cheerylizard :

You have disclosed your calculation regarding teacher salaries.

Again, what is your calculation concerning the salaries and compensation packages paid out to SMC leaders?

Please break it down.

CheeryLizard, once again you put words in my mouth. I never said I wanted to know who was in the commune. A very political sort of answer, changing what I have asked and commenting on what you imagine I have said rather than what I actually said.

Good to see you recognise "the commune" however (even if you would not use that word), and link it with the "Fidra operations" in the accounts. I could have been talking about somewhere down in London or elsewhere, but you seem to be confident in your assumption I am talking about "Fidra". Interesting that you made this link.

OK,so you are saying it is a private home, but is also owned by the church. Why do the church own a private home? Is it just to make money, or does it have some other purpose - to offer support to residents for example? Is that not a legitimate question? Is it not also reasonable to ask whether the rent is subsidised in some way by the church, or is it the opposite - very high rents to achieve more income for the church? Who knows? Are there rules for living there? This is a charity we are talking about, not some sort of private enterprise.

Someone does presumably know how big Fidra is and How and how many people live in it however. That might be interesting information.

I think you might be right in one aspect however. Wikipedia describes a commune as:

A commune (the French word appearing in the 12th century from Medieval Latin communia, meaning a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from Latin communis, things held in common)[1] is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income and assets. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become important core principles for many communes. Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times wrote that, contrary to popular misconceptions, "most communes of the '90s are not free-love refuges for flower children, but well-ordered, financially solvent cooperatives where pragmatics, not psychedelics, rule the day."[2] There are many contemporary intentional communities all over the world, a list of which can be found at the Fellowship for Intentional Community(FIC).[3]

I doubt there is any consensus decision-making so I guess I have to withdraw the word.

As for your comment about "a number of people" you are again attempting blatant political manipulation. I said a number of people only understood that the church subsidised the school after it was pointed to by Latigo. You said that wasn't the case. I was right and you were wrong: simple as that. Yet you are somehow trying to argue that it was still me that was wrong. Well, why not - never let the facts get in the way, of a good story, huh? Lets shift the goalposts instead of admitting the argument as it was originally stated has been concluded and you were wrong.

And there is a huge difference between capital expenditure and an ongoing revenue subsidy. Of course it requires capital to make a purchase: that is very different to one of the uses of the collection plate being to subsidise private education on an ongoing basis.

I don’t know if any of you saw the programme called “Trapped in a cult”, which was shown a way back on Friday 21st August. Long time ago, I know, but I had recorded it but not really had a change to look at it until this weekend.

I though the programme included some quite important comments about what is meant by a cult and how it affects people. I was particularly interested in the final statement, made by the leader of one of the organisations that was featured.

The statement was in response to the testimony of a person who had featured in the programme and had been adversely affected by the organisation. The statement was:

[The organisation] disputes all of [the person’s] allegations, points out that [the person’s] involvement with the centre was some time ago. [She] says that members of the centre are not isolated or trapped, they lead normal lives, that [the person] knew what joining the centre would entail and was not pressurised into actions. [She] says the centre has been cleared of any wrong-doing. She does not agree that the centre can be described as a cult and says that members are empowered to make their own decisions.

I am not for a minute comparing the beliefs and actions of the group in the TV programme with SMC, but I did find the above statement very interesting, as it could easily be the words of someone from SMC. I guess that is my point – that someone making a statement like the one above is not enough, we have to examine whether the statement is true - and that means examining various points of view, not blindly accepting the words of one small group.

Is this organisation linked in any way to Destiny Ministries run by Andrew Owen? It's just that I've known a few people who have gone to both.

No, it doesn't have any links with Destiny churches or ministries run by Andrew Owen. SMC leaders and members do not mix with other Pentecostal groups/churches nor do they involve themselves with other church-related ministries, as a rule. There are some exceptions in recent times, such as attending Aglow, Street Pastors, Teen Challenge, e.g. but they wouldn't link with another Pentecostal church. Best wishes to everyone. Thanks for all the recent posts - most interesting.

ThePetitor

No you are wrong. I never recognised your use of the word "commune". That's why I put it in inverted commas. Your definition only proves that the house in Greenock is not a commune. As I said, it's a private home. The church-owned house you refer to is, not surprisingly, church-owned so they can rent it to whomever they like. I'm not sure why this interests you?

As to your second point, the burden of proof is still on you to show that a significant number of people didn't know how the school was funded. Again, I think this is you projecting your own opinion onto others. Of course the congregation knew, and still knows how the school is funded. It's in the AGM and the public accounts. They are free to withhold money if they want to.

I see Chester has still not produced the letter despite saying he/she would when their conditions were met. "Physician heal thyself."

Cheerylizard,


I am afraid you have misinterpreted my statement. Sorry, I realise I am used to quite a legalistic interpretation of words, so my phraseology can at times need careful reading. I am not trying to be clever with words, but I do generally mean exactly what I say and not something that may be very close to what I say, but is in fact different.

I did not say you recognised my use of the word commune, I said that you recognised “the commune"- in other words, you knew exactly what I was referring to when I used the word commune even if, as I said, “you would not use that word”. So what I meant was not that you in any way acknowledge the appropriateness of my use of the word commune, but that you recognised the thing I referred to as a commune. That I found interesting: that, in spite of me using the wrong word, you knew what I was talking about.

As for why the private home they own would interest me, well, it is in the annual accounts, so it is an area of legitimate interest. Charities are ONLY allowed to act to fulfil the purpose of the charity, so it is really up to SMC to justify how this “private home” contributes to their charitable aims.

Regarding the point about whether people knew about whether the funding of the school, you make the all-encompassing statement that “of course the congregation knew”. I am not sure whether you have spoken to them all, but I can assure you that many did not. Of course I suppose I could be lying about that, but that is a rather bizarre assumption to make. You can always get out of any argument by simply saying the other person is lying – look at the “flat earth” believers or the holocaust deniers.

I don’t really see the point of any conversation if you plan to respond by accusing me of lying. To be clear, what I said is repeated below. Unless all these people are lying about the fact they did not know this, that remains an unassailable fact.

Quote
ThePetitor
“a number of people only realised that the church was subsidising the school once it was revealed by latigo." That is not an assumption, that is a fact. You can hypothesise and speculate all you like about whether people can or want to read accounts, the facts are that a number of people did not understand the information until it was presented by Latigo.

It is fine to have view or opinions, but please don't argue with facts. Unlike SMC, it is not about who makes the most forceful comment or who claims they know what other people are thinking.

It is s long time since I - or anyone else for that matter - posted to this forum, but I came across something recently that might interest some readers of this thread.

One of the questions I have been asked a number of times is "how can people still in SMC not see what is happening?" Well, I am not sure I have all the answers to that question, but I have recently come across an interesting idea called "willful blindness". "Willful blindness" is actually a legal term that refers to a situation where people deliberately chose not to know things even when the information is all around and should really be noticed.


If you are interested, have a lot at the TED talk here [www.ted.com]


If anyone does take the time to watch this, I would be interested to hear any comments.

In another discussion on the CEI message board, one person described
a sort of split awareness.

[forum.culteducation.com]

For Petitor's description of wilful blindness, here are some additional URLs:

"The piano player in the whorehouse" -- a proverb for someone who is on site
yet claims to know nothing of what went on upstairs.

[www.google.com]

There is a proverb in law which goes, 'A man does not visit a house of ill fame to say his pater noster"

Willful Blindness

[www.google.com]

Nelsonian Knowledge

[www.discourse.net]