they travel, and they all end up in the hospital. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi requires women to hitchhike to and from an event location. Some women are raped on the trip. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi sends wows to unsafe cities and told to talk to every human, and to IGNORE any urges or impulses to the contrary (IGNORE REVELATION), and some are robbed, assaulted and/or rape. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi sends wows to cities, with unscreened corps overseeing them. One group of wows is MURDERED by the corps overseer. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi has people on grounds. Some of them are women who are drugged and raped by vpw, lcm, other higher-ups. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi has people on grounds. One man, faced with lcm having sex with his (the man's) wife, screams that he can't compete with lcm, then goes off and blows his brains out with a bullet from a pistol. Was THAT twi's fault? I know they didn't put the gun in his hand and pull the trigger, but are they FREE OF RESPONSIBILITY there? ===== Come, come, Oldiesman! Was ANYTHING EVER EVER EVER twi's fault? We've discussed over 5 years of things in front of you. Can you name even ONE where you believe you can point to the situation and say "this was terrible, and twi was entirely (or MOSTLY) to blame. twi took action they should not-which was criminal, or failed to act when they should-which was criminal, and if I had known at the time, I would have blamed twi for such evil, unconscionable actions"? Can you name ONE? We can name MANY. Obviously, in each situation, there is blame to go around, but Oldiesman always seems to skip over passing any to twi. They get a FREE PASS. Did I miss a situation? Can you name ONE? Even ONE? You keep claiming that you "base your judgement on the facts of each individual situation." Somehow, your "judgement", which is based on "facts", always absolves the organization of wrong-doing. If not, kindly cite the exception. There are hundreds of incidents we've discussed. Can you not find ONE where twi is majorly at fault? Doesn't that inability tell you something? THINK, MAN, THINK!

Oldiesman in italics, WordWolf in boldface. That is true-in addition to whatever blame goes to OTHERS. You do know that OTHERS get blame as WELL, right? No, you're going to demonstrate you don't know the first thing about responsibility-both legal and moral. But, let's see where you go with this. I think it's healthy to show your thinking. Partly. The Dept of Motor Vehicles' Drivers Manual DOES show the blind spots for trucks, and how you need to account for them, and how there's places the driver is physically UNABLE to see you. Well, as the driver of the truck, he is responsible for seeing it is handled in a safe fashion. Exactly WHICH of you was MORE responsible-or ENTIRELY responsible- depends on the specifics of how each of you handled your vehicles. The courts of the US allow for partial blame and partial responsibility. For example, if you drove into his blind spot and he did not exercise proper caution, you both SHARE the blame. Or, it might have been ENTIRELY the fault of one or the other. The car may have darted into the blind spot, or the truck may just have bulled its way thru the highway. I don't know enough here to know how that went. What you "feel like" has nothing to do with the truth of the events. But show us how you obscure things. Irrelevant. You are responsible for being in full control of your faculties when getting behind the wheel. If you were tired from work, it was YOUR responsibility for making sure you didn't drive, or you got rest before driving. Any driving school could tell you that. Any good driving STUDENT should know that. Your job is irrelevant. IF the car was unsafe- if it had defective brakes or handling as released from the factory- THEN Opel has blame. That's how factory recalls get started. IF the brakes were worn or the steering had degraded, it is the fault of the driver/owner for failing to maintain his vehicle in a safe fashion. So, as stated in your example (a car in average condition), Opel is irrelevant. IF there was something unsafe about the conditions of the highway, then either the city or state bears blame for that. Since they don't -the highway was average and maintained- the city and state are irrelevant. Does EVERYONE see how STUPID this was, or just me? This was the faults of one, the other, or both drivers, and it is possible to attempt to manufacture blame to others. Fine, serve the devil with legal papers and have him charged. No, that one is not twi's fault- unless they DEMANDED you drive at that moment when you were unsafe to drive. (IF a coordinator said "get here now or I'm kicking you out," and you replied "I haven't slept for 20 hours" and he said "I don't care-get here or you're fired from the program", THEN they bear some responsibility. OTHERWISE, they don't. Techically, you wouldnt have been on that highway, but they had no effect on your ability to drive, and that section of highway, AFAIK, is not famous as a dangerous driving hazard. So, they would bear no responsibility for the damage, AS STATED. (If you're hiding something, that would be different.) Fine, we agree on something. This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what we were discussing. We HAVE shown that I can evaluate situations coldly and determine where blame logically belongs, and we HAVE shown that when faced with that, you bring up irrelevant events as a smokescreen to pretend they're related. This has been very informative to SOME of the people here.

I have a negative view towards the WOW program because it was poorly designed, poorly executed, and-used as it was designed and executed- messed up and/or ruined the lives of some Christians. God's people deserve better than a roll of the dice, especially when you PROMISE better. Are we trying to redesign a better twi? No-we're discussing the LIES that hid a grossly-inferior program "Do you really have a heart to see a BETTER TWI? Or have it destroyed?" Congratulations! It is now a new month, and that question rates as the stupidest question I've been asked for November 2005! It is AMAZING! You've been posting on WayDale and the GSC since before the year 2000, and you STILL have NO FRICKING IDEA who posts to this board nor why we post here. My screen-name is "WordWolf." I post at the GSC. I am an adult male. I have a sense of humour and remember quite a bit. Hello.

What does that have to do with the discussion? We're talking about the WOW program instituted and executed by twi. Almost everyone agrees on the following: -twi promised great spiritual growth for all participants -twi promised it oversaw a good program -twi pushed the program like it was the Holy Grail 1/2 of all programs (second only to the way corpse) -twi exercised NO quality control over applicants -twi skipped ensuring the applicants were experienced or trained except for taking pfal Foundational. -twi gave a few pep talks and NO real training -twi sent strangers out, unprepared and untrained, to areas they were foreign to. -twi chose target spots casually, with little, if any, study of the areas they sent people to -twi exercised NO quality control over applicants for their overseers (the corps) -twi did NOT carefully screen their overseers before sending them out (the corps) -twi arranged NO housing for WOWs (past a few days for arrival, possibly, in a FEW cases) -twi arranged NO jobs for WOWs All of that, just viewed on PAPER, is insufficient for both the PROGRAM's success and the INDIVIDUAL's growth-which, supposedly, is at least HALF its PURPOSE. We're not trying to repair the program. Are YOU? If so, please say so.

Come, come, Oldiesman! Was ANYTHING EVER EVER EVER twi's fault? We've discussed over 5 years of things in front of you. Can you name even ONE where you believe you can point to the situation and say "this was terrible, and twi was entirely (or MOSTLY) to blame. twi took action they should not-which was criminal, or failed to act when they should-which was criminal, and if I had known at the time, I would have blamed twi for such evil, unconscionable actions"? Can you name ONE? We can name MANY. Obviously, in each situation, there is blame to go around, but Oldiesman always seems to skip over passing any to twi. They get a FREE PASS. Did I miss a situation? Can you name ONE? Even ONE?

This may come as news to you, but baseball teams in the National or American Leagues (thus eligible to win the World Series) do NOT get players by just accepting whoever shows up. They accept only the top applicants in potential and TRAINING before they even open their door to applicants. Thus, a "draft pick" has shown skill in high school and college, with years of training and practice, and a proven track record. That's completely DIFFERENT from the wow program. Once an applicant is accepted, the applicant is then paid a huge salary, and is put thru day after day, week after week, month after month, of TRAINING. That's completely DIFFERENT from the wow program. So, they really do "put a team together". The wow program recruits with methods more closely resembling jury duty. You are almost selected at random, you open your mail, and say "I have to go serve!"

So can being a f*ing moron, or following the orders of a f*ing moron, or "following orders" when the orders were unsafe. Ask the Jonestown people how risky it was following orders, or the "Heaven's Gate" people chasing that comet. WordWolf said Oldiesman said If the orders OF the program, followed CORRECTLY,got someone robbed or beaten, the orders were WRONG and thus the program was WRONG. Thus, whoever allowed LIVES to be THREATENED by this turkey authorized a bad program, which is worthy to be condemned. Well DUUUUUUUHHH. Of course the CRIMINAL is to blame-LARGELY. Put him in jail, duh. But setting someone up to be a target FOR a criminal is wrong, and any program that does that is to be blamed. The WOW program set Cowgirl up to be robbed/beaten/whatever. (Unintentionally set up, but ignorance and stupidity of the consequences of their training is NOT an excuse. They trained her to be LESS safe than she normally was. "Grow 10 years?" They set her BACK.)

But, the program told people to IGNORE anything telling them not to speak-which means the program taught to IGNORE REVELATION. GOD was trying to keep her away from trouble, but FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS got her IN IT. (DUH. ) FALSE DILEMMA."Either she should never preach the Word, or the WOW program was correct!" WRONG. The situation is NOT as overly-simplistic as the program/Oldiesman makes it. Jesus himself spoke to SOME people and occasionally not others. You're a fan of vpw. Have you not ever heard him preach about the man at the Temple Gate Beautiful? The man was lain at the gate EVERY DAY. Jesus entered that gate and didn't minister to him. Why not? According to your over-simplification, the man who gave the command in Mark 16:15 was a hypocrite for failing to uphold it himself! HOWEVER, even vpw found a smarter answer: no revelation to speak to him. Therefore, not EVERYONE should be spoken to at EVERY time and EVERY place. HOWEVER, the WOW program taught the opposite. If it was more than just one or 2 pep-talks, and it didn't just accept "anyone with money", it would have been easy to cover the usage of revelation as determining WHO and WHERE and WHEN. It did NOT because the program insufficiently prepared its entrants. She SHOULD have listened to God-which she KNEW She was TOLD to IGNORE GOD- so eventually she did. (The instructions of the program were going to get her beaten, robbed, whatever.) Cowgirl was enough of a heavyweight that she and God got her out of that problem DESPITE THE WOW PROGRAM. Can you see it NOW? Depends. If she was FOLLOWING ORDERS TO THE LETTER, and something ungodly happened as a DIRECT RESULT OF THOSE ORDERS, then YES, THOSE ORDERS-AND THE PROGRAM THEREOF- are TO BE BLAMED. How difficult is it to see that? No, it was the DIRECT RESULT of WHERE she was sent and HOW she wasto conduct herself. It WOULD NOT have happened had she not gone. She would neither have been in the wrong place, nor following dumbass instructions given by dumbasses. ELSEWHERE she wouldn't have been starting conversations with unstable individuals. She was listening for God's warnings UNTIL THE WOW PROGRAM SAID NOT TO. She said so. Please PAY ATTENTION. Since it doesn't happen, there's no blame to assign.

Even in an abstract example, you can't help try to absolve the organization from wrongdoing. They're sending people to a location for one year, where they must find housing and jobs, survive the year, and speak about the Bible to people. Is the organization so CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT that they don't know EVERYTHING about the locations they are sending the Christians to? They could send them anywhere in the lower 48 fairly easily. The decisions on WHERE to send them and WHO to send should be made with exceeding care. Instead, whoever walked in with their money were sent, and whoever walked in with their money was in charge of them, and they were organized based on who had cars, and they were sent to different locations on whims or the toss of a coin. What part of that, if you had KNOWN that was how it was done, would have been ACCEPTABLE? Sending emotionally-unstable people out wow? Sending emotionally-unstable people in CHARGE of wows? Dumping the wows wherever? Claiming it was all by revelation when it was none of the kind? Or, would this have been UNACCEPTABLE had you known?

Every time someone has brought up a situation, when it comes to you, the organization is NEVER to be blamed. twi puts people on an unsafe vehicle in unsafe travelling conditions, requires they travel, and they all end up in the hospital. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi requires women to hitchhike to and from an event location. Some women are raped on the trip. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi sends wows to unsafe cities and told to talk to every human, and to IGNORE any urges or impulses to the contrary (IGNORE REVELATION), and some are robbed, assaulted and/or rape. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi sends wows to cities, with unscreened corps overseeing them. One group of wows is MURDERED by the corps overseer. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi has people on grounds. Some of them are women who are drugged and raped by vpw, lcm, other higher-ups. Oldiesman: not twi's fault. twi has people on grounds. One man, faced with lcm having sex with his (the man's) wife, screams that he can't compete with lcm, then goes off and blows his brains out with a bullet from a pistol. Was THAT twi's fault? I know they didn't put the gun in his hand and pull the trigger, but are they FREE OF RESPONSIBILITY there? ===== Come, come, Oldiesman! Was ANYTHING EVER EVER EVER twi's fault? We've discussed over 5 years of things in front of you. Can you name even ONE where you believe you can point to the situation and say "this was terrible, and twi was entirely (or MOSTLY) to blame. twi took action they should not-which was criminal, or failed to act when they should-which was criminal, and if I had known at the time, I would have blamed twi for such evil, unconscionable actions"? Can you name ONE? We can name MANY. Obviously, in each situation, there is blame to go around, but Oldiesman always seems to skip over passing any to twi. They get a FREE PASS. Did I miss a situation? Can you name ONE? Even ONE?

False Dilemma. The only possible alternative to a program where people were send places on a coin-toss with insufficient training and stupid instructions and no financial backup and no infrastructure on the field was NO PROGRAM AT ALL. Did I say that? Who's misrepresenting WHO? (Don't answer-we can read for ourselves.) I would suggest a BETTER PROGRAM. ( DUH. ) Depends on the specifics, but I start with the assailant, rapist or murderer. (And the devil. But I can't have him arrested. Let's presume I ALWAYS blame him even if I don't mention him SPECIFICALLY. I'll do the same for you.) Then I see if the victim had no choice but to be in a situation where he/she was. If so, then whoever put them in that situation is responsible, and possibly CRIMINALLY LIABLE.

WRONG. Let's say someone is "at the end of their rope". He drives to the edge of the Willis Avenue Bridge. He walks halfway across the bridge, and steps over the railing, prepared to jump and kill himself. A Christian goes on a drive across the Willis Avenue Bridge. He sees someone ready to jump. He gets out and speaks to the jumper. Eventually, he convinces the jumper to NOT jump, and step back. They go to a diner and speak for several hours. The jumper hears much of God's Word and decides to attend church with the Christian, and eventually becomes a committed Christian. Does the "jumper" say "I am thankful for the Bridge and Tunnel Authority. If not for them, there would have been no bridge and I would not have gotten saved. God bless his holy Bridge and Tunnel Authority!" No, he does NOT. The BTA was NOT of God, nor was it of the devil. It was INCIDENTAL to the story. The CHRISTIAN and his relationship to GOD mattered. Now, let's say there WAS no Christian there and the man jumped. You can blame the man for jumping. You can blame the devil for driving him to do it. You can't blame the Christians who DIDN'T go, and you can't blame the Bridge and Tunnel Authority for his death. ("Well, if there was no bridge, he couldn't have jumped!") ====== If an organization just happens to put Christians in places, that's incidental. (He might be in town for a convention, or his job may have relocated.) ======== So, when the wow program used completely secular methods to place wows, and dressed it in a holy veneer, sometimes Christians ended up in the place to bless others. That's no different than a job relocation putting them there. They get no credit for using a holy veneer. A SECULAR group moved some people around. So, who gets credit? GOD does, and the CHRISTIAN does. ============ Ok, the other side. A Christian is sent by his job to work in a virtual slum, and he's robbed and sent to the hospital. Is the company to blame? YES. (Them and the robbers, DUH, don't cloud the issue.) The company failed to assess the situation properly, and sent the employee into a dangerous place. A Christian goes wow and is sent to a dangerous neighborhood, with strict instructions to open conversations with EVERYONE they come across, ALWAYS. If you tried that in MY neighborhood, you'd EVENTUALLY talk to a violent criminal, and the results would not be pleasant. Whose fault would that be? The wow is following his instructions correctly. The fault is the PROGRAM. They sent the person to an unsafe place with unsafe instructions. ==== Last scenario. A Christian is sent to my neighborhood and told to open conversations with EVERYONE ALWAYS. Eventually, they speak with an unhinged, dangerous person, who attempts to rob them. That Christian stands on their authority in Christ, and the attacker leaves. Does the organization get credit for a "victorious" incident? No, the organization's lassitude is almost criminal. They placed the Christian where they were likely to be robbed, and gave them instructions to maximize that chance. The Christian transcended their instructions and the CHRISTIAN and GOD get the credit. If the Christian had been beaten and robbed for following those orders, the Christian STILL wasn't to be blamed for needed to pull a miracle from their pocket. If an organization arranges things so that the Christian's ONLY hope of avoiding injury is to pull miracles, the organization is at fault- unless the organization has prepared by ensuring the Christian can pull miracles all the time, and is prepared to do so here, expecting danger. THAT is why it is not a double-standard.

Doesn't make his own evaluation- listens to one guy and makes acapricious decision. Typical, unscriptural, and sloppy. They made a committment for the four years, and so did the organization. That agreement-which was in writing-was an enforceable contract. vpw reneged on his contract with the corps students. That was HIS decision and HIS FAULT. Those who decided to leave, apparently, realized that vpw sawnothing wrong with demanding THEIR full committment, then reneging on his OWN promises, which demonstrated a lack of substance on HIS part. vpw was UNTRUSTWORTHY as demonstrated. Except, as we just saw, you can throw them out without warning. You accepted the responsibility of being a leader of these people.They accepted the responsibility of following your lead. You ALREADY made a "gentleman's agreement" or a LEGALLY-ENFORCEABLE CONTRACT. (No real Christian would violate a 'gentleman's agreement- his yea is yea, his nay is nay, and that's it.) BEFORE you become leader, you see if you HAVE the time. If you discover later you lack the time, you MAKE the time. It is your responsibility-so you spend YOURSELF for God's people as you promised. vpw often made claims that he did this sort of thing when addressing the public, like at the ROA, but, in private, he seems well aware that he was lying. Often, that there IS a crisis demostrates a failure in the leader to head one off. Not "foolish", just "unprepared for the job."

And if he'd managed to assault and rape her, it's because of her 'lack of believing.' Finish the sentence. Sounds like a f*ing stupid perspective that could have gotten her killed to me. Sounds like a perspective with blinders to reality to me. Sounds like how people WERE killed and raped in the field. Sounds like I'm gonna get another snow job on how the program's failures are not the fault of the program's implementors.

Hm. Good point. But vpw viewed twi's stuff as "his", you know, it was his personal piggy bank. Whenever he wanted something, twi bought it no questions asked, so long as it wouldn't exhaust the finds (like the restaurant and the ski lift.) God didn't need a plane or a BUNCH of motorcycles, after all.

Well, that was JT's set of blinders. lcm believed if vpw said it, it was somehow true and spiritual no matter what.] JT believed that if it was downright stupid, it didn't come from vpw.

Gotta be "Stand By Me", then, based on Stephen King's "the Body".

If you have Apostolics or Christadelphians in your town, you'll find they're not trinitarians either. And that about sums it up. I don't think I can improve upon this post.

It was a GOOD START. However, he was still undertrained and underprepared. They DID take care. They protected the floor, they protected the piano. Were they supposed to fight for the plywood? They did the right thing, and if he wanted something different, he should have given specifics rather than make a rant and let THEM figure it out. "Tenderness and aggressiveness were exemplified." First of all, you can't "exemplify" both at the same time.... As someone pointed out, it wasn't good enough for vpw, who was NOT cremated.... The program was insufficiently adapted to accomodate families. That was a careless mistake that illustrated that its leader was unfit to run it. They then said "we accept families", which means they claimed they were sufficiently prepared to do so. lcm AND vpw should have apologized. Failing to keep up HIS side of all committments was standard operating procedure for vpw, and he taught lcm to do the same. It was the easier approach and demonstrated a tyrant mentality. That was very thoughtful and considerate of lcm! It was a nice thing. Oops. Well, no big deal. After all, he obviously MEANT to bless vpw, and was considerate. His only mistake was in asking first. Surely, someone with a caring heart would take that into consideration. After all "the ministry comes first"... vpw should have apologized. Instead, he threw a tantrum that someone else touched one of his toys-even though it was to bring it to him. His "stuff" meant more to him than the people. No, that wasnt "teaching", that was a tantrum. No, his stuff came before the people-we JUST saw that.

The question is what kind of ego trip vpw was on. When he doesn't hear from lcm, this isn't about whether or not they arrived safely-it's about vpw. The "ego trip" comment is telling. vpw immediately thought it was personal, when lcm probably thought vpw didn't need to hear-like vpw got news by revelation or something. I believe lcm believed this. As you can see, lcm wasn't very observant, even about what was under his nose. Of course, vpw stays comfortable and dry, but expects lcm to get wet. The best way to lead is by EXAMPLE. If he wanted lcm to get the idea about getting out in the rain, he should have walked out HIMSELF, then introduced lcm, which would have required lcm to join him in the rain. This would have been obvious- if "Dr always put the ministry ahead of himself."

Possibly-but I trust neither vpw or lcm to know what makes a COMPETENT student, let alone a GOOD one. Which goes back to my point. A student needs DOWN-TIME when learning, otherwise they might as well attend a viewing of someone washing dishes. The retention of what is taught drops sharply. How about screaming expletives at them in front of the group? Do they require THAT to learn? As a teacher, vpw had no qualifications to tell when his students were learning or not. We will see that a bit later. "You don't look for negatives in people." Having found them, is it appropriate to scream them in a group, and make announcements about them over lunch? That became very popular by the man who reported all this... Corps Principle 1 is "Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness." What does "Horse-Sense" have to do with "an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness"? What does "an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness" have to do with repairing and refurbishing a trailer? Does one need divine revelation to see a broken window-handle needs replacing? DUH. An underexperienced, undertrained-but incredibly loyal- young man is trusted to run anything? I believe history has shown what a disastrously STUPID position that was to hold. Then again, a cold analysis could have predicted this. Worse- almost all of his "training" and "experience" can exclusively from whatever vpw said and taught- which meant he could not exceed vpw's abilities in anything. This was a good start. If it had been continued, eventually lcm might have finished maturing and might have become a competent-if undistinguished- leader. I don't believe he could ever have been a GOOD leader-but he could have led without disaster, given training. So said the man who will always be remembered for living by his emotions and discarding clear thinking. This is what's called a 'pep talk'. Anyone who was on a high school or college football team should have no difficulty recognizing it. It's HARDLY profound, HARDLY noteworthy, but lcm views all vpw's casual utterances as if they came down on 2 stone tablets.

"What does God want with a starship?" vpw was always looking to increase the public image of the group, almost at any cost. He takes the most famous pfal grad and gives him awards he did nothing to earn, to increase visibility and add cachet to things. It strikes me that he gave the football player the pin so that the player would have increased loyalty to the group. "See, we're big time-we have professional athletes here." lcm name-dropped Pau1a Sm1th for the same reason. vpw puts a federal judge on the mainstage- knowing that this was a bad idea and admitting it to lcm- but does it anyway because it impresses the audience of already-faithful members. Was it really that, I wonder, or were there guests among the audience that he was trying to impress? Either way, it's the APPEARANCE he was so eager to raise, at the COST of substance.