chockfull

It is interesting to note. I have close friends in JW. They are absolutely conditioned to fear SIT. Not just as a matter of doctrine. They literally believe people SIT are possessed, and become visibly agitated when the topic comes up. On the gay side of things my views on that is that TWI had a whole lot of angst against that group of people, especially in LCM's era. IMO that was because he was cheating on his wife and his wife was leaving him for another woman, but hey. In Biblical times, the Greek culture had a lot of homosexuality in it. The middle-aged men would have relationships with young boys, and gay relationships were part of and acceptable in culture. That didn't change Paul's work or God's direction to bring them to Christ. And to complicate matters, Paul's letters in a short time had to handle all of that and provide direction for new Christians to live as believers and navigate within that part of culture and their past, which I'm sure couldn't be easy. So no surprise to me there. You are right. Landry was the one quoting Samarin. Not Polythress. Polythress had plenty of his own research sources not related to Samarin.

Yes, Raf. That terminology would put the scientific side of this discussion on par with and accurate with the scientific method and the statistics used as proofs in most of the softer sciences that are related to human studies. And it would probably get us past some of the "logical fallacy" bickering over whose responsibility it is to prove it. I don't know if it's possible to prove or not for reasons I've highlighted. But if it can be proven, that's the right path to approach it. We could kick around the hypothesis statement to try and ensure it covers all angles or is stated the most accurately.

It doesn't matter whether it's in the context of doing the after dinner dishes. The context doesn't magically 100% change the meaning of the verse around. Again, for about the 10th time on this point, it really doesn't matter whether or not Paul was mad at the Corinthians, if he was reproving them, if they were bad boys, etc. etc. etc. What Paul says about SIT is about the only detail we have in the Bible about it. If you go jumping all over hyperbole as a figure of speech saying it means you really shouldn't speak in tongues when the verse says "I would that you all do it", if you interpret where he talks about praying with the spirit and understanding as not applying to the private prayer life because he's talking about praying in church, and if you do all sorts of other antics with Corinthians to support what you've already decided is your position about it, then there really is nothing to discuss here doctrinally either. Believe what you want. It is absolutely no logical way to approach scriptures, though. No, the access to God was given to us by Jesus sacrifice making the new birth possible. Gifts / manifestations come along with the new birth. I didn't know questioning SIT would bring you to doubting the whole underpinnings of the new birth. That certainly was not God's intent. No we are not. I am extemporaneously stringing together concepts directly from verses related to SIT. The verses appear in different parts of your Bible, so it's like an extract from a subject scriptural study on it. Can I gently remind you that you sound very similar to Bildad the Shuhite here? No duh. Of course this is the case. And part of what God accomplished through Jesus amazing sacrifice was this beautiful gift related to the new birth. You should check it out some time, rather than arguing with God about what its intent is.

Yeah, and Polythress quotes his exact same study while emphasizing the point I was making, that Samarin's own linguists in the study saw elements of language. He may have been citing that study to point out Samarin's forceful conclusions weren't exactly supported by his own evidence.

I'm just saying the other accounts do NOT say others understood the tongues. And there is a place in the Bible saying that generally those speaking in tongues are not understood by others. Sorry if that "misdirects" you. So since Paul uses the figure of speech hyperbole frequently, then you just can't trust the man not to exaggerate? Even if that phrase were hyperbole, I would read it that he is confronting the problem that some people SIT and others didn't and that they probably were going around making internet threads arguing over it. Or whatever they did during that century of the sort. So he wished everyone would just do it so it wouldn't be an issue. Acts 10:45-46 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God So you are saying here that this states that the Gentiles were SIT in what language? One that they of the circumcision understood, but the Gentiles did not? What language pray tell would this be? Aramaiac was spoken by all in the region. Greek was the Gentiles primary language - Paul may have been preaching in Greek. I don't know about that. If it was important they understood without interpretation, I think that would have been stated. I mean you can carry the first usage way too far here. Not every time someone SIT does it need to be Pentecost. Why are you reading in me being bothered in this? I'm not. I can easily understand Paul was reproving and correcting the Corinthians, yet still was speaking truthfully and accurately. Why is it so hard for you to see that the man was speaking accurately inspired by God even when he was reproving them, so you can rely on his literal words, not some figure of speech meaning really he didn't want them all to SIT? I can see you have your UPSET filter on here. Helping those who help themselves is so far from what I was saying there it's not funny. Yes you are very misguided. The gift opens up further access to God, to communicate spiritually, to pray "in the spirit" and "with my understanding". To enhance the relationship further. To help us communicate with God better. It's not a Harry Potter wand. IMO.

I know you are but what am I All right let's break out the quotes again I suppose. Has to be better than this dance. And Polythress quotes Samarin's studies and shows, like I said, elements in the recorded samples of genuine language. They used words, sentences, phrases, natural language breaks, etc. When two samples of gibberish were introduced, all linguists were able to easily identify them as different from the other samples. This is a straight paraphrase from the study - I can dig out the exact page and quotes. The problem with your Cliff notes is you are reading into the studies. Polythress and Samarin don't really describe this as human, non spiritual activity. They just designed an experiment. In their testing groups, all performed "free vocalization". Some had religious inspiration, others not. So even the studies on "free vocalization" are non-conclusive, admitted by both authors. We are not even getting started on the topic of whether or not "free vocalization" and genuine SIT are the same thing.

This discussion and debate wavers between polite and not so polite as people are expressing their views and defending their points. I include myself as being polite and not polite in my posts. That's to my credit in places and I'm to be blamed in others. Look, we all came from a cult. We all have issues. Not as many issues as those still under the authority of the cult, but still issues. All I can do is apologize where I'm wrong, forgive others as quickly as possible, and keep moving on.

I don't have a lot invested into this "logical fallacy" idea. I think waysider was the one that brought that up. I think the whole idea of "logical fallacy" is basically to try and work towards the scientific method where you have a hypothesis, then scientific methods to prove or disprove that hypothesis. By nature there has to be a hypothesis to test. In this case the hypothesis could equally be "All people claiming to SIT are faking it", or "SIT is a genuine language from God" (at least in the most general sense of defining the hypothesis). I think more our debate has just been discussing the topic. I don't really think either side introduced the idea as you state from a general presence perspective. You were sharing a perspective and took a poll. The poll is about exactly divided, which fuels into the debate. I think all the logical fallacy stuff is extraneous static and is just an intellectual way to call someone a name.

I don't mean for it to be an unpleasant conversation. But I'm unwilling to take 100% of the blame for that. With human nature there IS a natural course where things develop - that's not psychoanalyzing you. You are the one that is making a big deal out of making admissions of faking it on this thread, and how liberating that is. You were the one using "faking" and "lying" as terms earlier. You were the one attacking my private prayer life earlier. So take the responsibility for your actions. If things are unpleasant, maybe your actions have something to do with it too. We went down this road earlier. I posted excerpts from the study backing up the points I was making where linguists noted elements of language in the samples, including words, sentences, phrases, etc. I posted the quote saying they could NOT rule out them being languages. This is 100% the opposite of what you stated that they could be proven as not languages. You are misrepresenting the study not me, by completely misrepresenting the conclusions arrived at from the study. The conclusions, one more time, were basically that it could NOT be proven one way or the other.

"Proving" from a scientific basis became problematic for the ones involved. In calling something genuine scientifically they place a lot more hoops to jump through to reach that barrier. For instance, like someone SIT can have NEVER had ANY exposure to the language. There were a couple of incidents discounted because the tongue speaker had very limited exposure to the language before, so scientists said they couldn't rule it out from the subconscious. So "cannot" prove it is too strong a term. If you have a cooperating scientist, tools to measure, people in a believers meeting, and also you have God's permission and support such that there is a guarantee that the power coming in will be there when you do the test even though you can't measure it. If you have all those things, then you can prove it.

This is also intellectually dishonest. The first reference posted on this thread of Polythress showed a sample space of recorded tongues, and a study by a group of linguists. No linguist understood the language, but all agreed that the tongues had elements of language as opposed to several recordings of known gibberish inserted into the sample group, which were easily detected as gibberish. There also I am giving a lot of leeway calling those recorded samples "tongues". I don't know for a fact that they were genuine tongues. So you are misrepresenting the very studies you introduced, cherry picking parts of them that support your core belief. This again is intellectual dishonesty. I understand what drives people to this. It's frustrating when you can't measure spirit, you faked it in TWI, and you really want to prove others did too so that your core self image survives intact.

So let me see, pointing out where you are stating your opinion as fact is "it gets ugly". Wow, there's a lot of emotion attached to someone pointing out the rules you are supposed to be playing by. That's all it takes for you to use words like "laughable", "ugly", "hypocritical". How can you possibly participate in a conversation supposed to be governed by rules? Maybe taking some time off of it IS a good idea. I can see a little more of your challenge now. You get emotionally whipped up very easily, then shut down critical logic. It is great to have critical thinking skills. It is great to question. But having a controversial opinion, then forcing it down others throats by stating this opinion as fact is none of these. It is simply obnoxious. I am confronting that. You and Raf are doing this on this thread, and obviously both of you really, really, really don't like being called on it. Yes there is continuity in Acts. So look at where you see tongues in Acts. Acts 2 - Pentecost, Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6. Acts 10 is the initial outpouring to the Gentiles. There is no indication in that account that it was for the purpose of language translation. Acts 19 - same thing. So of the 3 recorded instances in Acts that surround tongues, only the first one at Pentecost has anything to do with the purpose being others understanding in their own language, or a sign to unbelievers. As a matter of fact, specifically in Acts 10 the marveling is recorded by the believers who saw it happen. All right then. In Acts 10 and Acts 19, please point out the verses showing those hearing understood the language. Or is it really you have to read into those accounts to interpret it as you say? You label things a lot. It gets in the way of logic. There are scriptures that some consider a leap that it refers to tongues. However, I Cor. 14:15 states "I pray with my spirit I pray with my understanding". These are separate and distinct. One involves spirit (that cannot be detected by the senses). One involves normal prayer / speech / talking. But the fact that you looked at scripture to formulate an opinion is much better than labeling and reading commentary. Could it possibly be that the same word is used to convey to the believer that the same principles of language apply? No, that never could be it. So on the day of Pentecost there was also a special miracle, where everyone understood. And I've heard a dozen or so firsthand accounts of tongues in a believers meeting being understood without interpretation, including one by socks on this thread. Those also would be a miracle. Those also would be hard to ignore. But hey, the "fakers" Claim X group on here are doing a great job of ignoring it anyway. Hey all you have to do is ignore firsthand accounts, ignore Acts 10 and 19, and blow up Acts 2 to the sky and you have your position in a nutshell. Or you could look at his words as accurate while he is correcting the Corinthians, rather than thinking "oh he was just mad or exaggerating" when he said he would they all spoke in tongues. No, these little nuances of tone in whether or not he was reproving him are the only important thing. They needed scolding, and he was going to say whatever was necessary to scold them even if it wasn't accurate. How ludicrous. oh yeah. have to axe Acts 10 because it doesn't line up with your interpretation. there are a number of reasons why they would have known they were exalting God, not the least which would have been that maybe many in the audience were present on the day of Pentecost. Luke doesn't say they understood the language. If you combine Acts 10 and Acts 19 with the most basic instruction from I Cor. 14, you know that Paul says if a person speaks in tongues, the other doesn't understand. So from other places in the Bible, where it defines its own terms it's really clear that they didn't understand, if you don't read into it. Oh wait. Paul was scolding the Corinthians, so we can't trust that what he was saying there was accurate, only that he was mad and they were wrong. It couldn't be that Pentecost was the one-time cataclysmic event for all ages introducing the new birth or anything and that's why there were special miracles attached to the event. Your perspective on Corinthians may allow for tone, but you dismiss the content as non-important from a factual perspective. For what purpose? Well, look at God's gift of life in general. Who does it benefit first? Yourself. Then others next. It's the same with the gift of eternal life. Eternal life benefits you first, then by you not dying others you may touch. It is not a stretch to think that the new birth will have those same benefits - you first - providing a connection with the Father, then others next. It's a basic tenet of helping others that you have to help yourself first. Airline instructions tell you to put the oxygen mask over yourself first, then help the one next to you next. If all you do is focus on others, you will not be able to provide long-term benefit for them, as each person counts for one. If your needs are unmet, then that will spill over into helping others and you will be ineffective, as the negativity from your needs not being met will project through and sabotage your efforts to help. No, God provided a perfect gift, one that would allow connection and communication with Him, eternal life, and spiritual power. A gift where you can be sustained through quenching yourself in the eternal fountain whose water never fails, and then you can share that with others helping them to get there too. The gift is not so that you can become a misguided martyr. IMO.

Raf, I'm even involved in debate on this thread because you initiated the claim. I didn't come on here to debate my private prayer life until it was attacked. So for you to deny that you initiated the claim now, and that somehow nebulously someone else did for the sole purpose of putting yourself on the "correct" side of logical fallacy is intellectually dishonest.

Someone did. They provided an account where someone SIT, and others in the audience understood the content and the language. That's proof that the person didn't know the language, and that the people hearing it understood it as a real language. This was a firsthand eyewitness account. It would be acceptable in a court of law. So unless you can reasonably convince everyone that the person is lying about it, or some other explanation, then it's done. You still don't want to believe it.

This is more what I would label the "Hail Mary" fallacy. It's where someone takes the view "who cares" what evidence, scriptures, or points of logic occurred, I'll take my opinion, put a couple of numbers around it, then throw it up as a "hail Mary" pass and ask if we can agree on this much. waysider, who knows, maybe you'll get some replacement refs that will score that for you, and you can win the game.... 1. It can't be shown that SIT is not a "language". There are some clips of people speaking gibberish that display no elements of a language. But no overall conclusions. 2. It was observed that many speakers in a study showed natural elements of language when doing "their thing". But since nobody in the scientific studies understood the language, it wasn't proven. Interestingly enough, we have at least one first party account of a meeting where a member on this thread heard SIT, and people in the room understood it in their native language. Thus in that sense we have "proof". Firsthand testimony is allowed in a court of law as proof. But nobody could question all those people to verify, so it's not definitive.

I just love it when people present their opinions and interpretation of scripture as absolute fact. In spite of insurmountable evidence of people SIT in the Bible where the hearers did NOT understand the language spoken. I think that maybe what you ought to do is actually study what the Bible does say about it, in detail. You seem to be missing a lot.

Indistinguishable how? By scientific tools? Science can't even really measure the difference between a live body and a dead body. It can't measure spirit. Spiritual gifts or manifestations by nature begin with spirit, which again can't be measured by science. If science can't measure it, how can I take it's conclusions regarding the topic seriously? That would be like asking me how long a gallon of water is. Oh, you can't measure volume of water with a ruler? Well, then, it must be that the water is fake, right?

Look, I didn't bring up the logical fallacy argument. I just went to the definition website waysider provided, and applied the logic there describing the fallacy. Here it is one more time: 1.Claim X is presented by side A and the burden of proof actually rests on side B. 2.Side B claims that X is false because there is no proof for X. Now let's look at facts in evidence. Claim X is presented by side A. Raf claims that "Claim X" is "Look I can SIT, and it's a real language", and that he's just refuting that. Unfortunately, nowhere in evidence here do we see such a claim. Raf started this thread. He created the poll. The poll reinforced by Raf made the claim. Nobody came on Greasespot forums to try and flaunt SIT or make any kind of claims about it. Claim X from the position of this thread is that "everyone SIT is faking it". There is no amount of twisting of facts that eludes this logic. Raf made that claim, he has posted it numerous times on the thread, and answers almost every poster on the thread in that fashion, at times even stating his opinion on it as fact. No Raf, before I looked at the logical fallacy definition, I didn't think this. But there, everything I read about it is how you are behaving on this thread. Claim X - "everyone SIT is faking it". You say the burden of proof is on the people SIT to prove it. Side B. Side B says "they are not faking it - you can't prove that they are". In a logical fallacy claim you have to look at where the claim is made first. In this thread, it was made first by you.

1.Claim X is presented by side A and the burden of proof actually rests on side B. 2.Side B claims that X is false because there is no proof for X. Wow. That sounds like this thread. Raf started the thread. He made a claim that everyone is faking SIT. Now with the rules of logic, making that claim would place the burden of proof on Raf to substantiate the claim. He tries, but is unable to. Side B here (at least represented by me) is saying "well, you really can't make a scientific definitive claim like X as there's no way to prove it one way or another". So by the logical fallacy reference you have there, basically you are saying that Raf has the burden to prove SIT is fake since he made the original claim, and it's a logical fallacy for him to say that the burden of proof lies on Side B to prove it's not fake. Did I get that right?

No it can't be proven that a sample of SIT is not a language. It can be shown that gibberish is not a language. "Free vocalization" is studied, and there is no conclusion on whether it is language or not definitively. Is "free vocalization" speaking in tongues? That's another thing that cannot be proven or disproven. There is no onus of proof. Prove there is a God that you can't see, hear, smell, taste or touch. Same thing. And we should take a leap of faith and trust you on your judgment that this situation isn't one that warrants it? That's the most accurate thing you've said all morning :B)

OK, while there are logical fallacies, we are really not in the midst of one here. People are sharing their experiences and beliefs. They are different. They believe different things. We have scientific studies of a phenomenon. However, that phenomenon is claimed to be energized by Spirit, which nobody can detect or measure scientifically. Thus it's not a shocker that they are not able to present conclusions on something they can't detect or measure. Because of this, we need to take care in our language to present things as IMO. If we don't, we quickly get the place of what is called a "Mexican Standoff" where people on each side are demanding proof and there is none to be had.

No it can't. What he spoke wasn't recorded. If it was recorded, it may be like many other samples. Polythress, to remind you, presented findings that free vocalization had many elements of language, including grammatical breakdowns like language of sentence and phrase. So by that he did NOT prove one way or another that the samples he studied were or were not languages. His conclusions were NOT that the samples were not languages, he just noted the details of what he did find. In that he was scientifically truthful to his method. Yes I noted the previous paragraph to include the word "likely". I took issue with a single paragraph. To me his statement was an expression of how he was feeling at the time, and did not come across as an expression of fact or an attempt to express fact. Yours did, so that's why I singled it out. Maybe you read his statement differently, which could have been why you made such a strong statement. And one more time - if God intended it to be proven He would have designed it such. However, there are many things in which He requires a non-scientific leap of faith. The new birth, for example.

What?

No, this sort of proof is a bit like there is something supernatural we are trying to prove, and are unable to accomplish it one way or the other.

No, that's your opinion. To state the conclusions in this fashion you would have had to prove it, which all have agreed you are not able to do. Now the paragraph before states "likely" which is more accurate. This one is inaccurate, as it is opinion stated as fact. That is definitely one thing I had more than enough of in TWI... I mean on the other side of the coin, I could state to Pete: "Pete, you absolutely were speaking in tongues, an unknown language. The scriptures speak of it, you acted on the scriptures, and God came through with the results. Don't doubt it because of skeptics." But, I don't state things in that way because they are unproven with respect to this thread.