Raf

Re: your rejection of free vocalization. That's very nice. It establishes that we cannot gave an honest conversation because you will hurl evidence out the window if it doesn't suit your need.

Sure. Since LeBaron had the kindness to write it down, he gave Samarin a claim and a language to test it again. Samarin rang the bulls hit alarm. Read the flipping report.

More distortions of what I did say. I don't know how you can look in a mirror. For real. Fortunately, folks can see for themselves how you claim I said something, we ask for proof, and you prove I said half of it over here and a third of it over there and a shred of it over here and presto! Five crucified. In quoting James, you seem to have left out Samarin's conclusion after comparing the alleged xenoglossia to language. Wonder why you would do that.

Hey, I want credit for getting angry. I didn't see anyone responding in kind.

See? Again. No, they were NOT understood in the medium's cases. Crap, you're not even reading this stuff, are you? This is what I'm talking about. You're not reading the studies. You're trolling through them looking for gaps that you can cast doubt on and claim that the truth about SIT would be understood if we only had the information to fill in those gaps. You have every right to do that, but read the bleeping report before you declare a gap where solid ground exists.

IF, by "over 100 times," you mean "not a single time. That's a lie." Then yes, yes, that's exactly what I did.

Well, you could dispute my premise, ww. If Biblical SIT is not what I think it is, every conclusion I draw can be questioned. Ok, I'll stop messing with you guys. I am Word Wolf. Just kidding.

Stop using quotes to paraphrase what I said. In the space of a few short posts, you have turned what I DID say into something I did not, and you have applied it to a subject about which I was not speaking. So you are either being dishonest about what I said or incompetent about reading and applying it. I have found this to be consistent with your approach to just about every article, study and to a lesser extent, every post we have shared. It is impossible and unproductive for me to have to constantly correct your failure to comprehend what's written by LAYPEOPLE, to say nothing of experts in linguistics. I've tried to patiently steer you right, but my patience is exhausted. For the record, what I said was you have now reached the point of denying what is factually true and undisputed. Clearly, I am referring to something you did today. To apply this statement, which somehow became, in quotes no less, "proven and incontrovertible fact," to my assertion that modern SIT does not produce human language, is either dishonest or incompetent. Either way, I'm tired of dealing with it. The line refers to the patently and self-evidently ridiculous assertion that free vocalization is not an innate human ability that anyone, Christian or not, can do. You might as well deny the sky is blue. You're not arguing to get to the truth. You're not even arguing to win. You're arguing to outlast me. Well, congratulations. You have.

Chockfull, you're a liar. Not once have I written that... You know what, it's not worth it. Stop lying about what I said.

Must have escaped your reasoning, but I don't care what you do or how you take it. Your dishonesty and silliness has led me to stop taking your posts seriously. They are not serious and neither are you about this subject. You want to think you're approaching it seriously, but you're not. Your latest posts prove it. At this point, it should shock no one to hear that this is a dishonest distortion of what I actually said, a misrepresentation of my position. Again. And I'm done refuting your distortions.

I shall be perfectly happy to continue the conversation with anyone else who agrees to handle the questions and answers honestly, including any remaining question posted by Chockfull that was not answered afterward (most of it has already been answered, but damn, 60 pages...). But I am not willing to further engage anyone who distorts the information (documented repeatedly; not my opinion) and treats answered questions as if they've been left hanging.

Your goal has not been to investigate SIT, Chockfull. Your goal has been to defend it at any cost, to the point that you are now denying what is factually true and undisputed. It's dishonest and unworthy of my time.

Chockfull, it is impossible to have an honest argument with someone who argues dishonestly. You have access to the same information I do. The answers to your questions and challenges are all there. Your methods of debate are dishonest. You have distorted every study and paper we've reviewed. I have documented this repeatedly. You've distorted what I've said. You continue to do so. You resurrect discredited arguments as if they have not been discredited. You are not honestly approaching this discussion and I no longer respect you as a debate opponent worth engaging. You've chosen to be ignorant. I shall allow you to remain so. Good day.

I'm gonna cut my side of the conversation off here. I've made my point and answered every one of your silly accusations, no matter how ridiculous they have gotten. I've put up with distortion after distortion, lie after lie, misrepresentation after misrepresentation, absurd interpretation after absurd interpretation. Congratulations. You've outlasted me. Not with the facts. Not with the truth. But with raw determination. I'm done.

Accusing me of stating my opinions as facts does not make your accusation true. I think I've been so clear about what my opinion is that it insults our readers' intelligence for me to have to constantly label it my opinion. Modern SIT does not produce human languages. Find a fact that refutes my opinion or shut up. And I said a fact. Not a distorted reading of studies that conclude the exact opposite of what you claim. A fact. Not a 40-year-old secondhand anecdote offered by someone who admits in that very offering that it doesn't prove what he wishes it did. A fact. You have none. All the testable facts refute you. If two people claim to be doing different things and produce the same result, it is quite rational to suggest, in the absence of any other evidence, that they are doing the same thing. Group A. Psychics who claim xenoglossia claim that they produce foreign languages without learning them in the traditional ways. Beyond that, they actually claim to have a working knowledge of the language in question. The only proof we have of their claims is what they say and what they write. Group B. Christians who claim glossolalia claim that they produce foreign languages without learning them in the traditional ways. They do not claim any knowledge of the language in question. The only proof we have of their claims is what they say. An analysis of what is produced by Group A and Group B, when such comparisons can be made, reveal that they produce the same damn thing. Conclusions: neither is driven by spirit. Both are doing the same thing, which anyone can do without claiming to be spirit-driven. Or: The linguists are stupid and have no idea what they're talking about. I choose the first conclusion.

Let me start with the consequences of believing there's no such thing as free vocalization as an innate, human ability. It means everyone who DOES free vocalize is doing so with a spiritual energy behind him. No human being can merely DO this, unaided by spirit. The spirit is either of God or is not. Thus, anyone who free vocalizes and claims it is not energized by God is either wrong, or energized by devil spirits. So we're either lying about lying, wrong about lying, or we're deeeeeemon influenced. Please let me know if I am characterizing the terms, and the stakes, accurately.

The fact that psychics and other loons claim to produce xenoglossia (claims that are universally discredited, by the way. You seem to have left that part out for some reason) does not prove the action of a devil spirit at work. The fact that WHAT they produce appears no different to the trained linguist, at the very least, suggests that they are producing the same thing that those who claim glossolaia are producing: free vocalization claiming a spiritual energy to produce a real human language but, in reality, producing linguistic nonsense. In neither case is their any evidence that a real human language is produced. Psychics and mediums are faking it. They are not producing human languages. Neither are those who SIT. I will take that as an endorsement of the fact that you want me to show, point for point, how very ridiculous your argument is. Very well then. This will take time, like untangling a phone cord. Remember phone cords? Showing my age. And by the way, I'm a little over-tired of the false accusation that I have referred to my case as "proven." I have said the testable evidence agrees with me, and that is a fact, not my opinion. So kindly stop misrepresenting me.

Your first sentence conflicts with your last. I submit we have, at best, credible witness to a non-credible event. I believe Socks and Tom. I do not believe the people they are citing. I have no reason to. Every single characteristic you mention that attests to the credibility of Socks and Tom is missing from the people who spoke in tongues and who understood what was spoken. Of those people, we do NOT know their experiences with TWI, we do NOT know how they think, we do NOT know their base reputation as not being prone to lying. For the same reason we can trust Socks and Tom, we cannot yet trust those who made the claims in the first place. And without that information, we do not have nearly enough proof. That it's possible to fake tongues by free vocalization is self evident. I did it. Others admit doing it. Despite your convoluted attempt to discredit the possibility of it, it is an innate human ability. If I need to prove that, I will. I really hope I don't.

So there's no such thing as "free vocalization" as an innate human ability that anyone can do, Christian or non-Christian. Am I reading you correctly? Because that's nonsense. So I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're employing quite a strawman argument here. We will likely lose our remaining reader if I try to dissect it point for point. But I will if you insist. I'd rather you do it on your own.

Still trying to figure out if I can address Pete's post point for point. I've already done a few. This post represents my best effort to handle the rest. Not inflammatory. Just subject to challenge. It is rather impossible to argue against the second phrasing. I mean "anyone could tell this is a language" is quite the assertion. With just as much evidence, I could have said "anyone can tell that this is made up linguistic nonsense." It's an assertion. But "sounded like a language to me" is dead on accurate. It did sound like a language to you. And probably to a lot of people. How else could I fake it so long and no one notice or call me out? *** Listen, Karl is the best witness to testify as to whether he ever believed in the resurrection. "Maybe he did once and forgot" is baseless speculation, and it turns the Bible's insistence on a committed confession and submission to the lordship of Christ into a booby trap that anyone can trip without ever being serious about being a Christian. I think you missed an important aspect of this discussion. Karl faked it. I faked it. The assertion that Karl spoke in tongues without being born again was a response to the statement someone made that he could not speak in tongues before he was born again but could afterward. I exposed that as faulty reasoning on two fronts: one, the person in question, in all likelihood, never TRIED to speak in tongues before he was born again (why would he?) or was never instructed in how to do so. Second, Karl spoke in tongues, presumably surrounded by spirit-filled Christians, some of whom were Advanced Class grads, none of whom were notified by God that he was faking it. Faking it. Not really speaking in tongues. Karl faked it. The idea that you cannot speak in tongues if you're not born again is undercut, in my opinion, by the fact that modern SIT is nothing more than free vocalization masquerading as Biblical SIT. And ANYONE can free vocalize. Karl never spoke in tongues. I never spoke in tongues. The heart of this thread is a challenge to the assertion that ANYONE has. I have yet to be convinced that anyone has done anything other than free vocalization. Yes, this rejects the "firsthand" testimony of Socks and Tom, which I contend (and Socks explicitly said) is really secondhand. You may cling to those anecdotes as proof. I can't stop you. I contend we have not nearly enough information to accept them. We don't even know who the people involved are! But we do know that TWI was just RIDDLED with people who were eager to impress each other with their spiritual acumen. I wouldn't put a faked "lack of knowledge of a language" or "understanding of what was spoken in a tongue" past anyone without knowing more about who they were. After all, on this thread alone, half the people who've responded admit faking tongues, and all but a few have admitted faking interpretation and prophecy, at least sometimes. So the eyewitness testimony of what someone ELSE claimed happened, for real, honest... Interesting. Worthy of consideration. But far, far from proof. By definition, a manifestation is an outward display of what's done within. Not sure what you're getting at, really. Let's see... Then it's not a manifestation. Forgive me, and I regret being this blunt, but I don't see a coherent thought here. You seem to be suggesting that when done right, Speaking in Tongues (which are languages) will produce something that's not a language. Not to invoke a Wierwillism, but I submit you are taking a "difficult" verse and exalting it over all the clear verses on the same subject. Tongues are languages. They are not "groanings that cannot be uttered" or "groans that are not spoken" by definition. If they're not spoken, they're not SPEAKING in tongues. If they are groanings that cannot be uttered, they are not uttered, and thus not spoken, and thus not SPEAKING in tongues. This isn't hard. If this verse is talking about SIT (and I think it probably is), it is clearly talking about OUR inability to put things into words without God's help. Speaking in tongues is supposed to BE that help. But it's tongues. It's still languages. It doesn't suddenly change the clear verses into secret codes and celestial languages. Quite. ;) Already addressed. Just as Karl is the best witness to testify as to whether he was ever really born again, I am the best (indeed, the only irrefutable) witness to testify as to whether I faked SIT. You don't get to come along and say "well just because you doubted what you did, doesn't mean you didn't really SIT." I. Didn't. Really. SIT. Addressed elsewhere on this thread. The short of it: Confession is the only way to "prove" anyone ever faked interpretation and prophecy. I can't even prove anyone never spoke in tongues. I can only point to the fact that the testable evidence, all of it, supports that assertion. But you can respond by rejecting ALL testable evidence, either by denying God's participation or rejecting the expertise of those conducting or interpreting the tests. When you do that, you argue against the evidence, which I suppose is fine, but pulls the rug out from any effort to discuss the issue in rational terms. I addressed the rest of your post. Wow. That wasn't so hard. :blink:

Sure, Ham. And learning a language in the first place is a miracle. And walking. And getting a hankie out in time to block the effect of a sneeze. And reaching around the back of your head to touch your right ear with your left hand. The difference between free vocalization and Biblical SIT is the difference between waking a sleeping man and waking a dead one. One is a perfectly natural thing anyone can do. The other is a profound demonstration of the power of God. I just don't see how doing something anyone can do equals a manifestation of the presence of God in Christ in you. It ain't a miracle if anyone can do it, with or without God.

Two points I can address. First, I am not seeking to cast doubt on the Biblical accounts of SIT. Just the modern. From a Biblical perspective, I have to assume that Peter knew what he heard, and it is consistent with the Bible, especially given the revelation that got Peter to Cornelius' house in the first place, that the veracity of what they did was validated by God Himself. I have no Biblical basis to challenge that, nor did I ever intend to imply such. I do have a Biblical basis to challenge modern SIT. I have stated this basis enough to fill 48 pages. Or 60. Depends on who's counting. If you disagree with my basis, then that's a different discussion best left to the doctrinal section. But the notion that I'm wrong about Biblical SIT has not been explored on this thread in any depth. I suspect, in the end, it will be the required position of those who disagree with me, and I concede that I will have no rational, mutually agreed-upon basis on which to argue that point. The best I'll have is: God would that you all engaged in free vocalization and produced a non-language the same as any non-Christian can do. What's so special about that? On your second issue: You're assuming SIT is a valid spiritual experience and you are failing to consider free vocalization (an innate, human ability with no spiritual implications whatsoever) as a rational alternative. Failing to consider free vocalization leaves you with only two options: SIT is energized by God, or SIT is energized by another (let's presume "evil") spirit. I contend there's no spirit involved in any case, but CERTAINLY no spirit involved in cases where it's not energized by God. My opinion is, of course, as untestable as yours. It only has the benefit of being rational.

Socks, in the dozens of pages that have transpired since you last posted on this thread, you may have missed the part where I apologized to you for being placed in a position where I felt I had to pass judgment on the account you gave. I never intended to do that, you never asked me to accept the account, and I would rather have just let my last word to you be my last word on the subject at all. I found it distasteful to talk skeptically about the story "behind your back." I know my opinion about the story can't surprise you in the least. Nonetheless, I feel an apology is in order, and I offer it.

Sheesh, where to begin? First, casual reading: it appears you would rather believe that we faked faking it than that we actually faked it. That's... I don't even know what to call that. So let me be clear: I do not doubt that I spoke in tongues. I know I did not. I know I faked it and I know how. True, it wasn't until going through the process of dialogue on this thread that I realized that there were fancy words for what I did, but I was rather obviously defining the process of free vocalization before I ever heard the term and saw its application to the subject we are considering. Much of what Pete says is simply impossible to argue because he has, in effect, made everything about SIT, including confessed fakery, untestable. I honestly don't know if I should, or even CAN, answer him point for point. But no, I do not apologize for calling Socks' and Tom's accounts anecdotal evidence insufficient as objective proof of anything. They did not present it as such. They did not ask me to take it as such. And with good reason. That they believe these accounts is a testament to their sincerity. It is no guarantee of the veracity of the stories they tell. I feel for you if that offends you. But you are asking too much of me at this point to rephrase or withdraw it. If you would like to come up with an alternative wording that you think might be acceptable to both of us, I will gladly consider it. Let me add that I have kind of already refined the way I refer to my side of things. In the post right above yours, I wrote: I think that's as humble a way to put it as I can come up with.

I have 25 posts per page, so it's only 48 pages for me.