OldSkool

1 hour ago, Mike said:

It is a mistake to think that when a person makes a choice, that the choice must automatically be a FREE choice.  It could be a FORCED choice.  We don't have the ability to sort those out when we observe others.  It is very difficult (sometimes impossible) to sort that out just for ourselves.

Hi! Respectfully, this may be a personal challenge you face, or perhaps you know others who are challenged in thie regard and Im not discounting that nor denying the potential validity. However, it's not particularly difficult to sort out elements that affect our decision making abilities that God gave. A forced choice makes free will no less free...it simply means the will of another was impossed and had to be followed...such as is life...

I make the decicion to get up and goto work...when Im at work I am doing my employer's will but that still happens by my consent. Obviously there are times when people are left with little choice and have to do what someone else requires...thats just life...but barring extreme circumstances its not that difficult to sort out a matter to the point of understanding which choice is best..bussinessmen do that sort of thing all the time...

6 minutes ago, Mike said:

YES !    YES !    YES !

We start out having only a very minor influence on our behavior, but with persistence that self-influence can grow.

Conversely, we could start out having a major influence on our behaviour and we would still have free will.

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Whoever wins the trophy in sports, keeps the trophy, except in hockey.

War != Competition...dude..I'm not doing this with you. Later.

On 7/11/2023 at 1:34 PM, Mike said:

We are in a competition FOR KEEPS, and there is no blowing it off.

 

Competitions arent for keeps...thats called a war..

2 hours ago, Mike said:

Breaking away from this mechanical norm, over to a different mechanical norm, is done in only in TINY increments called learning. 

Sounds like baby steps used in indoctrination to me..

12 hours ago, Rocky said:

 

Hands down. Great video, have watched several on this topic and changed my diet.

22 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

The lake of fire is just a figger of speech illustrating with mathematical exactness the literal meaning, according to usage, of the scene I described.

 

Lo Shantu Deeshy malatov loktail....

25 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

The white horse will be saddled with bags filled with the collaterals. Jesus will teach from PFAL. And the music of AOS will provide the soundtrack.

And I'll happily go swimming in the lake of fire....

2 hours ago, Mike said:

 

Yes, the VAST MAJORITY of the ancient peoples that produced the prophets of God, were told by those same prophets that "their beliefs about the origin, nature, and purpose of the world and humanity ..." were all screwed up, and that they needed to come back to the minority point of view, which is God's Truth.

Agreed. 

2 hours ago, waysider said:

Well, ya know, it's spirchal, so it's more like Astroboy.

Go! Go! Go!  Astroboy!

 

 

Dude, thatnks for posting that...I love old cartoons like this one..too funny!

34 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Ewww! Talk about brainwashing! 

Right!! Creeepy no? And we feed our children this sor of thing....

4 hours ago, chockfull said:

 Now there’s a man who truly understands the robot dance.  
 

Is it irony that the topic is “renewed mind” while the motion depicts a brainwashed state?

Truly, truly stated....but wait...I found robot boy's newst project....I was inresidence with him...not a bad guy...terribly conceited but otherwise, decent folks.

12 hours ago, Logicisgreatstuff said:

I recently heard something to this effect:

Whenever someone mentions Strong's Concordance, it strongly suggests they don't understand Greek or Hebrew.

Update No shade to amateur or professional students of texts who use this resource for legitimate purposes! This comment was in reference to the (many) people on the internet who use it to misinform their audiences for political or other reasons.

Definately a relevant point. Folks in TWI, and I was no exception, love cherry picking definitions from these resources to suit their narrative. 

Just rewatched part of the video where craig was teaching his fellowship how to fight deebil spurts...that production is awful....the only thing ?

yep...

yoiu guessed it

2 hours ago, Rocky said:

Good morning to you too, kind sir. 

This is just one of the influences. 

 

Great video. Scripts. Thats a great way to state it. Not as conspiratorial as conditioning and definately commumicates learned behaviors, behavorial/societal expectations...etc. Thanks!

8 minutes ago, So_crates said:

I agree. Just because something influences us doesn't prove a lack of free will. We still have a choice of whether we bend with the influence or not.

But, you ask, what if we're unaware of the influence. Well, that doesn't reflect on free will. It reflects on the influencer. Your ability to act or not act remains, it's just been bypassed.

Another reason educating yourself is so important.

Very well said, thx.

9 hours ago, Rocky said:

Hmmmm.... oh, really? 

 Morning. I think our freewill is influenced by other entities or events, etc. I dont feel that submission makes free will any less free.

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

That's not the question. Of course you have SOME DEGREE of free will. But do you have 100 percent, unqualified free will?

Do you ever do anything, take any actions, make any decisions, contrary to what you wanted to do?

Also, on the tangential topic of whether Victor Wierwille conned you (and me) and thousands of others, 

I recommend this newly released book. Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It. You might be able to find it in your local public library.

Yes, that's my position. Besides involuntary bodily functions my freewill is my freewill...whoa was that circular reasoning...hehe. but yes, that's what I believe.

5 hours ago, waysider said:

Are you aware that brimstones can be burned? Is it possible that, over time, people simply collected what was in the open and readily available to use as a source of heat? I don't know that to be the case but it certainly falls within the realm of possibility.

Whatever is clever. I guess it could be anything except what scripture actually says it is: God destroyed those cites and the evidence is in plain sight. I posted the vid for these types of discussions though. Good stuff.

By choosing not to participate in this discussion I effectively proven to myself that I do indeed have freewill.

1 hour ago, waysider said:

Here's some information regarding meteor air bursts. (Bolides) The sulfur balls found at S & G are consistent with what is known about airburst debris.

As to the location of debris: No one really knows with pinpoint accuracy exactly where the cities stood. We do know they existed, though, because there is evidence of a vast civilization of possibly tens of thousands that was almost instantly destroyed.

As a side note: Science has ruled out both seismic and volcanic activity as a cause.

There's distinct groupings of ashed structures where the cities stood...exact location is attainable because u can see the remains if the ash structures. So a meoteor bursting over head still wouldn't account for no sulphur balls in between the cities. And they were spread out somewhat.

4 hours ago, WordWolf said:

"Anyway, still trying to figure out which athletic sports have any of the moves shown in AOS - if you know of any, please enlighten me."

Obviously, the blocks and kicks (and unassigned strikes) were taken from martial arts.  Possibly the only thing lcm added to the moves was the thing they used to represent speaking in tongues-  some sort of wind-sprints used in US football practice.  Whereas the other 8 moves representing manifestations had some sort of practical aspect- a block, an evasion, a strike-  this was the only one that, by itself, actually did nothing whatsoever. (In hindsight, it was accidentally a perfect symbol of what we were told was "speaking in tongues", but that's another subject and you can contact me about that.)   

In whatever guidebook I read at the time, it said the foot-stomping thing in that move was supposed to represent "the energizing of the holy spirit."  So, in later moves, when people did that foot-stomping thing, it was supposed to represent people doing SIT. 

At the time, I wanted to complain about what moves were assigned to what.  In particular, "word of knowledge" - divine revelation of information-  and "word of wisdom" - divine revelation of practical application communicated.   In AOS, WOK was represented by a block, and WOW was represented by an evasion.  Personally, I thought it should have been the other way around-  word of knowledge allowing entire events or actions to be bypassed (an evasion)  and word of wisdom being a direct interception of information and an immediate redirection of thought- a block.   Under the circumstances, it's hardly worth mentioning compared to all the actual errors, ripping off a movie wholesale,  rewriting Scripture to pretend it said something it did not (Ephesians 6:10-17 in particular), but I thought it was worth mentioning as a point of interest.  Also, lcm had a sequel planned. The first production carried forward through "the Gathering Together" all the way to the "New Heaven and New Earth" in Revelation 21.  What was left to do in a second production?     (When I mentioned that a bit later, Raf suggested a sequel could have been used to try to correct all the errors of the first one.)

Which leads to the obvious, unfortunate truth that martindale didn't really know just what in the actueal heck he was talking about.

6 hours ago, waysider said:

When a meteor strikes the earth, it leave a crater at the point of impact. There is no crater at Sodom and Gomorrah. That's because the surface wasn't struck by a meteor. It exploded before it reached the surface, probably 2 or 3 miles above the earth. When this happens it causes what's called a cosmic airburst. On average, these happen about once every thousand years, though as recently as 1908 a rather large one occurred in Siberia. Dozens of small meteors enter our atmosphere every day. Most burn up in the atmosphere, but a small percentage of them make it all the way to Earth's surface.

Could be...but that doesnt explain how there are no sulpher "balls" in between the former cities but only where the former cities stood before being reduced to ashes.

Throwing this out here for discussion....personally, I really enjoyed this vid so here ya go...

6 hours ago, WordWolf said:

Certainly, some of the locals knew vpw's reputation growing up- he was a showoff, a braggart, and something of a bully.   He used to zoom his motorcycle around, trying to get attention,  All indications are that his own dad had a reputation for being mean and something of a bully as well (big surprise there, right?)    When vpw said he wanted to go into ministry, NOBODY thought it was a good idea, starting with his Dad, and the locals certainly didn't think he had the right character for the job, so they didn't take him very seriously.   Small wonder his first church was such a drive away from where he grew up (when they decided to move things back to the farm, he lost some of his church because it was too far to travel regularly for services.)    During the twi era, vpw didn't exactly work hard making friends of the locals, either. When one neighbor complained of a racket, vpw told the noisemakers to make MORE noise, not less. I doubt that was an isolated incident.

In retrospect all of the warning signs were there from the beginning regarding VPW's predatorial and sordid nature.