[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by OBW

This implies Westboro as the name among which some others might be added. You didn't suggest "First Baptist Dallas" or "Cornerstone Church" (formerly known as "First Baptist Coppell." You went to the "Hitler" of churches. Of any denomination.

If my point is to say that there are some bad Baptist churches one should probably not attend, why would I use an example of a not so bad one like First Baptist Dallas?

What is wrong with First Baptist Dallas that I would use it as an example of a baptist church to avoid?

Aron named some cults in China, so my post also addressed this question of his:

"How many cults have the Baptists spawned? "

Obviously I would use Westboro baptist as an example of a Baptist spawned cult, and not First Baptist Dallas.

These are the main reasons I chose to use Westboro. The other reason is that most people probably have heard of it and could identify it as a cult. But I think First Baptist Dallas etc are not identified as cults.

Originally Posted by OBW

And you must have missed that I agreed that using a name like Pol Pot was pretty much like saying "Hitler." It tends to destroy the message. I do agree. And if it had been my post, it would have been something less extreme.

But that does not mean that there are no parallels. Maybe Mao would have been better. Might not like him, but he was not like those others.

Marx was not ever a power. He just used tricks to confuse his readers into accepting that there was some horrible problem and that Communism/Socialism was going to cure it.

My observation is that Nee and Lee were both pretty full of tricks like that. Many tricks of oratory (eventually put to writing). I have commented on the common tricks that both used. Just make a few correct statements concerning irrelevant verses then make an erroneous statement about the one you want to deal with and too many people are just following along without thinking it through. And when spoken, it was worse because you didn't have the time to stop, look at it, and think about it. In writing, you could eventually see it. But too often you will fail to correct yourself once you learn something like that incorrectly. (This has been shown to be true in around 50% of people who learn something incorrectly, especially due to misuse of words in the source of the original learning.)


No matter how bad you think it is to use the Pol Pot thing, it is pointless if you do not sate the issue. The regime before Pol Pot was poor (to say the least). And Pol Pot pointed to that as his reasons for taking over. But he was worse. He claimed "new and improved" in his own way, but it was actually the opposite. It is a "trend." It is a movement in a down-hill direction. The point is "bad to worse" not "Pol Pot."

Mao does not help - is there some reference that can be used that does not refer to mass murder? Maybe a biblical figure?

Originally Posted by OBW

Despite the admitted error in aron's use of such an extreme example, you are making a strawman out of this. aron did not liken the Recover yto Pol Pot, but as a step further in error relative to what was before — like Pol Pot was to what was before him.

Your little ruse it exposed. The strawman cometh. Purveying his wares of false innuendos and outright lies. Setting up a scarecrow so he can beat it up.

But you have yet to beat on the point that aron made. It stands strong, unhindered by your diversions.

These are possibly your strawmans:

1) claiming that I implied that all baptist churches are like Westboro. The words I used clearly show that I was referring only to "Westboro and some others". You should know by now that if I truly did think that all baptist churches were like Westboro, I would not be shy to say it. But you couldn't resist this opportunity to create the strawman argument to misleadingly claim that I said all baptist churches are like Westboro.


2) The notion of a downward trend or relative step is possibly a strawman on your part to soften what Aron said. When he used the words "was actually" - I missed the part about a downward trend or relative step.

Aron did not use words like trend, step, toward, like, "similar to", etc. These are all your words, and therefore your strawmans.

The only word Aron did use is the word "replace" as in

"Or Pol Pot replacing Prince Sihanouk, who was admittedly corrupt and a poor ruler. But the "new and improved" was actually a charnel house, a killing field."

This is in reference to Watchman Nee's view that denominations should be brought down - that was my point that he was addressing. Watchman Nee did not trend towards "bringing denominations down", that has always been the view. Neither does it say that the "new and improved" was "stepping towards" a "killing field". It says it "was actually" that.

So Aron's word "replacing" did not give me that impression of Watchman Nee's views "trending towards" "mass murder".