SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[Raf]

I wouldn't describe you as funny by any means. Inflammatory? Check. All over the place? Check. Emotional? Check. Accusative of your brethren in Christ? Check. Funny? Not so much.

Let's take a quick tally of where we are at in sources we are examining, OK? Samarin? Landry? Vern? All support the possibility of tongues being real in private prayer life.

Vern is a biased researcher who doesn't discount SIT for religious reasons. He doesn't point to research to bear this out. All the research he cites points in the opposite direction. But I agree, he doesn't rule it out.

Samarin absolutely discounts tongues as a language. That he "supports the possibility of tongues being real in private prayer life" is a dodge and a distortion of his VERY firm finding that it's not a language in any real definition of the term (he actually calls it a pseudo-language, which I suppose you can quote and count as a victory). That it's real in private prayer life only means, to Samarin, that the people who do it attach a real meaning to it and they do it in what is, at times, a rather sophisticated manner.

Really, at this point your misrepresentation of his work can only be uninformed (you haven't read him, have you) or deliberate (you don't care what he says. You'll pick out a quote that describes the linguistic qualities of glossolalia and ignore the fact that he's dismissed it as any kind of language, which is the only point of this discussion.

Landry is (at the time he wrote that article, which incidentally I did not cite) a college kid who wrote a paper for class, a paper for which we don't even know what grade he received. His conclusion is a quote from a tongues speaker. He favorably cites research conducted by Guideposts writer. I've got nothing against Landry, as I'm sure he has nothing against me. But he would be alarmed, I think, to find people seriously debating his work.

Note I didn't say "proven", or "don't bring up valid issues that could support the other side of the position", or anything like that. More middle of the road, accepting of the possibility of God working in people in a different way than they have personally experienced or scientifically analyze. From my perspective, I haven't heard any source yet that emphatically says what you do about communal self-delusion.

I think that accurately reflects Landry and Vern. It does not accurately reflect Samarin. If you read him, you'd know that by now. Samarin basically recognizes that this is something made up by the speaker and is fascinated by the quality of the creative stuff we come up with. Your interpolations into his work are purely imaginary.

Which is telling so far. You are all excited to get into disproving tongues from a language perspective, and have yet to produce one supporting scientific study that even comes close to what you are trying to shove down all of our throats, that we are communaly self-deluding ourselves.

HA! You're right. I've yet to produce one. Except someone forgot where the burden lies here. Remember, it's not on ME to disprove tongues. It's on YOU to prove it (but you can't, because God). What the studies say, unanimously, is that Speaking in Tongues, when studied, has failed to come up with a single instance of someone actually speaking a known language. NOT ONE. In other words, I looked to these studies to see if anyone had already proved me wrong, and guess what? It hasn't happened! (And if I may make a leap of "faith" here, it won't. Because I'm right).

I am engaging in this debate because I was goaded into it by you. You said "bring it".

Um, I said bring it because you accused me of misrepresenting what these people, specifically Samarin, wrote. You proceeded to butcher Samarin's findings to suit your own ends, utterly ignoring the relevant statements he makes about what glossolalia is but focusing like a laser beam on what he says about what glossolalia looks like.

But how I really feel about this debate is I'm pretty much traveling down the same road in arguing the topic that I would just recording a stupid YouTube event of my private prayer life. In other words, it's an immature Christian endeavor that I'm not seeing a whole lot of profit in.

Buh bye.

[chockfull]

I am not sure why you have this "agree with me or I will berate you" thing going on.

I think Raf wanted a debate, told me to "bring it", I did, and now we are in the middle of a heated escalated argument that is proving to have less and less profit as we continue.

We started out a lot more civil, recognizing motives, allowing leeway for other positions. Then as we moved towards evidence based studies, it became less so.

We need to de-escalate the situation and argument, and get back to the reality of what is really important - the love of Christ between brothers. Some stupid little language I talk to God in to comfort me is insignificant in the spectrum of all that is important.

[Raf]

Yet you have referred to it as such in a way that sounds like it is fact numerous times to discredit it as a source. Do you honestly not see a problem with this behavior?

No, I don't. Would you like me to post the writings of a high school sophomore raised by atheists? No. Because I was looking for the competent work of linguists, not the exploratory work of a college kid who quotes the philosophical musings of a tongues speaker as a kicker for an academic research paper!

Revisionist motives. You found out it doesn't prove your position, then recanted your support of it.

Dare I ask? Could you please show me a post where I expressed wholehearted support of Vern? I mean, aside from my repeated references to his work as laughably biased, can you show me one? Justone?

What I call integrity is reproving you for making blanket statements denigrating all of your brothers and sisters in Christ from a Charismatic background.

I'm cowering in my confessional.

[Ham]

maybe Raph has a good reason to be abrasive. Well, assuming he really is.. it's sometime hard to read emotion and motivation in a written format..

What would you do if in one split second you realized everything you believe, or believed was just plain, wrong.

Maybe it is not as extreme as that..

for the person so "afflicted" (but I think it is really a divine(?) gift.) it is like death..

unfortunately the process is not very pleasant unless it proceeds quite rapidly..

[OldSkool]

But at the end of the day, neither side can prove anything definite. So that leaves room for personal preference and that should not be condemned as lying. That is just very abrasive.

[Raf]

I think Raf wanted a debate, told me to "bring it", I did, and now we are in the middle of a heated escalated argument that is proving to have less and less profit as we continue.

We started out a lot more civil, recognizing motives, allowing leeway for other positions. Then as we moved towards evidence based studies, it became less so.

We need to de-escalate the situation and argument, and get back to the reality of what is really important - the love of Christ between brothers. Some stupid little language I talk to God in to comfort me is insignificant in the spectrum of all that is important.

I'm fine with that.

[chockfull]

Vern is a biased researcher who doesn't discount SIT for religious reasons.

So let me get this straight. Researchers who have enough interest in SIT to put together studies on it who happen to be religious are biased and their views don't count.

What a catch-22 of a situation. They are the only people who care about the topic.

[OldSkool]

What would you do if in one split second you realized everything you believe, or believed was just plain, wrong.

Maybe it is not as extreme as that..

for the person so "afflicted" (but I think it is really a divine(?) gift.) it is like death..

unfortunately the process is not very pleasant unless it proceeds quite rapidly..

Ummm...ya. I was way corps, living at Gunnison and HQ for nearly a decade. I believed Wierwille's garbage as gospel truth. Leaving the way and waking up to the harsh reality we all have is no excuse for berating those who disagree with one's point of view.

In fact, just the opposite should be true.

Edited September 20, 2012 by OldSkool

[chockfull]

I'm fine with that.

Me too. Let's de-escalate and act more like the Christian brothers we are. Sorry for stirring you up more.

[Ham]

Sorry for the side discussion Raf..

can I ask you what got you on this? Just curious.

[chockfull]

maybe Raph has a good reason to be abrasive. Well, assuming he really is.. it's sometime hard to read emotion and motivation in a written format..

What would you do if in one split second you realized everything you believe, or believed was just plain, wrong.

Maybe it is not as extreme as that..

for the person so "afflicted" (but I think it is really a divine(?) gift.) it is like death..

unfortunately the process is not very pleasant unless it proceeds quite rapidly..

God, looking back at my feelings towards TWI, I have nothing but compassion for Raf being abrasive. Honestly.

Ummm...ya. I was way corps, living at Gunnison and HQ for nearly a decade. I believed Wierwille's garbage as gospel truth. Leaving the way and waking up to the harsh reality we all have is no excuse for berating those who disagree with one's point of view.

In fact, just the opposite should be true.

Thanks, brother.

[waysider]

And if VP's teachings on the topic were erroneous, yet God just honored the trust in these 3 believer's hearts in Him by providing a genuine message?

Then your finger pointing at them just has three pointing back at yourself.

You're assuming those messages were genuine. Quite a stretch, based on what we've been discussing. But, no matter. Suppose we call it "group reinforcement". Would you be more open to consider that possibility?

[Raf]

So let me get this straight. Researchers who have enough interest in SIT to put together studies on it who happen to be religious are biased and their views don't count.

What a catch-22 of a situation. They are the only people who care about the topic.

That's not true. Linguists are supremely interested in the topic, as we have seen.

The problem with Vern, I find, is that he makes comments and assertions that are not academic in nature. I dismiss those comments when he makes them for the same reason that I dismiss those comments when you make them: they are not academic comments. Here you have someone who says, rather plainly, that someone making it up and someone doing it in a religious context produce utterances that are linguistically indistinguishable from each other. Indistinguishable? And we KNOW one is made up. So what academic reason does he give us for failing to conclude that SIT, at LEAST in the cases he examined, were fake?

God.

That may be satisfying on the level of faith, but it slams the door on any further discussion. How do you argue with that? You can't.

He doesn't prove it. He just says it, and BAM! door closed.

And that's his prerogative, as it is my prerogative to label that approach non-academic/biased.

Compare that to Samarin, who looks at the same kind of data and concludes that a speaker feels strongly motivated to utter sounds that replicate a language and does so. What he speaks is not a language, but it can tell us something about how we communicate. We attach meanings to words, we use inflection, volume and pitch to convey emotion. Words? No, not in the real sense of the word. But fascinating to observe and document.

His approach is unsatisfying to the faithful, but it's honest and apparently not considered biased (as evidenced by the fact that every single person we've reviewed in this discussion cites Samarin as an authority.

So you may not like what he says about SIT as a real language (it's not), but you'll like what he says about how SIT resembles a language (neglecting, unfortunately, all the devastating and relevant things he says about how it's not a language).

So we're stuck just plain disagreeing.

And I'm good with that.

Sorry for the side discussion Raf..

can I ask you what got you on this? Just curious.

No.

:)

[penworks]

Reproof got a bad rap because of how TWI did it. It should not. It's a good thing. It makes us all better people when done right.

Pick a word that's less insulting to you. I don't think anyone "lied" per se. I think we kidded ourselves out of a sincere hunger for the things of God and a considerable amount of peer pressure to manifest. I think Samarin described that well.

I would say that you described my experience as well.

First, I'll repeat: lying is an ugly, ugly word. As I used it, it had the effect of starting this whole conversation, immediately, in rather stark, absolute terms. I don't think of myself as a liar, and certainly didn't think of it then. But there was always little niggling thoughts in the back of my head: You KNOW this is just you. You know that interpretation bore no relationship to what you just spoke. You know you made up that prophecy.

I keep using the words communal self delusion (since someone asked) because it's so vividly descriptive of what happened. It wasn't just that I fooled myself. It's that I fooled myself within the loving embrace of a community of people who had done exactly the same thing. And we embraced each other and it bound us. It helped cement us into a family. It wasn't just "God" or "Church." It was "Wow. We have done something pretty amazing. God's AWESOME."

I intend no assigning of malice to anyone who did this. I did it out of a sincere hunger and desire to spread the message of God. I WANTED it to be real. But when I look in the mirror, I realize it wasn't.

The rest is kind of a leap. I know I'm not alone in what I did. And I want others who did it to realize it's ok.

Because it is.

Thanks, Raf. I understand.

[WordWolf]

I dunno. Raf. After reading pages of your posts you have an edge in your posts that is abrasive. I didn't find that edge in other posts of yours, and I have read many, many of them. So I appreciate the work you have put into other topics. I am not sure why you have this "agree with me or I will berate you" thing going on. Personally, all you have accomplished with me is I find it hard to consider your point of view. My 2 cents anyway.

Carry on.

OldSkool beat me to it.

Time constraints have partly limited my discussion in this thread.

If it didn't, however, I would find myself reluctant to be on the same side as you

for conduct reasons if nothing else.

If I didn't know better, I'd say it wasn't the same Raf on this thread that I've known-

he was a nice guy and the one on this thread's been more concerned with scoring points

than remembering that everyone who's discussing this with him is deserving of equal respect.

I don't know if it's this subject that has you feeling so riled (i.e. crusading against all opposing POVs)

or if something horrible happened offline and you're venting it on this subject. However, I wouldn't

be proud of having posted with the level of "bite" you've been exhibiting on this thread.

[Ham]

No.

:)

thanks for the smile, friend..

:)

[Steve Lortz]

We could discuss that on Lortz' thread in doctrinal. That is if I can make it through all the intricacies of what happens at his house after work.

That's okay, chockful! It wasn't after work, it was between classes! And I didn't even include Belle, our geriatric golden retriever, who sometimes plays the same game. Neither one of us can pick more than one foot up off the ground at once (synchronicly rather than diachronicly) which makes for some interesting low-speed chases that make me wonder about the elasticity of the space/time continuum :blink:

Belle growls and barks at everybody she knows, wagging her tail joyously, because she wants everybody to know that her great-great grandaddy was the Big Bad Woof, and she can knock down any number of pigs' houses with her breath...

Oh... to keep this on topic, my brother and I used to be able to talk to each other in Beagle before he died!

Love,

Steve

Edited September 20, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[Raf]

I won't earn any new friends with this, but I'm not apologizing for my tone (except maybe for the use of the word "lie" and its variants).

I don't think there's much difference in my tone between this and what I've previously posted. The difference is, this time, I'm in disagreement with many here.

Ask Ol' Mike if he thought I was a genial fellow.

So yes, some things have changed. But I'd rather let my arguments stand and fall on their merits.

"Agree with me or I'll berate you" is not how I'm operating here, and it has never been how I operate. Steve and I are at polar ends of this discussion, and the tone has been nothing but respectful between us.

That I am passionate about this is merely a reflection of the strength of my conviction.

This all started, from my perspective, with the demand that I prove my point. Erase that, and we have no argument here. But the remainder of it followed quite logically, I think.

Sorry if you disagree.

+++

Let us take ourselves out of it and see if it helps with our discussion. I'm not going to cite sources here, but if you go through these articles and look through some more, they are not difficult to find.

I suspect most of us would agree that SITWI doesn't work the way Pentecostals describe: You speak in tongues, this dude over there is gonna interpret. The researchers bear this out: Tongues are presented to one interpreter, who interprets. The exact same message is presented to another interpreter, and he interprets. And the interpretations don't match.

Proof? No, not really. But if they matched, you can bet folks would be shouting from the rooftops that it's proof!

That's not the only experiment, of course. In one church, a guy stood up and spoke in tongues, and another person got up and interpreted.

Except the guy who spoke in tongues wasn't speaking in tongues. It was the Lord's Prayer in an African language that he knew. And the interpretation, well, wasn't.

You can't find a single documented example to verify the gift of interpretation of tongues as described by Pentecostals. Not one.

Now, a Pentecostal would say that interpretation is one gift and prophecy another, so the interpreter cannot just say, well, it was prophecy this time, the way a TWI follower could. Or he could say, as many of you have, that the experimenter's interference short circuited God, who had no desire to participate in the study. No amount of "proof" would satisfy them. But whatever it is they are doing, it is not what they claim it to be. So what do you say to them? Mind you, if any of these studies verified their claims, once again, you can bet folks would be shouting from the rooftops that it's proof!

It is remarkably convenient to devise a proof system that can only validate your claim but cannot invalidate it.

But here's the thing: These interpreters firmly believe, with utmost conviction, that they have the gift of interpretation.

How do you call them liars? You can't. You've been had. You're deluding yourselves.

There's no nice way to say it.

So you shut up?

Do you have to have a better Biblical answer (which I don't in our larger discussion) before you tell them that they're practicing a falsehood?

+++

What I mean in this stuff is that what we were taught is rather obviously error. Whatever it is we did, it wasn't speaking the tongues of men, and speaking the tongues of angels seems like a copout.

Ok, so you guys disagree with me. Cool deal. Godspeed.

[waysider]

We've talked about tongues of men, tongues of angels, ancient tongues, encoded tongues. One possibility that has eluded us is that they might be tongues of the future. You know? You hear a joke on late night TV but it doesn't sink in. Next morning you wake up, smack your forehead and say, "OOOOH!, now I get it!"

:B)

[Steve Lortz]

Steve had mentioned that he would like some sources for his current project. I supplied these studies and noted that they provide an abundance of citation to investigate.

The article you references has only two citations,

Vincent Bridges: "Paganism in Provence," Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition (2004).

and

Mortimer J. Adler, Great Books of the Western World Volume 3 (Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. 1952).

I haven't had a chance yet to look them up in the library's databases, but I may well do that this evening.

Love,

Steve

Edited September 20, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[Steve Lortz]

... 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...

That's called presenting your thesis statement, then, presenting the argument for your thesis statement.

That's the way genuine doctors do it!

Love,

Steve

[Ham]

and HOPEFULLY you were *right* to begin with..

[Steve Lortz]

I am not sure one can logically conclude anything without all the relevant information and within such a narrow corridor. Things like this make me uncomfortable and I am unwilling to read anything for more than it can legitimately offer. Which is why I directed you to Carson, who not only examines other doctrine, but linguistics, social anthropology, history, psychology, and geography. He does this so that he can draw rational conclusions.

Don't do that to me Chockfulll... appeal to nameless, faceless, and "emotionally charged" scholars and imply that they are blind to a side. You may not like the conclusions some draw....but, I hope you really are judging them on the merits of their scholarship and not on the basis of a preconceived and emotionally invested theology. Especially one with "sides" and one which may largely be based on a personal and mystical experience. I read a HUGE amount of varied theology and if I found someone so emotionally vested in an issue that it reflects in their scholarship......I would not read them. Personally, I have yet to find a true scholar in theological circles....who does this. In that world....they don't really fair to well.....although polite about it....theologians do not suffer fools easily.

You make a wonderful presentation of the reasons why I think my project is going to take about two years to complete. I will be expected to examine ALL the sides, and present my reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with each of them!

Love,

Steve

[Ham]

it is embarrassing when you do this in front of students. Or is it?

I really did this..

the range of the function.. it looks TO ME like all real numbers..

and the smart guy with the calculator says.. it looks like we have a horizontal asymptote at y = 3..

god.. I loved it..

I must have rapidly walked around in an ellipse at three times with a smile on my face..

[waysider]

I was in a believer's meeting once where a guy from Kansas gave a word of prophesy to a roomful of unemployed believer hippie type folks. It went something like this: "My little children, cut your hair and get jobs!"

Now, at least I know THAT one was "right on".