Raf

Ok, so now I'm just piling on: Read more: http://meta-religion.com/Linguistics/Glossolalia/contemporary_linguistic_study.htm#ixzz272JyAyIW The bold and italics, and of course, the "well shucks" bracket, are mine. Folks, if ANYONE reading this is able to speak in tongues and produce the tongues of men, I am certain that there are linguists who would LOVE to talk to you. And preachers/pastors. And, yes, psychologists. James Randi, who has offered $1 million for conclusive proof of the paranormal, would probably be obliged to cough up a check to you. Yeah, I know. God won't let you. It can't be because, deep down, you KNOW that you don't know that you know.

Aww, thanks! Hey, seriously, I'm sorry if this thread bums you out or upsets you. If you want to make a case to the mods, be my guest. If they move it (over my objection), so be it. I am at a loss to how "hey, you know all those times I claimed to be speaking through the power that created the heavens and earth? Mea culpa, I was full of crap" can somehow be interpreted as self-righteous, but HEY, we are free to make judgments and express them. BWAAAAhaahahahahaha!

Yes, and Vern provides it. Anyone can perform free vocalization. If you're in a place and time with next to zero exposure to other cultures and other languages, then you can claim to be speaking in a foreign tongue by the power of God, Krishna, Isis, Zeus or Baal, and no one would be the wiser. Rare is the person who cannot do this. Common is the religious leader who would seize on it as proof of, or display of, or manifestation of, something supernatural.

Ok, quick clarification: chockfull, you confused me by accusing me of calling Landry laughably biased. Clearly I said Vern and you meant Vern. You just wrote Landry. But to the original point, I never accused Vern of misquoting or misrepresenting Samarin. THAT was your false accusation against me.

just repisting this because I didn't want it to get buried.

Read that carefully: I did not call Landry laughably biased. I made a reference to Landry, then changed the subject to the OTHER article, Vern's identifying it as the one I had previously referred to as laughably biased. So I retract my statement. You did not bear falsewitness. You did not mean to lie about me. You were mistaken, and the subsequent statement you made in reference to that mistake was untrue, but sincere. Kinda like the whole SIT experience we've been hoodwinked into accepting.

More bearing falsewitness. Go ahead. Find the quote. I'll wait for your apology. (If I said it about Landry, by the way, it was a typo, because I meant it about Vern). By the way, remember Sherrill, the guy who did the review of the 40 different samples of glossolalia? Look him up. REAL "unbiased" stuff there: http://www.amazon.ca/They-Speak-Other-Tongues-Sherrill/dp/0800793595/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348156477&sr=1-1 Here's my original reference to "laughably biased," by the way.

I compare Samarin to an agricultural biologist studying the solid, post-digestive byproduct of the species bos taurus to determine its potential uses in farming or other potential application. The results will vary based on any number of issues, from the diet of the animal to the climate in which it was raised. Numerous different conclusions can be drawn about its content, consistency and application. But in the end, the agricultural biologist knows that what he's studying is bulls hit, and so does Samarin.

Thou shalt not bear falsewitness against thy neighbor. That is not what I said. It is not what I meant. And it is not what he did, as I believe he cited Samarin accurately. What do the studies agree on: SIT, as examined thus far, has failed to produce a single instance of a speaker producing a known language that was unknown to the speaker but identifiable to other human beings. Does this bother no one? If what you were doing was reproducing what Paul promises in the Bible, wouldn't you expect MOST SIT to produce a known language? Ok, not most. Many! Ok, not many. Some! Ok, not some: ONE?!? The alternatives are tongues of angels and code (a non-Biblical copout that, if we're being honest here, should not even be considered).

A quick detour on the bias of Vern Poythress, which I picked up on just by reading the article, not even realizing that although he has taught linguistics, his primary field is, in fact, religious. Interestingly (for what it's worth), his Wikipedia entry lists him first as a Calvinist philosopher, theologian and New Testament scholar. Do you suppose such a person might be predisposed to believe that tongues can't be proved or disproved? Apologetics? Yeah, that's the field where your primary goal is to argue in favor of the Christian faith. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's the opposite of unbiased. Just as I would never expect Richard Dawkins to conduct a study that validates SIT, I would never expect Poythress to conduct a study that invalidates it. He can't. It's literally not his job. So he tells us that it "can't" be proved or disproved, ignoring the obvious fact that it can be proved quite easily: the moment someone DOES speak in tongues and produce a verified language, you watch how fast the SITters jump up and say AHA! We PROVED it! Let's not neglect at a couple of things he is willing to say DESPITE this bias. This is not the statement of an unbiased researcher. It is wholly consistent with an apologetic who does not want the results of a scientific study to be perceived as an attack on an article of faith. Still, he IS able to describe free vocalization (which is by his own definition made up by the speaker without any... wait, let me not characterize it. Let's have Vern do it: I think it's self-evident that he is not at this point describing a supernatural phenomenon, but something that anyone can do. In fact, he says, it would be unusual to find someone who cannot do it! Earlier he says the following: Again, Vern here is NOT describing any supernatural process that requires God to energize or inspire the utterances that come forth. He is explicit about that. By the way, you'll be forgiven if the above description reminds you at all of session 12, because it is precisely how we were taught to fake SIT. It is also, practically speaking, indistinguishable from what we read earlier in Samarin. The only difference is that Samarin introduces the motive of the speaker to produce a real language. Practically speaking, mechanically, they are describing the exact same thing. That's why I find Vern's discussion here highly instructive. If it differs, it's not the same thing. Now watch this, because it is central to what we discuss: Wait, what? Lemme read that again: Most of the time, linguistically speaking, a person speaking in tongues produces something that's indistinguishable from someone who is free-vocalizing while deliberately trying to make it sound like a language. What conclusion does Vern draw from the observations he's describing (as it seems clear that he's not the one doing the studying, by the way: he is strictly describing other studies with the ultimate goal of producing an apologetic response TO those scientific analyses. Any unbiased scientist reading that paragraph in 1912 would probably STILL be laughing. A scientific conclusion that SIT, which produces utterances that are linguistically indistinguishable from open fakery, IS itself fake... is only possible if you don't know how God works. That conclusion is theologically understandable, but it's a joke, scientifically speaking. That he has the professionalism to admit that free vocalization is not indisputable proof of the presence and the power of the Hholy Sspirit is commendable. That he lacks the professionalism to admit that both examined speakers are clearly faking, but only one is admitting it, is disappointing. This sounds impressive, but is really self evident. Unless you analyze all SIT, you can never prove that it's ALL fake. You can only prove those you've analyzed are fake. Apparently a failure to distinguish between SIT and admitted fakery is insufficient evidence to conclude that SIT IS fakery. Because God. You can't argue with that logic. No, I mean that. You can't argue with it. There's nothing to argue with. I should note that Vern later goes into an extensive discussion about the possibility of SIT as a "coded" language, but seeing as I do not see Paul talking about speaking the tongues of men, angels and secret agents, I am choosing not to delve into that part of his discussion. It appears, at best, a desperate attempt to rescue SIT (or what Vern calls "T-speech") from utter debunking. I mean no disrespect to the Rev. Vern. He is clearly a brilliant man and quite the Christian apologist. But this paper, for what it's worth, is not a work of research, per se, and cannot be treated as such. At this point it becomes clear that you are not even reading these reports but merely looking for reasons to insult me. Had you read them, you would see that the incidents of xenoglossia were NOT samples of people exercising SIT. They were claiming past life regression, reincarnation and the like. So... no. Please read Samarin's report before you embarrass yourself any further.

T-speech here refers to SIT as a practice. Wow. These scientists must be deluding themselves. I mean, to think that the Holy Spirit would be unlikely to work a miracle in controlled conditions for the convenience of linguists. Apparently, the scientists are well able to obviate the limitations in their study. But Raf, not so much. In fact, Raf gets so offended at the idea that he comes up with cute little bracketed statements about censoring statements to prevent Satan. Really, really adept political type maneuvering there. But honest scientific research? Not so much. This conclusion, that you cannot really prove or disprove tongues, has been discussed on this thread ad nauseum. It is one of the reasons I characterized the Right Rev's article on the subject as laughably biased. For those just joining us: If SIT produced a verified language from a speaker who had no prior experience with or exposure to that language, it would pretty much PROVE SIT as a legitimate experience. Let's agree that you can't disprove it everywhere in all cases. But to say you can't prove it is to agree, pretty much, that "speaking in tongues" and producing the tongues of men as recorded in Acts 2 and expected in I Corinthians 13 is something no one can do. Because if someone could do it, you would not be hiding behind the lie that "it can't be proved." So is the Right Rev's paper "honest scientific research"? Clearly not. It doesn't even make rhetorical sense on that critical point. The paper DOES make some interesting points, but seeing as he exposes his bias, the only value I would draw from him is when he presents something that is objectively verifiable or reaches a conclusion that runs counter to his expressed bias (in favor of the possibility that there may be something genuine going on here, and his refusal to allow the evidence to rule it out).

What is the non SuperPac translation? LINGUISTS CONCLUDE THAT THE PATTERNS IN GLOSSALALIA SUPPORT THE POSSIBILITY THAT IT IS A LANGUAGE. The supportable evidence? Like a language, there are sentences, words, sound units. IT SOUNDS LIKE A LANGUAGE WITH GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX. How did they arrive at this? They observed comparisons of consonants and vowels, and speeches on different occasions. So Raf makes claims that linguists all have examined recorded evidence and dismissed all of them as not a language. Yet the very first supporting study posted to this thread makes exactly the opposite claim. Although they are not familiar with the language, linguists examining 40 recordings of glossolalia conclude that THE PATTERNS SUPPORT THE POSSIBILITY OF IT BEING A LANGUAGE. So Raf, science seems to be failing you here, bro. But hey, on the positive side for you, you could always snip a few quotes from the paper out of context, and say 100% the opposite of what your source is saying. Because, you know, most of the people reading the thread won't read your entire source anyway. That's galling. I mean unmitigated gall. Let's explore why. Chockfull quotes Landry (the undergrad whose grade on this paper we still don't know), who quotes Malony and Lovekin quoting Samarin. Whew. (Hey, are you getting the impression that Samarin is a rather respected and recognized authority on this issue? Not that appealing to authority is a valid logical tactic, but it IS interesting). Ok, so what does Samarin say in this quoted quote: Hmm. Glossolalia and gibberish are different. Hold the phone. Are we clear on what Samarin even MEANS by glossolalia yet? Oh, we're not? Well, let's find out to arrive at the truth of what Landry says: What does this tell us about Samarin? Well, I think it clearly differentiates between real language and stuff made up by the speaker that SOUNDS like real language but has "no systematic resemblance to ANY LANGUAGE LIVING OR DEAD." This definition needs to be recalled whenever we read Samarin's references to glossolalia: He has already ruled it out as a language and is now fascinated not by "what is glossolalia NOT," but "what IS glossolalia" (having already ruled it out as an existing or extinct language). To take Samarin and conclude, from one quote of a quote, that "linguists conclude that the patterns in glossolalia support the possibility that it is a language" is an error at best, a blatant lie at worst. Fortunately, we HAVE a substantial writing sample from Samarin to compare against the undergrad's quote of a quote to get to what he's REALLY saying. When Samarin says glossolalia is not gibberish, what he is saying is that the speaker has invented out of whole cloth something that looks and sounds languagish but clearly is not. By the way, that's not my interpretation of Samarin. It's what he says (I've already quoted this with more context, so don't go accusing me of taking this quote out of context): You may not take that to mean "the speaker makes that s#1% up," but I do, and if we're at odds here, Godspeed. Back to chockfull: If you're going to steal my joke, I would appreciate it if you were at least a little funny. That you should call your approach "the scientific method and common sense" should humiliate you, considering your contempt for a truly scientific approach to this question. See, if you were REALLY interested in a scientific approach in keeping with common sense, you would [censored by the Committee to Protect the Faith From A Scientific Approach And Common Sense Already Dismissed as the Methodology of SATAN!] You see? THAT's funny.

I'm going to try to review chockfull's allegations one by one, which may take some time considering the lengths undertaken to label me a crying politician (because namecalling really helps prove your point). I'm going to kind of agree there. It was no language that they could identify, and I should have said as much. Of course, if it WAS a language they could identify, we'd be done here, wouldn't we. But it never seems to be a language anyone can identify. Wonder why that is. Here the pot calls the kettle black. Let's remember that we are reviewing here an undergraduate term paper, without access to the sources documented by the future geologist, and making judgments about words like "glossolalia" and "gibberish" without regard to the meanings of those words as used by the researchers. Samarin distinguishes between gibberish and glossolalia in his study (which the undergrad cites and which, thankfully, we DO have access to), so that the conclusion "glossolalia is not gibberish" is actually self-defined. This is rather critical to our purposes here: if you define away the difference between glossolalia and gibberish at the outset, you pre-determine their differences. In gibberish, the speaker is making no effort to produce anything that sounds like a language. In glossolalia, the speaker IS making an effort to produce something that sounds like a language. Therefore, to the linguist, the difference between gibberish and glossolalia becomes clear because one displays that conscious or subconscious effort and the other does not. Key realizations: regardless of what you believe glossolalia to be, you have to admit that it's not any known language, which eliminates it under the Biblical definition of speaking in tongues at least insofar as they are the "tongues of men" as described in Acts 2 and I Corinthians 13. Glossolalia are NOT tongues of men by any definition, and none of the researchers we are considering concluded that they are. Not one. Samarin is explicit on this, as we shall see later.

I apologize. I should not have said deliberately dishonest. I have no idea whether it was deliberate.

This kind of deliberately dishonest quotation is impossible to argue against. Samarin's distinction between xenoglossia (it's really a language) and glossolalia (it's not a language, but it has some characteristics of language because that is how the speaker manufactures it) is deeply instructive and utterly ignored by chockfull. Even the fact that they put the word "language" in quotes is ignored, when it seems rather obvious to the reader who is NOT trying to call me names that the use of quotes there is equivalent to "so-called." Glossolalia is a "language" the way Victor Paul Wierwille was a "man of God." Look! Raf called Wierwille a man of God! What are you, 12? An objective reading of Samarin forces you to conclude that when he writes of glossolalia, he is studying the stuff the speaker made up. He specifically distinguishes it from any real language and instead says we can learn something about the development of language by observing how people manufacture glossolalia. The "words" and "phrases" in glossolalia exist only insofar as the speaker seems to have attached meaning and deliberately broken up "sentences." Forget that he's already ruled out glossolalia as a real language, forget that he specifically describes how and why the speaker makes it up, forget the fact that Samarin accounts for why this made up stuff is going to have some characteristics of language, and it's easy to celebrate a victory when he makes a reference to so-called "language" and say SEE! A linguist says it's a language! Yeah, no he didn't. Better to call his methodology Satanic than to force him to say the opposite of what he's saying.

Chockfull, I am truly alarmed at the dishonest manner in which you cite these studies and portray their findings, particularly when it comes to Samarin, and the depths to which you stoop to discredit me. It is, I would have thought, beneath you.

Steve, I'm sure a google search of non Christian SIT or pre Christian SIT would be faster and more efficient than waiting for Waysider or relying on any one link. Just a thought.

You know, chockfull, you need to go back and check what you wrote regarding Samarin. You severely misrepresented his work.

Nice. Stand by Me, Myself and Irene A sort of modern retelling of the Scarlet Letter is about a high school girl who tries to earn a reputation as a slut by hanging out with an elite squad of soldiers wanted for a crime that they did not commit and who go around helping people who need a little strong-armed assistance.

Let me retract what I said about Landry's sources, because I think I misread a page. At least one of his sources, the Malony-Lovekin study, does not appear to be linguistic in nature at all, but I'm not sure what it WAS since I can't find much more than citations and an availability of their book on Amazon. I'd order it, but I'm not entirely sure my interest level is all that high. I don't mean to be picking on Landry, but his paper seems to quote one book that quotes a lot of other studies, making the research he's presented simultaneously second and third hand. It makes it difficult to analyze. I'll put his work down for now. I wouldn't want strangers dissecting my college papers. They were dreadful.

Well, yeah, he's a geographer NOW. But at the time he was a college junior looking for a good grade while working toward his degree in philosophy/religion. I think his sources are of more interest to me, but unfortunately, I am having trouble actually finding their work online. What I have found seems to indicate that they were interested in this as a behavioral issue (ie, are tongues speakers psychotic?). There's more to be researched there. As for extensively quoting Landry, for the purposes you and I are describing, either of us should be almost embarrassed to quote him as any authority. As someone who agrees with you (or with me), fine. But you wanted an academic study, and I doubt you meant an undergraduate essay. We'll agree there. Break out the champagne!

Bingo on Landry. At the time he wrote this, he was studying for a philosophy/religious studies degree at Louisiana State University. He's not a linguist. He was a college kid writing a term paper. His conclusion is nice, though. Made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But I would not have provided that article as anything of value to this discussion. I'm sure he's very smart and nice. Polythress is a religious man who is, in many ways, preaching to the choir. I question the validity of his research on the grounds of bias. Without a doubt, he is smarter than I am. But he's not presenting an argument based on linguistics or science. He's like the brilliant priest with advanced degrees who argue for belief in transubstantiation. Not impressive. Where I will give Polythress credit is in his recognition of the process of free vocalization. It NAILS the process we were taught in TWI. If one were seeking to find a difference between the free vocalization and what we were taught to do in TWI, one would be hard pressed indeed. Just my opinion, of course. Did I miss the part where you dissected Samarin?

Let me re-emphasize the part I put in bold, because it belies the claims YOU say I'm making about these studies. Polythress, Lord bless him, has produced a review of studies that I will again say is laughably biased. I'll grant him his doctorate, though. Impressive. But he started with a conclusion and arranged his evidence to fit it. Not impressive in the slightest. But yes, Landry did cite his sources. I haven't gotten to them yet.

I have no evidence that Landry is anything more than a college kid in a theology class. As for the article I described as laughably biased, I agree, it says exactly what you say it does. Did I mention it was laughably biased?

Well, for starters, the darn thing looks like a term paper. I wonder what grade he got? What was the school? Etc. Let's see what we can learn from his sources, which he had the decency to document.