johniam

PMosh: quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by johniam: Refiner: There's no dual nature of God. The devil does all the mean stuff. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- However, Jehovah would have been responsible for both using his power to create Lucifer, as well as knowing that he would turn on him, yet doing nothing to prevent that. That makes Jehovah at least an accessory, if not directly responsible. That's like saying I'm directly responsible for anything any of my kids does just because I fathered them.

This is so like TWI. We have a new person in the fellowship who's not saying what we want to hear, so we maul him. Business as usual. I'm laughing as I post this. It isn't intended to be a serious slam on GSC, I just think many of us probably participated in "mauling" new people a time or two.

Girl from Oz: quote:Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. When is a cigar not a cigar? (sounds like something Batman and Robin would find from the Riddler) In general: children are not innocent; they're inexperienced and relatively helpless, but not innocent.

ckeer: You a deadhead?

Exc: God's bank ain't busted yet was a poem written in 1931 by a woman named Alice Moss. It was the middle of the depression and she wrote it to counter the negativity spoken by many at that time.

Lindy: quote:JohnUR I would push for a better explaination. I don't have an answer for every 'what if'. When discussing God you get to a point where you don't care if it doesn't make sense to others. Evolution doesn't make any sense to me yet you believe it. Do you lose sleep because you don't have a better explanation for me? I trow not, heh heh. I still get results from praying. Why should I care if God doesn't make sense to you.

Ex: Remember when your son was so young he couldn't yet speak or reason well? You had to physically make sure he didn't walk in the middle of the street sometimes. You couldn't just say " don't do that". Later, when he could understand more, you could tell him things so he understood. In a similar scenario, people in the OT just didn't readily understand who or what the devil was. Instead of sending a prophet to explain it, God gave the law (do it or don't do it because I say so) just like dealing with a young child. Sometimes there were grave consequences for violating the law, other times there were not. I don't really understand it any better than that.

Refiner: There's no dual nature of God. The devil does all the mean stuff. In the OT not much is said about the devil. The word 'satan' is only used 5 times outside the book of Job and the word 'devil' in the singular is not used at all. Those people had no way to directly fight the devil so they thought God did everything. Jesus directly revealed the devil and through him believers today have power to resist him. The God I believe in loves me and won't do mean things to me no matter how stupid I sometimes am before him. That's God's true nature.

Smurfette: Just watched that movie 'American Beauty'. I saw it before when it was first on video. I thought of it as a comedy; Blockbuster has it in drama. If you haven't seen it, it has two very screwed up marriages living right next door to each other; screwed up for opposite reasons. After seeing it I feel like the most normal person in the world. A biblical marriage is one where God joins the two together. Just because TWI clergy performed the ceremony doesn't mean God DIDN'T join the two together.

Once a new person asked me where VP got the definitions of dechomai and lambano. All I could tell him was a cheerful 'I don't know'. But it got me thinking so I checked Young's and Bullinger's and to this day I know of nothing that substantiates those definitions. Refiner, those words are greek words translated 'receive' in the NT. There are several greek words translated 'receive' in the NT, but VPW used these two in particular in the context of receiving the holy spirit. Receiving (dechomai) the holy spirit means you get it on the inside when you're saved, or born again (the power's there). Receiving (lambano) means you manifest the holy spirit; speak in tongues, etc. I never worried about it because the concept seems plausible to me, but I did have to "take it on faith".

But Tom, what about the division rivalries? If every team played every other team the same number of games, then you'd get 2 three game series' with each team. Cards and Cubs have already played each other 14 times this year (7-7). This rivalry is mild compared to Giants/Dodgers or Yankees/Red Sox. Lot of times Cardinal fans and Cub fans sit right next to each other, but it's still an exciting time when the two teams play.

Belize used to be called British Honduras.

I considered 3 others: Hank Aaron - His rookie year was '54, but the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee after the '52 season I think, so he would have only played in 2 cities. Eddie Matthews - I don't know what his rookie year was, but I grew up rooting for the Detroit Tigers and I clearly remember that at the end of the '67 season, Matthews had 510 career homers; 1 behind Mel Ott. So Matthews played for the Tigers until he hit 2 homers to pass Mel Ott, which took him a little over a week, then promptly retired. Was it he? Joe Adcock - I don't know that much about him, except I remember he was a power hitting 1st baseman who played on the '57 championship team, and played in the '60's too. I can't think of any other candidates.

OK, ready for this? I saw a game on TV in 1963. Cardinals vs Dodgers. Cards batting, Ken Boyer on 2nd base, Charlie James on first. Batter hits a single to right field. 3rd base coach holds Boyer at 3rd, James doesn't see it, so both Boyer and James are standing on 3rd base as a Dodger fielder walks the ball toward the base. All of a sudden each runner breaks for the opposite base and they were both safe. My dad was laughing for a half hour over that. But if the runners had been on second and third and the ball had been hit to either the first or second basemen, and the same thing happened, would that have counted?

Is it Warren Spahn? Or Lou Burdette? Gotta be that team.

I don't know the rules that good, but I thought that the runner has the right to the base path and like LU said that it's possible for, say, a fielder to knock over a runner before actually fielding the ball, or something like that.

Outfield hit which is a vicious line drive fielded on one quick hop so the runner on third scores, but not the runner on second.

Bunt down the 3rd base line in which the fielder interferes with the runner.

I was in a ministry band in STL. One practice the 3rd corps area cordo came. He played a "Jazz Crusaders" tape for us. He didn't play it as the devil's music, he played it as something HE thought was good quality music that we could learn from. One of the guys in our band played cello in the orchestra that did the Athletes of the Spirit tape. One other guy played violin and had orchestra experience, but the rest of us were hippies with guitars, so I can see why the area cordo thought we needed some culture, or something. But this area cordo guy HAD to have heard every bad thing VPW ever said about devil music yet it didn't bother him.

I liked that song 'Who's kidding who'. In fall of '79 there were two or three weeks in a row where Joyful Noise played that song before the teaching on the SNS tape. I liked THAT version better than the one that ended up on Breakthrough's first tape 5 years later. It just seemed to move smoother. I used to sing 'Country in my veins' imitating Mick Jagger's voice. You didn't want to do that around some people. Speaking of bluegrass vs truegrass, I am seriously wondering if the OT book of Lamentations were songs: BLUES SONGS! In 2 Chronicles 35:25 it says the singing men and women spake of Josiah (recently deceased king) in their lamentations...did you catch that? The SINGING men and women. Blues MEANS lament anyway, doesn't it? If you're singing the blues you're lamenting something. I think we had very talented musicians in TWI but they were kept on a short leash sometimes. Shame.

JT: Tom Burke - Many ways I didn't mind 'Beautiful Ohio' ...just not at SIX AM!!!!

The turning point for me was in June of '95. I got kicked out in Oct. of '94 but was still listening to SNS tapes; still hanging on to the idea that TWI was "God's true ministry". Then came tape #1800 God's abundance in the future. It was LCM of course and he used scripture to teach that anyone who wasn't pure before God was going to get this scathing reproof session right after the gathering together which would feature wailing and gnashing of teeth and we were NOT going to like it and the only reward we'd get was for getting born again and it was just AWFUL. At that point I could go one of two ways: fear or no fear. Fear was pulling me to be desperate to get back in TWI's good graces. No fear was pulling me to say 'screw 'em; get on with your life. So I guess the elevated status of TWI leadership was a source of fear. PFAL painted such a great picture of how God loves us and we are so precious to God and 5 sonship rights, etc. but somehow TWI leadership could pull the plug on all of that. Seems absurd now, but not at the time.

I gave up my drug friends (they were pretty much ALL my friends). No serious confrontations with my family. Don't see them a whole lot, but I didn't before TWI anyway, other than my mom. She came to a few fellowships and even went to HQ once, but never took PFAL. I guess I temporarily gave up rock and roll for the word but the "weeds grew back" and I have reassembled my r&r collection. It's really true: rock and roll never forgets.

Goey: Buzz Lightyear?

I may not be able to hide anything from God, but I'll gladly hide stuff from people.