Oakspear

Cherubim and Seraphim are referred to as having wings as you said. Oftentime the wings were added in artwork to distinguish an angel from a human. But noooooo, TWI had to make a big deal about ot as if it meant something. :wacko:

In my opinion, Jesus' response to a situation that called for stoning, and what God supposedly mandated in the old Testament is good evidence that the OT God & NT God aren't the same deity, or the OT folks attributed to their God their own bloodthirsty leanings. There are acts of God in the Old Testament that we, if we didn't know it was the OT god who called for them, would condemn as horrific. I don't believe in judging certain acts as okay just because someone said that their god came up with them.

Bad advice!

1. Seniors = more than one senior (plural) 2. Senior's = relating or belonging to a senior (singular possessive) 3. Seniors' = relating or belonging to more than one senior (plural possessive) I believe that either #1 or #3 would be grammatically correct, but that #1 would follow popular usage.

It's not just the Christians either. We've got a fair number of pagans around here and some of them expect to be given a free pass by other pagans just because they're pagans. Although in the larger culture, people do expect that saying "I'm a Christian" translates as "I'm a moral, ethical person with whom you should do business".

I heartily agree with those who say to start with a clean slate, to question everything that was taught. I have run across many people who claim to have "checked out" what was taught in TWI, but have only done so wearing PFAL-colored glasses, i.e., reading scriptures in light of what Wierwille taught, using Wierwille's definitions and Wierwille's assumptions, including made-up definitions of Greek words, distinctions between words that were nonexistant and leaps of illogic. Tzaia mentioned reading the gospels as written to us, not just "for our learning. That's a great example right there. Wierwille taught (and he may have gotten this from Bullinger) that scripture was either "to us" or "for our learning" (i.e. not to us). When it says that that which was written aforetime was written for our learning, why should we assume that that's the opposite of "to us", or that "for our learning" and "to us" are mutually exclusive. That was a conclusion that Wierwille came to that I don't believe is warranted. Even if you want to believe that some scripture is not written to us, where do you draw the line at "aforetime"? Why Pentecost? Why not before Jesus' ministry? This isn't an agrument against or in favor of "not all scripture is to us", but a point to show that Wierwille's conclusions are not necessarily correct for all that he acted as if his take was the only logical and/or godly conclusion.

This isn't so much a story about stupid Way people, but it relates: When we were WOWs, we got a lot of opposition from the pastor of the local Foursquare Gospel Church; diatribes on his weekly radio show, public confrontations with his youth group, community forums with us as the topic... After a while though, we learned to take it in stride and Laleo & I invited him over for coffee when we found out that our WOW family was being moved mid-year. As he sat there sipping java he told us that it was no surprise to him and that "The Lord" had already told him about the move and would be miss the other two members of our WOW group when we left, thinking that 2 of us were going and two were staying. Laleo looks him and the eye and tells him, well, The Lord threw you a curve Jerry, we're all going. The look on his face; priceless.

We used to have a guy come to twig when I was a WOW who would come dressed up as a doctor (in scrubs) or a military officer. I remember driving him around on the 4th of July with flags attached to his car while he waved to "the crowds".

Ironically in the latter days of TWI all teachings had to be submitted ahead of time.

To a certain extent, I think that it's cultural conditioning and some mental laziness. For most people the existence of a being called "God" is a given, it's the "flow" that most of us go with, deciding to be an atheist, or a polytheist, or to have any non-standard belief system takes going against the flow; for that matter being a dyed-in-the-wool, fire-in-your-eyes, committed Christian takes going against the flow as well, albeit paddling to a different shore. For a person whose every thought and act goes against what this supposed God stands for, its usually not that they sit down and plan on being "ungodly", they're going with the cultural flow of acting irresponsibly; to put some thought into their actions, to activate a few brain cells and think "I act contrary to what everyone says is God's will because there isn't a God" is more work, more rowing against the current that our hypothetical person is up to.

:o

I agree that one can help another without a degree and without being an expert...but Hassan touts his degree and his 'expert' status, so i would think that its relevant. My apologies for the short, sharp response...I've been working overnights and am cranky - and that's my expert opinion

Why not? You post these videos, might we assume that you agree with Hassan? Garth asks some legitimate questions..and that's all you have to say? You don't know and you don't care. What was the point of posting these videos? Do you know or care? Kind of reminds me of responses to questions about someone else's credentials and doctorate.

I understand the atheist point of view and I understand the true blue flaming evangelist point of view, even though I'm not either. If you're an atheist, why pay attention to something said by a fictional character? If you're a true believer who believes that God created the universe and is a loving father, it only makes sense to follow the dictates in the book that you believe came from him. But what about the people who say that they believe in God, the biblical god, yet go out of their way to break all his rules? What's going on in their heads? I know a fair number of people who would be quite insulted, even shocked, if anyone called them an atheist, or even a non-Christian, but live their lives as if there is no God or gods, and even take a perverse pride in going against the prevailing standard for godliness; even some people who joke about how they're going to hell, which they say will be more interesting than heaven. I don't get it.

In an on-line, words-on-the-page community as this one is, it behooves us to think for more than a nanosecond before hitting the 'reply' button, but even then, misunderstandings and assumptions abound. One of my personal 'words of wisdom' is that I have the responsibility to express myself in a manner that is easy to understand and that isn't rude or abrasive while the person that I am addressing has the responsibility to refrain from thinking the worst or picking the most negative connotation when I am perceived as ambiguous. Wow! should write that down somewhere

In the late 90's they started doing reviews of the previous week's SNS as part of the SNS itself. then we had to devote one teaching a week at fellowship to teaching the same subject as was on the SNS, and doing a review at fellowship of the tape. So we had to hear the same crap 4 times: The tape itself The review on the next tape The teaching at fellowship and the review at fellowship

I agree, but there is a difference between choosing to believe something illogical, improbable or impossible to prove and browbeating others into believing it too.

Thought that this bore repeating :wacko:

Examining TWI materials using their own "research" methods and still finding errors was the first step for me. Not assuming that something is correct (or true) and trying to shoehorn the evidence into the predetermined path was another.

In the beginning of the 90's it seemed like a lot of the European wayfers were from Africa, particularly Zaire. TWI claimed fellowships in 50 countries at one time. It seems like Africa & South America were the areas where most of these wayfers were located.

When I got out in 2001 there were ten states that had so few people that they had no Limb Coordinator. I'm sure that the process has accelerated since then. North & South Dakota, Nebraska, Mississippi, Vermont & New Hampshire, Delaware - I can't remember the other three.

It may be a thin line, but there is a line between those who would without hesitation use violence and those who intimidate with the threat or implication of violence. Most of what I observed in TWI, and the stories from others seem to be the same, is that many TWI "leaders" were bullies, but didn't have the guts to back up their tough words with tough actions.

It's now called the Victor Paul Wierwille Prevailing Word Auditorium. :wacko:

I'm going to be performing a wedding on October 31st in Lawrence Kansas at 1:30PM. If any Kansas GSers want to meet before I head back to Nebraska, email me at oakspear@neb.rr.com

By 2001 there were 10 states that were small enough that they didn't rate their own Limb Coordinator or any Way Corps. The people in these states were being encouraged to move to areas where "the Word was moving". I don't doubt that the trend only continued in the last eight years.