SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[Raf]

The discussion in Doctrinal is underway, where it should be. I laid out my reasoning with pounds of scriptural reference, and it seems to be understood now that I base my doctrinal assumption on the fact that glossa in the Bible is always a reference to either the physical organ of the tongue (literally or figuratively) or a human language. I apologize to readers here if I was unclear about that the first 7,000 times I said it.

In any event, there's one participant new to the discussion who asserts that language is something God has creative control over and that He can make up any language He likes to bestow on us as we SIT. No scripture to back up that this is what's happening or to be expected in SIT, but I suppose demands for scriptural documentation only apply when one is questioning a modern practice that's not living up to Biblical expectations. In any event, I can't argue it.

In terms of logical debate, this is known as an appeal to probability or, more specifically in this case, an appeal to possibility. This is when an argument concludes something is true or likely merely because it is possible. I'm not arguing that it's impossible. I'm arguing that it's non-scriptural, a doctrinal difference. To defend the practice, an argument not made in scripture is asserted to bolster the practice and bring our experience in line with the Bible -- by changing what the Bible clearly predicts, in my opinion.

Thus, I can only point out that the scripture, when speaking for itself, does not appear to be making any such assertion. Rather, it fits my view that this is a retrofit designed to explain why modern SIT isn't producing human languages (my opinion stated as fact, yet to be contradicted by objective analysis and only contradicted by unverified and unverifiable anecdotes I haven't even been asked by the tellers to believe).

So we're back to square one: If you do not agree that SIT is supposed to produce human languages, we do not have a common ground and we disagree with each other on doctrinal grounds. You are free to think I'm wrong based on our disagreement in scripture, and I bid you nothing but peace. I am free to think you're faking it based on no human language being produced (see note above) and the perfectly natural, non-spiritual, human capacity for free vocalization, which seems to me the far more likely explanation for what we did, and you have no grounds to disagree with me other than the doctrinal assumption. There is no more need for you to be offended by my conclusion than there is for me to be offended by yours.

I believe I have approached the scripture honestly and at face value. I believe SIT in the Bible produces human languages. I believe modern SIT does not. I believe free vocalization perfectly describes what people do when they say they're speaking in tongues. I conclude modern SIT is free vocalization and not Biblical SIT. I dispute the injection of "code," "secret language" and other such interpolations into what I think is the clear, Biblical meaning of glossa, and I respect the right of others to disagree with me on that. Hey, if you're going to do everything you can to make SIT unprovable, I can't stop you. Nor can you demand I prove you're wrong, for the disagreement is no longer on terms that have a common ground.

TnO, your admonition was well-considered and well-voiced. I deeply appreciate it and intend to take it to heart. I see no reason why you should not issue such a firm, Biblically based critique of the tone of this conversation and its participants. If you'd like to contribute actively to the conversation, by all means, do so. If you'd rather just read along, that's your privilege too. And if you feel the tone of the conversation has hindered the content, you have every right to point that out. It did not fall on deaf ears.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Raf

[Raf]

Just a consideration though.....something I think gets missed. Raf, is speaking about something he believes is fake. He is not speaking of a genuine biblical phenomenon, but something that we were persuaded of by a false teacher. Something false that permeated our personal relationship with God and effected our communication with Him as well as our understanding of Him. What is the appropriate response and attitude?

Thank you for pointing that out, Geisha, because it has been repeatedly asserted that what I am attacking is the Bible itself, which is NOT TRUE. I am attacking what I believe to be a phony, counterfeit practice, which is why I placed this thread in About the Way and not in Doctrinal in the first place.

Yes, there is a doctrinal assumption, and Doctrinal is the place to argue that.

Yes, there are doctrinal implications, and Doctrinal is the place to argue that.

But I am not attempting here to argue with the Bible. I am attempting to argue from it. If the Bible says an action will have a result, you take an action and fail to produce that result, then the logical conclusion is not that the Bible is wrong, but that the action you took was not the action described in the Bible.

It is and remains a false accusation that this thread attacks the Bible's integrity. This thread takes the Bible at its Word. It does not take the modern practice of SIT at ITS word. I think most Christian readers of this thread are sharp enough to know the difference, especially now that it's spelled out.

Edited November 8, 2012 by Raf

[OldSkool]

[Ham]

If you don't mind me saying..

is there at least the distinct possibility.. that there is an alien intelligence involved in all of this, pitting one party against the other..

likes to work over the ant hills, likes to see the ants go to war..

NOOO. Not you raf.. you are a seeker of truth. At least I hope..

myself.. I've lost far more wars than you have.

"god is Green". Fine, I agree..

"no, he is pink.." Fine. Somehow we can get pink out of green.. I'll do my best to try to figure it out..

"no.. he's Blue".. fine.. Blue, as to what? Sad? Close to ultra-violet.. what? Is that it?

No.. red..

some souls here think they can protect themselves with the color red..

and.. thank you, as a moderator, for allowing "weird" posts. I've seen some other threads very creatively revised in former years.. :)

Edited November 9, 2012 by Ham

[waysider]

An alien?

Oh, lordy, I thought I heard it all.

Now, not only could it be a language from an angel or a dead civilization, it might even be something spewing forth from

. :o Edited November 9, 2012 by waysider

[OldSkool]

it might even be something spewing forth from Uranus. :o

Ewww.

[Ham]

It's only fiction, or is it..

the Centauran shows up.. likes the conflict.. he only will stir the pot.. as long as Death is involved..

*they* glory in death..

or in unbridled competition which ends in death..

the Gods are.. bullies.

[Ham]

If it makes any difference here.. deleted, modified, or otherwise. That is why I could not vote for the newcomer.. he was just, plain, purely, a bully. In early life, and in recent life..

sometimes I didn't have even a vote on this..

[Raf]

Y'all odd.

I know that's namecalling, but still. Odd.

[waysider]

Y'all odd.

I know that's namecalling, but still. Odd.

Aw, shucks!

[Ham]

Thanks for the compliment friend..

[Ham]

Oh yes.. just one other thing. The difference between odd and even is just only one single solitary digit..

or in advanced thought.. the remainder after dividing by two.

[waysider]

Check out this "excellor session".

[OldSkool]

Check out this "excellor session".

I just believed to interpret and I am very edifRied.

Y'all odd.

I know that's namecalling, but still. Odd.

Please do not make me report this post!!!!

[modcat5]

Please do not make me report this post!!!!

Raf is hereby suspended for 72 seconds for namecalling.

[OldSkool]

Raf is hereby suspended for 72 seconds for namecalling.

ROFL! Justice had been served.

[chockfull]

All right. Next point of discussion in this topic, since we are as Raf put it "measuring what man produces" not what scripture says.

In the poll in this post, 50% of the options, or 3 out of 6, include the words "I lied about it". Further elaboration on this communicates that people are admitting to "faking it" as well.

Now up to this point, we have had zero scrutiny on those answers. We have simply relied on whatever a person tells us in this category to be true. However, we are not doing this for ANYTHING on the other side of the argument. For instance, anecdotes where people in worship meetings understood the tongue in their native language. We don't believe the people relating these accounts until they are proven.

So my next area to scrutinize is those answering "I lied an faked". Do we just immediately trust that they are telling the truth? Do we immediately trust that even if they are telling the truth to the best of their ability, that when they SIT in TWI that what actually was happening was they were not producing languages?

I say no. I've run quite a number of INT classes. I've seen faking. I've seen people struggling. In my opinion, there is way too little time when people are practicing in a worship meeting between when they SIT and when they interpret for them to completely construct the sentences in the interpretation. I've seen people ALL THE TIME interject a few words they thought up into the message instead of crafting the whole message in their mind. Sometimes what they interjected was weird and embarrassing to them, other times it fit in. I have done this myself, interjecting a couple words.

Does this mean THE ENTIRE MESSAGES provided by interpretation and prophecy are made up? I say it is not. I say it is way too much information of praise and way too little cognizant brain engagement for the message to have been ENTIRELY made up. So you are left with a dilemma. How to handle it? Well, the most noted linguist study we have from Samarin handles this by developing a position that he marvels at the intricacies of the subconscious mind, how it can craft sounds with cadence, sentence, phrase, and word structure like real languages contain. Did he really say that? Yes he did. I know that portion of his research has been de-emphasized to non-existence, but it's there.

I am not so gung-ho on the innate power and ability of the human mind. My views on that are that I hear what comes out of man's mouth, so I'm not as impressed with his thoughts.

So, all you liars and fakers out there. Prove that you faked it. Explain to us exactly how it was you crafted long entire TIP messages for worship meetings. And prove that when you SIT in TWI, it did not produce a language. I mean I'm sure that the very LAST THING that you want to be doing is to be convincing yourself and others that they are liars and fakers if you all did not do this in fact.

More fun, everyone!!!!

P.S. What's really needed here is more exposure to the methods of linguists identifying languages. All we have to date is consonant maps (where a linguist writes down the consonant letters in a language and then maps the sounds of an unknown sound byte to those consonants), and Hockett's 16 attributes of a language. The only article I have on that is one of Samarins, which is shorter and intented for public consumption, and surely less elaborate than any of his 4 books related to the topic. Nothing else from other linguists on methods I've seen. Post up links here or in doctrinal on SIT reading room thread if you have an article with more language definition practices on it.

Oh - one more thing. Suggestions to contact linguists are nice, but if you have that suggestion, why don't you contact the linguist you are suggesting and ask about their methods for identifying language and post up their response and any linked resources?

Edited November 9, 2012 by chockfull

[waysider]

"In my opinion, there is way too little time when people are practicing in a worship meeting between when they SIT and when they interpret for them to completely construct the sentences in the interpretation."

Who said they construct complete sentences during the short span of time between the tongue and the interpretation? Do you seriously not understand what it means to "fake it" or are you being contrary? Just for shirts and girdles, why don't you bring forth a "word of prophesy" on the spot. See for yourself how easy it is to extemporaneously recall portions of scripture that are lodged in your memory and arrange them into some semblance of a message.

Oh, wait. I forgot. Mr. Wierwille said that wouldn't be decent and in order.

Edited November 10, 2012 by waysider

[chockfull]

Who said they construct complete sentences during the short span of time between the tongue and the interpretation? Do you seriously not understand what it means to "fake it" or are you being contrary? Just for shirts and girdles, why don't you bring forth a "word of prophesy" on the spot. See for yourself how easy it is to extemporaneously recall portions of scripture that are lodged in your memory and arrange them into some semblance of a message.

I have done that test. In my experience it is NOT easy at all to extemporaneously recall portions of scripture lodged in memory and arrange them, not in the span of less than a second between when I SIT and when the interpretation flows. Prophecy feels the same - not really a different category of experience. In my experience, I could fake maybe up to about three phrases of words, then it would fail. Perhaps someone used to delivering lines like an actor might be able to more easily do what you ask.

[waysider]

I have done that test. In my experience it is NOT easy at all to extemporaneously recall portions of scripture lodged in memory and arrange them, not in the span of less than a second between when I SIT and when the interpretation flows. Prophecy feels the same - not really a different category of experience. In my experience, I could fake maybe up to about three phrases of words, then it would fail. Perhaps someone used to delivering lines like an actor might be able to more easily do what you ask.

Easy or not, if you're able to do it at all, it proves the point.

[chockfull]

Easy or not, if you're able to do it at all, it proves the point.

I'm not able to do it and remain believable.

[waysider]

Are you telling me you can't string together something like, "My little children, look neither left nor right but keep your eyes on me for I am the Lord thy God, your sufficiency in all."?........I find that difficult to believe.

[Ham]

Nothing that I've seen in the last ten years is believable either. Maybe only to me..

OH... I remember something. The little book that we were supposed to read before the advanced class.. the challenging counterfiet(?).

Gasson claimed to be part of Seances where the "possessed" spoke in a known language.. say German, and have actual conservations with the participants of the "fellowship"..

I don't have the book anymore. Anyone else remember it?

I'm thinking.. either the claim was false, or spiritualists were able to do something that christians seemingly are not able to do. Or maybe it was just trickery..

[waysider]

I have the book......somewhere.

I personally think the author was full of turnip greens and pinto beans.

[WordWolf]

Are you telling me you can't string together something like, "My little children, look neither left nor right but keep your eyes on me for I am the Lord thy God, your sufficiency in all."?........I find that difficult to believe.

I'd say, when I was in twi, that some 90% or nearly 100% of all messages were variations

on about 6 messages we heard regularly.

When I was a Roman Catholic, I found repeating the same Scriptures on schedule once a year,

every year to be a bit repetitive by the time I was about 11.

Hearing the same message twice a week was only inspiring because I was supposed to

be inspired. (It was only partly effective.)

And for the record,I think waysider has just strung 2 of them together, with 1 of them

a bit shorter than normal.