Malcolm, you may not be aware of this, but Christopher, while in the Navy, suffered a head injury in 1998. This was the result of being hit by a car. The man is brain damaged due to the skull fracture that he sustained. He tell us all about it here:

www.welikejesus.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=17260&sid=c2a727022eff27b329569637977ee37f

and here:

[www.welikejesus.com]

Christopher tells us a lot of things about himself and is not shy about disclosing personal details. It''s easy to find out a lot of biographical details on him. Just Google the word "Tofferer."

[christianforums.com]

Christopher Rose is brain-damaged, Mal. That accident could not have been good for his noggin.

But then again, he does hold an Associate's in Theology from his local Bible seminary, and they obviously trained him up well. He's I wonder how much Greek and Hebrew study is part of their curriculum:

[www.covenantbibleseminary.org]

He's even taken a "psycology" course and reads his Bible and so he MUST know what he is talking about! The man is highly ejumacated.

You can't be serious. I took psycology and from what I was taught, that phrase is a form of manipulation. I don't need Dr. Z to guide me. I have my Bible and some pretty good friends, including some of the people here. Personally, I think anyone who attempts to follow that list is being manipulated.


[www.welikejesus.com]

Far be it from me to tell anybody what to say around here (as I am known for my blistering diatribes against DM and am hardly shy about expressing my opinions about the JCs) but it's not nice to make fun of the handicapped, especially the mentally handicapped. He is obviously not the sharpest tack in the box, but he probably cannot help being so naive and gullible. He's obviously a trusting soul.

Dave is preaching it over at the moneysavingexperts forum

As with all new poster there he is registered as a 'money saving newbie'

[forums.moneysavingexpert.com]

Dave says


Thanks WDIAG?

I too hope that we can discuss the issues rationally, and with respect for both points of view. I will try to go through the points you raised, in the order in which you raised them. You said:

"If someone wants a donation, I think I’m entitled to know where the money’s going. I’ve stopped giving money to certain charities when I’ve found out how little of my money actually went on providing the medical care in India, helping children to get an education etc. ... If I found out my money was going on laptops, a new motor-home etc for someone who was choosing not to work to enable them to pay for these items themselves, I’d be pretty annoyed. ... because a laptop isn’t an essential of life & the use of one has its own ecological issues."

I take it from this that you never donate to charities that use computers. Is that right? Can you tell me a few charities that meet this criteria?

But more than that, the Jesus Christians are not a charity. We (almost) never have asked for donations to help with our charity work. Instead, we fund that almost entirely from our own pockets. What we ask for on the streets is a tiny donation toward the cost of printing the material that we are handing to people. What you see is what you get, and what you donate is for the purpose of providing that piece of literature. We give out literally millions of pieces of literature... some of it full-length books. It is freely available to anyone who wants to read it, and if they don't have money or have some other good reason for not wanting to contribute to the cost of getting it to them, we are still happy to give it to them, without receiving a donation for it. (In fact, you're getting some of what we say right here and right now... for free!)

We are famous for (and often hated for) living a very frugal lifestyle ourselves. If we were a business, we could not only claim for the cost of the paper and the cost of a printer to prepare the paper, but we could also claim for the living expenses of our sales representatives who are out on the road all week "selling" our product. None of that would be considered "profit". So if, after years of working fulltime offering literature to the public under those terms, a husband and wife team are able to afford a "new" motorhome (And I think it did cost around 4,000 pounds.) or to give their son a fifty pound second-hand laptop computer on which to do schoolwork and communicate with his friends, it really is surprising that someone like yourself (who has NOT, to my knowledge, donated one penny to the "cause") should take exception to it.

Please note, too, that the couple have not "chosen not to work". Instead, they have chosen to work VERY HARD at what they do, and to live as close as possible to the somewhat impossible restrictions you yourself have placed on any charity before you would support it, i.e. only to get by on minimal essentials. But, as can be seen by your post, it can be virtually impossible to please everyone, and especially those people who make demands (on anyone committed to some kind of charitable effort to improve the world) that they would never think of making on themselves.

WDIAG went on:
"I'm glad there's no pressure to donate, but I find it hard to reconcile their issues about waste with then being prepared to use items that have their own unnecessary impact on the environment. I'm still happy to learn about freeganism, but I wouldn't be giving any money to these particular individuals unless it went on things I supported, & I couldn't guarantee that it would. Having issues with waste ... came across as only having them when it suited, which to my mind isn't really committing to the cause."

Anyone who has given serious thought to environmental issues soon realises that we are virtually ALL leaving a "carbon footprint" on the world today. It is definitely a case of nobody being perfect, and so we can only say, "Let's all do what we can to MINIMISE the carbon footprint." But I think that one of the reasons why the media has shown so much interest in Freegans in recent months is because this lifestyle generally displays a much greater commitment to global concerns than most others. I know of freegans who do a much better job of eliminating waste and energy consumption from their lives than what the Jesus Christians do. But I would say that MOST freegans live a more "normal" lifestyle than we do. I wonder whether WDIAG may, for example, be straining at gnats with Rols and Sue while swallowing a few camels in his/her own lifestyle.

The reasoning seems to be that anyone who preaches about the need to cut down on waste has to be perfect before they can do so. And anyone who is not preaching such a message can preach condemnation for those who do preach the message, without ever having to give account of their own lifestyle. That just doesn't sound fair, somehow.

WDIAG said:
"And while some might think asking about their finances is invasive, I don’t. Their existence is centred around not wasting what is already around, so I think it’s valid to ask how they manage to provide for things they can’t get from bins. That’s not saying they shouldn’t have them, just asking how they fund them & justify having them when their income is benefits and/or donations."

It really does sound like more of the same, doesn't it? But there is that assumption right at the end that Rols and Sue are receiving "benefits". What was said on the show is that Danny is attending a school for free, and Danny got braces for his teeth under the NHS. They are not getting "income" from the government.

Some contributors here have suggested that the Aytons are doing more to solve the world's problems than the Jesus Christians. So how about if we use WDIAG's reasoning with them. If the Aytons really are seriously trying to cut down on waste, help the poor, or whatever it is that they are supposed to be doing, would it be fair to say that "it’s valid to ask how they manage to provide for things, i.e. how they fund them & justify having them?" Can people see how totally brainwashed we have become, where it is the responsibility of the poor to justify every little thing they do or buy, while millionaires can do whatever they like with impunity?

[forums.moneysavingexpert.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2008 07:01AM by muppet.

So confused by this statement Dave made above


'But more than that, the Jesus Christians are not a charity. We (almost) never have asked for donations to help with our charity work. Instead, we fund that almost entirely from our own pockets'

If they do not work for money, what, if anything , is in their own poclets apart from donations? What charity work is he talking about?



It really does sound like more of the same, doesn't it? But there is that assumption right at the end that Rols and Sue are receiving "benefits". What was said on the show is that Danny is attending a school for free, and Danny got braces for his teeth under the NHS. They are not getting "income" from the government.

Dave may still get 'income' from a government. Danny deserves a free education and free braces.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2008 07:18AM by muppet.

Quote
Malcolm Wesley WREST
How easily can you access the statutes of the US Criminal Code as a matter of interest?

The Internet is a wonderful thing!

Dave bearing all? about his money
But more than that, the Jesus Christians are not a charity. We (almost) never have asked for donations to help with our charity work. Instead, we fund that almost entirely from our own pockets. What we ask for on the streets is a tiny donation toward the cost of printing the material that we are handing to people. What you see is what you get, and what you donate is for the purpose of providing that piece of literature. We give out literally millions of pieces of literature... some of it full-length books. It is freely available to anyone who wants to read it, and if they don't have money or have some other good reason for not wanting to contribute to the cost of getting it to them, we are still happy to give it to them, without receiving a donation for it. (In fact, you're getting some of what we say right here and right now... for free!)

They are not a charity and yet they want the same benefits of a charity by using their justifications for existing. if that is the way Dave wants to play it then he needs to be upfront with what he is doing with the money he generates and where it comes from. Instead he wants to play it both ways and cover himself in the process. I know that money taken from selling books and tracts goes towards their own living expenses. The so called "tiny donation toward the cost of printing" almost always is more than what it costs to print the book, about a 300% markup for each item sold. The amount of people on the streets who receive a free item from Dave's hawkers are rare, but he can make that rare time stretch for miles, and years.

"Money from their own pockets" is what they get from new members selling up or money they come in with, larger donations from Quakers, or payment from the reality TV shows they seem to be making a lot of appearances on. They certainly are not working for free on those shows. I would not be surpruised if Dave is acting as their TV appearance manager.

Dave offering some advice on how we should behave after I asked a question of Tofferer: [welikejesus.com]
But what Craig and company do over at the Rick Ross forum is to attack the 'FOLLOWERS' and even the non-followers who have anything good to say in defence of the Jesus Christians. And the result is usually that they lose another opportunity to cause division, and only cause more unity between us and our friends and supporters

But now, having said that, I want to use Liesel as an example of what they SHOULD be doing. She recently posted a compliment for me about caring for a stray cat from the alley behind our house. It didn't mean that she doesn't still have her gripes against me (nor that I don't have my strong gripes about her), but it actually portrays HER more as a fair and honest person.

What Tofferer said about us:
I am of the opinion that a vast majority of the people there have an axe to grind and ultimately don't care whom it is against. I saw enough spins on the facts to make a normal person puke. I must agree that the Rick Ross forum does welcome hatred and discontent.

My so called "attack" on Tofferer
Tofferer, could you please identify which facts you consider we are putting "spin" on to cause you to "puke". You have made a statement possibly about something I have said. Do I get something specific from you or not?

Dave, please identify what the "attack" is in my question to Tofferer?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2008 02:31PM by apostate.

(Dear Zeusor, thanks for pointing that out about "T"....now I can make sense of why he doesn't have any sense...I will be a little more sensitive about this in future....)

.....but speaking about "sensitivity".....

The man who wants the world to know that he is yet capable of some iota of kindness, demands recognition...hence in order that I not fail to display some sort of "gratitude"...let me acknowledge that David is certainly able to demonstrate to the individual members of the the JesusChristians the same genuine concern for their overall well-being, as he now displays (by his account) to the stray animals he has chanced across.........Thank you David for setting such an example, (a harbinger of bigger things to come???).....I hope that you will prayerfully think through the "parable of the stray cats"

.....Cats need "home". David helps cat to find provision.................ergo people approve.............
.....Young people need direction. David helps himself (to them)....."inexplicaby" people disapprove

because at the moment David appears to me to have "stalled" at kindness to cats

although, you know, perhaps this empathy for the feline, explains even more....

Now I can understand why those who fate it is to suffer CATastrophe of being betoken to David, often finish up completely CATatonic from years of Davids CATaplexy, whose caustic comments display for all to see, the utter CATtiness, of a soul now little better than than emptiness hidden within the deathly pallor of a funeral CATafalque (and whom Christ would have similarly, earlier CATegorized as no better than a "whited sepulcher" for the empty rhetoric of his seemingly CAThartic yet ultimately duplicitous CATechisms.....



...but look in the same spirit.... here's some advice for David:

Discontinue your practises of swindling people out of their possessions (with transparent accounts, independently and properly publicly audited, and through the use of trust accounts that incorporate ALL of the members the JesusChristians, not simply yourself or your direct family) and their lives (with statutory procedures that permit members to leave the JesusChristians without condemnation or penalty, that allow private communication between members of the JesusChristians and any family and friends of their choosing);

Adopt secret ballots that allow the individual members of the JesusChristians to express opinions which may differ from yours(including having the actual ability to dethrone you), without the penalty of grievance meeting humiliation and the requirement to starve themselves ("fast and pray" as you lie) until they comply with you:

Stop and desist in your slanderous fabrications that are intended to alienate those who have gullibly placed their trust in you, from anyone external to your religious empire:

(....oh and in general just get a life which doesn't depend on robbing others of their lives!!)


If you fail to do this David, you will only unite us even further....

[welikejesus.com]

OK, I admit that I got my dates and another minor detail mixed up (1999 instead of 1998, while in the Navy vs. while not in the Navy) and thank you all for correcting me. I should have read that more carefully. The important fact of the matter is that Chris sustained a rather nasty head injury back then and that it left him neurologically impaired, so he cannot help being so simple-minded. I apologize for the minor factual errors, and kindly thank you all over there at the JC forum for pointing them out.

I shall close with a quote from my favorite movie:

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

F. Gump



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2008 04:03AM by zeuszor.

Z -

Can you PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE explain to me why McKay's group is a cult and the Hare Krishnas are not?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you completely lost your mind?!?!?!?!????????????????????

What you need to do is quit trying to expose cults, get a job, get some responsibility, get a place of your own and get your act together! And lay off the stinkin' mushrooms!

Mark Scheiderer

Who are you? Do we know each other?

You do not know me, nor I you. I don't do mushrooms, either.

I will not discuss my private life nor my friends and associates here. That is nobody's business and has nothing to do with the topic of this forum.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2008 10:36AM by zeuszor.