Raf

That was actually a copy of an earlier post.

The Chef killing episode of South Park was an absolute riot. If I'm not mistaken, all of Chef's dialogue consisted of clips from previous episodes. Hayes decided to leave the show because of its intolerance toward religion. Anyone who has watched the show from the beginning knows that it's poked fun at religion since day one (Jesus v. Santa, anyone?), so Hayes' statement was ridiculous on its face. He obviously left because they attacked his sacred cow. P.S. I believe the "Tom Cruise applied pressure on Viacom" explanation has been denied by all involved, for whatever that's worth. (Actually, Cruise's demand was supposed to be that the Scientology episode never be aired again).

Oh boy, here we go again... Listen my children and you shall hear The origin of THE thread we all revere 'Twas late one night, years ago, three I remember it well, for it happened to me. Another forum once there was Two, in fact, and that's because One was Waydale, and many were blessed While the other was run by CES. But one dark night, the latter fell. And I came to Waydale, for all to tell. "THE CES THREAD IS GONE" was the subject line. "Well, it seems..." and the rest is lost to time. And something happened that fateful night. The computers hiccupped. It didn't come out right. For one word each, in subject and message Survived this bizarre rite of passage. THE was the subject, and none understood. WELL was the message. Read the rest? No one could. I tried to explain. Believe me, I tried. But to my astonishment, people replied. First one responded. Then two, then more. Next time I counted, they'd passed 94. Soon there were thousands. It's true, have no doubt. It got so bad Waydale's host was told "cut it out." So THE was shut down. No choice. They had to. But no, never fear, for then there was THE 2. With this reincarnation, a legend was born. But then, from Waydale, we all were torn. So we said farewell. Not much more to say. And THE was moved to the Greasespot Cafe. There, THE thrived, with a life of its own. Until the Cafe was moved to its present home. I'd laugh, read along, but mostly I'd sigh. Now and then I'd remark, "It ... just ... won't ... die..." But powerless I am, by now this you know. All I can do is watch, watch it grow. The rest you can learn on the preceding pages. I suspect that the THE will survive through the ages. So, glad that you asked, and now you can see The ballad of a thread, a thread called THE.

I have not looked it up lately, but didn't Jesus say something along the lines of "do as they say, not as they do" when it comes to the Pharisees? I really have almost no problem listening to Wierwille and appreciating what he taught without allowing my opinion of his character to get in the way. But I can easily understand how others would not share my feelings on that matter. My deal is, don't make Wierwille the reference point. And if you so distrust his legacy that you can't or won't separate man from message, then apply your free thinking to the Bible itself and/or to other teachers whose characters you don't know well enough to distrust. :) If you knew my sins, you wouldn't trust what I have to say either. ;)

It's focused on you because your thesis has been discredited. The only thing left to discuss is your refusal to admit it. So was the Challenger launch. If you would just look a little closer, ask real questions that call your assumptions into question, you'll finally be able to take off instead of exploding in mid-air. Your policy is one of hypocrisy. And the reason we don't get into the content of the books on these threads is that your thesis denies the content of the books and twists them to say the very opposite of what they are saying, as has been demonstrated here many times.

John, Seriously, man, lay off the Kool-Aid. You personally witnessed Wierwille lying, and you adapt to accept the lie rather than the fact that someone was cold-busted? Listen to the lie: "It must have been an angel." He never considered that he would get confronted on that story, and had to concoct something quick. Have you ever been in a blizzard? Are we expected to believe that Wierwille called a whole bunch of angels but never bothered to look out the dang window? I get on the phone to confirm my flight and the person on the other end says the city was snowed in, I look out the window. It's instinct. I dare you not do it. You can't. You are compelled to look out the window. Wierwille would have us believe he was hoodwinked by God's holy angels to think there was a blizzard in Tulsa. To paraphrase Chris Rock: to believe that Wierwille told the truth about 1942, hey that's faith. But to think that Wierwille told the truth about angels lying to him and that he was too dense to look out a window to see that, indeed, it was not snowing, that's just plain gullibility! By the way, notice that Wierwille did not respond: "you must have calculated the wrong date. There was a blizzard. Check the records for blizzards in Tulsa, then cross check the conferences that were held on that date. That would be the one I was at." Nope: he knew there was no snowstorm, thus knew he was lying when he said earlier that there was. Why didn't the angels just tell him "God says stay put"? He'll call God's angels liars before admitting that he was busted.

Mark, I would have let your post stand. I could easily be wrong about how Greek grammar works. :)

You can bet if VPW had told HC that PFAL was God-breathed, Mike would latch onto that as further proof of his position. I can't imagine anything ambiguous about a conversation with VPW concerning whether or not the PFAL books are God-breathed. "I didn't write the book." Please. We know he didn't write the book. Stiles did. And Bullinger, and Kenyon, and... :)

The REAL "THE."

It's not that HCW would mind. It's that it would take a lot of work to find this post right here.

Dangerously close? That's like saying Brokeback Mountain came dangerously close to being about gays. A thesis paper would be a good idea, but he'd never do it for the same reason Satan never wrote a book: he would have to commit himself to its contents. Dooj: I do not have a quote, but note that Mike didn't challenge the fact. He knows my citation is genuine; he just doesn't accept it because to do so would effectively end his thesis. He's essentially calling someone a liar. The person I'm referring to hasn't posted in a while. His handle was HCW.

I don't know if Greek works the same way, but in English, a subject and "object" are both in the same case IF the verb is what is known as a linking verb. Linking verbs are neither transitive nor intransitive: they simply exist. It tells you that the subject isn't actually doing anything; it's being something. "To be" is the classic linking verb. For example, I knock on your door and you ask: "Who is it?" Grammatically, the correct answer is: "It is I." The subject is "It." The linking verb is "is." The "object" is "I," but it is in the subjective case, not the objective (which would be "me"). When a noun follows a linking verb, it's in the subjective case and is referred to as a "predicate nominative." All of which is to say I would expect both nouns to be in the nominative case when the verb in question is a linking verb. In other words, Mark, your exposition on "The Word was God" may not quite prove anything, except the existence of grammar (assuming Greek grammar works the same as English in this case). We would not expect "God" to be in the dative case, because that would be poor grammar. The shorter answer is that the word "pros" sometimes means exactly what Wierwille said it means, and it sometimes means other things.

George, Can you think of any other people at that meeting who can confirm that story? I mean, I'm kind of in shock about it. Not quite denial, but it would be interesting to get some corroboration, you know?

Heaven forbid!

Mike, When Wierwille said "I didn't write the book," he was referring to "The Cat in the Hat" and "Anna Karenina." He was not referring to the PFAL series. You are so adept at twisting words that Wierwille could say the sky is blue, not brown, blonde or periwinkle, and you would argue that the sky is fuschia because fuschia is not brown, blonde or periwinkle.

HCW: Hey, Doc. Are your works God-breathed? VPW: No. Very subtle. The people closest to Jesus, who MADE the statement in Matthew 13:57, stood by his claims. True, family members wavered. I'm sure some friends did too. But 11 of the 12 all declared him Messiah after his death and resurrection. Fast forward to Wierwille: the people closest to him all, to a person, say your claim is false. It takes a few degrees of separation to arrive at your particular delusion, and no one, not even Wierwille himself can talk you out of it. Waste of life. And a waste of potential Christian service.

Umm, Mike, the difference is this: None of us places any weight on what "Dr." said in private. So if he told you those things, so what? But YOU do place weight on what he said in private (and you're lying through your teeth if you say otherwise). I guarantee that if VPW told you in private that you were on the right track, you'd suddenly talk about how important and vital his private communications were. Wierwille did not believe what you're saying about PFAL. How do we know this? 1. None of the people closest to him testifies he felt that way. 2. A credible poster had a specific conversation with him about it, and Wierwille made his position clear. You're deluded, Mike. You're wasting your time and, sad to say, your life.

Oh.

So the established fact that Wierwille did not believe his written works to be what Mike considers them to be, and that he expressed this view to others who directly asked him about it, is not valid to dismiss Mike's thesis. Funny. Not even VPW agreed with Mike's thesis.

Only if you severely misinterpret the tradition. Not once did the U.S. invite Olympic Gold Medalists from the USSR to the White House. Or from most other countries. They invite the champions of American competitions, or American winners of international competitions. Surely there are exceptions. But generally, unless Cuba becomes a state... P.S. If you really want this to be about baseball, then talk about baseball. "Combat operations in Iraq have ceased" has nothing to do with baseball. it has to do with you hating Bush, which is your prerogative, but it's somewhat disingenuous to turn around and say "now, now, let's keep this about baseball..."

Whoops! Sorry, I mistakenly thought this was the sports forum for a second.

Why doesn't he just throw the soap out?

The only thing God ever said to VP was "Knock it off!" :)

This would be incorrect reasoning. Even if every single thing Christ did was God-breathed, doesn't mean we need to know it. Many of Christ's healings, undoubtedly God-breathed, were truncated and "glossed over" in the gospels, not because they were not God-breathed, but because the details weren't a part of what we need to know. VPW did not write "every word I write is true"; he wrote "every word I write to you is true," which means the discussion of his laundry list is not relevant. I do not believe every word VPW wrote in the relevant books is true, though I do believe we can find a great deal of truth in them (others may heartily disagree).