Raf

They're here. They're rejection threads. Get used to them.

Tom, My statement in that post was not in answer to your question. It was a direct answer to excy's question, which was something along the lines of "how do you know he's posting to get a reaction?" Your question was... I wish you could explain it a little... if you can... personally, I don't see any difference in whether or not there's an "outsider" involved (except they don't carry our baggage)... To me it's just two ex-Christians, one that was TWI one that wasn't. I placed the relevant part of my original post in bold. I don't know how to answer that question. I feel the answer, but can't articulate it. That's why I haven't answered it. It's a lot easier to be academic about it and say Refiner has a right to post here on any topic he chooses, within the same bounds as any other poster. But feelings, emotions, reactions: those are more difficult for me to put into words. I don't like it when Sudo or George attack or insult a faith I hold dear, but they're ex-TWI and this is an ex-TWI board. I don't like it when Refiner attacks or insults a faith I hold dear, but he's... well, he's not ex-TWI. My heart has to jump through another hoop to help me deal with it. He's not ex-TWI but people who are ex-TWI may agree with him or at least be interested in his comments on the subject. He has the right to post. I should add that I have no problem with George or Sudo. I wish their beliefs were different, but they probably wish my beliefs were different, so we're even. I don't know if that does enough to clarify it, but my bottom line on this is that this is not a Christian forum and Refiner has the right to post on subjects he thinks are of interest to people who are ex-TWI. Refiner, You said you wanted my opinion on the following: Let's put it this way: if GSCafe became overrun with people who never had anything to do with TWI, then what would its point be? It would be just another Web community, like Yahoo or something. We have a common experience that binds us, and this board allows us to expand on that. But you and Priscilla are just two people. I don't see the harm, and wouldn't see the harm unless the non-TWI element became so pervasive that it threatened the purpose of this site. Who gets to decide? Well, I don't know. The only thing I know with certainty is that it's not my call. I welcome your presence here, as I welcome Priscilla's. I'm sorry that this happened, because I consider Dot a friend. I don't know if this answers your question, even partially. I appreciate your respect for my opinion, but I really have to repeat, it's not my call.

That was DeNiro

Hey! People! The Godfather died. Show some respect!

DUDE! Happy Birthday!

BRANDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Sorry I never called you Godfather. RIP

Alice's Restaurant, by Mike Ok, I'm kidding about that... But I'm not kidding that this is the entire song. Nothing has been added to it ('ceptin the title). (and the singer's name). (and this intro). Alice's Restaurant By Arlo Guthrie This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time. We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump. Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage. We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down. That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage." After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer's station. Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car." And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography. After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?" Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about. Came to talk about the draft. They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604." And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy." Didn't feel too good about it. Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever go to court?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!" And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said. "Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna- know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing- you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting- officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words: ("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?") I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington." And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar. With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes. You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired. So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling. We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing. All right now. You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Excepting Alice You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Da da da da da da da dum At Alice's Restaurant

My sincerest apologies. when I assume, you have nothing to do with it, I just make anass of me. :)-->

Not my call.

Right. That's what I'm saying. I am ALSO saying that some people's reaction might be... bothered. Dot was bothered by this, as were some of the other Christians. Speaking only for myself, I was bothered but I concede that this forum is open for Refiner to voice whatever opinion he'd like to voice, even if (shudder) I don't like it. I'm not the judge who gets to decide what opinion gets posted, or who's entitled to post it. This is not a Christian forum.

As a grammar professor, I am obliged to notify you that you have technically placed me back in TWI. An invitation I must happily decline. :)-->

Sorry I'm being so testy.

what is the belief system "we" hold dear ?and we love our bibles too ? -- sometimes i don't get how, your being in the way for, what was it, less than a year ? and you feel this extwi loyalty ..... i don't know quite how to explain (or rather, understand) that . Excy, read the rest of my post before quoting it out of context and trying to make me sound like I was speaking for you. I was speaking as a Christian and trying to put voice to what other Christians feel, specifically those who are bothered by this thread. But I still think this thread should be here. And I was in an offshoot for almost a decade, all right? Do I have your permission to be ex-TWI now?

Do I really have to justify my belief that people start threads to see what the reaction will be? Seeking reaction. There's nothing wrong with seeking reactions.

Hmm. Is there a "Why I Reject Alice" thread in our future?

My opinion is only stupid people reject Christ. That's just my opinion. I'm not trying to get you to accept Christ. I'm just expressing my opinion, don't you know. (For those reading: I don't really feel that way. I'm just making a point).

That's a real anything-goes type forum. Not for the faint of heart. Edit note: I was thinking of a different forum...Refiner corrects me later... Here's another one, more Christian than not, and FAR more tame. But FAR fewer members.

No, that wasn't directed at me personally at all. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Go buy some tact.

It's called having an opinion.

Listen, I'm, getting a little tired of your constant condescension toward me, so stuff it already, k? I defend your right to post here because someone else challenged it. I still defend your right to post here whether you can grasp that simple concept or not. A'ight?

Yes, it is a surprise. You're one of a tiny, tiny number of people who fit that description, and between Waydale (the predecessor of this site) and the Cafe, we've been around for about five years now. (There was a predecessor to Waydale, but I wasn't there so can't speak for it). Bottom line: most people don't find us unless they're actually looking for info on The Way International. And not a whole lot of people have ever even HEARD of The Way International. So yes, it IS a surprise.

I don't think there's an official policy, Refiner. If you want to convince me there's no God, have at it. If I want to convince you there is one, I get the same privilege. The only policy I know of is respect, and as you can see, it's sometimes, umm, loosely enforced. Sometimes the Christians and the agnostic/atheists will square off with each other. I usually choose not to engage in that. Most often, the Christians will discuss their differences and either try to come to an agreement or (more often) let the argument peter out. On occasion an agnostic will step into one of these discussions and tweak us about how superstitious we're being, but they mostly give us our space. Best as I can tell, you did not violate any policy. Whether your thread is distasteful is up to the individual reader. Dot obviously had enough. I'm not too nuts about it either, but my reaction was more lazy-fare (or something). Others think there was nothing at all distasteful about it. Everyone here was once a Christian. Some of us have held onto that and, speaking for myself, it hurts me to see people who once shared our faith now mock it or openly reject it. It's not easy, but it's also not my call. I'm sure other Christians here feel the same way. It's hard enough to see ex-TWI people rejecting Christ. It's a little harder, and I don't quite know how to explain it, to see someone with no TWI background come in here and, just to see what the reaction will be, attack a belief system we hold dear. (P.S. Changing the thread title didn't help. We love our Bibles, too). As for editing: After a while, no one edits an old post because we don't expect it to be read. Sometimes we'll edit an old post to remove something we regret having said. It may make the responses look silly, but [a] people can tell what happened and by then no one's reading those posts anyway.

What can I tell you that's different from what you've already heard? Are there magic words I can utter to convince you that there is a God who loves you and wants you to have fellowship with Him? You find that illogical? Well, nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise. My point was not whether Refiner was right or wrong. My point (now) is that it's disingenuous to say belief in Christ is illogical but I'm not trying to get anyone to reject Christ. You are. Which is fine. That's your right. Just own up to it. I repeat: don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Actually, yes he is. To quote Judge Judy (pre-TV), don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. He says it's logical to reject Christ. So if you accept him, you're not logical. Fine, that's his opinion and he's entitled. And maybe he didn't explicitly ask anyone to adopt his belief, but he doesn't have to. Not when he names the thread "Why I reject Christ" and states that it's logical to do so. Oh come on, I have to OWN the site to defend your right to post here? Is that how things work in Oz? Come back to Kansas, will ya?

Here, I'll make it easy for you: