Plagarism !?

[JeffSjo]

As far as I'm concerned the plagiarism issue is settled. Dr Wierwille was not thinking correctly as he repeatedly copied people over the years and claimed the work as his own. I would be inclined to believe Dr. Wierille worked it out of God's Word all on his own except for the abundance of word for word; or nearly word for word copying of sentences, paragraphs, or even chapters.

Some of the history that's been presented as in the case of B.G. Leonard and Dr. Wierwille point to at the very least Dr. Wierwille playing fast and loose with Rev. Leonard's permission to use the class material. As concerning the contributers who have passed on; I think that not giving full credit to the originators of these teaching is wrong, plain and simple.

As to Dr. Wierwille's intentions, I think it is clear that Dr. Wierwille considered a lot of contemporary Christianity to be very bad. I think that he probably rationalized this copying in terms of, I cannot let their stands infect my pupils, or something like that.

I think that it's possible that Dr. Wierwille was hurt by rejection from denominational Christianity in his early years and after that carried a chip on his shoulders for the rest of his life. But being unjustly condemned by hypocritical and heartless psuedochristlike (To the best of my knowledge I just made that word up.) judgements can burn someone for life sometimes, especially when someone pins it as the devil working through those certain heartless Christians.

I CANNOT LOOK AT THESE THINGS WITHOUT REMINDING MYSELF THAT THE LORD HIMSELF WILL BE THE ULTIMATE JUDGE.

I am sorrowful that a ministry that made extensive and questionable use of other scources has become such royal p-icks when it comes to their own copyrights and so forth. It is clearly huge hypocrisy that TWI dares sue others for less obvious and questionable copying that they themselves have done. This kind of hypocrisy is clearly something that angers the Lord IMO.

I feel sorry for all the years that the Way Corps was dragged through the coals in order to not see the ministry blamed or to not even give the appearance of anything evil (Those are two different biblical admonitions.) turned out to have the teacher or teachers being worse than the corps who were released from the Way Corps training for far less damaging appearances than these issues here. And that's not even mentioning the far worse sins commited by leadership that are covered in other threads.

What a huge stinky pile of poop it all became.

I bet that a lot of folks in TWI now don't know what they've stepped in.

(added in editing)

Dear FRIENDS,

I never know if I'll be able to get back soon when I'm done. Even more than usual this is one of those times. If this is the last that I can be back for a while I'll miss you all and I've tried to make every post count. Thank you all!!!!! (just in case)

Edited April 18, 2008 by JeffSjo

[JeffSjo]

Hi friends,

It's nice to be here again.

I've been considering this matter of plagiarism some more. Thank you everyone for letting this thread go on without any major fights on it!!!

I've been thinking some more about Dr. Wierwilles motivation in copying so many works and not giving the proper credit in the form of acknowledgements. It's not that I want to make excuses for mistakes made by any man, it's just that I think that this topic can be considered separately from the multitude of other topics on this site to the degree that we may be able to see a little more clearly into the motivation of the man that started TWI.

Then possibly we may all see the big picture a little more clearly. Especially in terms of percieving the Lord's justice in regards to seeing the fruit of the spirit of error. In the consideration of this category of fruit it seems to me that the correct terms for "the fear of the Lord" can be percieved. And no matter what our personal views are, I believe that the Lord's judgement is ultimately final and without respect of any man's person. I think that this is a touchy and controversial topic, especially when TWI affected many of us so differently. But to me, the time for covering these things up is long past.

With so many people effected negatively by TWI, I view any attempt to put down people who have been legitimately hurt by TWI as short sighted and just as damaging and hurtfull as the original offense. But it seems to me that the folks who have been hurt the worst are also the most likely to speak and think in the angriest terms. I will not condemn them for that. I'm just glad that you've been willing to let this thread go on about the plagiarism issue alone.

BACK TO THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED TOPIC

I've been thinking about a few things that I remember from TWI history and think that they may apply.

Dr. Wierwille claimed to have invented the hookshot in the game of basketball. I do not know if this is true or not because I do not know enough about the history of the game. I think that it is possible back in Dr. Wierwille's college days that the game looked a lot different than it does now.

I think that it's likely that within the small circle of players and coaches that were around him in those days that someone might have said, "Look at that, Wierwille's invented a new shot!" Maybe they thought he did anyway and so Dr. himself thought so too.

Personally, I cannot imagine that elsewhere somebody had come up with the hookshot before, probably many different people in many places. Even Elijah; because he was not able to see the big picture after all; thought he was alone. So Dr. might have thought he invented the hookshot.

HERE IS MY POINT, EVEN THOUGH IT IS SOMEWHAT SPECULATIVE FOR LACK OF INFORMATION.

If someone saw Dr.'s hookshot, developed it, and ultimately made it their own without giving Dr. credit it could have been viewed by Dr. as a lesson. Maybe that lesson was that it was their right to do that with the shot that he developed. So one little instance may have contributed to the same view of what Dr. felt was his right to do with other people's biblical work.

If that was what was done to Dr. then it's possible that he decided to do the same himself.

I am not saying this to excuse him. I'm saying this because I see value in coming to terms with the events in his life that lead to being who he was. No matter what any of us think of him, in one respect he was no different than any of us in that the events of his life contributed to the man he became. For me this is just one little possibility that seems to fit.

Ultimately I believe the Lord will be the one to sum it all up in the most meaningful and relevent manner.