Raf

You and I were taught to make $2 by the same person. Mine look very much like yours. But mine are real.

Wrong answer! Examining the bill itself will not tell you whether it's a fake! (seriously, guys, do you even realize this is what you're saying when you argue that SIT can't be proved or disproved? Severe case of wishful thinking on your part).

And don't talk to me about checking the serial numbers or watermarks. There's no way to prove my $2 bills are fake. Nope. Lalalala I can't hear you....

He could so count! Naysayer. Just because your $2 bills were phony doesn't mean mine were, even though we both used the exact same method taught by the same Count R. Fitter to produce the bills. Prove mine are fake!

Kind of. Look at it this way: Count Roderick Fitter runs a crime syndicate whose specialty is printing fake $2 bills. His workers, a gullible lot, are grateful to him for teaching them how to make real money. One day, the Count's former employee, Jennifer Ursula Wine, realizes she's been producing a fake all along. She tries to tell tge other workers, but they don't want to believe her. They have it on good authority from the U.S. Government that $2 bills exist and have been circulating for years. Plus, they have endless testimony about how the $2 bills they have made benefitted them and their friends. Jen counters that even though she concedes that $2 bills exist, it doesn't mean the bills they have been producing are real. And so it was that many employees ignored Jen U. Wine warnings and continued working for the Count, R. Fitter.

Because there was no difference.

I agree. What I'm suggesting is that the fakery was so transparent that you can't distinguish teaching people the real thing from teaching people to fake it.

For those who led others into SIT. Imagine you were actively teaching someone how to fake it, but without them realizing that this was your goal. How different would your approach have been?

I remember once leading a group of people into the experience, and my assistant blurted out that it was just like baby talk. Holy cow, it was a confession right there for all to hear! I somehow managed to work past that with some pious sounding parries. I mean, we all KNOW it wasn't just baby talk, heh heh, right?

Yup

I'm not disputing that the Bible says believers can speak in tongues. If you disagree with that, ok by me. It's irrelevant to my point. My point is that I faked it. I encourage others who faked it to come clean. Period. My point ends there. In addition, I happen to believe we ALL faked it, but sincere people disagree with me. I'm okay with that too. But when I am asked to prove that other people are lying, well, that's when the gloves come off, because it's bullcrap to demand that I prove you're lying. Much easier for you to prove you're telling the truth. But you can't. So you say that something that's easy to verify is impossible to verify. Then you call me names and sic Wierwille on me. LO EFFIN L. My "to whom addressed" got all mangled in this post, for which I apologize. Good to see you, Geisha!

P.S. Johniam, next time you cite Wierwille as an authority on faith, please bring toilet paper. It really stinks up the place when you don't wipe. I'm really sorry you find this thread so threatening that you have to summon the spirit of that con man to denounce it, or falsely accuse me of bullying to justify your continued insistence on self-deception. I'm REALLY sorry about that. Ok, I'm lying. I'm not sorry about it at all. Actually, I'm kind of amused by it. It makes me giggle. In English.

Someone somewhere speaking in tongues must be speaking a known language. Just how many languages do they have in heaven anyway? Remember, this manifestation is supposed to be outward, irrefutable proof. How does babbling a language known to no one on earth prove anything? And how are we to distinguish tongues of angels from someone who's just faking it and hoping no one calls him on it? P.S. I'm not the bully here. You're the one who asked me to prove you're deceiving yourself. I just shifted the burden to where it belongs. If you say you're speaking in a language you've never learned, the burden to prove it is on you. So, identify the language. You say you can't because it might be, conveniently, the tongue of angels. Lol, but ok. Just repeat the experiment with someone else. Oh, they have tongues of angels too? Wait, so we can call in a linguist to at least determine that your angelic tongue and the second speaker's angelic tongue are the same language, right? What's that? Angels might have more than one tongue. Sh... You're making that up, right? Ok, but let me ask you a question.. How far down this road will you be willing to travel before you admit what I'm encouraging you (not bullying you) to fess up to right now?

John writes as though I never addressed the cockamamie nonsense of tongues of angels. Assuming such a language exists, it's a copout beyond cowardly copouts to suggest that anyone not speaking in a known language must be speaking the tongues of spirits. Such convenient nonsense

What constitutes proof... This isn't even a little complicated. Speak in tongues into a tape recorder. Spend the rest of your life trying to identify the language. Travel the world. Talk to linguists. Identify the language. It's really that simple. You can try it with TWI folk. You can try it with your family. You can do it yourself. Find one person who can produce a verified actual language that they've never learned. Spare is the third and fourth hand stories of people who spoke in tongues and there just happened to be a native speaker of the same language nearby. I call that urban legend, and if you don't agree, fine. Find the speaker and reproduce the result. Because what you're going to find is that speaking in tongues does not produce an actual language, which it would if it worked and was not being faked.

On the contrary, Steve, it can most certainly be proved to be genuine. It's impossible to prove or disprove prophecy. But tongues and interpretation can most certainly be proved beyond any hint of doubt. So why hasn't it?

I was thinking of that show with Kristy McNichol, which was just called "Family." So now that we've dodged that bullet, let's clarify: The last word of the first title should be the first word of the second title (with the exception of words like "the" and "a"). Since I kind of cheated on this clue (AFTER guessing, to learn I was wrong), I won't spoil it by jumping in with the correct answer. But how about a "cheating is okay after two days" rule to keep the game moving. Would folks be okay with that? Hint to the current clue: I was right about All in the Family. The second title starts with the word "Family" and has one more word.

Here's the thing: I'm not seeking to "prove" the experience is a farce for everyone who claims it. I've come to that conclusion, but I recognize that in doing so I am being less than polite to a lot of sincere people. But I'm not trying to prove it. I just needed to come clean and I invite others to do so. In fairness, though, I shouldn't have to prove other people are lying. If you're the one claiming that you have spoken in a language you never learned, it should be your burden to prove you have done so. And spare me the "tongues of angels" line that dodges the question of which language you're speaking: that should only work for one person, tops (unless angels have more than one language, which you have to concede is both speculative and more than a little silly. Then again, the whole notion of "tongues of angels" is a little silly, isn't it. I suspect Paul was using a bit of hyperbole there). And no, Corinthians does not qualify as proof that YOU spoke in tongues. I know the Bible says believers CAN do it. The issue is whether you have done it and are continuing to do it. So if you WERE to set out to prove you spoke in tongues, you'd kinda need to put your Bible down and put your money where your mouth is, so to speak. IF I were to ask you to prove it, to really prove it, I suspect you and I all know how that would turn out. But I'm not asking people to prove anything. I'm asking the people who WERE dishonest about this to admit it to themselves and, if they so choose, to everyone else.

Skyrider, "being deceived and deceiving others..." Hey, if that's the language that makes you most comfortable, go for it. As long as we all agree that the "deceiving others" part was not done with malice or ill will. I don't think anyone intended to fake anything or to lie to friends and loved ones. It was crucial that we lie to ourselves first. Everything that proceeded from that lie was therefore consistent. Personally, I don't see a substantive difference between variations of the word "lie" and variations of the word "deceive." Whichever works for you. I just think it needs to be real clear that no one's accusing anyone else of deliberate or malicious motives. Chockfull, I find it remarkably easy to dismiss the doctrine and practice of Oral Roberts, who saw a 900-foot Jesus who told him to build a health center that would combine medicine and faith healing, only to watch that center go bankrupt resulting in God holding Roberts for an $8 million ransom that, while sufficient to save Roberts, was insufficient to save the health center. I have NO QUALMS WHATSOEVER about rejecting anything he says on the subject of how God works in man.

A thought addressed to Steve: You said you believe Wierwille faked it, yet you have no reason to believe certain close family members are faking it. I consider those two statements inconsistent if those family members were instructed (directly or indirectly) by Wierwille's method. Can a faker lead someone to a genuine experience? I believe Wierwille faked it and taught others how to fake it. He did so by instructing people how to babble without thinking, then immediately suppressing their valid doubt that what they were doing was bogus. Remember in the class, how he IMMEDIATELY said the devil was trying to talk us out of what we were doing? That wasn't the devil. That was our conscience and integrity. The moment you uttered the first syllable, you lied. Here's the key: Wierwille exploited and encouraged that lie by validating you. That's easy to accept. I'm saying you lied. That's not easy to accept. It has the feel of a personal attack, and you (a good person) are not going to lie about something so important, special and holy. So you accept Wierwille (a ghost on a TV screen) and reject your own conscience and integrity because Wierwille is connecting you to the Almighty, while I am calling you a liar. I can see why it would be SO difficult to make the confession to yourself or to anyone else. The above is my opinion. Only you know with any certainty whether I am correct.

Ooh! I looked it up and I was wrong! Good one!

By the way, I never said anything about thinking this up hours ahead of time, or even minutes. It IS possible to make things up on the spot without rehearsing it. Most casual conversation works that way, but we'd be hard pressed to say most casual conversation is therefore divinely inspired.

He tells me to prove it, then gives me the ammo I need to prove it. First, let's clarify our terms: when I say "make it up on the spot," that is a DENIAL of any spiritual influence. Please do not now take that expression and turn it into an explanation for how the manifestation works, because it confuses the whole issue. "God inspires the message" and "I made it up on the spot" are two diametrically opposed propositions. What you have done is defined the former in such a way as to make it indistinguishable from the latter (which, I believe, proves my point, whether you see it that way or not). Further, in acknowledging that someone making it up on the spot (my definition) could have the desired effect of exhorting and comforting the audience, you have effectively refuted the experience of exhortation and comfort as proof that what you heard was a divinely inspired message (as opposed to the speaker "lucking out"). In other words, just because you heard what you needed to hear, that does not prove that what you heard was not "made up on the spot" (my definition) by the speaker. In fact, I contend that it is EASY to make up a message that exhorts and comforts the listeners in the room for the simple reason that the listeners in the room are primed for it. They WANT to hear something that exhorts and comforts them, so the platitudes we regurgitated on a regular basis were BOUND to have the desired effect because that is what we wanted to SAY and that is what we were hungry to HEAR. You know what we never heard? Lotto numbers. The location of a lost set of keys. Hell, tomorrow's weather. We never heard ANYTHING that could not be summed up in a Roma Downey speech at the end of a Touched by an Angel episode. In any event, I'm not asking you to prove that your experience is really divinely inspired. [in my opinion, you are kidding yourself and are perfectly free to continue doing so]. What I AM saying is that for those of you who are tired of lying about this for so many years and are afraid to admit it, it's OK to come out. No one's going to be mad. It's really quite liberating. One more thing: I keep using the words lying, lies and liars. I apologize for that, because it implies dishonesty and I don't think very many people are being dishonest about this. Rather, I think you lied to yourselves, internalized that lie to the extent that you really believe it AND have invested a great deal of your faith in its veracity, and now can hardly imagine renouncing that lie because doing so calls into question your very relationship with God. I get it. It took me years to finally admit this, for that very reason. So again I say to you, come clean. Remember, God already knows all this stuff, doesn't He? He knows your heart. He knows what you did and why. So you're not kidding Him. And if your relationship with God IS dependent on you keeping up this lie... how much of a relationship is that, really? Of course, my message there is addressed only to those who lied about it. Those who told the truth should continue to do so.

Have Archie and Edith adopt Steve Urkel or Alex P. Keaton, for example. If I am not mistaken, your B/A is All in the Family, with Family being the name of the second show. Did it have a longer title I'm not aware of?

I was going to suggest that both titles should contain more than 1 word.