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"I must be right because everyone is insisting I am wrong!"


WordWolf
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5 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Oh, I was blamed and I blamed myself. It all contributed to me trying to numb it out with alcohol and here I am. Thats the catch: its a false doctrine that doesnt work and when it fails, which it inevitibly will, then the person doing the believing gets the blame for his believing not being big enough. Its awful.

And when you get those damn Pharisees and their judgement off your back and just go live life without their evil gaze around things just work out, don’t they?  Plans fall into place, hanging out together opens up new avenues, the community and medical advances help, and you’re not semi suicidal due to a gaslighting guilt trip being laid at your responsibility.  I’m speaking in general and in analogy of my own life but I suspect that is the same with yours.

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5 minutes ago, Mike said:

Jesus had different vocabulary from mine; that's trivial.

The "...taking thought can add one cubit to his stature" is not everyday believing the promises, but very a much miraculous, power target.

I am agreeing with you and Jesus here:  ONLY those with direct revelation can believe to grow an inch.

You may have read my post wrong.

Jesus did not say that only those with direct revelation can believe to grow an inch.

 But like Pinocchio your nose grows an inch every time you insert the leaven of the Pharisees into a verse.

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Look I can understand covering that scripture section as it is an illustration of the parents and the boy born blind experiencing hardship in life due to the nature of life and not due to their own fault.

Jesus healed him.  Everybody heard about it.

He just moved right in and handled it.

He didn’t pray to God lo shonta lo shonta oh Father please give me a cookie.  My hand is reaching up there Father.  Oh I can heal this boy.  Let me beeeeeeeeeeeeleeeeeeevvvve and it will occur.  

True life Christianity is much simpler than the twisted up instruction manual left for being spiritual from the Great Principle.  But charts take up space and lengthen classes.  More content for your money.

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21 minutes ago, chockfull said:

And when you get those damn Pharisees and their judgement off your back and just go live life without their evil gaze around things just work out, don’t they?  Plans fall into place, hanging out together opens up new avenues, the community and medical advances help, and you’re not semi suicidal due to a gaslighting guilt trip being laid at your responsibility.  I’m speaking in general and in analogy of my own life but I suspect that is the same with yours.

I have experienced much the same as this paragraph expresses, with considerably less medical intensity.  I agree that supervised learning in this area really sucks.  I have had that evil gaze coming at me, and it was always Corps.  I never saw that crap from non-Corps.  It was always an imitation leader thing; leaders in learning at our expense on the field.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that.

I call.

Collaterals are not God-breathed. That is established. To assert otherwise is to burden oneself with "spiritual liabilities" that are very difficult to remove.

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10 minutes ago, Mike said:

Jesus never laughed is not very enlightened working of the Word.
Neither is expecting Jesus to label everything.

This is apparently a definition of "enlightened" I'm not familiar with.

I call it adding to the text.

Everybody, add to the word of God and...

Johnny Jumpup, Maggie Muggins, Snowball Pete, Palooka Joe, and Joe Sixpack (all at once)

...you no longer have the word of God!

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19 minutes ago, Mike said:

Jesus never laughed is not very enlightened working of the Word.
Neither is expecting Jesus to label everything.

That is a completely nonsensical deflection of the point I made that Jesus did not say what you attributed to him.  You added to the text then said you agreed with him and me.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

T-Bone, the very few words I quoted above from your long post are pretty good examples of the kinds of PFAL that must be read as hyperbole. REMEMBER the class was designed to be understandable to a wide swath of ages and IQs.  The hyperbole in this section of the class was useful for jumpstarting us, but it was also necessary for us to eventually grow out of this primitive wording and “rightly divide” the class this way.

This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that.

I think you’re the one having trouble understanding wierwille’s law of believing is absolute bull-$hit.

 

I’m sorry for the long post but I have a good reason for the length. In my opinion the topic of commonplace believing versus religious faith is one of the most obfuscated subjects for seasoned grads of PFAL - and you Mike certainly muddy it up even more!

 

I had to lay some detailed groundwork so readers can unravel the nonsense that wierwille piled on to overcomplicate and mystify 2 simple ideas that even a child could understand - there’s little old you and there’s God Almighty. 

 

To expand on those 2 ideas: God is not your puppet. God is not your personal genie in a lamp. Do you need God in your life? I did NOT ask you if you need more material abundance. I did NOT ask you if you want shortcuts or success formulas to fame, fortune, power, or pleasure. 

 

What is the attraction of Christianity? All I can say is what appeals to me - Jesus Christ. He gives my life meaning and hope. I tend to be a creep and an a$$-hole. I’m slowly managing to be less of an A$$-hole to my family and others…and therein is meaning and hope. There’s little old me - warts and all - and Jesus Christ loves me anyway - and that inspires me to want to be more like Him. Developing patience, compassion and noble stuff like that is partly under my own power - and there’s times I’ve surprised myself by going the extra mile and got off on it - no sweat! That’s got to be the Holy Spirit….no big whoop - no hype over “manifestations “. 

 

PFAL is to the Bible what toxic chemicals are to a pristine mountain stream.

 

wierwille didn’t hold a candle to the Wright Brothers. wierwille was a lazy con artist. Little old humans can accomplish great things all by themselves. One of my favorite books is Ecclesiastes - it nags me with the question “is this all there is?” That’s where faith comes in. I’m not looking for money or power or any of the other sales gimmicks used in PFAL. The class never focused on Jesus Christ. that’s who I really wanted - but wierwille did a bait-and-switch on me. Jesus Christ was in the storefront display window - but the store inventory only had books and classes of wierwille’s pseudo-Christianty magical thinking musings. 


But now - since I’m a tripped out grad , I’ve got my own personal curriculum - Holy Spirit driven!

 

Interesting thread - and I try not to be stubborn and close minded - like you seem to be… A lot of my beliefs are usually in a state of flux. I’m okay with that. When I got away from the authoritarian parenting style of TWI - I “recovered” and learned to think like an adult…and to be clear my state of flux is not like your constantly changing bull-$hit. I believe in the basic tenets of Christianity - but stuff like speaking in tongues, the Trinity, the rapture - I tentatively go all over the place :biglaugh:

 

Growing up - my parents weren’t even like that. I learned the importance of honesty from them. Discernment…judgement is the ability to distinguish truth from lies and fact from fiction. I’m sorry to say Mike  that your agenda seems to lack that ability. 

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3 hours ago, Mike said:

Yikes!  Is this the record breaker for post length?
I only have a little time right now, so I am limiting my self to just the few words I quoted above.

Actually, I saw a lot of interesting things to read here, and I only did a fast skim read on about one tenth of it.  I'll save it to my "Believing" folder for later reading.  I regard this topic of “believing” in the class to be not yet fully absorbed and understood BY ME!

Mike, you make this too hard. It's not. The law of believing taught in PFAL is utter nonsense! there's nothing to absorb and understand - it's magical thinking dressed up to sound like Christian faith.

 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

 

Understanding the film class and books on believing is an unfinished project for me. I started my "Believing" folder in 1972 by putting a "B" with a circle around it in my Cambridge Wide Margin for hot verses. Later it became a paper folder, and now a digital folder.

 

But every couple of years I get another breakthrough, both in the area of (1) understanding the Bible's teaching on believing via the class, and in (2) applying it to my life.

My (1) understanding has very slowly increased over 50 years with a few plateau-like jumps, but (2) my application successes have been all over the map.

There were lots of exciting successes in the beginning, but they were mixed with miserable failures also. 

You need to come clean on specific instances of success with "understanding the Bible's teaching on believing via the class, and in (2) applying it to my life." BUT - save your typing fingers - cuz you've lost all credibility with me...If we're going to use anecdotal evidence I've got more experiences to prove PFAL was a total waste of time and full of nonsense to have any practical value. Unlike you - I will be honest - I'm not trying to sell PFAL.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

 

Some promises of God were easy to believe in some circumstances, but not in others. There are a couple items in my life that I have totally failed to both believe and receive for all the 50 years I’ve been in the Word. Then there are a few areas where my believing was surprisingly easy and solid, my acting on the believing was bold, and the receiving was just like in the book. 

I know what it is like to be abased here and to abound.  I have learned to build as a Major Principle in my life “It’s the Word, even if it never comes to pass.”  If you find that meme conjures up unpleasant associations, please find soothing relief in picturing Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego saying something very similar right before being barbecued.

Mike, you're parroting the same fanatical bull$hit that wierwille promoted in the class. 

"It’s the Word, even if it never comes to pass" - what does that even mean? The Bible is the redemptive story of God sending His Son Jesus Christ into the world to save schmoes like you and me! That's already come to pass! Jesus Christ said He will be with us always! What didn't come to pass? What the hell are you waiting to come to pass?

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Now, here is something I never posted.  I did not purposely hide this, but I just never had the words of the proper context in which to express it.

I take a small few of the things in the class, especially with the law of believing, to be in the category of HYPERBOLE. 

I realize this is going to sound like back pedaling, but I don’t care what it sounds like. I am just TRYING to be understand more here. It’s not that I insisting that I am right here (ON-TOPIC bonus points!).  What I am insisting on is that you folks also lack a small few understanding(s) in this topic of believing, AS WELL as a small few horrendous failures at applying what seems to be understood.  What I am insisting on is this topic need more work and less criticism.

I think we all have not fully understood the PFAL teaching on believing.  I think we all got too much of the TVTs here, and I sense gaps in everyone’s understanding here, like know I have. I’ve been working hard to fill those gaps for 25 years now, and part of that work involves going back to read the transcript and the books for understanding.

Mike, what the hell are you doing?!?! You're definitely backpedaling, moving the goal posts, trying to negotiate over nonsense, and doing a bunch of double-talk. I'm not lowering my normal common-sense standards to find common ground with you.

 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

T-Bone, the very few words I quoted above from your long post are pretty good examples of the kinds of PFAL that must be read as hyperbole. REMEMBER the class was designed to be understandable to a wide swath of ages and IQs.  The hyperbole in this section of the class was useful for jumpstarting us, but it was also necessary for us to eventually grow out of this primitive wording and “rightly divide” the class this way.

 

I'm calling bull$hit! here's a quick def. of hyperbole from my first hit online: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally:
"he vowed revenge with oaths and hyperboles" · "you can't accuse us of hyperbole"
SIMILAR:
exaggeration
overstatement
magnification
amplification
embroidery
embellishment
overplaying
excess
overkill

 

In other words, YOU MIKE have just admitted PFAL isn't about the Bible or truth or facts. PFAL is hype about PFAL...just like the secret decoder ring message in The Christmas Story film "drink more Ovaltine"...take PFAL again and again and again and again.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:



This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that.

it's no surprise you are stubborn and persistent in sticking to your nonsense.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Like the law of believing, the Great Principle is a Great Enigma that pops up in the class RATHER UNSUPPORTED.    I am offering a supplement to rightly divide PFAL so we can better understand both of these things.   Sorry I am late.  I saw these gaps very early, and hence my early Believing folder. But my answers (the few that I have) came in slow and some fairly recently, and then one today.

Oh my God! The only great enigma is how your mind can confuse the hell out of itself. You're a real piece of work, Mike.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

You wrote:
“In the PFAL class the law of believing is stated as an equation - believing equals receiving. It is presented as a mathematical or logical sounding statement – that seems to hold promise…some may see it as an effective equivalency formula for success.”

In only a couple of years after I left the Atom Smasher job and school that I tool the class, so Physics was still VERY fresh in my mind. I cringed with the hyperbole of VPW saying things like the Word fits with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision.  But he seemed literally right in so many other areas that blessed me bigtime, that I gave him a pass on it.

okay - right here you're showing your contradictory ideology. For a guy who claims to be scientific minded and familiar with atom smashing - you now vacillate over wierwille's "the Word fits with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision." Shame on you Mike. Do you keep track of the things you've said over the years? Your latest tact is to quibble and fudge over what wierwille has clearly stated in his works. He didn't use hyperboles to teach the law of believing or the inerrant Bible. He said what he meant and meant what he said...I bet you're probably the only grad to believe otherwise.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Then, as the years past and I learned more, I slowly came to realize that hyperbole CAN BE a valid figure of speech, with useful functions. I used to think it was lying or exaggeration only.

I also learned that VPW’s perspective, education, and vocabulary were VERY far removed from math and science, just like 99% of all the humans I know.  I NATURALLY give them an easy pass when they don’t use technical terms “properly” that I am intimately familiar with.  It should be no big deal at all for me to give VPW a pass on this.  I guess I didn’t do this at first because it was religion and I had my background expectations warped by Catholic School.

You have every right to believe what you want about wierwille and PFAL. But don't try to sell me on your pi$$-a$$ poor sub-standard intellectual criteria. Go sell stupid somewhere else. 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

PLUS, I slowly learned to add to this, the teaching in the class that God works within the vocabulary of the person He is speaking to.

you mean what shyster wierwille said resonated with you. uh oh :confused:

 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

LONG before the class I had known( and even written on) the fact that everyone has a working internal dictionary that slightly differs from the Oxford English Dictionary in countless places. We all have slightly different internal dictionaries, and even some pet definitions of words, and hardly anyone is diligent to clean them all up. Knowing that written PFAL is rendered in VPW’s vocabulary is an important point for rightly dividing it.

cult-leaders create their own jargon and misconceptions...grads become cult-followers when they absorb the cult-leader's jargon and misconceptions.

Change of topic:  Mike, you need to look into "rightly dividing the word of truth" in II Timothy 2:15. I've shared on this elsewhere - but YOU need to do the homework YOURSELF. It generally speaks to correctly handling the word of truth so others may see the clear and straight path of walking in a Jesus Christ honoring lifestyle...and it definitely shouldn't be applied to "rightly dividing" PFAL...if anything needs 'rightly dividing'- part of my mission on Grease Spot Cafe is to correct the bull$hit taught in PFAL so others - if they choose to be honest with God and want to free themselves of toxic doctrine - may see the clear and straight path of walking in a Jesus Christ honoring lifestyle - instead of following a pseudo-Christian cult-leader and high priest impersonator like wierwille. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

I hear and share all the complaints I here about PFAL’s handling of believing, and especially the Corps and TVT handling of it.  Some of my questions and complaints have been answered, and some not yet. 

Geez Mike, TWI is still pulling the wool over your eyes. They continue to be a pseudo-Christian harmful and controlling cult. 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Again, this hyperbole stuff is as new for me in text form as it is your you. Up till now it was just a vague feeling I couldn’t put words to.

naw - it's just a new tactic to be evasive 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

In all my 20 years here I never had the words to express this.  I think my understanding of the word “hyperbole” is relatively recent. I vaguely remember it being a word I’d ignore when I saw it outside the ministry, and it hardly ever came up in the ministry.

It may have been when I was doing Open Mics in the early 2000s that the other writers I hung out with used that word a lot.  For some of them, writing and performing hyperbole “rap” was their specialty.  I experimented with it in some of my comedy.  But it wasn’t until today that I finally realized that I would take in certain statements in PFAL with the FEELING that they needed to be “translated” to something more literal.

I think in many other venues in life, when we hear hyperbole, we instinctively know how to not process it as literal. But with PFAL we somehow expected it all to be literal.

enough with the hyperbole crap - you're overselling the bull$hit - no one is interested - move on, please

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

A similar thing happened for me with “the Bible interprets itself.”  I think the way I tried to explain that many months ago, when I hit that snag in Penworks’ book, was to describe that phrase as a summary or a title on a large set of ideas.   That is one thing hyperbole can do: super summarize.  It also gets attention, so is more easily remembered.

well, obviously you can't explain $hit - because the Bible doesn't interpret itself - you've set up stubborn mental roadblocks in your head - for whatever reason - so you can cling to wierwille's foolish concepts. Get over Mike - bite the bullet - get over your pride...adoration of wierwille / PFAL or whatever the stubborn mental roadblocks in your head are - and finish Penworks' book!  And reflect on the info for a while. Take off the PFAL-filter in your head.

 

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

I hope this “admission-discovery” doesn’t freak you all out.   LoL  Please consider it the “New Mike” with the 20 Year Makeover that I promised last December on my anniversary here.

Doesn't surprise me. You change more frequently than the weather.

 

3 hours ago, Mike said:

I know a similar recent admission of mine (that was not a discovery for me) seemed to anger and dismay a few posters, and I honestly did not understand why.   This was on the logic of “God-breathed contrasted with the feeling and faith in “God-breathed” for collaterals.  This was coupled with my pointing out that my major focus for 20 years was not on debating the God-breathed status of the collaterals, BUT WAS majorly focused on debating whether VPW claimed it or not. 

I forget who really was angered by this, but I would like to know why. 

I have never done an inventory on what I think is hyperbole in the class, and I can’t think of any other examples at this time.  We will see.

In the 17 years of coming to Grease Spot Cafe I've noticed how most people change and outgrow the ideological box TWI had them confined to. I even started a thread about it: Concerning the Bible...confessions of a former fundamentalist  - got great input from a lot of Grease Spotters - sharing the new directions in their journey...and folks were honest...no one tried to sell anyone else on their beliefs...it's a very inspirational thread - and love to ruminate on the various worldviews of others...there's so much to learn...so much to consider...no one has it all figured out...and it's nice to talk with others on life's journey.

I don't get that from you...I feel like you're always trying to sell me on something. 

Edited by T-Bone
editor be true to thyself
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2 hours ago, Mike said:

You may have read my post wrong.

You may not have clearly or effectively encoded the message you wanted to convey.

2 hours ago, Mike said:

Has anyone worked this angle of the law of believing?

Isn't this a topic belonging more appropriately in another forum?

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Mike:

"This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that."

 

One might hope that, over the last 20 years, you might have gotten past your previous claim that the current Bibles were NOT "God-breathed" but that the pfal collaterals WERE "God-breathed." You've actually been trying to CONCEAL your positions on both, but sometimes they slip out any way.   It's dishonest and deceptive to do this, but for you, it's business as usual.  Between underhanded and unprincipled practices, and just plain nonsense like this, it should surprise no one that you have no credibility here....  or anywhere else that you reveal some of the truth about your doctrines and actions.  Is it really worth it to deceive people, knowing that, as soon as they know the truth, your credibility will plummet? No, it is not.

*/*/*

 

Mike:

"Like the law of believing, the Great Principle is a Great Enigma that pops up in the class RATHER UNSUPPORTED.  "

So, even you admit that the so-called "law of believing" and the so-called "Great Principle" are claimed in pfal but aren't SUPPORTED. Claims were made, and we trusted vpw despite there being no Scriptural justification for his claims.  We're free of that now.  You are not, and don't expect us to volunteer to go back into the bondage and servitude to doctrines and practices of greedy people who see us only as commodities.

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9 hours ago, Mike said:

I am offering a supplement to rightly divide PFAL so we can better understand both of these things. 

So your going to rightly divide pflap? That means pflap has only one intrepretation. Youve given at least half a dozen various intrepretations of most anything Pflap...you are talking out your...

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9 hours ago, Mike said:

I'll save it to my "Believing" folder for later reading.  I regard this topic of “believing” in the class to be not yet fully absorbed and understood BY ME!

9 hours ago, Mike said:

Some promises of God were easy to believe in some circumstances, but not in others. There are a couple items in my life that I have totally failed to both believe and receive for all the 50 years I’ve been in the Word. Then there are a few areas where my believing was surprisingly easy and solid, my acting on the believing was bold, and the receiving was just like in the book. 

Complete BS. You are living in fantasy land filled with lots of magickal thinking. The basic problem here is you don't fulfill God's promises by your believing. None of us do. We have faith in God to fulfill his Word and we take our problems to God asking in faith and respect for answers and we wait patiently to receive.

The law of believing teaches an entitlement mindset where God's grace and mercy are expected, demanded, and considered a right. Such arrogance!

When its life and death all you pious platitudes and bullshonta go right out the window. But you can easily sit in your controlled environment in the fantasy land provided by the way international and pretend the world is manipulated by your thoughts...you can pontificate this or that and have your little folders and dream of all things wierwille. But you know what? People have been seriously harmed by this garbage, not that you would care. 

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7 hours ago, WordWolf said:

Mike:

"This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that."

 

One might hope that, over the last 20 years, you might have gotten past your previous claim that the current Bibles were NOT "God-breathed" but that the pfal collaterals WERE "God-breathed." You've actually been trying to CONCEAL your positions on both, but sometimes they slip out any way.   It's dishonest and deceptive to do this, but for you, it's business as usual.  Between underhanded and unprincipled practices, and just plain nonsense like this, it should surprise no one that you have no credibility here....  or anywhere else that you reveal some of the truth about your doctrines and actions.  Is it really worth it to deceive people, knowing that, as soon as they know the truth, your credibility will plummet? No, it is not.

*/*/*

 

Mike:"Like the law of believing, the Great Principle is a Great Enigma that pops up in the class RATHER UNSUPPORTED.  "

So, even you admit that the so-called "law of believing" and the so-called "Great Principle" are claimed in pfal but aren't SUPPORTED. Claims were made, and we trusted vpw despite there being no Scriptural justification for his claims.  We're free of that now.  You are not, and don't expect us to volunteer to go back into the bondage and servitude to doctrines and practices of greedy people who see us only as commodities.

No.  I was only admitting that the GP is rather unsupported, but not the law of believing.  

I seem to have used the word "rather" in an awkward way.  In hindsight I think "relative" works better.

In the new PFAL-T class the GP comes up TOTALLY unsupported.  I was surprised at that.  I was also surprised that it comes up a lot, at least three times, in that new class.  This thought was accidentally neglected when I posted the awkward "rather."

This slight defect in the new class can be fixed easily with a supplement in the class coordinator's handbook that can be read to the class.

I went back to the 1968 film class transcript and was again surprised at how often it comes up.  HOWEVER, relative to the new class, there actually IS some support in the context.  It is very light support, though.  Like the modifications to the old class of removing a few segments, I would like to see a more detailed description of the GP offered, like the one I have been hammering out here from time to time.

My hunch is that in 1968, the plan was to have the GP explained better in the Intermediate and Advanced classes. 

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11 hours ago, T-Bone said:

It’s the Word, even if it never comes to pass" - what does that even mean?

Jesus himself taught that not one jot or tittle will pass before God fulfills ALL of his promises....obviously Mikey is here to push buttons

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

No.  I was only admitting that the GP is rather unsupported, but not the law of believing.  

I seem to have used the word "rather" in an awkward way.  In hindsight I think "relative" works better.

In the new PFAL-T class the GP comes up TOTALLY unsupported.  I was surprised at that.  I was also surprised that it comes up a lot, at least three times, in that new class.  This thought was accidentally neglected when I posted the awkward "rather."

This slight defect in the new class can be fixed easily with a supplement in the class coordinator's handbook that can be read to the class.

I went back to the 1968 film class transcript and was again surprised at how often it comes up.  HOWEVER, relative to the new class, there actually IS some support in the context.  It is very light support, though.  Like the modifications to the old class of removing a few segments, I would like to see a more detailed description of the GP offered, like the one I have been hammering out here from time to time.

My hunch is that in 1968, the plan was to have the GP explained better in the Intermediate and Advanced classes. 

There’s some confirmation that the “re-search” done on the new PFLAPT class basically found the same content in the old classes.

Who knew?

:biglaugh:
 

You can’t explain better bullshonta.  You can either step in it, eat it, or avoid it.  Pick one.

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15 hours ago, Mike said:

Yikes!  Is this the record breaker for post length?
I only have a little time right now, so I am limiting my self to just the few words I quoted above.

Actually, I saw a lot of interesting things to read here, and I only did a fast skim read on about one tenth of it.  I'll save it to my "Believing" folder for later reading.  I regard this topic of “believing” in the class to be not yet fully absorbed and understood BY ME!

Understanding the film class and books on believing is an unfinished project for me. I started my "Believing" folder in 1972 by putting a "B" with a circle around it in my Cambridge Wide Margin for hot verses. Later it became a paper folder, and now a digital folder.

 

 

But every couple of years I get another breakthrough, both in the area of (1) understanding the Bible's teaching on believing via the class, and in (2) applying it to my life.

 

 

My (1) understanding has very slowly increased over 50 years with a few plateau-like jumps, but (2) my application successes have been all over the map.

 

 

There were lots of exciting successes in the beginning, but they were mixed with miserable failures also. 

 

 

Some promises of God were easy to believe in some circumstances, but not in others. There are a couple items in my life that I have totally failed to both believe and receive for all the 50 years I’ve been in the Word. Then there are a few areas where my believing was surprisingly easy and solid, my acting on the believing was bold, and the receiving was just like in the book. 

 

 

I know what it is like to be abased here and to abound.  I have learned to build as a Major Principle in my life “It’s the Word, even if it never comes to pass.”  If you find that meme conjures up unpleasant associations, please find soothing relief in picturing Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego saying something very similar right before being barbecued.

Now, here is something I never posted.  I did not purposely hide this, but I just never had the words of the proper context in which to express it.

I take a small few of the things in the class, especially with the law of believing, to be in the category of HYPERBOLE. 

I realize this is going to sound like back pedaling, but I don’t care what it sounds like. I am just TRYING to be understand more here. It’s not that I insisting that I am right here (ON-TOPIC bonus points!).  What I am insisting on is that you folks also lack a small few understanding(s) in this topic of believing, AS WELL as a small few horrendous failures at applying what seems to be understood.  What I am insisting on is this topic need more work and less criticism.

I think we all have not fully understood the PFAL teaching on believing.  I think we all got too much of the TVTs here, and I sense gaps in everyone’s understanding here, like know I have. I’ve been working hard to fill those gaps for 25 years now, and part of that work involves going back to read the transcript and the books for understanding.

 

T-Bone, the very few words I quoted above from your long post are pretty good examples of the kinds of PFAL that must be read as hyperbole. REMEMBER the class was designed to be understandable to a wide swath of ages and IQs.  The hyperbole in this section of the class was useful for jumpstarting us, but it was also necessary for us to eventually grow out of this primitive wording and “rightly divide” the class this way.


This is my justification for offering to “explain” the Great Principle better than VPW explains it in the God-breathed collaterals.  I am surprised no one called me on that.

 

Like the law of believing, the Great Principle is a Great Enigma that pops up in the class RATHER UNSUPPORTED.    I am offering a supplement to rightly divide PFAL so we can better understand both of these things.   Sorry I am late.  I saw these gaps very early, and hence my early Believing folder. But my answers (the few that I have) came in slow and some fairly recently, and then one today.

 

You wrote:
“In the PFAL class the law of believing is stated as an equation - believing equals receiving. It is presented as a mathematical or logical sounding statement – that seems to hold promise…some may see it as an effective equivalency formula for success.”

 

 

In only a couple of years after I left the Atom Smasher job and school that I tool the class, so Physics was still VERY fresh in my mind. I cringed with the hyperbole of VPW saying things like the Word fits with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision.  But he seemed literally right in so many other areas that blessed me bigtime, that I gave him a pass on it.

 

 

Then, as the years past and I learned more, I slowly came to realize that hyperbole CAN BE a valid figure of speech, with useful functions. I used to think it was lying or exaggeration only.

 

 

I also learned that VPW’s perspective, education, and vocabulary were VERY far removed from math and science, just like 99% of all the humans I know.  I NATURALLY give them an easy pass when they don’t use technical terms “properly” that I am intimately familiar with.  It should be no big deal at all for me to give VPW a pass on this.  I guess I didn’t do this at first because it was religion and I had my background expectations warped by Catholic School.

 

 

PLUS, I slowly learned to add to this, the teaching in the class that God works within the vocabulary of the person He is speaking to.

 

 

LONG before the class I had known( and even written on) the fact that everyone has a working internal dictionary that slightly differs from the Oxford English Dictionary in countless places. We all have slightly different internal dictionaries, and even some pet definitions of words, and hardly anyone is diligent to clean them all up. Knowing that written PFAL is rendered in VPW’s vocabulary is an important point for rightly dividing it.

 

 

I hear and share all the complaints I here about PFAL’s handling of believing, and especially the Corps and TVT handling of it.  Some of my questions and complaints have been answered, and some not yet. 

 

 

Again, this hyperbole stuff is as new for me in text form as it is your you. Up till now it was just a vague feeling I couldn’t put words to.

 

 

In all my 20 years here I never had the words to express this.  I think my understanding of the word “hyperbole” is relatively recent. I vaguely remember it being a word I’d ignore when I saw it outside the ministry, and it hardly ever came up in the ministry.

 

 

It may have been when I was doing Open Mics in the early 2000s that the other writers I hung out with used that word a lot.  For some of them, writing and performing hyperbole “rap” was their specialty.  I experimented with it in some of my comedy.  But it wasn’t until today that I finally realized that I would take in certain statements in PFAL with the FEELING that they needed to be “translated” to something more literal.

I think in many other venues in life, when we hear hyperbole, we instinctively know how to not process it as literal. But with PFAL we somehow expected it all to be literal.

A similar thing happened for me with “the Bible interprets itself.”  I think the way I tried to explain that many months ago, when I hit that snag in Penworks’ book, was to describe that phrase as a summary or a title on a large set of ideas.   That is one thing hyperbole can do: super summarize.  It also gets attention, so is more easily remembered.

I hope this “admission-discovery” doesn’t freak you all out.   LoL  Please consider it the “New Mike” with the 20 Year Makeover that I promised last December on my anniversary here.

I know a similar recent admission of mine (that was not a discovery for me) seemed to anger and dismay a few posters, and I honestly did not understand why.   This was on the logic of “God-breathed contrasted with the feeling and faith in “God-breathed” for collaterals.  This was coupled with my pointing out that my major focus for 20 years was not on debating the God-breathed status of the collaterals, BUT WAS majorly focused on debating whether VPW claimed it or not. I forget who really was angered by this, but I would like to know why. 

I have never done an inventory on what I think is hyperbole in the class, and I can’t think of any other examples at this time.  We will see.

 

This is one of Mike’s classic moves. I think it’s so funny how Mike complains about me and WordWolf making long posts – yet he will indulge in long word salads of nonsensical proportions with an apparent trollish delight – which I suppose he hopes it will confuse Grease Spotters and force them to capitulate on some off-the-wall point of his. He’s done this innumerable times – most recently on the Jump to Concussions, The Absent Christ?, and NT Canon threads. I think this is one of his favorite tactics – it’s the conversational equivalent of the quick-change money scam.

In an earlier post > here  I made reference to the 1973 film  Paper Moon   During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership…My post related their con of delivering Bibles to still-grieving widows – under the pretext that their recently deceased husband ordered it for them…Another con they used several times in the film was the quick-change scam.

This con is alive and well to this day – here is an October 2018 article describing the con:

the mechanics of the scam

An example of a quick-change con typically begins with paying for a small item with a large bill, such as buying a beverage costing $1.20 with a $100 bill. While the cashier is counting the change, the con distracts the cashier by chatting about a random subject. Then, the con changes his mind and asks to pay for the item with a smaller bill. He hands the cashier a $5 bill and asks for the $100 bill back. The cashier forgets that he's already made change for the $100 and hands the original $100 bill back to the con artist. He then makes change for the $5 bill. The thief pockets the $98.20 in change from the first transaction as well as the $3.80 in change from the second transaction. He has paid for the beverage two times but only used the store's money.

From: How to Spot Quick-Change Scams | Bizfluent

 

In defense of my long posts :rolleyes:   first off, I apologize for my verbosity  :who_me: -  - I’m still working on paring that down and have difficulty with determining what is non-essential - - if you could see my rough drafts it would look like the editing room of a movie studio – there’s a lot of stuff I cut out sitting on the floor. But for the most part I think they’re pretty straight forward – because I’m not trying to confuse the reader or manipulate the reader – I just want to lay out the evidence for my case. Most of the time the length is due to me citing commentaries, online articles, and research tools.

Another reason for the length is that analyzing wierwille ideology often necessitates picking apart the logical fallacies, Scripture twisting and other spurious moves. The mesmerizing ‘beauty’ of wierwille’s con is how innocent and harmless it appears – after all, what’s so terrifying about a class on the Bible?

The three standard frame rates for film and TV (broadcast television) are 24, 30, and 60 frames per second. Most people can visually follow frame rates of 24 to 60fps.

From:  What are Frame per Second Differences among 24fps, 30fps and 60fps - Rene.E Laboratory (reneelab.com)

In the casino industry, security departments typically employ HD cameras and   network video recorders      with  Variable Frame Rate, or VFR as it is more commonly known, or Varispeed  - high-end professional cameras and NVRs, DVRs, Digital Tape, widely used within the film and security industries for exceptional image quality and manipulative features like slow-motion or speed ramping.  Casinos use the slo-mo feature to catch card sharks...For more on frame rate see Frame rate - Wikipedia

Similarly, that’s one way to catch wierwille’s con. Slowing it down – it takes time to observe each deviation from common sense, each buildup of logical fallacy, each slight-of-hand trick of Scripture twisting. That's one way to catch quick-change money scammers. As far as Mike's long posts, I couldn't care less...Shingles doesn't care either. When Mike starts cranking out the long posts, I'm aware he usually has some scam going to confuse and wear down Grease Spotters probably hoping someone will 'surrender' to his nonsense.

that's all for now, folks :wave:

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

In defense of my long posts :rolleyes:   first off, I apologize for my verbosity  :who_me:

Brother, don't let anybody dumb you down to their level. I find your posts informative, educational, and supported by copious references from various fields and disciplines. Reasoned debate should be along the lines of your posts. I tend to be a bit more terse mostly because most trollish posts can be summarized to a few salient points with out all the salad and the response can be minimal. I choose that method, but please don't stop being you and keep the information coming.

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