Please Tell Me Togas Will Be Involved -Dougie/Greece -Merge

[Anny Nym]

ecc-studienreisen.de/ecc-gruppenreisen/online-katalog.html#/54/zoomed

ECC, a organizer for christian cultural travel also has a "following St.Pauls footsteps" tour in its program. Also 9 days, also shoulder season september. They have actual information in their schedule and way less babblin´and story telling than the vision forums one. The price is max. 1250 Euro, including flights from Germany to Greece and fare.

Has the visionforums tour flights from US to Turkey included? Didn´t find anything and I won't be (at all) surprised if not.

[yewchapel]

Regency/Napoleonic wars dress-up in Brighton? (While the ladies drink tea, Doug and the interns can engage in some swordplay? ) :D

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I used to live near Brighton and spotting VFers would soooo be worth a return visit....

[samurai_sarah]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I used to live near Brighton and spotting VFers would soooo be worth a return visit....

I have friends in Brighton, so I'd join you for that. Now how do we convince the Brighton Regency Society to help us make this happen? :lol:

[slickcat79]

I'm sure there will be an opportunity to get a newly post-partum Kelly Bradrick in on this. No way will she not be popping out another one this year.

Add me to the list of people who wonder how the hell any fundies afford these vacations, especially the QF type :?

[VooDooChild]

This.

I've read the sort of shite fundies think ought to earn them a PhD, and if I'd handed it in for my fucking undergrad degree I would have got my arse kicked by my lecturers from one end of the Royal Mile to the other. Hell, if I'd handed it in in my last year of high school public humiliation would follow. And the state school I attended is bottom of the league table for that area.

Also, a Marxist perspective on history is a valid one (though very open to challenge). A "Christian" perspective on history is not. It's relying on a holy book of what the author believes to be truth, so you're never going to get past "Goddidit". With a Marxist interpretation you are going to need a wide variety of sources and a really solid backing for your argument which isn't just you waving a copy of Capital around. Christian perspective on history only needs the Bible, which, duh, not everyone accepts as the Absolute Word of God.

A "Christian and Southern" perspective on history is an opinion column in WorldNutzDaily, not a PhD thesis.

(True story - I was in classes with a fundie at Uni. Fundie-lite, but. Anyway, we had to do presentations in our tutor group and he confidently stood up and announced his was going to be on the increasing level of evil and lack of Biblical morality in [country x]. The tutor about tore him to shreds. ZOMG THE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS, expecting them to actually conform to academic standards... :roll: )

This. Just more examples of the astronomically huge sense of entitlement that Christians possess.

[Buzzard]

We've discussed the costs involved in a lot of this stuff before and it never seems to amaze me

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=920

So shocked by the pricing of the Journey to the heart seminar I did some research

If you were just getting started in ATI this is the costs

(think it is the first time- because if you are alumni you might get stuff free after the first time)

Basic Seminar $60

First- time additional family member $35

Advanced Seminar $60

First- time additional family member $35

Anger seminar $35

First- time additional family member $35

Financial Freedom Seminar $109 (HEY! It is backordered- i bet because Jim Bob talks about it in every interview lately)

Homeschool

Application- $25

Admissions Training Videos: Two-month rental for $50 or purchase for $75

Your first year materials will include the following:

•Four Wisdom Booklets per child (aged 7 and up)

•Four Parent Guide Planners

•Guard Your Heart booklet—A memorization and meditation program

•Commands of Christ Series 1-7

•Family Support Link Live!

•ATI Handbook

•Student Journal sets

•Three-month rental of the Basic Seminar

•Three-month rental of the Advanced Seminar

•Three-month rental of the Anger Resolution Seminar

•Financial Freedom Seminar

•Vocabulary cards

•Scripture memory poster

•Weekly Planner

•Access to online materials such as Wisdom Booklet Content Overviews, Greek Training Sessions, and Greek Worksheets

ATI Annual Update—Subsequent Years

Family Tuition: $150 annual ATI family enrollment + $80 for each student receiving Wisdom Booklets. Larger families will not need to pay more than a total of $630. (so each kid doesn't even get thier own book? share?)

Please note: Effective September 1st, 2011, the subsequent year tuition fee for ATI Families will only apply to those that enroll on an annual basis. Any family reenrolling in ATI that has not updated their enrollment status within a 12-month period will be charged a $675 tuition fee to renew enrollment status.

•$150 annual enrollment covers family support services, reduced ATI Conference pricing, special Journey to the Heart pricing, and offsets administrative and program development costs.

•Students may receive eight Wisdom Booklets per year for $80.

•Families with students receiving Wisdom Booklets will also receive eight Parent Guide Planners.

Additional Resources

There is an array of publications available through IBLP and ATI to complement your new approach to home education. A few recommendations are listed below:

•Character Sketches (Three Volume Set)$105.00

Beautifully illustrated volumes explain how God’s creation demonstrates character

•Wisdom Booklet Language Arts Curriculum $8.00- teachers guide There are a lot of books that are 3.00 each I didn't bother to count sorry

Language Arts curriculum that corresponds with Wisdom Booklet studies

•The Power for True Success$25.00

A colorful, insightful volume presenting 49 character qualities

•Inspiring biographies and training materials http://store.iblp.org/categories/books/ lists tons of more books

Materials for family growth and discipleship

ATI Conference- this ranges from 85- 195 depending if you get an early bird special

10 dollars for grandparents to attend

kids have various programs you have to add on http://ati.iblp.org/ati/events/regionalconferences/documents/registration2011.pdf?show=true

Journey to the Heart

Young ladies- ATI Students= $500 ($50/day)

Non-ATI Students = $800 ($80/day)

Young Adult- ATI Students= $500 ($50/day)

Non-ATI Students = $800 ($80/day)

Moms- ATI Moms = $500 ($50/day)

Non-ATI Moms = $800 ($80/day)

Okay I know I am forgetting stuff but wow do the math- that sure adds up

Considering that a lot of these families follow both ATI and VF, how can they possibly afford this stuff? Between Dougie's adventures, tea parties, re enactments of whatever... plus the "proper" educashun from ATI... you need 20k/year just to be a good christian. I just dont see how the majority of Americans have that kind of income when they have a gaggle of kids and only one income.

[ILoveJellybeans]

They really are out to scam people, arent they? How can people afford this crap with 10 kids??? Bet thats why its seen as good to feed their kids the bare minimum for survival and stack them on shelving.

[YPestis]

I can only summarize that some VF and ATI families are well off and/or don't have a dozen children. Small businessmen can do pretty well if they work hard and have good business acumen. If they only have four kids, some could live upper middle class and afford all the goodies including an expensive cruise. I just don't know how so many of these fundies family could afford this. Then again, if there's no college to fund, and you avoid all forms of secular entertainment (cable, sports, Disneyland), maybe that's enough to get you on a $5700 cruise.

[hoipolloi]

Re: MR. Potter. Having read his stuff here & there on the interwebz, I seriously doubt that he was ever an up-and-coming scholar of anything at William & Mary or anywhere else. His crap oozes with so much pompous ignorance that I even find it hard to believe that he actually got to the ABD point. Good on the W & M faculty who threw his ass out of the program.

I try to bring up the BS with Potter's "ABD" regularly because you can never over-emphasize the fraudulent nature of Vision Forum (and its bogus "historians" like Bill Potter), and I live in hopes that one of these times someone who is or was in W & M's graduate history program will come across us FJ and fill us in on the back story.

Re: $$ and VF. It's pretty clear that both VF.com and VFM.org exist primarily to be Dougie's cash cows. Would love for the IRS to take a long close look at VF Ministries in particular.

Doug Phillips Is A Tool

[twin2]

Re: $$ and VF. It's pretty clear that both VF.com and VFM.org exist primarily to be Dougie's cash cows. Would love for the IRS to take a long close look at VF Ministries in particular.

Doug Phillips Is A Tool

Oh, I'd love to see the books on VF. VFM is registered as a 501[c]3. I think it is a good thing Dougie has a law degree, he probably knows just how close he can get to the line without stepping over it (monetarily and politically).

[justlurking]

Add me to the list of people who wonder how the hell any fundies afford these vacations, especially the QF type :?

Easy. You simply cut out all "luxuries". You know, adequate food, housing, running water, etc.

[StacyW]

In the meantime, here's some info on MR. Bill Potter, from Doug Phillips Is A Tool, in December 2004, waxing nostalgic about his college days (visionforum.com/news/blogs/doug/2004/12/945/):

And, yes, Megan, I'm sure that the projected max of participants (125) is carefully calibrated to ensure first of all that the Phillips family has its entire way paid for the trip.

Doug Phillips Is A Tool

The current chair of the history department at William and Mary is a University of Wisconsin graduate, and a woman: www.wm.edu/as/history/faculty/meyer_l.php . Maybe it's the same person who denied pool Bill his PhD?

[YPestis]

The current chair of the history department at William and Mary is a University of Wisconsin graduate, and a woman: http://www.wm.edu/as/history/faculty/meyer_l.php . Maybe it's the same person who denied pool Bill his PhD?

Well, she's a female doctorate who is in charge of the menz. So yeah, she falls under the moniker of "liberal Marxist". :roll: :lol:

[Burris]

Yeah, OK. Sure. Whatever you say.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the viva for top PhD candidates was carried out by several faculty members precisely to avoid the sort of thing Doug (is a Tool) alleges here?

[wtylcf]

The denied PhD thing is fishy. The process is 4-6 years long, and you are supervised and aided by the faculty. If you fail to successfully defend your dissertation, you get to do re-writes and try again. If this guy was denied, he pretty have had to quit, or he was asked to leave early on due to deep conflicts. I don't believe that he was some top light candidate whose career was squashed by those "Marxist" professors. If his scholarship was so awesome, they would have accepted it in some form.

As I understand the PhD process (though my knowledge is specific to my university in Canada), there are usually 3 professors involved in your dissertation: your advisor whom you work with closely; an external examiner from outside the university, who has some expertise in the subject area; and the external examiner from your university but who may be from another faculty. You are responsible for finding these supervisors yourself. There is no excuse for picking advisors/external examiners whose views are totally incompatible with your own; that's just stupid. Unless the situation at William and Mary is totally different from this, but even so, if you object to a marxist interpretation of history, why on earth would you choose to study with a marxist scholar?!

(Though it does happen, and I've seen people from ivy-league universities be accepted to programs on the basis of their fancy previous degree, but the work they want to do has no relation to the work of the supervisor. It's like trying to swim upstream instead of downstream when that happens. In my opinion it's not worth getting a year of funding to just fight with your advisor and get nowhere and waste a year of your life and your advisor's life. )

[mausi]

Well, she's a female doctorate who is in charge of the menz. So yeah, she falls under the moniker of "liberal Marxist". :roll: :lol:

She's too young to have been a professor when Dougie's man was around and threatened by the ebul Marxists. Besides, they would love to throw in something about her 'sinful topic of study' or something like that (for those who haven't clicked the link, she researches LGBTQ history).

[twin2]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the viva for top PhD candidates was carried out by several faculty members precisely to avoid the sort of thing Doug (is a Tool) alleges here?

That is how it worked at my university. Passing of my thesis defense was determined by a committee of faculty members: my advisor, my "thesis committee" who had been chosen by me with me since my qualifying exam (2 from my department and 1 from outside my department) and who I met yearly with, and one final member outside my department appointed by the dean of graduate studies. It was my committee who decided if I passed or failed and signed the required paper work stating I'd passed. All my department chair had to do was sign a form stating I had completed all my course work.

[hoipolloi]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the viva for top PhD candidates was carried out by several faculty members precisely to avoid the sort of thing Doug (is a Tool) alleges here?

I don't have experience with W & M but do have experience with other accredited universities & have served as an external reader or examiner.

Normally, a PhD candidate has a committee with a chair/thesis supervisor. It is the supervisor's job both to represent the candidate and to see that the candidate is ready to move through the PhD process including things like a thesis prospectus, bibliography for the prospectus and the exams (both written & oral), then drafts of thesis itself, and then the oral defense of the thesis. A good supervisor would not let a candidate get to any of these "way stations" unless s/he was pretty sure that the candidate would perform acceptably. I'm not sure about PhD exams but oral defenses of PhD theses are (almost) always public events at a university, with notices put into the school's calendar so that anyone who is interested can attend. At many schools as well, any attendee can ask the candidate questions about the thesis. While theoretically one person (on the committee or in the department or as a member of the public) could torpedo someone's PhD I've never heard of this happening; if a candidate flames out it's because most people who had to work with them decided that they couldn't or didn't cut it. End of story.

[samurai_sarah]

Re: MR. Potter. Having read his stuff here & there on the interwebz, I seriously doubt that he was ever an up-and-coming scholar of anything at William & Mary or anywhere else. His crap oozes with so much pompous ignorance that I even find it hard to believe that he actually got to the ABD point. Good on the W & M faculty who threw his ass out of the program.

I try to bring up the BS with Potter's "ABD" regularly because you can never over-emphasize the fraudulent nature of Vision Forum (and its bogus "historians" like Bill Potter), and I live in hopes that one of these times someone who is or was in W & M's graduate history program will come across us FJ and fill us in on the back story.

Re: $$ and VF. It's pretty clear that both VF.com and VFM.org exist primarily to be Dougie's cash cows. Would love for the IRS to take a long close look at VF Ministries in particular.

Doug Phillips Is A Tool

It's also a bit suspicious that he doesn't list the years when he allegedly received his assorted degrees. His biographies don't read like any academical biographies I've ever come across. I've done some googling, and it all doesn't add up. Other than in his bios or on VF-related sites, he isn't listed anywhere with any educational credentials. What I have found is that he did live in Williamsburg, VA (2006-2007). If he was indeed a PhD candidate there during that time, then he hasn't left any electronic footprint I could find. One year, or even just one semester, is also awfully short to be an up and coming scholar.

What I did find very interesting is this book about Stonewall Jackson:

http://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Bride-Let ... 1929241631

It was published in 2002, and one of the reviews explicitly connects it to Vision Forum:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WSSVRU8M ... tore=books

So, Bill Potter may indeed have begun a PhD at the College of William and Mary, but on the basis of the book preceding his stay in Williamsburg, I suspect that he went into the programme with a decent-sounding research proposal, pissed everyone off with his dogmatic approach, and cried persecution when he was told that this might not be the right programme for him.

Sorry, if this is all common knowledge already. I was procrastinating and had a bit of fun playing the internet sleuth. If it wasn't common knowledge, all this info is public, but it does contain private addresses, telephone numbers etc, so I'm a bit hesitant to link.

edited to unbreak links

[Megan]

I'll chime in: my Dissertation Committee will be at least 4 professors - a chair from my department, (at least) 2 other professors from my department, and an outside reader. I will ask people to join my committee. I am uncertain whether the chair has any say in whether my dissertation and defense are approved. I am also fairly certain my defense will be public.

As an aside, I am unfamiliar with History, but surely they have conferences and the like that Bill Potter, Top PhD Candidate would have presented at, were he actually a "top PhD candidate". I'm curious as to whether he ever presented in any legitimate forums.

Personal guess: he managed to pass courses by doing what he was told/sticking to real history. He then began writing revisionist history and the program axed him at that point. The department wouldn't want to be associate with that and neither would any individual historian.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I missed the private yacht part. But still, why pay all that money when you could fly to Greece and join a tour for half the price? And get more knowledgeable guides to boot. It just seems like a colossal waste of money. I can't believe he gets enough people to go to make it worth the cost. In the quiverfull, fundie subset, most people are somewhere between living paycheck to paycheck and dirt poor. Even the Duggars, in all their TLC glory, could barely afford to send someone on this trip. I just think it's a big rip off and Dougie's way of filching money to pay for a big vacation for himself and his family. Who would want to contribute to that?

I suspect the VF audience wouldn't want actually more knowledgeable guides. They don't care about actual history or any history as told from the point of view of local people (which is what most good guides will give), no, they want "how does Greece fit in with this wonderful God-driven Protestant fable we've been been drinking the Kool-Aid of for the past ten years or so?"

I too wonder just what slice of VF fan goes on these things though. Like you and others point out, loads of their fans are on the low end and probably mainly "consume" VF from the free internet page with perhaps the odd purchase of a lecture or book now and then, while figuring out how to make mixing their own laundry detergent sound godly.

Followed by a 1000 or so good Christian dumb assess that will buy the DVD of the trip from Dougie for the low low price of $19.99 +tax+s/h.

Oh yeah - I forgot about the DVD angle!! :roll: Just makes it all the more mercenary!!

The denied PhD thing is fishy. The process is 4-6 years long, and you are supervised and aided by the faculty. If you fail to successfully defend your dissertation, you get to do re-writes and try again. If this guy was denied, he pretty have had to quit, or he was asked to leave early on due to deep conflicts. I don't believe that he was some top light candidate whose career was squashed by those "Marxist" professors. If his scholarship was so awesome, they would have accepted it in some form.

I wonder if the guy essentially did a Kirk Cameron - had his final and most off the deep end conversion/born again experience while he was working on the PhD, and all of a sudden decided to change tack while halfway or more through the thing and already in a good relationship with his advisor/committee. So he got a good way through, progress is happening, suddenly he drinks the 'ade and "realizes" it's all sinful/bullshit to his new view, and either tries to change things up radically at that point or actually walked away of his own accord because the (now realized to be) "Marxist professor" was asking him to keep to the standards of scholarship they'd already agreed on.

FWIW there's no shortage of people with "out there" views on the Internet from all kinds of angles who think they're God's gift to theory but somehow it's only that "elitist [ungodly/racist/evil Western/homosexual agenda/heterosexist/whatever depending on angle] academia" that is oppressing them and doesn't see their brilliance for what it is and it's shocking that academia won't come and pay them for their unschooled opinions on the views of the day. Common thread is always, always, always any sort of standard is "unfair" and they are the victims.

Though perhaps hoipolloi is right and it's all BS (and I don't mean a Bachelor's) from the get-go.

Either way these orgs are so damn transparent when they use the same two "historians" (or "scientists" when it comes to the evolution stuff) every time.

And yes, if he never presented any papers or talks or at least posters (which should be searchable somewhere) there's no way the guy was ever a serious candidate for anything.

[samurai_sarah]

(snip)

As an aside, I am unfamiliar with History, but surely they have conferences and the like that Bill Potter, Top PhD Candidate would have presented at, were he actually a "top PhD candidate". I'm curious as to whether he ever presented in any legitimate forums.

Personal guess: he managed to pass courses by doing what he was told/sticking to real history. He then began writing revisionist history and the program axed him at that point. The department wouldn't want to be associate with that and neither would any individual historian.

Everything he's got online that I could find is connected to "the American History Guild" aka "Circa History Guild", which has an agenda. theamericanhistoryguild.com/

Or it's connected to VF/homeschooling conferences/revisionist history sites. No academic conferences, no academic papers, and I couldn't find any advisor/supervisor claiming him as a former PhD candidate at W&M online. (That might just be a system that's different to the one I'm used to, though).

Regarding your personal guess: I'm not familiar with the system in the US. I did have to take classes during my first year of my PhD programme, had to pass every course and do a mini-viva (defence) and mini-dissertation of my research at the end of the year. The whole department showed up for the mini-viva, and anyone present got to ask questions. I'm not arguing your scenario, just adding another guess that he might just have screwed up on all fronts. If he'd been in my system and consistently argued his VF agenda, he would have been asked to leave in no uncertain terms.

eta: Sorry, I think I somewhat misread your guess, based on my own previous assumptions. He only seems to have lived in Williamsburg for a year, and I assumed that that was when he started his PhD programme. My uni's system only demanded coursework for one year, followed by a mini-viva/diss to determine whether or not you could carry on.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Everything he's got online that I could find is connected to "the American History Guild" aka "Circa History Guild", which has an agenda. theamericanhistoryguild.com/

Or it's connected to VF/homeschooling conferences/revisionist history sites. No academic conferences, no academic papers, and I couldn't find any advisor/supervisor claiming him as a former PhD candidate at W&M online. (That might just be a system that's different to the one I'm used to, though).

Regarding your personal guess: I'm not familiar with the system in the US. I did have to take classes during my first year of my PhD programme, had to pass every course and do a mini-viva (defence) and mini-dissertation of my research at the end of the year. The whole department showed up for the mini-viva, and anyone present got to ask questions. I'm not arguing your scenario, just adding another guess that he might just have screwed up on all fronts. If he'd been in my system and consistently argued his VF agenda, he would have been asked to leave in no uncertain terms.

I know something about the US system, being close with someone with an ABD in US history myself. In the US system (at least at big state schools) you take classes for the first 2 years or so (and you also are expected to teach classes to earn a tuition waiver an stipend). You will have chosen an advisor and a specialty, which determines what classes you take. Many students already know exactly what they want to research when they come in, but some only have a general idea, and those people will narrow down to a topic during those years.

Also during those years, you likely go to some conferences and make presentations in your area. You write some "small" (long magazine article length) papers, get published, hopefully maybe get cited. This stuff should be available somewhere, or found on old dead websites from conferences or whatever.

At some point, you have to pass a qualifying exam to advance to the PhD. If you don't make it, you are kicked out with a MA.

The qualifying exam in history is about presenting what your research topic is, why it's important, why you want to do it, and why you think you have the background to do it. It's a very big deal. You must have done a ton of basic groundwork research on your topic already. Unless a group of professors (including the advisor) signs on to the idea, you don't pass, and again, bye bye, enjoy the MA. Often there are basic tests about your general area too, plus some sort of language test if you need it (people studying Mexican history are going to need to pass tests in Spanish, for instance).

Once you advance to PhD status, you can stay around for a very long time (partly because the sad truth is the department desperately depends on teaching labor from PhD candidates) but you have to be actively progressing and doing real work. If you go off the deep end and start writing revisionist stuff or otherwise changing course without negotiating it with a very good reason, you're out.

[salex]

Incredibly principled in his theology and history, Bill was the top Ph.D. candidate with high ranking grades at the College of William and Mary, but was denied his Ph.D. by the Marxist history chairman (a former “Weatherman†radical at the University of Wisconsin) because of his overt Christian and Southern perspective on history.

l

Is this guy's un accepted dissertation around anywhere, as this sounds very unlikely. IF he was accepted, and if his dissertation topic was accepted, it isn't likely the chair would/could stand in the way. Especially if he was the "top" PhD candidate......

[jenny_islander]

This. Just more examples of the astronomically huge sense of entitlement that Christians possess.

Whoa, there, the arrogance of ignorance is not just a Christian thing and it's not an all-Christian thing. Neither is expecting to coast through life by reciting the correct shibboleths (if that was what your classmate expected to happen).