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You know, people disagree on the identity of God and Christ, and each side belittles the other in particular times and places. No one on either side has been subjected the the barrage of "prove its" and the less-than-expert dissection of supporting material than I have endured on this thread. I'm not whining. Just stating a fact. I can take it just fine, thankyouverymuch. And the namecalling, which I have given just as much as I've gotten, long, long ago passed the point of ridiculousness. I stopped the namecalling, but I did not stop the passion of my conviction. If you want to disagree with my position, let's go for it. I can go another 70 pages if it's an honest discussion. But today has seen nothing constructive. One juvenile taunt after another, and my call for civility was not only ignored, but mocked. The incivility was expanded beyond its original expression. [EDITED to remove reference to a deleted post]. I am sorry my position offends some people. I am. But what I'm sorry about is the level to which we were deceived by a power hungry cult eager to bore its way into the deepest, most personal aspects of our prayer lives. I am sorry that I was ever party to such a tremendous deception, one that I KNEW was a lie, but buried because I wanted to fit in. [EDITED to remove reference to a deleted post]. As for those outside TWI, what can I say? Itching ears eager to believe a lie during a time in our history when such lies were commonplace, when the only question was "which god is producing this phenomenon?" and not "is this phenomenon what it is claimed to be?" So they spoke in tongues and, convinced it was a language, went abroad to become missionaries. They got the hard lesson that the gobbledy-gook they were spewing forth was not what they claimed it to be. In this, God was not glorified. But instead of correcting themselves for speaking presumptuously, for pretending the babbling of man to be an expression of the power of God, they simply redefined the power of God to make it less awesome, less real. Now God promises to give you something indistinguishable from someone faking it. That's not what the Bible promises. But it's what we delivered. This isn't about believing God or believing scientists. It's about believing God and not believing those who pretend to bring forth His power but fail to produce the results God promises, and then mock us when we call them on the LIE. If you're not producing what He said you'll produce, then you're not doing what He wants. In this, God is not glorified. Why do I think it's going to be a language. Please. Because it's speaking in tongues, which are languages? Because every Biblical reference to that word, when it's not talking about the physical organ, is talking about human languages spoken by other people on earth? There is honest inquiry, and there is defensive posturing. We've seen both on this thread. Only one deserves serious consideration.

Sky, if you tell the story of the microcosm well, people will understand that it stands for the macrocosm. No need to shove a moral down people's throats. :) Why were 190 clergy assigned to HQ? IMHO, because they should have been the most loyal to Wierwille, so he was hoping to have better control over his staff -- he wanted yes-men, not people with actual needs. (Which is why he shut down the Senior Corps.) If he'd played it right, he would have had minions to care for him and do his bidding in his old age even if he wasn't the board president anymore. Remember, narcissists tend to be lazy. What he didn't count on was that clergy actually thought of themselves as leaders, able to make decisions and get "revelation" on their own, from Craig on down. He also didn't realize that the top clergy didn't like him much. No surprise -- he was demanding, insulting, capricious, a drunk, and an adulterer. No wonder he went off to Gartmore when it became apparent that he couldn't control the mess at home, a mess of his own making.

What constitutes proof... This isn't even a little complicated. Speak in tongues into a tape recorder. Spend the rest of your life trying to identify the language. Travel the world. Talk to linguists. Identify the language. It's really that simple. You can try it with TWI folk. You can try it with your family. You can do it yourself. Find one person who can produce a verified actual language that they've never learned. Spare is the third and fourth hand stories of people who spoke in tongues and there just happened to be a native speaker of the same language nearby. I call that urban legend, and if you don't agree, fine. Find the speaker and reproduce the result. Because what you're going to find is that speaking in tongues does not produce an actual language, which it would if it worked and was not being faked.

"It would help me if you could give me some specific references to the studies so I can consider their impact on my thesis." Here ya go, Steve. This is the most often cited study but, there are many other academic pieces on the subject, as well. HERE