Oakspear

I just reviewed this thread and only found two posters who used the word "mindless", Groucho & myself. Actually I used the terms unthinkingly and reflexively, but "mindless" is not far off from what I meant.However neither of us said that TWI doctrine or those who believed TWI doctrine were mindless, or mindlessly believed it, but that Waybrain described those who did mindlessly, unthinkingly, reflexively believe it. Saying that TWI doctrines or beliefs were being called mindless is the logical fallacy of the strawman argument; i.e. arguing against a position that the other side is not actually taking.

I don't believe that believing what TWI taught necessarily indicates Waybrain. After all, many people here, after thoughtful and/or prayerful consideration have come to similar conclusions on some issues as Wierwille did. Surely we don't believe that every non-Trinitarian Christian, or Christian who believes that the dead are not consciously alive is suffering from Waybrain, do we? Sure Waybrain is a made-up word. All words are at one time or another. Think about all the technical terms, industry jargon, government-speak, etc that have been coined in the last 20-30 years. Apparently we don't all agree with what Waybrain is. My definition is the condition where one unthinkingly and reflexively thinks or says or thinks TWI dogma. Sometimes Waybrain is obvious, more often it is not. If someone voulteers to string the chairs while setting up for a PTA meeting, did they think that through, deciding after careful consideration that it was the most efficient way to set up the room, or did it float up to the forebrain unbidden due to years of indoctrination setting up rooms? The situations in which it is easier to correctly identify Waybrain is when a doctrinal point is questioned and the response is a quote from PFAL or Wierwille that doesn't really answer the question.

I just noticed the new title: and no VPs or Secetary-Treasurer either.

Some of these might be common to Christianity in general, or at least extremely dogmatic versions of Christianity (and other religions too for that matter. ) A grand sense of spiritual superiority (maybe political parties too) One verse answers to life. Immediate acquiescence to anyone in authority, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of their request. A heightened sense of entitlement stemming from supposed higher knowledge of the Bible. A willingness to argue that Granola really does taste better with apple juice instead of milk. (Now that one's just funny ) In my opinion, Waybrain is characterized by an unthinking reflex to do something, or say something only because it was learned in TWI, without having independently verified whether somethiong was indeed true. An example of Waybrain in myself is that I consistantly arrive 10 - 15 minutes early for things, not because I think it's a good idea, (and it often isa good idea) but because I've had it drilled into me for several decades.

TWI, despite its slogans about studying "The Word", has always been about putting the organization and its leaders first. In any situation where a wayfer believes that what "The Lord" says is different than what TWI leadership says, "The Lord" loses.

In theory a "ministry" could be served simultaneously with The Lord, if the goals and actions of "the ministry" were identical with those of The Lord. I believe that "the ministry" attempted to define what serving the Lord meant in terms of what was best for "the ministry", putting "the ministry" first and The Lord second.

God can't use synonyms? Who says that God "would have" done what you say? Not saying these three words, or even soul and spirit are synonymous, but it seems to me terms like "the spirit of man" refers to what we usually refer to as soul. Not arguing the doctrinal point so much as the logic behind your example.

People can & do choose, but in my opinion, that's not the issue. The way I see it, the problem is that men & women claiming to be Christian leaders demanded that their followers overrule scripture. Whether anyone actually obeyed them is beside the point. Another issue is that seldom was it that clear cut. I can't remember any time when a leader overtly told anyone to do anything that contradicted the bible. Can you imagine the conversation? Leader: Joe Believer, the bible says XYZ, I want you to ignore that, because I know more than God, so please do ABC, which is in direct opposition to XYZ. It was usually more like: Leader: Joe Believer, I know that you think that they bible says XYZ, but your thinking is faulty, it really means ABC...look, it says so in the Blue Book, and check out this Greek word here, and 'Y' is a forgery by those Trinitarians. So if you really want to do the Word you'll abandon your rebellious thinking and do ABC.

Good points Lifted. If you know someone is lying, that's one thing, if you don't know either way, that's another.

Now that is a great story! I'll bet she tells that story for years

Good one

I went back and looked at the Christian Soldiers thread that this was supposed to be a spinoff of. Jeff makes the point that "leadership" should never have been even asking people to obey man rather than God, he doesn't even address whether anyone was forced to do anything, or whether anyone actually took actions that they knew were against God's will. Once again the strawman is thrown out so it can be shot down.

Here we go again...don't we all know by now that any time anyone says anything critical of Wierwille WhiteDove will raise his hand from the back of the class and remind us of the lack of documentation and witnesses and how that makes it all opinion and not facts. Then we all argue with him. And he doesn't change his mind. I recommend putting him on "ignore".

Can the answer to "What (or who) is a Christian?" be as simple as "Anyone who says they're a Christian"? All this talk about certain groups who claim the name Christian being considered not Christain, or following another Jesus...

I wouldn't call it their description of a Christian so much as they accept that anyone who calls themself a Christian is a Christian. This, a quote from their section on Christianity:

As long as none of the glasses are TWI-colored

I was initially referring to participants on this board IIRC. And isn't Christianity the world's largest religion?

I didn't give anything definite because it isn't definite. I doubt most believers can be specific and detailed about what convinced them. But I didn't say we are equal to [the biblical] God, I just expressed a lack of belief in him. I'm sorry, I don't understand wghat you're saying here, could you please reword it? Really? can you give me any examples?

Well, something more than the nothing that I've gotten so far. I don't quite follow the logic in that line of thinking, although I've heard it before. I wonder what the percentage is. I know only a handful of former wayfers, including my own family, and I'm the only one who is avowedly not a Christian, although one or two may be agnostics. It's certainly possible, I don't know that it's likely. And on the other hand, what will Christians say or do if some other belief turns out to be true? That reminds me of the South park episode where the "True Faith" turns out to be the Mormons, and heaven is a very interesting place

I don't really know. I believe that there is survival after death in some form, but don't necessarily believe in the body, soul, spirit separation. I can't speak for others, but I am only irritated by those who feel it is necessary to inform me that their opinion is that I am eternally damned. I see no convincing (to me) evidence that any divine being has judged me, so I have no problem with any hypothetical biblical god. After all, he hasn't personally told me anything, so I have no argument with him.

Did someone say something about dancing around the issue? So...do I think Christians are intolerant? More to the point, do I think that the Christians on this board are intolerant? My answer is "no". Tolerance has nothing to do, in my opinion, with whether you agree with me or not. In an environment like GSC, an intolerant poster would be one who called for the banning of all non-Christians, or who sugested that non-Christians should not post in the Doctrinal Forum. The latter has happened, time and time again, I don't recall the former ever coming up, although frequently new posters mistake this for a Christian site. So, in my view, if you don't think that non-Christians should be participating in this site, then you're intolerant. If you're simply convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that your worldview is the only correct one than you're wrong...um...I mean not intolerant <_< But if you think that you can post about how your interpretation of the bible is the only correct one, and how non-Christians are eternally damned, well, you're going to get an argument, and I would expect an argument from the Christians if their religion was portrayed as unequivocally wrong.

I don't think that I ever said that pagans couldn't be intolerant. Some of the ones that I know are every bit as dogmatic and uncompromising as, well...you Geisha, the non-Christians are a tiny minority on this site. There's about 6 atheists and/or agnostics, two pagans and one Buddhist that I know of. The Christians are hardly being overwhelmed here. You make proclamations about your god and the bible all the time, so do plenty of others, some disagree. I disagree. I don't think the non-Christians are immune from intolerance, but not any more suseptible to it. A non-Christian objecting to a Christian telling him that he is going to hell, or that his faith is illegitimate because it varies from the Christian's, is similar in my estimation to a black person being asked to be more tolerant and accepting of the Klansman or White Supremicist.

Pre-TWI, I didn't think about it much. I lived in a pretty homogenous neighborhood, probably 80% + one denomination, overwhelming majority were two European ethnic groups, other than Jews, I didn't encounter any non-Christians that I knew about, even in high school, maybe not even in college. Oh, I was as intolerant as anybody else in TWI while I was part of it. Remember those Way Magazine articles in the 90's about goddess worship? I did a lot of the groundwork several years before, taught branch and limb meetings on the subject. So, yeah, I was intolerant. I believe that Christianity is at once exclusive and open. Open in that anyone can be a Christian if they confess the right confession, there's no preconditions, but I believe that's true of most religions these days. I know of some ethnic-based faiths that discourage people of other cultures from joining, and even consider those from other ethnic groups to be not of their faith even if they do all the right things. Some Native American and Hindu traditions come to mind. (Not all or even most, but I have heard of them). Exclusive in that for most Christians, anyone outside the pale is damned, S.O.L. as far as eternal life goes. Personally I don't have any problem with people believing that, but I don't agree with it. Now, as far as viewing my faith as TRUE, I don't really expect that. I understand that about Christianity. What I object to is Christians who "invade my space" to make sure that I know that they think that I'm going to hell or whatever.

Brush: My observation was that any self-righteousness and arrogance came later in a wayfer's life, when the youthful zeal and enthusiasm had waned. I was involved in TWI from 1978 - 2001 and virtually all the people that I saw get involved got involved because they wanted to learn more about God, or they liked what they saw in the people.