chockfull

Samarin's other examples of "non-Christian glossolalia": 1. A medium - Helene Smith - records 2 langauges in her spiritual conversations 2. Two other personal anecdotes - neither of which hold any more weight than socks experience on this thread

Another interesting fact from Samarin. In the cases he is examining where there is glossolalia among non-Christian participants, he submits one example as Albert LeBaron. LeBaron has recorded conversations with his "psychic automatism" where there are messages in another language and the interpretation of the language into English. He says there are a number of other examples. I haven't seen all of his other examples. I haven't even seen one of his complete works, only one article. Yet I would submit that LeBaron's "example" is something in quite a different category than "glossolalia". I will reserve judgement on the overall topic of "non-Christian glossolalia" until I have more of the direct sources cited.

Yes, the last time we tracked it down, it was Sherril quoting Samarin's published work, which we do not have a link to or a complete reference to. In that work, Samarin quoted linguists responses. Sherrill noted inconsistencies in what the linguists in Samarin's study observed and what Samarin himself concluded. I actually see parallels in issues with Samarin from the only published work we have an online link to - "The Linguistics of Glossalalia". For example, his basic definition of glossolalia: "A meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance believed by the speaker to be a real language, but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead". Then immediately after his definition, where he includes what he says is 3 features that appear to be necessary in any definition of the phenomena, he says the first of these is this: "a phonological structure, (that is the kind of patterning of sound generally typical of real languages)which distinguish it from gibberish". So to me the guy is self-contradictory in his own definitions. He is choosing how to define this in his paper, and his definition says "bearing no systematic resemblance to any language", then in defining 3 key elements to glossolalia he states that the phonological structure is generally typical of real languages. Hold on there, ace. If it "sounds" like a language (in your scientific terminology), then it DOES bear a systematic resemblance to language. He makes no sense. It "sounds" like a language, but doesn't bear any resemblance to a language. Sorry, as Samarin stated, glossolalia actually DOES bear a resemblance to a language. Phonetically, it "sounds" like a language. That IS a resemblance. This type of inconsistency I think is what leads a number of other authors like Sherrill to write works criticizing Samarin. I myself have scarcely seen that kind of internal contradiction in a published study right in the same sentences of the definition of terms. It is very glaringly obvious to the point of where I have to question Samarin's bias towards finding glossolalia as not a language. Now if Samarin would have wrote that glossolalia "bears a strong resemblance phonetically to languages, but it is questionable as to the legitimacy of the meaning or interpretation of the utterance compared to language" he would have been more consistent even with his own logic.

Here is a reference that has collected thoughts from many sources - and has a decent bibliography: http://www.religioustolerance.org/tongues5.htm One interesting thing to note is in the billiography, it references 4 of Samarin's books, of which he wrote all in 1972-1973. The one we have a reference to in our thread: http://philosophy-religion.info/handouts/pdfs/Samarin-Pages_48-75.pdf - "The Linguisticality of Glossalalia", which was an article written for the Hartford Quarterly is not one of them. NOTE: Regarding Samarin, for me personally it is a little more difficult to get a handle on his work when we don't really have an online version of any of his full published books. Many of our quoted sources refer to him.

I'm all for letting a man's words judge him.

And later on, to complete the irony, Martindale drops at least one guy from the Corps for doing exactly this.

The interpretation part of the study quoted by this guy is absolutely wrong to me because SIT and it's interpretation according to instructions in I Cor. 14 NEVER talk about having one person SIT and to go down the line asking a bunch of people to interpret it. If these manifestations are spiritual then you have to do them according to the instructions, or they won't work right. You can't game God on this stuff. And you can't rule out that as a matter of course, the first guy interpreting had the genuine message and the other guys down the line were making it up. I mean, I could get bogus results on the revelation manifestations by doing things wrong too. All I would have to do is picture a cookie jar and put tons of mental effort into God revealing to me something about a situation. I could sit there for years and decades and have the same experience - no power from God. So the guy's conclusion is that you can't get anything cognitively out of tongues, but you can get a lot out of the emotion of the speaker and voice inflection? What a crock!!!! And these are representative of the types of studies that I'm supposed to believe "absolutely prove that SIT doesn't produce a language?" I don't think so.

Your analogy doesn't sound silly to me. Of course if Paul's SIT had substantial elements different from modern day SIT, then that would give you scientific relief. But it causes doctrinal problems. If I can do everything Paul and the Bible instructs regarding SIT, and God does not come through with power from His end, then wouldn't that make God a respecter of persons? Even further, can we trust scripture then? If it doesn't produce what it says when you act on it, it has no more value than any other book. Paul himself had critics on the day of Pentecost, people who saw the miracle right before their eyes, and chose to get up on a platform and cry out that these guys were drunk with new wine. What's to say that you guys aren't the same thing in modern days? As I asked you before, if you want me to believe I'm using sugar and Paul used salt, you are going to have to provide some kind of logical explanation. Why would SIT no longer work now, when it did then? What changed between the first century and now? If that changed, how can you be certain that other things in the Bible that are available still are? Do promises of God come with an expiration date? Oh, and also, there are some studies again which say glossolalia does not produce language, there are others that contradict that and say that it does. Samarin himself uses linguists that don't arrive at his same conclusions. His linguists did NOT conclude that glossolalia was definitely NOT a language. Only Samarin. There are other sources that disagree with him.

Either statement is fine. They aren't the limiting factor. For me, the convincing part involves an element of faith - of trusting God and acting. And an element of logic, both scripturally and scientifically. I mean, sometimes facts and logic can't get you all the way there. What do I mean? Well, for example, Euclidean geometry. Everything there is derived from 3 postulates - point, line, and plane. Those are reasonable postulates that pretty much nobody will refute. So we be-bop on our merry way living life and designing things based upon Euclid's theorems. But then Einstein comes along, and asks "what happens when you try to apply all these principles as you are approaching the speed of light?" And things change. Lines, planes distort into curves, objects. The seemingly solid postulates don't hold up in that environment. I want the science, the logic, the proofs, the objective analysis. But I still realize that all this is the surmising of ants in a very large universe, all created by God.

I'm not inclined to make that argument of "it can't be disproven so it must be so". I would be more inclined to reach a doctrinal position that is relatively sound and logical and use that (at least for myself) as a basis or augmentation of personal proof. That and just pray and trust direction will be there. All of your roadblocks you are highlighting remind me of Thomas Edison. Just 990 more experiments and you'll discover the light bulb. Or if we can't we'll at least be a lot more educated on the topic :)

Yes, that's the challenge. The embarrassment and exposure. Those are real considerations. Also, what would it do to community/professional areas? Those reasons would be very real ones to consider using a pen name. Like "Sky Rider". That way the people who know or could figure out know. And the rest be-bop around blissfully ignorant of who you are, preserving current day relationships. All awesome.

Yeah, well it didn't work. I've encountered a few with the real disease that probably would have been better off at an AA meeting than a fellowship. Just by common sense, the folks at AA are much better equipped to handle the disease than your average fellowship coord. in TWI (or even you non-average - Corps / clergy / whatever). TWI provides NO training AT ANY LEVEL on dealing with the disease of alchoholism. Hypocritically, he was largely governed by his Baptist upbringing there. VP would do moonshine at a night owl. Craig would never. He should have stuck with his Baptist upbringing on sex.

What I'm starting to see is that a lot of the position taken by people on whether or not "tongues of angels" has any leeway for being interpreted as different than a human language has to do with their views on some of the prayer related verses surrounding SIT where it is not explicitly stated as tongues. Like Rom. 8. I personally am not 100% either way on that one currently. I'm kind of approaching it on two fronts - one is Biblical/doctrinal. The other is scientific / practical. I'm doing the best I can to put posts in the right place for that, but probably still failing. So for me, if discussing SIT drives me to a bottle of beer, what does that do for my salvation? Just asking. Allan, "free vocalization" is the term a bunch of scientists came up with in the studies we are reading. I don't have a major issue with the term. SIT is literally "glossa" = "laleo" - "tongues" + "speaking without reference to the words being said". So I view those terms interchangeably so I can have a conversation with many on it. SIT, glossolalia, free vocalization. The distinction I have internally currently is that studies describing "free vocalization" are showing people doing similar things (at least they appear similar to all scientific and senses evaluation) whether or not they claim to be inspired by God. So by sheer logic, if SIT works like the Bible describes, then whatever the nonbelievers are doing probably can't be energized spirit. So they are doing the exact same thing, or something real similar without the spirit of God being involved at all. Raf, I'll get to Sherrill later today - I'm a bit slammed earlier.

Well, by your logic and application of the figure hyperbole, I'm sure your interpretation of those verses is that Paul was saying to have as much sex as possible and that only women should preach in the church. That would be consistent with your interpretation of "I would you all spoke with tongues". It means the opposite, right? Because Paul was reproving them and their attitude wasn't right? It's funny how people only see pride in others but miss it obnoxiously sticking out of their own persona. Here again, like scripture says, why don't you worry about your own issues? You are not the matron of gentleness, tolerance and kindness that you view yourself to be. Wow - now look who's getting nasty. That's OK - I've faced this kind of thing plenty before. People don't want to address their illogic, and if you persist bringing it up to them all they do is get more angry with you. I'm a little more direct with you because you run over people. And I'm not surprised that you are going to stay as far as you can away from people who SIT. People will go to extreme lengths to avoid that within themselves that they need to change. And they will do it acting as pious and Christian as you please, all the while the rabid anger is rising up within them. And they look for anything else around them to blame except themselves. I don't need to defend my faith to you. And I'm having a fine time on this thread discussing in a rational matter the topic with other people who aren't as mad as you.

I ran across another reference - The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues by John Kildahl: http://www.amazon.ca/psychology-speaking-tongues-John-Kildahl/dp/B000GRFWIW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1350325467&sr=8-2 This is an out of print book published I think in 1972. It's reviews call it "devastating to Pentecostals" so I am gathering that it negates SIT scientifically. Reviews also state that the psychology portion of it is very insightful and has been established w more since then.

The difference in my views are that I hold the Romans 8:24 reference to be a non-Trinitarian interpretation, and the "groans that cannot be uttered" to me are describing private prayer life. As such, I would not limit the communication between myself and God to need to be in the language of a person on earth. That could support a "tongues of angels" type interpretation.

Next Moore gets into what I call "Jehova's Witness" territory. He claims that if you are doing something yourself that God didn't recommend, you could be possessed. This is great logic for introducing fear around the subject into the reader, and moves pretty far away from any scientific analysis. Suffice it to say any person can refute this and probably does daily. For example, I do things probably on a daily basis God doesn't recommend (probably and hypothetically). There's a lot more things God says I should do that I don't. This is called "being human". This is not going to get me possessed by the spirit of Dr. Pepper. (or whatever). Come on, Moore. Can we move beyond the tribal superstition "booga booga" mindset here? The section after this one is Are the tongues of 1 Corinthians different than the tongues in Acts? For this section it brings up theological arguments I have never heard before, and thus I learned a lot. Many sociologists and theologians bring up differences between Cor. and Acts in what they were doing. Honestly never thought of that before, but it's important to consider if there is a lot of mainstream Christian attention on it.

Next, we come up to geisha's favorite section: Here Moore IMO misses the forest for the trees. While it is stated that SIT builds up one's self, that is miles away from defining the purpose of SIT as for personal enjoyment or benefit. While true, that is secondary. One gets the picture of a muscle-bound egotist at a Gold's Gym SIT for hours and looking at themselves in the mirror. Thus the focus is taken off the smaller tidbits of truth contained in the letter, and on to the discussion of building up others. The main purpose of SIT is not for building up the body, it is for one's private prayer life. As an example of this, as a child myself and friends would like to make up things speaking in Pig Latin. We would play and hold a private conversation which we held to be special and just between us. Because we were speaking in Pig Latin, only we could understand. It made us feel closer and that outsiders couldn't eavesdrop. SIT in my private prayer life feels like speaking to my friends in Pig Latin. I wasn't doing it to become a Pig Latin linguist and United Nations translator, or to make myself big and Pig strong, I was doing it because we could and it was cool. No big deal, kids will be kids. Now reading through this example again, it provides a lot of ammo for the "faker" side in saying "yeah, and that's why you made up SIT as an adult". Hopefully the reader can sort through the tangibles in the example without resorting to that logical leap. With Moore's handling of I Cor. 14:4 the problem is this: here the context is talking about what they do in the temple, in church meetings, or at each others house when interacting with others in the body. It is not discouraging SIT in private prayer life, it is contrasting the private prayer life benefit which was being over-emphasized in Corinth with how they should be more mindful of one another, and look to edify others "in the church". Some people really like to latch on to the latter, and use it to disprove the former. However, the only way you can really do that is to say that the context and tone of Corinthians is the ONLY thing important, and the individual verses can possibly be untrue and stated just in the context of reproof. While that may be OK to do something like that when you are evaluating personal interaction, like an argument between two people, we are discussing scripture here. If it has no more weight than a mere statement in anger someone had while reproving Corinthians, then really there is no authority of scripture that can be held to, as it could be an incorrect statement made by a human at any given point, and not divinely inspired.

Moving on. He goes on to define SIT a little more narrowly: Since he is in the theological section here, I'll say that this is accurate in its limited scope but does not represent the entirety of SIT. Next he covers "Is glossolalia real human language?" and delves into a topic that Raf supports strongly - where he makes the case for I Cor. 13:1 tongues of angels being a hyperbolic statement. He does a good job making a case for that tying in all the other hyperbolic statements Paul makes and pointing out he didn't move mountains, etc. So his aim there is to narrow down SIT to human language only for purpose of examination and proof. Next he digs into Romans 8:24: This verse is problematic in proofs as it is very closely tied to the doctrine of the Trinity. Is the Spirit here the third person of the Godhead, or is it talking about the gift itself? Depending on your views on the Trinity, this could make or break someone's view towards SIT - if it's the 3rd person of the Godhead, then SIT is unnecessary, and the Spirit does the work. If it's the gift, then that's a supporting verse for SIT being valuable in someone's private prayer life. Obviously the author is a Trinitarian and thus his interpretation here follows.

Second here on encouragement for writing a book. You are a prolific and inspiring author, even on simple thread posts. I would buy a copy.

This so transparently exposes TWI as a leech of an organization. First, they don't want to reach people in genuine need or with obvious needs - that would actually require doing some work, getting the hands dirty, helping people who are down and out improve and put their lives back together. You know - real beneficial work that legitimate non-profit corporations are doing all the time. Second, they are after the devout. Why? No problems, steady work, more money. Where does the money go? To help the devout? No. It goes back to HQ's little fiefdom structure. And they keep a tight lid on the money. 75/25 was the budget breakdown I was familiar with. When the ABS in a state went below what would support having a Limb coord. be salaried, they have always asked them to work secularly, and keep the same workload. Third, they have zero infrastructure in communities. People meet in homes, usually in violation of local housing ordinances. There was even specific language that would be communicated from the Trunk office to use when neighbors complained about parking or gathering problems. We would always be encouraged to use free rooms for community meetings - in Branches - like libraries, community centers, fire stations, etc. So that we wouldn't have to pay to have larger meetings. Then after that care was taken to keep costs down on Limb level meetings, and approval would be denied for anything nice. If you look at this from a perspective of the real underlying reason is TWI wants to leech off society, collect money for doing as little as possible, and preserve their little fiefdoms.

I'm working through this source now. I thought I'd comment here rather than clutter up the SIT Reading Room thread with discussion when that might be a good place to collect references. Mark Moore - What We Can Know About SIT I. What We Can Know About Speaking in Tongues Historically Some good stuff here. Great references, from church history and modern history. I learned something here. II. What We Can Know About Tongues Theologically Here he starts to get into trouble. His focus on supernatural language and his #2 assumption are both inaccurate and unsupported scripturally. IMO he is constructing a straw man here. In the definition it is not necessarily a "supernatural language". Tongues define themselves as "the tongues of men or angels" in Corinthians. This means that they are either a language used by men on Earth at some time, or a language spoken by angels. The alternative proposed interpretation is that "of angels" is a figure of speech (like hyperbole or in that family of figures) to exaggerate or over-emphasize the power and magnitude of what tongues represent. If it is figurative, what would "of angels" be meant to communicate? Since angels are spirit beings the first and most obvious point would be that it would be a language to communicate with spirit beings as opposed to humans. The second would be that it represents spiritual power as different from power in the physical realm.

You would like to go back and do wut?

Consider for a moment providing reference material? I'm going to read this and re-read our other sources again.

My experience with 12 steps is completely related to interacting with Christians in my fellowships over the years that were alcoholics. Overall, they are much needed and very helpful. I did notice a difference in what you might call "degree of alcoholism". I mean there were some people that I saw drank a lot due to psychological trauma. (Maybe there's a lot on this forum that have been in that category). Those types of people tended to get better as they healed. Then there was the real disease - those people would never get better and need to never touch alcohol again in their lives as one beer or glass of wine would start an out of control spiral ending up in disaster. The category of people with the real disease were the ones I thought needed to stay in AA 12 steps ongoing throughout their lives. For the others, I saw they may have gotten some benefit out of the program for a time, but it wasn't beneficial to stay in a 12 step program ongoing throughout their lives. My experience or .02.