Oakspear

Four Way Corps graduates. :lol: I'm sure that they're spinning it like they're tightening the requirements and raising the standards. During my last few years "in" there were several people from my area who went into the Way Corps. The ones who, in my opinion, would have made good compassionate leaders were kicked out before graduating. The biggest horse's foot of the bunch successfully graduated and is still in as far as I know.

I do not believe that Confucians deify Confucius, it's a non-theistic religion, Muslim believe that Mohammed was ascended into heaven (on a white horse I believe)

It clearly says that the judges will decide the punishment. The bible clearly claims that God decides what's right and what's wrong. Thought this bore repeating :huh: :wacko:

What are you talking about? I never mentioned what Wierwille taught on Romans 13. :blink: I was responding to your mention of Romans 13: and arguing that obeying the "law of the land" was irrelevant to the discussion Right. Starting with a spelling and grammar lesson.

I second T-Bone's post

It’s very clear what our country thinks through it’s laws, but the original question was “what does God think? Very good point. Killing is sanctioned by God in many circumstances. An argument might be made that this indicates an immoral God. But that’s an argument for another time. The God of Israel commands the killing of a town full of “unbelievers” – that’s apparently okay. But what does this merciful God say about abortion. It’s obvious from the penalties attached to certain kinds of killing in Exodus 21 that not all killing is okay with God. Which category does abortion fall under? and no one is claiming that we can and no one is claiming that we can

Pond: I'm not sure I'm following you...here's a few observations and questions... Okay, I’m with you there So, you’re saying that God is against sin (obviously) including killing, but that he’s not going to do anything about it because Adam gave his authority to Satan (I don’t believe that that’s necessarily the case. I don’t know if Wierwille’s take on “The Lord of this world etc is correct – but I’ll proceed as if it is for the sake of argument) Okay, still following I think the Old Testament at least is doing more than helping us “in our adventurous way”; there are punishments and prohibitions against all manner of behavior. The territory is far from being conceded to “death”. Even assuming that Satan has the lordship, Israel supposedly was different to an extant, separate from “the nations” and under God’s law. I don’t think that you’re making your case here. I disagree with you here. Here’s why: Whether it is illegal is not up to the courts, clearly or not. The illegality (or sinfulness if you will) is decided by the bible, by God, the punishment is decided by the judges. You are correct You are correct about following what “the people” decide in the form of laws, except when that law goes against the bible. What’s that verse in Acts that’s ays “We ought to obey God rather than men”? You are correct about following what “the people” decide in the form of laws, except when that law goes against the bible. What’s that verse in Acts that’s ays “We ought to obey God rather than men”?

[barf] quote I never comma in all my life comma have heard such stupidity semicolon where apostrophe s a good English teacher when you need one question mark unquote [/barf]

Obviously, yes. However...If (and that's a big IF) a fetus is considered biblically to be a human being, and if that life is ended intentionally, then it would at least be a killing; would you agree? So, what's the definition of murder? According to Merriam-Webster it is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought". Generally in our culture intent to kill is what "malice aforethought" means. Let's assume for a minute that biblically a fetus is a person. Intentionally ending his or her life would be a killing, but would it be murder? So far, I can't tell. The difference in punishment between intentionally killing someone (death) and causing a miscarriage (a fine) could be viewed a difference in intent as easily as a difference in legal status between an adult and a fetus.

...and Greg, while I recommend reading this whole thread, if you don't have the time, "Actual Errors" refer, not to doctrinal disagreements, but to easily documented errors in fract. For example, the correctness or incorrectness of the Trinity would not be considered, because that would be a doctrinal argument. An "actual error" might be an instance where Wierwille misquotes a section of scripture, or gives an incorrect definition of a Greek or Hebrew word, or to cite a specific example, where he says that modern Yiddish is the old Khazar tongue written with Hebrew characters. :blink: The idea was not to bash Wierwille, but to counter a poster who claimed that PFAL was God-breathed.

Waaaah! :( This is a written medium. One can't get "shouted down". No matter how much someone else writes in opposition to one's opinion, one's own post still stands for all to read. Challenging the Wierwille/PFAL position is hardly "shouting down".

Well, that's what we learned in TWI, that's for sure. There has been a case made that a fetus is a baby from at least 6 months. Certainly Adam became "a living soul" when "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life", but does this mean that those of us who are born the regular way aren't really alive until we breathe? I would suggest going back and reading some of the arguments made in this thread and seeing what you think. If you disagree, please present your case. You might find that there is a disagreement about even that And that is one of the things that we are attempting to establish here. Of course that's a fine illustration, but the idea that it illustrates hasn't been established. Thanks for your opinion. Now....what's God's opinion?

It appears that the judges decide not whether a wrong has been done, but how much the transgressor will be fined. It also appears that the verse is talking about an accidental miscarriage due to violence that ended up involving the mother. I don't know that you can read much into the difference in penalty between an accidental miscarriage and an intentional killing, since there are different penalties for killing a slave as well.

Just because a specific English word is not used in an English translation of the bible doesn't mean that the concept did not exist in biblical times. Non-surgical methods of abortion have been known since early times. The bible would be a much bigger book than it is already if every single specific situation had to be covered in "legal" detail. I believe that to participate in a discussion like this, one has to at least operate under the assumption that the bible is divinely inspired and contains everything that pertains to life and godliness, otherwise we could have a thread that is titled "What do you think about abortion?"

One way to look at these stories is to work backward. At the time that these books were written, the alleged descendents of the rival siblings in question were whole nations who were rivals on the national or tribal level. Thus the problems with Edom and Ishmael were explained in terms of the founders of thse nations being brothers to two key figures in Hebrew history. Moab and Ammon were described as descended from the illicit relationship the cousin of Issac and his daughters.

I believe that this is the "comment":

Wordwolf remarked on defending Wierwille's position, not the man himself. Galen says he stands on the idea that to be a "living soul" one must breath air, which is Wierwille's position. Wordwolf: It is frustrating, isn't it, to try to get a discussion going when some just want to spout platitudes? The purpose of the thread was to find out what God said about abortion; if one believes that the bible, as originally revealed is the inerrant Word of God, and that bible also contains "all that pertains to life and godliness", then surely one could determine what God thought about abortion. Wierwille made some statements about abortion that, whatever his reasons, don't hold up to scrutiny.

I for one don't consider the bible to be a monolithic expression of the will of a god, but as Dan suggested, the expression of various movements within early Christianity

Speaking in tongues as a 5 senses "proof"? Subjectively, from the inside, I can see it, assuming that one could distinguish among inspiration from God and the several possible counterfeits. Objectively, from the outside, tongues is not proof of anything. How could you know if what someone else was speaking was the biblical phenomenon of speaking in tongues, a devilish counterfeit, senseless babbling or someone actually speaking a foreign language? You could eliminate a few of the possibilities if you knew the person really well, but how could you distinguish between a tongue of angels and random sounds? This may be nit picking Tom, but I would define speaking in tongues more broadly, including any speaking of a real or apparent language that the speaker doesn't know. This would encompass non-Christian tongues as well as Christian.I would go further and define tongues within the Christian biblical context as having the atrributes and benefits that you mention. I guess the reason I'm picking the nits here is that speaking in tongues does exist outside Christianity; narrowing the definition to exclude anything non-Christian does not eliminate the real existance of the phenomena outside of "church".

I was really bad at memorizing verses, and generally forgot them immediately after having learned them :(

He taught that in the foundational class, but contradicted himself in the advanced class, in fact, he tells us of a time when he himself counterfeited tongues: when he was in Tulsa and "quoted John 1:1-2 and Genesis 1:1" in Greek and Hebrew respectively.

It seems that the biblical position, as WW so ably demonstrated, is that a baby in the womb, from at least 6 months onward is considered by God to be "a person". What about the whole "Adam breathed in the breath of life and became a living soul" position? Keep in mind that Adam was not born, was never a fetus, so his first moment of personhood was when God breathed life into him. Also note that it says that God breathed into him "the breath of life". Is that different than just sucking in air? Is it literal or figurative? Did God literally blow air in his lungs? Or did God imbue Adam with life, figuratively called "breathing into him the breath of life"? It also seems like we never fully explored the whole issue of different punishments for a woman "losing her fruit" and the killing of a free man. The killing of a slave does not appear to rate capital puinshment either.

Along the lines of the explosion of ex-wayfers on the message boards: much of the literature that was out in the 70's and 80's originated with ministers who had doctrinal beefs with TWI, or circulated what seemed like extreme exaggerations, e.g. the weapons training that was a hunter safety course, or the Way Corps eating out of trash cans. One of the first things that I noticed on Waydale was that many of the stories were very similar to my own experiences. Things that I had chalked up to abberations, or "rogue Way Corps" were part of the nationwide pattern.

Some moron had a gun in his pants and accidently shot himself as he scratched himself http://www.lincolnjournalstar.com/articles...35745606396.txt “It was obvious from looking at (the man’s) pants that the gunshot occurred from inside the pants,” The witness told officers that a handgun the victim had inside his pants accidentally fired when he was scratching himself.

There was a time when I was still "in" where i didn't beleieve anything negative about TWI. There were plenty of pamphlets around in the 70's. Even during the early days of the internet, it was matter of credibility: I believed my "leadership" more than the anonymous words on the computer screen. It was the message boards like Waydale & Grease Spot that made a difference to me; not only could you read the stories, but you could interact with the storytellers, look for inconsistancies, question, debate. That was a big part of the diffeence for me.