Steve Lortz

I agree with WordWo9lf 100%, teachmevp! I stopped reading your posts. At an earlier time, I commented on some of your posts, and I never received any indication whatsoever that you had read my comments. Some of your posts are flat out wrong. Both "Don't Lump These Messages Together" and "Religious Mindset Today" are based on discredited, erroneous interpretations of Paul. Can you do anything more than dump text? Can you write yourself? Love, Steve

MRAP - I was in the Navy from 1970 to 1976. I was aboard a submarine, the USS POGY, from 1972 to 1976. I never even heard of TWI until 1979. When you related the incident of your branch leader taking you to the barbershop, I couldn't help but think of the chief of the boat when we would put back into port after a long run. When we were at sea, we could grow our hair however we wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with the seal of gas masks... but when we came back to port, we had to get our hair cut right away, and it was the COB's job to see that we did. I kept my hair and beard long for years after I got out of the Navy, and didn't shave my beard until I was in residence in the Corps in 1985. I grew it back sometime after leaving TWI. I find your posts on this thread very insightful for understanding your experience with TWI! We aboard the POGY had our lives impacted by the war in Israel in 1973, and it certainly wasn't just about preventing a PFAL class from running! newlife - You asked "My question is.....what did the military techniques have anything to do with spiritual principles." Absolutely nothing at all. In fact, they didn't really have anything to do with genuine principles of military leadership, either! When I was in the Navy, we had a book called "Petty Officer Three and Two" that was the study guide for going up in rank. "PO 3&2" was the foundational book on carrying out the responsibilities of a non-commissioned officer, and it had a chapter on military leadership. "PO 3&2" defined the primary qualities necessary for good military leadership as these three, in this order of priority: good moral conduct, leadership by example and administrative ability. If you are dishonest with your followers, they will be dishonest with you. You cannot tell people to do things that you are not willing to do yourself, and being able to keep track of paperwork is only third. As for throwing yourself off a table to build trust... the branch leader should have been the FIRST to throw himself/herself off, to DEMONSTRATE trust to his/her followers! There is an unwritten rule among military leaders that you should never issue an order if you know your followers will refuse to execute it. Issuing such an order does nothing but generate mutiny and destroy confidence in the chain of command. MRAP - You wrote, "To bring someone into the word now is like having a kid - I am old, I don't need anymore kids and I have a life (oh, Jesus has alot to say about that - he sees my every key stroke). That's what I am talking about. How do older established folks deal with this dilema." Older, established folks have dealt with this dilemma for the past 2000 years or so by belonging to established congregations! People say it takes a village to raise a kid. It really does take a congregation larger than a half-dozen twenty-somethings to bring a person up in the Word! I love you ALL! Steve

I don't remember any specific incident in the corps training where we had to self-criticize in the sense of political re-education, but it sure was a BIG PART of the Momentus experience... Love, Steve

It's good to be back, Raf! I spent the first week of April in the hospital recovering from pneumonia, but while I was there, they discovered that I had a heart attack at some point, my kidneys had received additional damage, I had developed asthma (at first they thought it was COPD) and my red and white blood cell counts were dangerously low. I think it is all a progressive result of the potassium overdose I received two years ago. I should have died at that time, but I didn't. I am really thankful for each and every one of my friends here at GreaseSpot Cafe, whether we agree about things or not. I have become a part of another faith community that is also unconventional in some ways, and I have not been shy about telling people some of my experiences while in TWI, but those guys can never share the comradery of those of us "who were there." I haven't had the pleasure of discussing theology over a beer with you, Raf, but I had some good fellowships in Tzaia's kitchen back in the mid-90s when we began to realize ALL the TWI offshoots were just as bad if not worse than the original organization. I don't have the stamina that I used to have... but I will get back from time to time! Love, Steve

I remember the fun we used to have talking about things, Tzaia, back in the mid-'90s! You bring up some very interesting considerations in your initial post on this thread. I've been thinking about some of these things, not just during the time I was coming out from under the dispensationalism of TWI and its off-shoots, but also while studying the history of Christianity working on my master's. ALL this stuff is meshed together big time, and it all started when Napoleon beat the Prussians at Battle of Jena in 1806. Since the late-1700s the Prussians had a small, elite professional army that was deemed to be the best in Europe. Frederick the Great had been the military genius of his age, and the Prussian army still basked in the afterglow of his glory. What could the French republicans do against Prussians? French soldiers were a bunch of riff-raff draftees fresh off the farms of France. The Prussians thought the French were less than worthless. It's hard for us to imagine today the shock and humiliation suffered by the Prussians as a result of their defeat at Jena. But that shock and humiliation threw Prussia into a frenzy of societal and military re-organization, imitating the French in everything except their form of government. That re-organization resulted in the German ability to take on nearly the whole world twice within the next 150 years. As a part of that re-organization, the Prussian government set about to establish the University of Berlin in 1810. Friedrich Schleiermacher wanted for the university to have a school of theology, but the government didn't. The French had thrown theology out of their universities. The Prussians saw no reason to include theology in their own curricula. The only way Schleiermacher could get a school of theology was by promising that it would be "scientific" theology. There was one problem... according to the "science" of the early-1800s, Newtonian mechanics, it is absolutely impossible for miracles to happen. All of the liberal Protestant theology that came out of the 1800s and exists today in such forms as the Jesus Seminar's quest for the "Historical" Jesus, is based on the fundamental assumption that everything "miraculous" in the Bible, including the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a phony explanation for something that never happened. By the late-1800s many Christians knew that something was radically wrong with liberal Protestant theology, but they couldn't put their fingers on exactly what was wrong. They could not yet object to the "science" because Neils Bohr didn't come up with quantum mechanics until 1925 (at the University of Berlin, no less). Concerned churches got together and formed the fundamentalist movement in response to liberal Protestant theology. Instead of sorting out what was scientifically possible and probable, the fundamentalist movement took poetic expressions from the Bible and treated them as if they were propositional statements of ontological certainty. Tsk, tsk, tsk... all for now... more later... Love, Steve

Howzabout Secret Red Dawn of the Planet of the Apes??? Love, Steve

If it bothered Jesus Christ that people believe in the Trinity, he would have put an end to it a long time ago. After all, he is the head of the body... oh wait, I must be thinking of the man of God of the world for this our day and time... Has anybody seen him since he croaked? Shucks... Love, Steve

Just for the sake of consideration, the power of dispensationalism lies in its presentation of a logical framework for chronologically organizing information contained in the Bible. The system is logical, but not sound, because the premise that oikonomia means "a period of time" is false. Dispensationalism took as its jumping off point the covenantal theology of the Reformation, but covenantal theology also fails as a device for chronologically organizing information, since a "covenant" is no more "a period of time" than an oikonomia is. The best framework I've found for chronologically understanding the Bible is God's promise-plan by Walter C. Kaiser. The promise-plan starts with God's promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, continues through God's promise to Abraham that in his seed would all the families of the earth be blessed, and develops through God's promise to David that of his seed's kingdom there would be no end, the promise in Jeremiah that there would be a new covenant, the promise of the resurrection in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, etc. The Old Testament is a story of doom, with everything imaginable getting in the way of God bringing his promise-plan to pass. The New Testament presents us with the partial current fulfillment of some of the promises, and the hope of future fulfillment for ALL of them! Kaiser doesn't speculate about "periods of time" beyond what the Bible says about "this age" and the "age to come," and the current apparent overlap of the ages. Dispensationalism and covenant theology aren't the only options out there. Schoenheit seems to be too caught up in the claptrap and hype of PFAL to recognize this truth... Love, Steve

The word oikonomia appears seven times in the New Testament: Luke 16:2,3,4; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Ephesians 1:10, 3:2; and Colossians 1:25. The word means "stewardship," the arrangement by which one person manages another person's property. It can be translated appropriately as "management." In the Bible itself, oikonomia is NEVER used to indicate a period of time. There is a good Greek word that DOES mean a period of time. That word is aion, properly translated "age" though the KJV translates it as "world" or "ever." The Bible indicates that there are multiple ages, but only two are described with sufficient detail to distinguish them, "this age" and "the age to come." Paul calls the period of time in which we now live "this present evil age" in Galatians 1:4. The age to come will begin in full when Jesus Christ returns. There is NO SUCH THING in the Bible as an "age or grace" or an "age of law" or a "church age." The age to come was scheduled to begin with the general resurrection of the dead. Everyone (including Paul) was thrown for a loop when Jesus was resurrected by himself. In one sense, the age to come began partially when Jesus was resurrected, but will not come fully until the general resurrection happens. In that sense, we are living in an "overlap" of the ages. Likewise, covenants are never used in the Bible to indicate periods of time. The main tenet of dispensationalism is that the Church is completely separate and discontinuous from Israel. They teach that no prophecy of the Old Testament or the Gospels can be applied to the Church. The day of Pentecost was an easy place to say that the "church age" began, but where should it end? It couldn't end with "our gathering together unto him" (2 Thessalonians 2:1) because that gathering is prophesied all over the Old Testament and the Gospels. So Darby and company invented the pretribulation "rapture" of the Church. By choosing a word that doesn't occur in the Bible, "rapture", Darby and company could teach whatever they wanted to teach about it, and nobody could point out "that's not what the Bible says about it" because the Bible doesn't say ANYTHING about a "rapture." The truth is that the Church consists of the believing remnant of Israel under the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31, with believing Gentiles grafted in on the same basis as the believing remnant of Israel, by grace through faith in the resurrection and lordship of Jesus the messiah. Love, Steve

When Wierwille did the segment on "to whom addressed" in foundational PFAL, he preached truth about paying attention to whom a passage of scripture is addressed, but he taught error in the very same segment. Wierwille introduced the topic by looking at Romans 11:20b, "Be not highminded, but fear:" and saying that could not have been addressed to Christians after what we had read in Romans 8:31-39. Wierwille "resolved" this "apparent contradiction" by stating that Romans 9:1-11:12 was addressed to the Jews, and Romans 11:12-25 was addressed to Gentiles. If we had simply read those passages of scripture, we would have seen that Romans 9:1-11:12 is ABOUT the Jews, but is not addressed TO them. Likewise, Romans 11:12-25 is addressed TO the members of the Roman congregation who had come to Christ from Gentile backgrounds, TO members of the Church of God. Why didn't Wierwille want Romans 11:20b to be addressed to Christians? Because he himself was highminded, and did not fear the Lord. Instead of recognizing and correcting this error, Schoenheit doubled down on it in the STFI material. In the first semester of Literature and History of the New Testament, we used Ehrman's The New Testament to study the gospels. There was NO ATTEMPT to harmonize the gospels, and we focused attention on how the needs of the different first century communities would have given rise to the real differences in the gospel accounts. In the second semester we spent our time reading Paul, and we used N.T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God as our text. What an impressive work Wright has done! about 1500 pages! Wright went into tremendous detail describing what the expectations of the Pharisees would have been, and Paul was indeed, a Pharisee of the Pharisees for his entire life. The Pharisees were expecting to see the glory of God return to Jerusalem and the Temple in the same way it had left in Ezekiel 9 and 10. They were expecting the age to come beginning with the general resurrection of Israel. What shocked Paul on the road to Damascus, was the idea that the glory of God had returned in the form of a human being, and that individual person, Jesus of Nazareth had been resurrected by himself, before anybody else. Paul spent the next few years reinterpreting EVERY expectation he had been trained to have, in light of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and his elevation to position of Lord of Glory. First century "Christianity" was a vastly different thing from the suppositions of Reformation systematic theology, and also vastly different from how Wierwille fantasized it to be! Love, Steve

We used Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings as our text during the first semester of Literature and History of the New Testament. The Church of God Reformation Movement, Anderson, Indiana, came out of the Wesleyan Holiness Movement of the late 1800s, and never joined the fundamentalist camp. Some of the profs in the School of Theology believe in inerrancy, some do not. It is an issue where they have agreed to disagree on amicable terms, seeing fellowship in Christ as more important than doctrinal "purity". Love, Steve

This looks like fun! What Tzaia says is true, very much depends on the meaning Schoenheit assigns to the word "age", since the biblical use doesn't square with dispensational use. Love, Steve

Actually, waysider, I Corinthians 14:22 does NOT say that SIT leads people to God, it says "Therefore, tongues serve as a sign not to the speakers who are confident, but to the speakers who lack confidence..." I've been away for a while but it's good to be back, and it's good to see all of the input from my friends here at Greasespot, and I do count you all as good friends, whether we understand and agree with each other or not! I finished what I have come to consider my rough draft for What does the Bible really say (and really NOT say) about speaking in tongues? right after New Year's, and turned it over to one of my professors to critique. He pointed out some scholarly weaknesses in it, and I set it aside to rework over this coming summer. My time has been consumed with two heavy duty classes, Literature and History of the Old Testament and Literature and History of the New Testament. Both of my professors are young rising stars in the Society of Biblical Literature, and they are holding us to professional standards in writing our exegesis papers. It is exacting work. But a couple of weeks ago, I came down with pneumonia and spent eight days in the hospital. I took a medical withdrawal from my current classes, and will complete them when they are offered again next year. Meanwhile, I have a few weeks before my summer classes start, so I'm going to putter around with WDTBRS(ARNS)ASIT? some more. My wife and I have been jointly seeing a clinical psychologist on a regular basis for quite some time. I have been diagnosed with the mild form of bipolar mood disorder, and my wife is a regular potpourri of mental difficulties. Our counselor wrote his doctoral dissertation on "vicarious resilience", how counselors can draw resilience from their patients as well as vicarious trauma, in order to avoid burning out. Our sessions are not conventional. Our counselor comes from an active Quaker background. I gave him a copy of my paper on tongues to read, and he says it has produced a paradigm shift in the way he has viewed tongues. So, now I've got a trained clinical psychologist checking my work on tongues, as well as professional biblical scholars! Welcome, MRAP! All for now... Love, Steve

Thank you, Mark! waysider - The only difference between free vocalization and speaking in tongues is this: when a person is speaking in tongues, the Spirit gives the utterance (or "ability" as per the NRSV). How can we know that the Spirit is giving the utterance? We can't from speaking in tongues itself, because no person speaking in tongues understands what she or he is saying. Our confidence that the Spirit gives utterance has to come from our experience of prophecy. Not TWI prophecy, what Wierwille taught was hogwash, but rather from the biblical prophecy described by Paul in I Corinthians 14:22-25. If our experience of prophecy actually has the reputed or apparent qualities or character Paul described, then we can judge that our experience was genuine. That is what is at the heart of I Corinthians 14:22-25 22Tongues, then, are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers." This could be accurately translated as "Therefore tongues serve as a sign not to the speakers (in tongues) who are confident/convinced, but to the speakers (in tongues) who lack confidence/are not convinced, and prophecy serves as a sign not for the speakers (of prophecy) who lack confidence/are not convinced, but for the speakers (of prophecy) who are confident/convinced." How does biblical prophecy do that? When a person who is uninstructed or unconvinced hears someone speak something that goes straight to her or his heart, speaking directly to the hidden issues and questions that reside there, and that person spontaneously says something like, "Whoa! God must have had you say that!" then the somebody who did the speaking can conclude that the Spirit did indeed give the utterance for those words. When I know for sure from my own experience that the Spirit of God can and does give the utterance when I prophesy, then it is reasonable for me to conclude that the Spirit also gives the utterance when I speak in tongues. Next time, what exactly is going on when a person speaks by the Spirit of God... Love, Steve

I finished my project over the weekend by giving it a re-read and edit, and putting it into acceptable Turabian's 8th form. I also wrote a preface. The whole thing came in at nearly 11,000 words, which is about the same length as three standard exegesis papers, or about a quarter-to-a-third of a master's thesis. I gave a copy to my adviser today to proof-read and to respond to. I told him I didn't expect him to grade it, and he laughed and thanked me for that! The title of the paper is What does the Bible really say (and really NOT say) about speaking in tongues? Here is a list of the paper's sections from the table of contents: Introduction Ecstatic utterance !?!? So, if speaking in tongues is not ecstatic utterance, what is it? What does speaking in tongues do? What else does speaking in tongues do? Do people have to speak in tongues when they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? Speaking about the Holy Spirit giving things, does the Bible really say that speaking in tongues is a gift? What can we learn about speaking in tongues from I Corinthians 12, 13 and 14? But wait! Doesn't the Bible say that speaking in tongues ended? Wesleyan Holiness and speaking in tongues Including speaking in tongues decently and in order in the life of the Church of God Sources Before I started writing the paper I did a brief survey of recent commentaries, just as I would if I were writing an exegesis paper. That's what convinced me that the most common obstacle to understanding what the Bible has to say about speaking in tongues is regarding it as ecstatic utterance, for which there is no biblical warrant. The next-to-the-last section is about the Wesleyan Holiness movement and speaking in tongues for two reasons, the current faith community with which I am involved not only came out of the Wesleyan Holiness movement itself, William Seymour came out of the progenitor of this very same faith community. There are "camps" within this faith community regarding tongues, and part of the reason for that is Wesleyan imprecision regarding "works of grace." The last section is "Including speaking in tongues decently and in order in the life of the Church of God." The first thing we have to do to heal the breaches within this faith community is to come to a common understanding of speaking in tongues, and the only way to do that is to find out EXACTLY what the Bible does and does not say, because the Bible is the thread of commonality in the congregations of this community. If we can reach agreement on what the Bible says, then we can reach agreement. That's what the ministry of reconciliation is. The second thing we have to do is figure out how to apply the FREEDOM the Bible gives regarding speaking in tongues while keeping it decent and in order. Raf, I have always liked and respected and admired you, and I still do! I have to ask you though, how would you like it if you were working on a very complex and extended news story, and somebody else, who has no idea of what you are writing or why, came in and started making irrelevant arguments against what you are writing without even having read it? I ask you, please, to imagine yourself in that situation. Love, Steve

I agree with you Raf, you are being rude. Love, Steve

Raf... YOU are not excluded from this thread, but your ARGUMENTS against the existence of God, against the reliability of the Bible and against the things the Bible actually says about speaking in tongues are deliberately, explicitly off topic. That's what the subtitle of this thread says. It does not say "NOT an argument with waysider." If I choose to address things that waysider brings up, you may not take that as an invitation to introduce your arguments into this thread. My presuppositions are that speaking in tongues is a joint operation of the human mind and the Spirit, just as Acts 2:4 says, that the speaking in tongues described in the Bible was genuine, and that speaking in tongues that is done today that has the reputed or apparent qualities or character described in the Bible is also genuine. It is pointless for us to argue those things. Love, Steve

waysider objected specifically to a specific statement I had made: and he made a counter-statement to it. He claimed that history and science demonstrate that speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit. I have asked him to provide specific citations of specific studies that demonstrate speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit. There are plenty of studies showing that speaking in tongues is also a function of the human mind, but that's exactly what Acts 2:4 says. He needs to produce historical or scientific evidence that the Spirit does NOT give the utterance when a person speaks in tongues. This is not a matter of argument... it is a matter of adequate citation in accordance with Turabian's 8th edition. For my statement I can cite Acts 2:4 and Amos 4:4-5. This paper is not being written in a full blown academic manner, but the intended audience consists of the very same people who mark my exegesis papers. I have to be able to cite sources for every statement I make. Love, Steve

Raf, my subtitle was not intended to exclude YOU from this thread, it was intended to exclude your arguments against the existence of God, or against the reliability of the Bible, or against the validity of speaking in tongues, ancient or modern, from this thread. Not because I don't value the arguments you've made from the viewpoint of an ex-Wayfer, I do. But I'm NOT writing this paper as an ex-Wafer. I'm writing it as a student-member of the Anderson University School of Theology, which is one of the educational institutions of the Church of God Reformation Movement (Anderson, Indiana). I am writing this paper because there is confusion within the denomination about the validity and proper practice of speaking in tongues. William Seymour, the minister who led the Azusa Street Revival, had much of his thinking about the role of charismatic leadership of the local congregation influenced by the Evening Light Saints. Leaders of the Evening Light Saints later became the founders of the Church of God Reformation Movement (Anderson, Indiana). All the Pentecostal/Charismatic organizations grew out of William Seymour's ministry, yet the Church of God (Anderson,Indiana) did not as a whole accept Pentecostalism. The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) does not impose doctrinal conformity from the top down, so the role of charismatic leadership has always been an issue, but it seems the times are conspiring to again heat up old controversies within the movement. My intended audience already presupposes the existence of God, and the reliability (but not the "inerrancy") of the Bible. Confusion exists about the validity and proper practice of speaking in tongues. My purpose in writing this paper is to draw out everything that the Bible really says, and really does NOT say, about speaking in tongues, so that the confusion can be ameliorated. If you have insights about what the Bible says about speaking in tongues, or current things people think about speaking in tongues that aren't biblical, Raf, and I have overlooked those insights, then I appreciate any contributions you might care to make! I have always found your thoughts to be cogent and perceptive. It's just that we currently hold different presuppositions, and I find it fruitless to argue presuppositions. Love, Steve (I am thankful for my Pop! He taught me how to think like a newspaperman! or should that be "newspaperperson?

Your arguments are explicitly off topic, Raf. That's why I subtitled this thread the way I did. I don't argue on your threads because our differences ARE presuppositional. The nature of reality (or the reality of nature) is ambiguity. We find what we look for. If we look for a particle, we find a particle, if we look for a wave, we find a wave. There is evidence for and evidence against EVERYTHING! We ALL have to pick and choose what evidence to accept and what evidence to ignore. The ONLY difference between speaking in tongues and free vocalization is that when a person speaks in tongues, the Spirit gives the utterance. There is no burden on me on this thread to prove that "the supernatural" exists. I presuppose the existence of spirit as described in the Bible. However, waysider brought upon himself the task of proving that spirit does not function when he wrote, "Speaking in tongues is a function of the human mind, not spirit. History and science demonstrate this to be the case." He claims that history and science demonstrate that speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit. I have asked him to cite specific historical and scientific studies demonstrating that speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit. Love, Steve

What problem do you see with that definition? That a blind pig stumbled on an acorn? Here are some other interesting things to give some serious thought to. In your post of 18 Jan. '15 6:59 am (#2 post on this thread) you wrote, " Speaking in tongues is a function of the human mind, not spirit. History and science demonstrate this to be the case." Acts 2:4 indicates that speaking in tongues is a joint operation, the person deliberately, volitionally speaks, and the Spirit gives the utterance (apophtheggomai = “to speak one’s opinion plainly”). It only follows that history and science should confirm the first part of your statement, that speaking in tongues is a function of the human mind, but how does history and science demonstrate that speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit? Can you cite a single historical or scientific study that conclusively demonstrates speaking in tongues is NOT a function of spirit? Love, Steve

Thank you very much, Mark! In some ways my writing has been as much an effort of translating as it has been a presentation of research. I have had to translate from a popular style to a more academic style because of my intended audience, and I have had to translate from the language of our previous common faith community to language that could be understood by people who were brought up in the aftermath of the Wesleyan Holiness movement. The language is different from that of the liberal protestant denominations, and it is also different from that of the evangelical protestant denominations. What a hoot! I have also presented material derived from Exodus 21:2-6; Deuteronomy 16:10 and Amos 4:4&5 that bears on speaking in tongues. I don't think anybody ever explicitly referred to those verses before because the New Testament writers took their meaning and application for granted, and dispensational theology didn't think anything from the OT or from the Gospels was of any value to the church. Reading through your commentaries on I Corinthians 12 and 14 was like sweet music to me, confirming to me that I had taken the right track in my own comments, and that I hadn't flown off on any wild tangents. As for your question, waysider, on how we can tell what is genuine and what is not, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary(11th ed. s.v. "genuine") has this to say, "genuine... 1a actually having the reputed or apparent qualities or character... 2 free from hypocrisy or pretense..." Therefore, I would say, genuine speaking in tongues would have the reputed quality of not being understood by the speaker, and genuine speaking in tongues would not involve faking it. When you add the quality that a tongue must be spoken in a certifiably understandable language, Raf, you are departing from the definition of "genuine" because nowhere in the Bible does it repute that tongues must be capable of being understood. It is true that some people understood what Jesus's followers were saying in tongues on the day of Pentecost, but nowhere else in the Bible does it say that anyone understood, and nowhere does it say that somebody ought to be able to understand when a person speaks in tongues. The only biblical requirement on speaking in tongues is that it not be understood by the person doing the speaking. You also discount anecdotal evidence, Raf, as if it has no value. I have never broken any of my bones. What evidence do I have, historical or scientific, that a broken bone is painful, other than anecdotal evidence? A medical technician can stick a little clip on the end of my finger and measure the amount of oxygen flowing around in my bloodstream, but nobody can stick a little clip on my finger and measure how much pain I am in. The medical technician gives me a slip of cardstock with ten little pictures on it, ranging from a full smiley face at the left end to a full frowny face at the right end, and asks me how much pain I am feeling today. Pain is entirely subjective and the only evidence for it is anecdotal. You reject evidence of the supernatural, Raf, not because there isn't any, but because one of your presuppositions is that the supernatural does not exist. You automatically invalidate any evidence that goes against your presupposition. But logical systems can NEVER prove or disprove their presuppositions without getting into circular reasoning, Raf, which is not valid. This thread is EXPLICITLY NOT an argument against you, Raf. Why are you quibbling? Love, Steve

You get to define what you consider "evidence" on your threads, Raf. I get to define what I consider "evidence" on mine! :beer:/> How can deciding which evidence to accept and which evidence to ignore be considered stepping outside the realm of personal faith? It all depends on a person's basic assumptions (guesses that have to be made because of insufficient information), and how people choose their basic assumptions is always a matter of personal faith! Ever since "Actual Errors in PFAL" you have carefully crafted your definitions of evidence to preclude any conclusions other the ones you already hold. Love, Steve

I haven't said very much on this thread, partially because I agree very, very much with Raf that the Bible is not "true" in the sense of the fundamentalist "inerrancy," which is put on most spectacular display by the idiocy of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum... That being said, I don't think the product of the writers and editors of Genesis can be accurately assessed using post-Enlightenment standards for what it means to express "truth". While studying for my Old Testament class tomorrow, I came across a wonderful quote I want to share, "It is clear that... narrative in the Old Testament, in its many variations, is offered as an alternative, a contradiction, and a subversion of the dominant narrative that was all around Israel, variously as 'Canaanite religion' (in the case of Elijah) or the imperial imposition of a series of superpowers. Mutatis mutandis, the apostolic witness of the New Testament was an alternative to various narrative offers, notably that of Roman power legitimized by Roman religion." (Walter Brueggemann, The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012, p. 6) If we're going to judge what are and what are not "actual errors" in ANY writing, we have to look at the original intent of the writers and the editors. That is as true in a seminary as it is in a newsroom! Love, Steve

Thanks, waysider! I didn't have a preface for my paper, but I just realized that you provoked me into writing one! Thanks again! Love, Steve