Raf

Yes, but a certain other never-dying thread hasn't been heard from in years, so...

It need not be a slippery slope is what I'm saying. Slippery slope is another logical fallacy.

Sorry to be so blunt, but constantly bringing up doubts about the resurrection or the new birth or the existence of God is just another logical fallacy that stops people from engaging in self reflection for fear that it will get them to question God and Christ himself (or themselves: pick the theology you hold. Doesn't matter for the purpose of this discussion).

Ok, look, last time I'm going to say this. The first person accounts of people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs vastly outnumbers those who claim a true blue SIT "I heard someone else who heard someone else and recognized the language and understood it in my presence" experience. If their sincerity requires that I believe them, and they have no burden to prove their claims, then I have no more reason to reject the UFO abductions as I have to reject the fantastical tongues claims. I reject them both on the same basis. If that bothers you on a faith level, I'm sorry. It shouldn't. There are oodles of Christians who are unsatisfied with the used car salesman "you're just gonna hafta trust me on this: looks, feels, sounds and produces the same result as a phony, but take my word for it; it's real" con job posited by the modern SIT movement. This doesn't even compare to the resurrection or the new birth. The Bible describes something specific and clear. Modern SIT twists and distorts the obvious meaning of the text for the sole purpose of covering up the fact that it doesn't produce what the Bible says it should. No, I have not proved my case that it's all a lie. But more importantly, modern tongues, unsubstantiated anecdotes not withstanding, hasn't proven a single case to be true. At the very least, if we can return to the original point of this thread, fakery was widespread, and anyone who did fake it should know that it's liberating to come clean. You may have fooled quite a few people, but you never fooled to one who mattered most. I would that ye all came clean. I'd also like a pony and a winning lottery ticket.

Impreszions as they come. First up, I don't quite see the pount you're making in regards to Samarin and non Christian free vocalization. It was Poythress who said they were linguistically indistinguishable. Where did I ever make a big deal, or even a little deal, of Samarin and non Christians?

Aaaaaaaack! Make it stop! Make it stop!!!! An. Absolute. Crock. Of. Shiite.

Ok, but I suspect I will want to keep samarin's book in the end...

We have no accounts where people experienced that they were known languages. We have two accounts where people experienced that other people claimed they were known languages. But we do not know who or where these other people are. With respect to the people telling the stories, the stories themselves are unverifiable. UFO abduction accounts have greater frequency, greater identification of primary sources, and just as much verifiable credibility. You can keep citing these stories as proof, but I am on more solid ground rejecting them than you are trying to shove them back into the conversation as evidence or proof. It just ain't. If you refuse to believe Landry was a college kid at the time he wrote his piece, nothing I tell you will suffice as proof. He was. I arrived at the conclusion by comparing his resume to the date on the paper. I know, that's not enough proof for you. Because nothing is. My comment is not an attack on Landry. It is an observation that we have a quote of a quote coming to us from a person whose credibility as a researcher and presenter of research is not established. Those are facts, not opinions. I prefer to cut Landry out of it entirely and look at what Malony and Lovekin say directly.

That is not the only basis on which he rules out glossa as language. Please clarify this statement. What were the firsthand accounts, and what did they illustrate. Illustrating a point and proving it are two different things. There's no inconsistency in applying different standards to them. Madame Tussaud has a collection of figures resembling famous people. That doesn't make it them. Vincent Price, on the other hand...

First question is easy. We all agree on it. SIT is not intended to be something I say and you understand. It CAN be, but not as a rule. Second question: he's accusing me of being inconsistent. I'm a little unclear how. Elaboration please, chockfull? Third question: Denial.

Ok, put up. Please, point me to these other published papers, which started out as Samarin's own linguists (false) became other linguists criticizing Samarin (false) and are now just other authors/writers. Document your claim, please.

Nope. Read the thread. I reached my opinion before I knew who Samarin was. I'm just asking people to be honest. I only provided linguistic sources because I alluded to them and was asked to supply them. It was never my intention to get into this aspect of the debate. To me, the conversation ends with "these are not known languages." Going into detail about what they are is examining the ink on counterfeit money. Have a good time, but no amount of study will suddenly turn it into real money. I agree with you, but as he will not, he is in the right in terms of logical discourse. I am compelled to answer on the terms of the discussion. I think we've passed the border and are now undocumented immigrants.

That's quite a leap of logic. "He found languages he did not know" is an affirmative statement that requires the person making the claim to identify the languages. It is a hypothesis, not a conclusion. And the evidence does not back it up. You keep referring to Socks and Tom as providing firsthand accounts. At best, their accounts are second hand. They were not the speakers. They were not the understanders. So the best they could tell you firsthand is that the claim was made in front of them. And I can give you 10 times as many people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs. Big whoop. It's useless as proof. You believe it because you want to. I don't believe it because it's not verified in any meaningful way. You can keep repeating it, but that doesn't elevate it to proof. I get what you're saying about the 5 elements. The problem you still run into is the other elements. Let's take the first item on the list as an example: "vocal auditory channel." It's seen and it's heard. Well, hell, gibberish fits THAT definition. Lots of sneezing and burping fits that definition. Look at number 5: Complete feedback. The speaker hears himself speaking. Again, every case of made up gibberish fits that bill. In fact, when you look at the five elements that SIT does NOT fit and compare it to the ones it DOES fit, an important factor emerges: SIT fits every element that can be reproduced by fakery/free vocalization and none of the elements that cannot. Now, I have to admit, I do not know why Samarin found it necessary to run glossolalia past Hockett's design-features of language. I agree with you; it does not make sense given the nature of glossolalia in the first place. This list seems to be a way of differentiating gorilla grunts from human dialogue, so to speak. It makes no sense here. This could be our lack of understanding of a conversation that's way above our heads. It could be an errant detour of the nature of what we see in Felicitas Goodman (who makes sound linguistic observations but questionable psychological ones). Or it could be something that Samarin details in his later books. Interesting to note that Samarin calls his own application of Hockett's list "superficial" (see top of page 66). But that doesn't make glossolalia language. "It fits 11 of 16 design features of language," when we see what those features are, tells us as little about them as the fact that it's missing the 5. This finding actually surprises me. I expected something more satisfying than "the whole list is misapplied to this problem." It's my belief that this list does nothing for either of our cases. It doesn't prove any relevant point in this discussion. Your thoughts?

Geisha, you have a mistaken definition of the appeal to authority fallacy. Let me try to explain, because Chockfull is citing it correctly. An appeal to authority says proposition A is true because Dr. E, an expert in the field, says it's true. Now, proposition A may in fact be true, but it's not true just because Dr. E says it's true. It's like in medicine. Doctor says you have cancer. First thing he tells you is... Get a second opinion. Why? Because you want the results of the test confirmed by an independent source. You go to 10 doctors and they all tell you the same thing, then you have diminished the likelihood that they are all wrong (you'll never reduce it to zero, but at some point you're getting chemo or some other treatment or you gonna die). In this case, Samarin says in no uncertain terms that SIT does not produce a known language, and that what it does produce is similar to real language only in very limited ways (his words). I agree with you that Samarin's work has withstood the test of peer review. He is cited as an authority on the subject by Christian and non Christian alike. To me, that decreases the odds that he's wrong. But it will, alas, never be reduced to zero. So here we are. Chockfull is challenging Samarin's conclusion here. Responding to that argument by merely saying Samarin's an expert in this field and we are not doesn't actually prove anything, so Chockfull, within every logical right, is not accepting it. Fine. It is incumbent on me to show why Chockfull's dismissal of Samarin's conclusion is unwarranted, and I have to do so without merely relying on Samarin. An efficient use of time? Not in the least. But fair game? Afraid so.

Fallacy just means its presented as proof but doesn't prove anything. It doesn't mean the person employing it is wrong. Chockfull is basically demanding that I retrace Samarin's steps to show that his conclusions are, in fact, consistent with his findings. I have no doubt Samarin's findings are justified. But Chockfull's challenge is valid: if the findings are justified, then it should be possible, if not easy, to prove it. (That last sentence is not universally applicable. The more complicated the subject, the less easy it is to prove, even though it may be right. Like quantum mechanics. Not easy to show at all. But nonetheless true. So the question here is, is linguistics easy enough a subject that retracing Samarin's steps will be easy, or is it complicated enough that it will be tough, though not impossible, to explain? Don't know the answer to that.) Personally, I think it's a huge waste of time because WHEN we show Samarin is correct, it still will be rejected as biased and not proving anything. The opposing side's argument is predetermined by design to conclude that I can't prove my case. Therefore, no amount of offered proof will ever be enough. In my view, that's not faith. It's wishful thinking. I speak here for myself, why I do not accept this on faith.

Rebecca De Mornay The Three Musketeers Oliver Platt

I'm actually ok with that premise. The problem is that tongues recorded in worship settings and submitted for later review account for at least some of the samples we've been discussing. Seems there that God shuts the power off whenever a recorder is turned on... Without telling the speaker. In those cases, the speaker senses nothing different, feels just as strongly about praising God, but is, if God is not involved, faking it. So if God is not cooperating, we learn that real SIT and faked SIT feel exactly the same to the SITter. Hmmm. Feel the same. Produce the same thing linguistically. But my belief that they ARE the same is somehow presumptuous and unwarranted...

Actually, I was thinking of picking up Samarin and having you get Sherrill, which you might find more affirming. Plus, Sherrill's like a third of the price.

Amusing, but cheap shot. At this stage of the discussion, TWI in general and Wierwille in particular have been so discredited that picking on them is the equivalent of employing the straw man fallacy.

Chockfull: how about a deal? You buy Sherrill's book. I'll buy Samarin's. We compare notes here. I'd offer to reverse it, but Samarin is 3x as much $, so I'll volunteer to take the bigger financial hit.

Track record so far: We were quoted an abstract wherein Samarin calls SIT a language. It was in quotes and the assertion was refuted. We were told Samarin's own linguists disputed his conclusion. They didn't. We were then told Poythress was quoting other linguists reviewing Samarin's work. It wasn't Poythress. Then we were told it was Landry citing linguists critiquing Samarin. But the linguists cited were quoted seven years before Samarin's book was published. Then we were told it was other authors disputing Samarin's findings. It was other suthors, but impossible to tell whether they quoted Samarin favorably or unfavorably, considering that their quote of Samarin was in turn quoted by a college kid writing a paper for his religion class. Did they quote Samarin out of context? Did the college kid quote the authors (one of whom is a practicing tongues-speaker - no bias there) out of context? We don't know. Since I do have access to Malony and Lovekin's book, I'll pick it up from the library so we can cut out the middleman and determine what they really were saying about Samarin. Next it's implied that criticism of Samarin is plentiful. Number of works cited in support of this assertion: 0. Seriously, don't you get tired? Now we're told Samarin was so biased we can't take his conclusion seriously, even though everyone who studies the subject, Christian and non Christian alike, cites him favorably. I think I know how this chapter ends...

It's already been determined that glossolalia and free vocalization produce the same thing linguistically. If glossolalia produces an unknown language, then linguistically, we are saying that so does faking it. Makes no sense. But somehow we now have to prove what's already been peer reviewed and has stood the tests applied by other linguists. But if it avoids the appeal to authority, then I guess it's worth it. What's frustrating is that when I show again that Samarin has been oversimplified and misrepresented (his repeatedly stated and increasingly blunt conclusions are a good predictor of what we will inevitably find), it still won't be good enough because no amount of proof is ever going to be good enough. Why am I doing this again?

Back on my phone, so if you want me to really examine the ink on the counterfeit $2 bills Samarin studied, it'll have to wait. Possibly for past the weekend. That'll give you time to catch up on Sherrill and offer your thoughts.

Oh for Pete's sake. If he found known human languages, what were they? Really tedious.

It's getting a little tedious to watch facts getting dismissed as my opinion. SIT does not produce known languages. That's a fact, not my opinion. What SIT does produce is linguistically indistinguishable from competent free vocalization with no pretense of divine inspiration. That is a fact, not an opinion. If they produce the same thing, then my point, while not proved to your satisfaction (because you've made it clear that no amount of proof I provide will suffice), is still made as strongly as possible within the limitations of my ability to prove it. But go ahead, dismiss it as my opinion if it makes you happy.