Flay Minion

M&O said it all. The only improvement over that bastard dying would be for him to have never been born at all. I only wish I believed in hell so I could laugh over him burning in it.

If everyone is afraid to talk to someone who has left it keeps the sources of information down to one. Plus if you ~do~ accidentally hear from another source they are automatically classified as liars and possessed so their warnings and logic can be dismissed. It's a very useful tool.

If you can live with someone for five years and forget they ever existed in a day because they're going to the wrong church You just might be in a cult

If you can turn love on and off like a light switch and think that's normal You might be in a cult

I tried, Oldies. And here I am. If I hadn't done it by choice I would have been thrown out anyway. A real God won't tolerate questions or requests for clarification, you know. A real God doesn't apologize or admit when His chosen few are wrong ~ He just changes His point of view to match theirs and woe be to anyone who can't get into the new way of thinking. Why does anyone who worships VPW bother coming around here? There are ofshoots on every street corner who will be happy to cater to your fantasies. On the subject ~ I agree with all who said that any time anyone does something better than TWI it is held up to scorn and there is usually an accusation of "seed" thrown at it. Anybody who can play guitar better than Harve is possessed ~ just to name an example. They just can't admit it's a halfbaked ministry full of mediocre intellects and talents so the excuses and accusations fly like machinegun fire. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

Here's one from another thread: The Way prays for death or misfortune for those who leave. Maybe individuals did this ~ though in my two decades I never saw it ~ but the teaching is against this kind of devilishness. Of course, leaders *did* make sure they pointed out terrible things that happened to people who had left ~ while hiding terrible things that happened to innies ~ but that's a different thing altogether. Not to change the subject but yes ~ it is frustrating to see people exaggerating or manufacturing awful things about TWI in these forums. It makes the truthful statements look suspect ~ and I can personally testify to that from an innie point of view. TWI is ~ I think ~ one of the most evil "christian" organizations that can be encountered ~ as such, I believe it is VERY important to only say things that can be proved or at least verified by honest eyewitnesses. I cannot emphasize this too much ~ I and others stayed for extra years because much of what we saw against TWI was so obviously false that the truth was easily ignored amidst all the noise. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

I have as many bad things to say about TWI as anyone but please let's not make things up. I never ~ never ~ never heard anyone pray for bad things to happen to someone. I have heard teachings against that kind of behavior more than once. Were awful threats made that when people left they would die or have other terrible things happen? Absolutely. Did people take great pleasure in "copouts" dying or having terrible things happen to them? Absolutely. Does TWI threaten you that even if you are a standing wayfer but you don't give enough $$$ you will not be protected by God? Of course. These are bad enough ~ and well worth discussing ~ but let's stick to the truth. How easy would it be to tell innies that the internet is full of lies ~ "Look, they claim that we pray for people to die! How can you believe anything else they say?" I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

I never personally witnessed anything I would call child abuse in the way most people would define it. I never personally witnessed any teachings condoning it either. I remember being taught that the rod was to get the child's attention. But whenever I was at a big meeting I couldn't help but think ~ what if I was a small child in this place where every adult has a spoon in their back pocket and every adult has permission ~ or license ~ to use it on me if I don't behave perfectly? One of the central evils of TWI is the adamant stand taken on its beliefs without any thought or concern about the actual effects upon people ~ even when the evil effects were staring us in the face we found a way to justify them and blame them on the sufferer. We adults had the choice to accept or reject that ~ although I maintain that we were manipulated and even brainwashed into it. The children had no such choice. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

My unsolicited advice ~ I never used to recommend it but these days I say everyone with an internet connection should use a firewall. Windows machines are just sitting ducks without one. If you have a modern machine it shouldn't noticeably drag your resources. And go to http://www.grc.com to check your ports if you haven't already done so. You should be showing stealth on all ports. And use Firefox or Opera instead of Internet Explorer as well. They are faster and more responsive with a dialup anyway so you will kill two birds with one stone. Do those things and use common sense with email and worms and trojans will be a thing of the past. Until the next round of exploits. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

My new icon is the Mozilla Firefox icon, BTW. So you know where I stand. I know a lot of techies who swear by Opera as well and it is friendlier to the non techy. Mozilla.org is the place to get it ~ I think Opera.com is where Opera is but Download.com has it if that's wrong. Mozilla has a mail client called Thunderbird that is similar to OE. It is very nice but if you use hotmail you have to use hotmail popper or something similar and configure it. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

Really ~ Using Opera or Mozilla will solve most of your problems that arise from surfing to malicious sites. There are new problems that Internet Explorer has that are potentially devastating if you fall for some new tricks that Mozilla and Opera are impervious to. Watch out for things like Crazybrowser and Slimbrowser and Avant Browser ~ they have nice added features to mimic the things Mozilla and Opera do but they are just IE additions. They do improve IE for the times you can't live without it and are recommended but they are NOT different browsers. Internet Explorer is just dead ~ there are too many thieves and scum working on ways to use it to screw you to make it even remotely safe. Use it for broken sites but make Mozilla or Opera your default. After you use it for a few days you will wonder why you ever used IE. And I am a MSFT fan as well ~ there's just no hope for IE as it now stands. Maybe the version with Longhorn will be different. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

Anything that Loy introduced could never have been plagiarized. Who else in the world would have said that crap in the first place? At least most of docvic's junk had a semblance of logic and substance to it if you didn't look too hard. When I left, the word from our local corpse was that everything Loy taught was accurate. It was just the heart behind it that was lacking. They said the new classes will not refute any of his BS. At least it helped me make my decision. But no, I think his spew was ~ for lack of a better word ~ original. And I don't think he claimed that he originated the Sphinx nonsense. In fact, I think I recall him using the illustration from Bullinger's book at a STS or in a class ~ or something I was sleeping through. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out. [This message was edited by Flay Minion on February 12, 2004 at 20:59.]

It's well reasoned arguments like yours that must be tickling the BOD to death today. As blind as a Wayfer is, we can be equally blind in our own way. Have a nice day. A good way to lose a battle is to ascribe stupidity to your enemy. These are not stupid people we are dealing with and they will not make decisions that will so obviously expose their evilness to the faithful. This decision was well thought out, you can be sure of it. They can throw you and I around like a used washrag but this is not you are I we are discussing here. And I still believe putting Mrs. Wierwille where she is was the best decision unless someone has any argument otherwise besides kneejerk emotional "TWI is always wrong no matter what" reactions. Again ~ how stupid do we think they are? I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

Few people have less respect for TWI and its doctrine and manipulative ways than me. However, I still believe that misguided as they may be, they believe that what they are doing is right. I think Platig is sincere in what he is saying ~ whether I agree or not I haven't decided and can't since I have no personal knowledge of any of this ~ and I don't believe that the personal attacks and "spin" that we are performing here makes a very good case for "our" points of view. If I were an impartial observer I would take Platig's side 100%. Even as a very partial observer I believe that he believes what he is saying is true. I believe that the Way is a dangerous organization and want to see it disappear as much as anyone and more than most but I have to believe that in this case they have done what they should do. Their doctrine is dangerous and twisted and illogical but these are not conspiratorial monsters hiding in a dark basement plotting how to destroy lives. They are sincere in their beliefs and their actions reflect their beliefs. I think this is a big score on TWI's side and we should return to attacking where we have more solid footing. I think Mrs. Wierwille is in the best hands she can be in and that the anti-TWI community is giving itself a huge black eye today. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

Oops. I responded on the other thread with the link to Gibson's site. Should have read this first. He and you explain it better than I could. I'm amazed that no one has really taken advantage of this flaw yet to cause problems. I think SP1 changes the default on this to "disabled" but this could be faulty memory. I see Gibson also has added a utility to disable the Messenger service and explains why it's not the same thing as MSN messenger and is good to disable. This takes the place of that command line utility I posted on the other thread. The guy may come across as a little paranoid at times but he's good at what he does and the paranoia is based on reality. I like to have people go to his site and run the security test. They usually freak out when they find that their security looks like Swiss cheese but are pleased to find how easy it is to fix. Thanks, John. More people need to know about this stuff before the next MSBlaster stupidity comes up. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it [This message was edited by Flay Minion on September 06, 2003 at 10:35.]