WordWolf

Wow. Amazing how that pattern repeats so closely. Even down to the percentages. It's almost enough to make you believe there were devils involved in the evil actions of one, then went over and worked with the other. If one were to be so bold as to suggest that, I mean. "Dogmatic and abrasive." Yeah, that was our own little Angel Face, that was.....

I'm not the best one to ask, but here's the impression I got..... A) Starting time to early 80's...lots of people joined, more than left. B) early 80's to late 80's....vpw hands over organization to lcm, and a number of things happen, some of them due to a lack of confidence in that incompetent holding the reins. Membership, at its peak around 1979, begins to drop in areas, mostly from old-timers and higher-ups. Most members stick around. C) 1989-1990. Tired of the past few years, lcm draws a line in the sand and demands allegiance. 80% of the group leaves that year, with more to follow over the next year. D) 1990's. lcm's increasingly draconian policies kick some people out, and disgust some others so they leave. lcm's classes, inferior to vpw's classes, are unable to interest new people. Many more leave, very few join. E) 2000's. lcm was fired due to lawsuits. The internet has crippled twi's ability to draw new members without them knowing all the scandals. twi is largely trying to find ways to draw new members, but it's composed almost entirely of people 40 and older, with their children leaving twi at the first opportunity. They can't relate to young folk, and older folk can see they have nothing to offer. So, membership rolls continue to trickle downward. So, those still in are probably long-timers...10 years or more, some for most of their natural lives. They're still losing members faster than they can replace them.

I've never gotten to ask anyone this one, and I didn't know which organization pushed this idea until now. So, I'm curious what their answer was/is. What unit of measurement did they use to calculate the pyramids-their own, or the one in effect in Egypt at the time the pyramids were built? If the old one, how do they know they have the correct scale and units? If their own, why the HECK would the Egyptians use a scale nonexistent at the time they built them? Did they ever answer that one?

Oakspear posted: Hmm. I never heard of a church where displays of anger are considered acceptable behaviour. You haven't heard the tenth part of that little subject. BTW, hello. :)--> Uncle Hairy posted: That was funny. :D--> Funny from here, but typical from there. People leaving were given a smear campaign to make a lawyer wince. You want to see some scary stuff, check out the links on the main page. Someone blamed a person's death by plane crash on their family's exit from the organization.

I think someone said once that this was why lcm started coming up with meaningless statements like "go until you hear glass break". He was trying to "spontaneously" come up with things worth quoting so they could be overheard and written down. No easy task when you have little of substance to say in the first place.

It was 1989. The communications and scuttlebut from hq were looking problematic. I remained optimistic that things would improve-I believed, and said, that the other higher-ups would confer, and lcm would get his act together. (Paraphrasing.) The next communique was "all the leadership in your state has been fired for being evil". Well, having gotten to know some of these people, I knew that wasn't true, and convinced me it was time to prepare an exit. I wasn't sure who I'd end up with, but the mass firings made that part easier, since all NY state's leaders left as an organized unit, and most of the state's wayfers went with them. Seeing the only viable choice as one or the other, I went with the state (vf) and who they went with at the time (cg). Looking back, I still think, at the time, it was the right decision.

It means they will be accountable to God for abusing His people, at a time He has appointed, in a fashion He has determined. Being born again is NOT a free pass to abuse God's people, murder, etc. We can discuss the specifics in the DOCTRINAL forum, since that is a DOCTRINAL matter, and not an issue germane to this topic, which is specifically about false prophets, and, as you added, whether or not specific leaders qualify as such. Sounds like, yes, we seem to agree they qualify, and we all agree on this.

*Saruman-like voice* Welcome, Hope, we've been waiting for you to come around. We've reserved a seat for you. Here's your coffee, pocket protector and laptop. Feel free to join in any of the chess matches or Dungeons and Dragons games currently underway....

Personally, I hope you DID download that software firewall as a last-barrier of defense against a program that somehow made it thru your security and is now trying to phone home with your data. Other than that, making sure your programs are updated frequently, and you should be as safe as it's possible to be. Actually, to REALLY be as safe as humanly possible, switch O/S away from Windows, and switch from IE to Firefox or Opera or Mozilla, but your system sounds more secure than MINE, and I'm a paranoid.

That was actually my first guess. Triangles = Trinity, so they're verboten. Then again, they're also used as symbols for some other stuff lcm used to scream about, so they MUST be bad. Of course, RAINBOWS are ALSO symbols that have been used for stuff lcm used to scream about, but lcm couldn't condemn them because he used them in his AOS production. Hmmm.... The guy danced around in tights, and wore rainbow insignia. If you just saw those clips, what would have been your FIRST guess as to what they meant?

I'm more patient than ALL of you. (Also, less a movie person than ANY of you.) I'm waiting for the extended diamond special edition release of the TRILOGY, then buying them all in one shot. :D-->

This was too good a line to let slip by us, ckeer, so I made it stand out.

Let's see... He claimed to receive direct revelation on doctrine, but photocopied it from others (sometimes making mistakes the originals lacked), and make predictions of the future from time to time that did NOT come to pass. That's what all those conspiracy theories led to-predictions of the fall of western civilization, and takeovers of the US by secret societies. He spoke of things that were to come to pass, and held himself simultaneously as THE Teacher, The One and Only man speaking on behalf of God Almighty. Therefore, prophecies which did not come to pass. When a prophet speaks of things that do NOT come to pass, they are a FALSE prophet, they did NOT receive it from God, they spoke it PRESUMPTUOUSLY, and, under the Mosaic Law, earned the Death Penalty. Further, he used the women who wanted to worship God for his base lusts. By these evil dealings, he caused the Lord's people to transgress. After all, if one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him, but if a man sins against the LORD, who shall entreat for Him? (I Samuel 2.) Like Hophni and Phineas before him, who were sons of Belial and knew not the Lord, he used the office of a servant of God for sexual satisfaction at the expense of God's people, and personal gain and luxuries at the expense of God's people. I'm not saying he himself was a son of Belial, but he sure acted in the same FASHION as one, didn't he? If he wasn't, he did a fair imitation of one. Therefore, vpw was a false prophet who caused God's people to stumble. Part of the time. Sometimes he was kind to animals and small children. Then again, John Wayne Gacy served as a clown and did children's parties some of the time, when he wasn't killing people. I hear Jeffrey Dahmer could have a kindly demeanor most of the time-he only ate people part of the time as a sort-of hobby. Evil communications corrupt good manners.

Periodically, I'm surprised "America's Funniest Home Videos" is still around. Once in a great while I'll catch a few minutes by accident. I can usually catch an animal being clever without anyone getting hurt. As for "the Swan", my main comment is an objection to the name. The original fable was about "the Ugly Duckling", a bird that thought that it was wrong for looking different, but actually was a SWAN, not a duckling, and was fine just the way she was. Does the show do the same thing? No. It starts with the premise these women are NOT fine the way they are, and proceeds to make changes with surgery. I don't watch so-called "reality tv" anyway.

I'm thinking this probably was also in the "By The Way" series of paid articles vpw wrote that were published in local papers, and also compiled for sale by twi.

"Your abundant sharing in action." Various lawsuits for damages from people they damaged, and nuisance suits by twi for people they don't like.

I can top that.... How many were told this by a splinter group AFTER LEAVING TWI? And, yes, it was obvious even then that I was being told "re-read" instead of "re-search". No, thanks, I'd rather "sit around reading the Bible" instead.

Here I thought you bought the domain name and simply redirected it to your homepage........

Of course it does. No surprise to most of us, it's also JUST like what vpw said to do when training hunting dogs AND CHILDREN.

http://www.bullyonline.org/related/abuse.htm#Reporting_abuse Why people sometimes don't speak up.

=================================== Yes, I mixed up my names. If you look at the first of THESE links and say "that's not God's Blue Book...." then you might be in a cult.

Well, please elaborate on the types of things they DO defrock for. We can at least narrow the field of speculation down.

Then again, maybe it didn't, and he didn't hear about any of this. We know there were problems when he was in India, and his denomination got COMPLAINTS from the locals about him. His accounts of the complaints are all we've got. Can we possibly count them as reliable. I believe him when he said there were complaints, but I DON'T believe the reasons he gave. I can only guess and speculate what the REAL complaints were about.

In order: A) "What is the real purpose of this website?" http://www.greasespotcafe.com/main/aboutus.htm B) "All I see is bashing, slamming and put-downs." That's odd-especially considering that the LAST thread you posted consisted of civil replies to your own pointed question, without bashes, slams or put-downs. (Except one post which said, in essence, "here come the slams", which completely failed to predict the rest of the thread, nor characterize the preceding posts.) Perhaps the problem is that you're not looking around enough. The forums alone cover a wide variety of subjects. You have chosen, voluntarily, to participate in a dedicated forum called "about the way". It's labelled correctly. That's what it's about. There's variety among the posts in that forum. Look around-you'll learn a lot that you didn't imagine existed. Don't like ANY of the posts? Participate in a different forum. We talk about Doctrine, birthdays, prayer requests, movies, and all kinds of stuff in different forums. Don't like ANY of the forums? Nobody's forcing you to come here. Exercise your free will, and visit elsewhere. There's thousands upon thousands of message boards out there. One or two (or a dozen) are bound to meet your approval. Another issue may be that ANY criticism of twi, or vpw or lcm or their ruling elite or practices or doctrine, are viewed by you as "slams, putdowns and bashes". That's not a fair use of the language. Many of us have intelligently discussed matters of doctrine and practice here. Sometimes (surprise!) we agree with a particular doctrine or practice. Other times (you noticed), we disagree. Our reasons vary as widely as our POSTERS vary. Some are still Christians who revere the Bible-their positions will reflect that. Some are Christians who are more traditional and reject Bible emphasis-their positions will reflect THAT. Some have rejected Christianity altogether after encountering twi-their positions will reflect THAT. A few still approve of what they were taught in twi in general-their positions will reflect THAT. Each poster posts what they think. The result is a rather cosmopolitan mix of responses, often. Sometimes there's consensus on a subject, sometimes the responses are scattered. C) "I know if I have a bad experience with a group, I might talk about it for a little bit, but then it's history! Why the constant talk?" Since you asked..... Some people are new arrivals. They're still coming to grips with the things they're discovering and realizing. They trickle in across months and years. The current group of posters arrived over a span of nearly 10 years, and some are still arriving. Some arrive, get what they needed, and move on. Great. Some feel this site serves a need in their life, or an interest, so they stay. Great. Some feel they serve a purpose by posting, so they post. Great. One of the things that characterized-and characterizes to this day-twi, is the push to control information. vpw began that, with selectively providing information, and not volunteering what would not serve his own personal agenda. (For example, the degree to which his collateral readings and pfal books were rewrites or transpositions of work by BG Leonard, JE Stiles, EW Bullinger and EW Kenyon.) This continued thru his personal foibles, and thru causing dissenters to vanish in a cloud of rumours, never to be seen again. twi always presents itself as if only twi has any REAL answers-anyone else is uninformed, ignorant, biased. Then the internet came and changed all that. Now, anyone can communicate with people all over their country and the world fairly easily. Now people who would have "vanished" can tell their story-and compare notes. Odd how so many had similar experiences...... People who seek understanding can come here and "connect the dots" in their own lives. New information is STILL coming to the surface. (This week we saw where vpw got all his mysterious announcements about overthrow of the government and so on.) People who are kicked out by twi, or leave in desperation, full of inflicted fears that God will turn away from them now, can see that isn't so. We're all here, and we still have lives......they can go on, even prosper, after twi. Finally, people who receive invitations for an "innocent little Bible study" do what they always do NOW- they go online and do a little research. In this case, they find places like this website. They can then make informed decisions, having now heard more than one side of the story. Amazing how, once they hear both sides, the few people who express an interest in hearing about the Bible, become wary of twi and don't stick around, isn't it? If all we told were lies, surely it would be easy for experience to show that..... So twi is unable to draw members now- partly because of its own weaknesses, partly because it can no longer control information. THAT's why the constant talk. Again, as I and others say, if you don't like this message board, don't visit. Find one you like and visit THAT one.

In case you're interested, we posted the entire poem "The Touch of the Master's Hand", by Myra Brooks Welch, in the Open forum a few weeks back. You can also find it online.