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You can't go beyond what you are taught


Ham
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Another murky thought on a Thursday morning..

"You can't go beyond what you are taught".

The "teacher" boldly declared this little bit of supposedly self apparent wisdom, and then came:

how you are supposed to think, how you are supposed to read, what you are supposed to say.

I won't argue the validity of any specific concept here, but:

1. We were taught to approach the bible, as originally given, as being God-breathed, and as such "perfect".

2. We were taught to change OUR THINKING such that it agrees with the bible.

No room for thought, no room for opinion.

Doesn't that simply replace one intellectual straight jacket for another, one more frame of mind that a person can't "go beyond"?

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< wide-eyed-innocent-stare > < sarcasm >

But..but..but...

Mr.Ham...it was true! I mean, you certainly couldn't go beyond what you were taught in twi...you weren't even allowed to look at other books, remember? In fact, if you did, and you proposed alternate theories, you were chastised at the very least! < /wide-eyed-innocent-stare > < /sarcasm >

Seriously, though...that phrase always struck me as being surface-true and, as Wanderer says, something that "goes flat" upon closer scrutiny.

It is, however, one of the phrases that sticks in my mind and every time I hear it in another context, I wince.

~QT

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there's nothing new under the sun and great ideas can't come from our minds but the god of this world.

all work and no play means you obey which makes you a good young believer, which means you'll live long on the earth. . .or does it just feel longer?

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I'm not arguing the validity of the concept.. it's just, I think it was used to replace one set of limitations with another.

One set of assumptions for another.

Edited by Mr. Hammeroni
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when a child learns to crawl, is it because he/she was taught to crawl?

When we learn about the opposite sex, is teaching necessary to make a baby?

Do we not naturally go beyond what we've been taught? Isn't teaching just an aid to learning? Occasionaly, doesn't the student become the master? Did someone teach Einstein relativity and Newton about gravity?

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That is a good point. Einstein and a few others stepped beyond a few assumptions that their predecessors held to.

Before Einstein and a few others, they thought they knew everything there was to be known about physics, that they only needed to polish it up a little bit.

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Depends on who does the teaching, doesn't it?

It's Christ in you and HE does the teaching. Limitless.

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what?

space is big. atoms are small. eternity is a long time.

yes He walks and talks with us. Yes He works through others.

But does He desire that we put concepts together without his constant input? Couldn't we glorify Him greater when we come to our own conclusion about things?

or what are you saying?

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To me this very statement epitomizes the bottom line of what was wrong with TWI.

My niece sang me a song when she was five. It was called the Button Factory. Complete with hand motions. “Turn that knob with the left hand.” Problem A: Insert verse or collateral into Slot B. Didn’t work? Go back to the Blue Book. You’re not believing. Always knobs to turn.

TWI is just a bunch of mental gymnastics.

We had KNOWLEDGE no one else had. Ours was rightly divided. It was accurate. We were proud of it. We wanted to save the world with it. We could go beyond everyone else because we had it. We thought we were beyond them. We were God’s elite. We weren’t destroyed. We kept paying big money to go to classes we couldn’t afford. Can’t miss out on the new knowledge. And if you didn’t have the money you weren’t believing.

Puke. Puke. Puke.

It was performance based because it was knowledge based. No other way it could go from there.

And the statement assumes no one can learn anything on their own. Huh?

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Welcome, another spot!

Yes, I think that was the thought, couldn't learn anything new on your own. I remember the advanced class teaching took it further- only way you could learn anything "new" would have to be by revelation.

That's kinda narrow minded, in my opinion.

People asked Einstein what made him so "special".. his answer was something like most of it was hard work..

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Something struck me funny.....

The first person to discover/learn/whatever how to start a fire. Who taught him? How about the first person to make bread or pasta? The light bulb. Etc.

Sort of a chicken and the egg thing.

If the only way you could know something is if you're taught first, then no one would know anything because someone had to get there first to teach the other, but then who taught them??? Just, just can't get to the beginning! I think that's called circular reasoning.... :rolleyes:

The real meaning of the statement: You can't know anything unless I teach you. You can't go very far without me.

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So you can't go beyond what you are taught.

Perhaps it is a suggestion. Maybe puts the thought in your mind that maybe sometimes you shouldn't? Sort of gives you a limitation, doesn't it? Or limits God? Implies you just have to have a teacher, now, doesn't it. Just write the teacher...

Tell ya what... I think Old Abe Lincoln went farther without teaching than anybody I know of.

He was just one of the great self-taught men in American history.

People, we just gotta stop thinking inside that TWI-box...

Edited by Catcup
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"You can't go beyond what you are taught."

Actually a pretty catchy phrase if you simply substitute the word "taught" with the phrase "allowed to consider."

Hence: "You can't go beyond what you are allowed to consider."

Not trying to TEACH anything here, just offering that up for "CONSIDERATION".

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It becomes harder and harder for me to even consider that this whole thing was not deviously planned from the beginning. The foundational teachings on private interpretation, the fall of man, law of believing and others were all used to discourage questioning and considering anything else. To further this there were statements like this one of "you can't go farther than what you are taught" and one used a lot in the ninties and probably still today "don't reinvent the wheel." In other words, don't go re-researching our foundational TRUTHS, we already did that for you.

Just think of all the bruises we would have on our bums if people like Robert Thompson and John Dunlop had listened to the naysayers saying "don't reinvent the wheel." They forever changed the wheel by making inflatable tires, improving both comfort and saftey. I thank them from the bottom of my bottom. TWI on the other hand....a major pain the arse.

Edited by lindyhopper
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Below are nine dots arranged in a set of three rows. Your challenge is to draw four straight lines which go through the middle of all of the dots without taking the pencil off the paper. If you were using a pencil, you must start from any position and draw the lines one after the other without taking your pencil off the page. Each line starts where the last line finishes.

Try this now by quickly drawing nine dots on a piece of paper and have a go with a pencil. Place your pencil somewhere, draw four straight lines without taking your pencil off the page. Each line must start where the last line finished.

newninedotspuzzle.gif

(answer) ---

newninedots.gif

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Frank

You have to think outside the box
"You can't go beyond what you are allowed to consider."

Example: JC confronting the Pharisees.

Conclusion: It's more than okay to think outside the box (especially the TWI box) and you definitely have to consider the junk TWI the Pharisees spouted out.

If in doubt, engage brain.

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If you can't go beyond what you are taught, then you can't surpass or contradict the man in charge who then was VP. There fore all of us were regulated and contained to stay within the limited knowledge of VP, and then only what he cared to share.

Only machines and computers can't go beyond what they were programmed for.

Humans can most certainly go beyond what their finite teachers can share.

Our five senses and our critical thinking ability were given to us to explore and learn and teach ourselves about our world. Fear those who would take away the validity of that. Or at least, run like hell from them.

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"You can't go beyond what you are taught"
Utter and complete bullshlt to establish the teacher as an authority figure. Also a subtle attempt to depreciate the art and science of pure research. I don't know why my brain wasn't screeming BS everytime I heard it in PFAL.

A smart dog can go way beyond what it's taught.

I rest my case.

Only machines and computers can't go beyond what they were programmed for.

At the present time, and even then it's somewhat debateable.

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So who taught VP? Didn't he claim to go beyond what he was taught (threw all his books away)? Didn't even acknowledge his own teachers, the ones whose work he plagiarized. Then God showed him an invisible snowstorm and promised to teach him (etc etc).

And God can't teach us directly?

If I can't go further than him - I'm a disgrace (you have to say that in the right VPW accent).

What a bunch of mugs we all were. So glad to be free from that waterless cistern.

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Waysider- you brought up a good analogy...

we consider the source of information to be rc'd as a whole or partly inportant. then I guess there is a unconcious decision or concious decision that it becomes stored in our memory's for future use..

all imput is learning..

Edited by likeaneagle
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  • 2 weeks later...

If we can't go beyond what we are taught. Why are we taught keys to biblcial Understanding?

i.e.

Unclear verses must be understood in light of the clear verses.

(Please let me know if this is misquoted)

Is this forced understanding? It seams logical. Sounds good for deductive reasoning.

But don't these "keys" imply that we are to go beyond?

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