Raf

Well, if the speaker controls when he stops and starts but the words spoken are inspired by God, what other spiritual explanation is there? Doesn't quite prove fakery, does it?

Oh my. Excy has criticized me. I want to go home and rethink my life.

That's why I added "as far as this thread is concerned." I am not suggesting the issue is not worth exploring. I'm saying that in THIS thread, I'm not exploring it. I am not seeking to discredit Paul. I AM seeking to discredit Victor Paul and his fakery. I will leave the question of Paul to you. I'm not trying to stop anyone from exploring the answer to your question. I just know what makes a thread Doctrinal and what makes it About The Way, and am seeking to keep the two separate for as long as I can (more people read About The Way, and many avoid Doctrinal because they're not interested in the nature of conversation that takes place there).

That's fine. We can agree there (at least as far as the implication of the findings as they relate to this topic). Again, it would be of immense value to find a linguist who verified that this was in fact producing a language. We're beyond my expertise here, so for the sake of moving the discussion along, I'll just agree with you. Disagree with me on this if you wish. There's plenty of room for more than one point of view. To me, it should look like, well, a language. But maybe I'm picky. There you go again. It CAN be proved one way. Not the other. If it produced a recognized language, this conversation would be over. So it CAN be proved. We'll agree that it can't be disproved. Mighty nice of you. I made reference to the studies and was asked to cite them. Then a snippet of another study was quoted as though it demonstrated something that, in my opinion, it does not. I'm not trying to prove you wrong, per se. I am supplementing my position with documentation that you can take or leave. You say you're not faking it. You are also not demanding that I prove my position. So if you're not demanding proof from me, and I'm not demanding proof from you, we're fine. I would LIKE for you to change your mind and recognize what I believe to be a disservice that was done to all of us in God's name. But I ain't gonna drag you kicking and screaming. As far as this thread is concerned, I have made no effort and have no desire to discredit, validate, explore, interpret or reinterpret what Paul wrote. That's why my contention remains that this thread is not doctrinal.

More from Samarin. This is rich. Pull up a chair: I'll translate that into plain English: It's faked. Always. The fact that there's any doubt about it speaks well of our creativity, not at all of the validity of the supernatural origin it claims. Of course, this doesn't prove that everyone everywhere who speaks in tongues is flat out faking it. It sure as hell implies it. But it doesn't prove it. No, to prove it, you would have to [censored by the Committee to Protect the Righteous From the Methods of Lucifer]. BRING IT!

It is interesting, the more I read Samarin (the same study Chockfull quoted before I posted it) that his assessment is simply devastating to the concept of speaking in tongues as we were taught in TWI. Samarin appears to be extremely polite in holding back on judgmental statements while delivering fatal lines like: "A glossa is always meaningless in the linguistic sense." "...although xenoglossia is claimed by Christian charismatics to be part of the tongue-speaking experience, they would be unable to provide a case that would stand up to scientific investigation, and if it did, it would probably prove to be cryptomnesic [bits of a language the speaker knew but forgot that he knew - Raf interjecting here]. Having ruled out the possibility of charismatic xenoglossia, we are left with untold thousands of cases of unintelligible verbal utterances." The boldface in this post and in a previous post represent my emphasis, not the writers'. But damn. "Ruled out the possibility of charismatic xenoglossia," to me, sounds a heck of a lot like "ain't no one nowhere who produced an actual language they did not previously know." What's left is an examination of the quality of fakery employed by present-day tongues speakers. Just like Wierwille taught, they don't just say beep beep beep, boop boop boop. They're too smart for that. They want it to sound like a language, so it does in some ways sound like one. But they're not languages. Not in any meaningful definition of the term. To say that they're not gibberish is to exercise, I think, a level of academic politeness that is not necessarily called for considering the gravity of the claim being made. I would argue that they are not simple gibberish (goo goo ga ga) but are rather a more sophisticated gibberish invented by the speaker who is deliberately trying to produce something that sounds like a language. The only way it's NOT going to "sound like a language to me" is, frankly, if the faker is really bad at it. Onday!

Could you imagine the apostle Paul holding up a scroll of the Hebrew alphabet and having new Christians practice tongues by directing the speakers to the variety of sounds possible in their language. He'd have been laughed out of the Bible! Me, I paid $50 for that crap.

Yeah, I noticed that. Here's my take: I regret the unfortunate and exaggerated politeness of researchers who decline to call a spade a spade out of undue respect or politeness to their subjects. I agree that this paper does not make the judgment that the practice was faked. In fact, it makes no judgment at all. It merely examines the vocalizations that are uttered. The key that I walk away from here is that these recordings are listed and the determination is that it's not a language. As Samarin wrote, it's got the facade of a language (as it would if the speaker were faking it with any measure of competence, as we were specifically instructed to do in TWI), but it lacks the qualities of real language. No, he does not take the next logical step and call BS. Disappointing, I think.

Fair enough. I agree. My first wife always sounded exactly the same when she practiced SIT. Every other word, and every sentence, ended with the sound "on-day." Though I never said it at the time, I knew darned well she was faking it. She's a wiccan now, last we spoke, so I'm sure if she were to see and answer this poll, if she were being perfectly honest, she would have to answer D or E. It's inescapable. I don't think you "proved" Wierwille faked it, but you reached the conclusion based on some fairly reasonable grounds. I am sure that if you confronted him, he would respond in terms that were indistinguishable from the arguments put forth by you and by JohnHeIs. But, of course, he's dead, so I can't prove that. We do have his admission that he faked it once (by speaking a language, or at least some foreign words, that he knew). So we KNOW he has a history of faking it because he admitted it. But then he presented his subsequent experience as genuine. In my opinion, his recording on PFAL should withstand a linguistic examination. I'll repeat that I haven't taken the time to really examine linguistic studies, so I'm on shaky ground when I speak of them. That said, I have no problem complying with your request. Here is a summary of studies that are instructive, but presented in a laughably biased manner: http://www.frame-poythress.org/linguistic-and-sociological-analyses-of-modern-tongues-speaking-their-contributions-and-limitations/ In this study I found the section on "free vocalization" of particular interest, as I believe it IS what we were all instructed to do in PFAL (and has no spiritual/miraculous implications whatsoever). Well shoot. Overall, I think the author of this piece bends over backward to validate what the evidence before him discredits. But your opinion may differ. Here is a study that appears less biased but that I have not fully read. It's a fairly long pdf by our standards, about 27 pages of really small print. The author doesn't seem to be seeking to prove or disprove anything, but to describe the practice. He is, thus, exceedingly polite and respectful of the deeply religious people who have subjected their private "prayers" to academic examination. He is also, for academic purposes anyway, not immediately dismissive of the idea of parapsychology, which leads me open to questioning at least SOME of what he's saying: http://philosophy-religion.info/handouts/pdfs/Samarin-Pages_48-75.pdf Of particular interest is this quote on page 54 (the whole thing starts on p. 49; the stuff in brackets is my words) Here's some more "stuff" to consider: http://www.religioustolerance.org/tongues5.htm This article quotes from the above study, but I haven't found the source of the quote yet. I'm sure it's there. I just have more searching to do:

Chockfull, on what evidence do you base the conclusion that Wierwille faked it?

It would not be counterfeit, necessarily, but faked. If we're using those terms interchangeably, then fine, counterfeit. Mind you, I'm not suggesting no samples exist. Plenty exist, and insofar as they have been examined by competent linguists, they have all been dismissed as non-languages (not archaic, not angelic, not foreign, not languages). I do believe there have been some apparent instances of someone purporting to speak in a language that they haven't learned, but further examination revealed a prior exposure to the language (and the messages did not fit the description of what tongues would be provided in either TWI or the Bible). But I'm basing the above on a cursory Google search of a handful of studies, so I'm not resting too much on them. I'm looking for the study that says "Holy Cow, this farmer from Ohio just spoke in a language that has not been seen on earth since the days of ancient Egypt!" I am unable to find that study. Here's the thing: I've been asked to prove that everyone everywhere who practices SIT is faking it. Can't do it. I would have to investigate everyone everywhere and have them voluntarily subject their practice to observation. I can't even get someone on this thread to do that, and they WANT me to be wrong. We CAN prove me wrong by finding someone who, shucks, can do it. Samples abound. They're all over You Tube. But proving that some dude crying while muttering "muhmuhmuhmuhmuh" is not speaking in tongues doesn't impress anyone reading THIS thread for a variety of legitimate reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he is lying (can we agree that guy was faking it?) does not disprove anyone's TWI experience. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Wierwille claimed to SIT during the PFAL class. I mean he did it. We all heard it. Splendid! In his case, which has already been recorded and identified as the genuine article by the faithful... submit it to a linguist, identify the language and (assuming success in identifying the language) determine to some level of satisfaction that Wierwille, who held AT LEAST a Master's Degree, had not previously been exposed to that language. This is not a new recording taken for the purpose of tempting God. It's an old recording presented as genuine. Let's test it. Does anyone have any doubt what the outcome would be? Let's go further. For those of us who subscribed to Gartmore Weekly Tapes (GWT) after the 1989 expulsion from TWI, we know that, at the very least, there are a couple of hundred samples of SITWI exist that were presented as genuine and, because they were recorded for a genuine worship purpose and not for the purpose of tempting God, they could very easily be subject to examination. For the record, I threw all mine out and steam cleaned the cabinet where I kept them. Now, my contention is that Wierwille faked it. These were people (in Gartmore) who had been taught to do this by Wierwille himself or by Wierwille's followers. My contention is that they faked it. Prove it? I could, if I had the tapes and sent them to a competent linguist, I could demonstrate the accuracy of my contention (by show of hands, how many people have a SHRED of doubt what the outcome would be?) There is a catch with Gartmore. Considering this is a European audience about which I know absolutely nothing, there exists a very real possibility that someone speaking in tongues and interpreting was knowingly conning everyone by speaking a language he or she knew full well. Because we cannot identify the speakers, we cannot read absolute confirmation from the speaking of an actual language. But it would at least give us something to investigate and some possible indication, still disprovable, that the experience was actually producing a language. But even if we were to determine that Wierwille and all those GWT speakers were not producing a real language, I agree, it would not prove that your experience was not genuine. It would be a hint and a half for anyone with a shred of personal integrity. But it would not be proof of your self-delusion. To prove that, you would have to [the remainder of this sentence has been censored by the committee to defend the faith against the methods of SATAN]! I defy any holder of these tapes, be it Wierwille's, GWT or any other sample, to submit those tapes to a competent, unbiased linguist for analysis to determine whether an actual language is being spoken. Or send them to me and I'll do it. It would not prove that everyone who practiced SIT in TWI faked it, but is sure as heck would prove that the fakery was widespread.

Yes, I'm just being flippant.

Summer of Sam

Yeah. The first pastor was leveling with you. You shoulda listened to him, Tink.

I wasn't using the movie to prove my point. I was using the movie to illustrate it. using the movie to prove my point would not have worked because in the end their hunger was satisfied by their imagination the real world doesn't work that way except when it comes to speaking in tongues

No, no, I said "IF" you say. "IF." I was explaining why I felt that shuts down conversation. OK!

Well, shoot, I was getting hungry until you said that. Remember that scene in Hook when all the Lost Boys are having dinner and Peter notices that there's just NOTHING on the table, until the end of the scene when he learns to use his imagination and he can finally see the food and play with it and there's a huge foodfight and he's completely satisfied with his meal and his drink? Remember that scene? Heartwarming, wasn't it? Here's what's missing from that scene: no matter how satisfied those kids felt, they still had not had anything to eat or drink. No amount of imagining you ate and drank will satisfy your real hunger and thirst. Well, except maybe in Neverland.

Chockfull, I don't take the "Satanic" thing personally. As I said, I'm calling you deluded at best, a liar at worst. We're beyond even. It's ok. But you have to recognize that once you have labeled the attempt to ascertain whether you are REALLY producing a language a "Satanic temptation," you have effectively shut the door on that line of inquiry. I can now not prove my belief that you've (innocently and with every good-hearted intention) fooled yourself into thinking there's a genuine spiritual experience going on. Hey, if that's your position, far be it from me to rob you of it. All I'm saying is that you cannot, cannot turn around and argue that I have not proved my point when it comes to YOUR experience. I have not proved my point because, frankly, you won't let me. Or God won't let you let me.

JavaJane: How do you know you didn't counterfeit tongues? Why, Ol' VP TOLD you that counterfeiting tongues was impossible! SO you couldn't counterfeit it if you tried! Let's be fair: what he said/meant was that a genuine experience of producing a language you've never spoken before cannot be brought forth by a Satanic or demonic power. Speaking in tongues MUST be of God, if it produces the tongues of men or of angels. Wierwille was very clever here: he said it could never be counterfeited on a spiritual level: if you are REALLY speaking in tongues, then it REALLY is of God. But he never said it couldn't be faked. He just avoided that subject altogether. If we filled in that it couldn't be faked, that was our doing, not his. Then, of course, he taught us how to fake it and discouraged us from admitting it. Chockfull: If God gives you neither a fish nor a stone, and you decide to make a bowl of chili instead and call it a God-given fish, I'm not going to doubt you ate something. It's just not a God-given fish, no matter what you call it. Of course, you won't let us look at the chili to determine whether it really is a fish, so...

A. Because the more you fake it, the more authentic it sounds. And the more you do it in private, the more you invest yourself in the lie. B. Oh, you meant what's the nonsense reason they TRIED to give? Yeah, well, it was building up your inner, new man. You know, your physical body needs exercise. So does your spirit. (But the real answer is A.)

Should I just reveal?

Out of the Way: A Journey from Voluntary Self-Deception to Freedom

CES actually short-circuited this logic by claiming that TWI's interpreters were actually manifesting prophecy. So TWI people must conclude that CES people are faking interpretations or, at least, allowing their understanding to interfere with a genuine interpretation. Yes, I agree with you, Waysider. But the trap you laid out won't spring.

True, I left out possible replies that would be either more diplomatic or reflect uncertainty on the part of the person responding. Mea culpa. Your reproof is well taken. Only you know deep in your heart whether you experienced something supernatural or you imitated the method (not the sounds) out of a sincere hunger to manifest a spiritual gift. My belief is mine, but you are not obligated to agree with me. That's what I believe happened in TWI. We were encouraged, under enormous peer pressure, to start speaking. Once we started, we were immediately discouraged from even thinking that we were faking it. Such doubt was devilish, we were told. People we loved and respected were right there with us, encouraging us, validating us, congratulating us. And heck, it IS in the Bible. I contend that the initial erasure of doubt by Wietwille was the point of no return in our self-deception. Everything that came after was from a sincere heart, and calling it a lie seems, even to me, a bit cruel. But not more cruel than the lie itself. They invaded my hunger for the things of God and filled it with a phony experience. That offends me, more than the accusation that I've resorted to Satanic methods to prove my point, more than the fact that they charged me money for the privilege of turning myself into a deluded follower. Yes, I am singularly responsible for what I did. It pained me to come to this realization. But God has known it all along, hasn't He. So the only person I was kidding was myself and all of you. So I apologize for what I did. If you did not lie, wow. I'm in awe. In fact, as politely as I can say something so "cruel," I can't honestly say I believe you. Sorry if that upsets you. It should upset you. The question is why should you be upset. How you approach that question determines the course of our conversation.

For once I agree with JohnHeIs.