Raf

We are still waiting for the relevance of the serpent speaking to Eve. Thank you for your observations on my post. I did not mean to direct any comment at you specifically. I'm sure you knew that. I have to say that to date, I find disagreeing with you to be quite agreeable. Your diplomacy certainly exceeds mine, and I appreciate it. No more me, seeing as my particular argument is specifically not the thread topic. I just wanted to clarify a point.

NEW RULE ON ALL GAMES After five days of inactivity, anyone is allowed to kick-start a game by any means (answering a question by looking it up, posting a new question even if it's not your turn, etc).

That is correct.

Quick comment: There is no indication that when angels speak in the Bible, they speak in anything other than human languages. If there is such a thing as "languages of angels," then it is conceivable that a person speaking in languages could produce an angelic language. I do not believe that to be the case, but that is my opinion only. What is NOT likely by any logical stretch is that every attempt made by a disinterested third party to identify the language produced when someone speaks in languages will be an example of an angelic language, therefore not identifiable. It is perfectly fair to suggest this will happen in some cases. I don't agree, but it is not important to me that it can or cannot happen. It is NOT perfectly fair to suggest that this happens every single time someone speaks in tongues in a setting where other people are present. You may disagree with me there. Fine. We have nothing to argue. I think "tongues of angels" is hyperbole. But I hope I have never asserted that as anything more than my opinion.. I think I have a sound basis for it, but it is not central to anything I've suggested. Remember, in ALL of these discussions, it takes ONE person practicing SIT to produce an identifiable language in front of a disinterested third party to prove me wrong. One. For my part, that one example has to be rock-solid documentable to be trusted. None of this "it happened to my third cousin's wife's best friend in Zimbabwe once." None of this "it happened right in front of me, but everyone involved is now dead, missing or living somewhere in Northsouthern Europe." If I am going to handicap my position so that no SIT can be disproved as language, then I think it's perfectly fair that I can set a really high standard for proving the product of someone's SIT is a language. That took longer than I wanted. Sorry.

Of course

Not going to throw this thread off course, but social pressure ties directly into my thesis about SIT in The Way.

It was 1st Century Soap. Actually left you dirtier after you used it, but that was your fault.

Sheesh. Ok, hint: It's NOT The Living Twilight.

How many movies about a guy waking up from a coma after five years have they made? And then he wonders whether it would have been moral to kill Hitler if he knew what Hitler was going to do in the future?

I don't see where Mark's position of what the Bible teaches about SIT and the definition of "glossa" differs from mine, so I've been reading these latest posts with great interest. I'm not sure there's any disagreement at the heart of what we're discussing here. If I'm mistaken, I trust Mark will correct me. I see him saying "glossa is a language. Believers at a meeting probably won't understand the language for practical reasons, and the incidents in Acts serve to show that understanding is possible." That's what I THINK Mark is saying. Whether someone present understanding is the norm or the exception doesn't impress me one way or another, Biblically. I agree that the definition of "phenomenon" as used has no apparent Biblical basis, but I don't see what bearing it has on the definition of glossa. I guess what I'm saying is, as you're challenging Mark on his posts, can we ascertain whether you guys are actually disagreeing about anything substantive?

Entirely possible that you're right and I'm wrong on this one, MRAP. I'll sleep on it. If I don't change my mind, I will at least ask for a second opinion. Thank you for the constructive criticism.

My modhat is going to be half on/half off for this one. DWBH, please avoid making it personal. This thread is about the REV, not MRAP's loyalties. Whether he has discussed the questions he's raising with Lynn, Schoenheit, Graeser, Geer, Cummins, Finnegan, Wilkinson, Caballero, Townsend or Dorothea Kipp is between him and them. His questions are fair game for this forum. He is entitled to ask them. He is not entitled to a response; that's up to other posters who are interested in the material. If no one is interested MRAP: It is not reasonable to try to separate the REV from the people who produced it, and (modhat off, opinion follows) it is not possible to divorce their presuppositions from Wierwille. So to ask people to not talk about Wierwille's "junk" is reasonable if we're talking about his personal failings, but it is not reasonable if you're talking about his doctrine and/or how he developed it. Those doctrines are entirely relevant to the REV because they informed the people who produced it.

I have to stay consistent. I've always taken the verses Mark cited to mean that under normal circumstances, in a church setting (or believer's meeting, if you prefer), the people present will not be expected to recognize the language produced in SIT. It is clear from other verses that understanding the language is possible, because these are languages. But typically, everyone in the church speaks and understands the same language (or two or at most three). Their SIT will invariably produce a fourth language (otherwise it's not SIT but the much less astonishing feat known as "talking"). That fourth language will, again TYPICALLY, be spoken by none of the people present. Thus, they will not understand. But God will. This does not change the fact that it is a glossa, an actual language.

That was fantastic! Flash, I mean

Wouldn't permanent death qualify as everlasting punishment?

Could you at least cut and paste the portion of the article containing information directly relevant to this thread's topic?

MRAP, this discussion was re-ignited to bring you and TLC up to speed on it. A few of us just decided to pick up where we left off. So yes, your accusation of selectivity and bias is off-base. There was never any RULE against reviving the discussion. What you encountered was a resistance to revisiting the topic. Note how the About the Way thread also revived the topic and promptly died.

I don't know what my belief or unbelief has to do with the topic, but ok. Do you (or anyone else) think that people who believe in a literal hell are not sincere in their belief that a literal hell is what the Bible teaches? Or do you think that a literal hell is a deliberate attempt by church powers to deceive Christians to make them easier to control? (I'm not talking about spiritual powers because if we're talking about spiritual powers, the attempt to deceive is not deliberate on the part of the people. They're just deceived and wrong. I'm talking about people who KNOW there is no literal hell but teach it anyway). I suppose a separate question about whether some of the writers of the New Testament deliberately invented a literal hell would be better placed in the Questioning Faith forum, but I don't see that as the issue being raised in this thread, so let's not entertain that question, since this thread has nothing to do with my atheism or anyone else's. Who invented a literal hell? God, through the inspiration of the Bible? Demonic forces sowing confusion in the church about what the Bible really teaches? Or church leaders inventing a method to control people? Like I said above (post 2), it's hard to get around the fact that the Bible does teach hell as a place of eternal punishment. But was it supposed to be taken literally? Mark's article would suggest not, but honest Christians disagree (I'm not saying Mark's not honest. I'm saying that there are honest people on both sides of this question).

Emphasis mine. I don't see a Biblical basis for the statement that Paul's use of glossa can be interpreted to mean an unidentifiable language. Perhaps that is semantics. All actual languages are hypothetically identifiable. So if you're saying that our inability to identify a language through lack of competence does not disqualify the utterance as a glossa by Paul's use, I would have to agree with you. And I never said otherwise. But if you're saying that the utterance can fail to match any actual language and still be a glossa, I see no Biblical evidence to support that position. A glossa is a language. It's not a word that was used to relay an "inherent ambiguity." There's nothing ambiguous about the Biblical use of the word glossa. Mark's post, which goes over the same scriptures I posted previously, makes that pretty clear. In fact, in Acts 2, just to drive the point home, it says that when the apostles spoke in glossa, they produced dialectos, which is almost a synonymous term (we use the words "language" and "dialects" in English nearly-but-not-precisely as synonyms to this day. What you don't see, in English or Greek, is the use of "language" or "glossa" to mean something that is flatly not a language. Looking at your post from a strictly technical standpoint, the first point you made (which I placed in bold) is not supported by Scripture. The point that followed is supported by scripture. Steve, I think you're getting tripped up on my position, which is why I find myself restating it so often. This discussion was never about disproving someone's SIT, neither yours nor anyone else's. It has always been about proving it. If the language you produce cannot be documented, as long as it is possible that the failure to identify the language might maybe be a result of the incompetence of the person trying to identify it, no conclusion can be drawn from such failure. But (correct me if I'm wrong) you seem to be intent on showing that a glossolalic utterance can fail to actually be a language and still fit the definition of glossa. It can't. Not Biblically. I can fail to indentify it and thereby prove nothing, but it can't actually NOT BE a language and still fit the Biblical definition of SIT. The word glossa does not carry that "inherent ambiguity." I'm really starting to wonder whether this part of the discussion has been a disagreement about semantics rather than an actual disagreement.

This is not directed at Mark. This issue popped up on another thread and applies here to me and Steve (if it applies to anyone else, police yourselves on it). Calling someone's position the result of "waybrain" falls under this rule. Questioning the motives of someone's interpretation of scripture (rather than the interpretation itself) falls under this rule. The rule is not perfect, and in this case I did not complain because questioning the reasons for my rigidity appears to be a natural outgrowth of the issues we're discussing on this thread, and as such, I am not complaining about the violation. I do believe my response also appears to be a natural outgrowth of the issues we're discussing on this thread. I cannot read Steve's mind to tell why he has not complained, but if he did, I would be compelled to revisit all the posts over the last couple of weeks to excise anything that appears to violate a rule. I have no desire to do that, to eliminate criticism of me or ciriticism from me. If it's ok with Steve, let's just agree to keep motives off the table and just discuss the actual scriptures and interpretations.

I know adding scripture is part of this. But pasting a scriptural analysis that fails to address the question being asked is out of place, whether in doctrinal or any other forum. "Hey, look! Here's an article that doesn't address the question you asked!" does not advance the discussion in this discussion forum. So thank you for the article you posted, but even more, for answering the question.

Mark, do you think the literalist concept of hell is an honest mistake or a deliberate attempt to control people through fear? Your article does not address that question, and that question (it appears to me) lies at the heart of this thread.

Mark, this is a discussion forum. While there's nothing wrong with pointing people to your content off-site, it would be really nice if, on-site, you actually added to the discussion. If I have to leave GSC to find out what you think about a subject, you're doing it wrong. I say this as a fellow poster, not as a moderator.

Very close. Movie is more recent than that and was not animated/marionettes

Although this movie is a comedy, I don't think the parody efforts at killing Saddam in Hot Shots qualifies as an actual assassination plot.