SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[Raf]

However, if you'd like to discuss the Christ Myth theory (which I'm familiar with but don't subscribe to), I'm game. I'll start a thread in Questioning Faith. You're welcome to join it.

[waysider]

One of the key points of consideration (for me, at least) is that genuine languages have definable structure. Stringing together an array of valid English words or German words or Polish words or Angelic Language words does not automatically constitute a language. Real languages follow definable conventions. They have verbs, nouns, modifiers arranged in a logical and prescribed manner. I shudder to think that some of us here are even old enough to remember when we were taught, in English class, how to diagram sentences to give visual meaning to the structure. So, someone's "tongue" may well have words that are genuine and can be understood but, does the whole message have structure? This is critical to understanding how glossolalia works. A person's tongue will generally seem to follow conventions of the language that is native to them. For most of us on this forum, that would be English. On closer examination, however, it can be seen that this is somewhat of an illusion, for lack of a better word. Take a sizable sampling of someone's tongue and try to diagram it. What you will find is that the same syllables and sounds are uttered repetitively and lack a genuine structure even though the speaker may have the ability to dress it up to sound like a language. That's exactly what we were taught to do in the Tongues With Interpretations and Prophesy (Intermediate) Class. We called these training events excellor sessions.

Edited November 1, 2014 by waysider

[Allan]

Not wanting to be awful but a lot of man's wisdom appears to be offered here ! I believe, (is that o.k. wordwolf as I BELIEVE using the term 'guess' gets you a little ruffled lol ) that God can pretty well do whatever He wants with languages, tongues, holy spirit etc...didn't He confound a whole bunch of people with their tongues/languages around Babel at one point in time ??!! And Raf, you 'presumed' that I'm trying to convince you of something you're not convinced on ? Never entered my mind. I'm convinced of modern day/ first century tongues and that's all that matters to me. Even if I've got the 'wrong end of the stick' concerning biblical tongues..I'm edified by it, even if it's unknown to me when I speak it. Even if I've got it somehow wrong concerning Pauls heart for all to s.i.t. Even if I'm wrong in thinking of it as perfect prayer etc...I'd rather continue to be blessed by it than putting people off of it ( 1 Corinthians 14:39 ), because Raf, wordwolf...IF you are wrongly misinterpreting it...that means you're rooting in the wrong corner

[DogLover]

Allan, I agree with you. Speaking in tongues edifies me and is an important part of my daily prayer life and just a great way to give God thanks for all the neat things He does for me that there are just not words in my vocabulary to express (and I have a reasonably extensive vocabulary).

So .. if you think SIT, interpretation, and prophecy are fake, don't do them. I, on the other hand, choose to.

[Allan]

BTW Raf...the pacific Island language I mentioned in earlier post that you asked "can I name it ? " and quickly followed with "thought not " was Cook Island and a certain dialect from one of their smaller outer islands...specific enough for you ? now...stop 'presuming'

[Raf]

Fascinating. You do know that you didn't name a language, right?

[Raf]

If I say you are faking it when you pretend the sounds coming from your mouth are another language, and you tell me I am wrong, then it is evident that you want me (or anyone reading this) to believe you. That's about as safe a presumption as anyone can make. To say you don't want me to believe you is a lie. People who don't care whether I believe them don't post here on this thread. Haven't for months.

Feel free to continue SIT and TIP. Doesn't affect me in any way. I think you're faking it. You've shown me nothing to believe otherwise. In fact, you twist yourself into knots to redefine and redefine and redefine the experience until it cannot be subjected to pesky questions like "Can you prove what you're doing is what you claim you're doing?"

The simple answer is, you can't prove it because you are faking it. Not you guys. You turn a simple thing like Biblical SIT, which is empirically testable (and fails every time) and turn it into the worst kind of Rube Goldberg contraption: complicated, inefficient, filled with unnecessary steps... and doesn't even work.

You're faking it. I've demonstrated how in natural terms that describe the practice and fit ALL the documentable evidence.

You CLAIM you're doing something that cannot be explained in natural terms. In order for me (or anyone reading this) to accept your claim, you need to demonstrate how what you practice defies natural explanation. The Bible is not evidence. It is the claim. You may accept it as evidence. Go right ahead. But no one else is obliged to accept it as evidence. In fact, those who DO accept the Bible as evidence are not obliged to accept that what you practice is the same thing as Biblical SIT.

Biblical SIT produces a language. What you practice does not. They are not the same thing.

If you want me to believe otherwise, identify the language.

If you don’t care whether I believe you, stop demonstrating that you DO care.

Pretty simple, I would think.

[waysider]

Think for a moment about the practice sessions (excellor sessions) we had. Not only do they not have Biblical basis, they just plain don't make sense. Why would we need to practice something that is supposed to be perfect already? If it's God that gives the utterance, why would we need to insist the words start with a specific letter or need to practice enunciation or strive for dramatic presentation? Why would we have to insist that the tongue portion be equal in length to the interpretation portion?

I think the reason Wierwille insisted we never speak in tongues just to demonstrate it to outsiders was because he didn't want it to be scrutinized too closely.

[WordWolf]

[snip)

I've heard tongues from a person that contained words from a pacific Island language, german, Italian ( languages that I know reasonably well )all rolled into one...who says the spirit of God can't do that either ??!!(snip)

I'll say it- and I will be clear so that misrepresenting me will be obvious and dishonest.

I say that if you're hearing a message that is supposedly of God,

and the speaker is speaking in a melange of languages mashed together,

that the person's simply doing exactly what it looks like-

they're mashing words together from languages here and there.

"A bunch of words from a bunch of languages rolled into one sentence"

is nobody's definition of a tongue of men or "a tongue of an angel."

Frankly, I think you're strengthening the case that the person MEANT to speak

from God but the actual practice was a content-free jumble, either with bits

from things heard here or there, or bits of things cobbled together,

but all from either the hearing or the construction of the speaker.

We discussed this all at great length for months. Really, if you read it over,

you'd find some fascinating stuff.

BTW Raf...the pacific Island language I mentioned in earlier post that you asked "can I name it ? " and quickly followed with "thought not " was Cook Island and a certain dialect from one of their smaller outer islands...specific enough for you ? now...stop 'presuming' :biglaugh:/>

As Raf pointed out, you didn't "name" a language.

"Cook Island" isn't a language, nor would be "that language they speak on Cook Island."

That's because A) There's no "Cook Island", it's "the Cook Islands" and there's 15 of them

B) on the Cook Islands, they speak several languages, and counting dialects,

there's over 10 of them.

If you think it's insignificant to count dialects, I challenge you to carry on a conversation

between English speakers where each has a different dialect- the Boston brahmin,

New Zealander, Cockney, and a Scottish brogue. I guarantee you, you'll get left behind when

at least some of them speak, and that's not even all the English dialects. Other languages

can vary more widely- the differences between Spanish of different countries has been

the subject of many discussion.

You may have heard someone from one of the Cook Islands speak in A language, but if you've

never studied them (and obviously you haven't when you know neither the name of the

place nor the name of the language/dialect), but you're unqualified to identify the

speaker as having spoken real sentences in it.

Again, you've supported the case otherwise- your suppossed evidence FOR a language consists

of an anecdote of someone mixing together some words here and there of a few languages,

and not A language at all. The person was not even speaking A language they knew.

Allan, I agree with you. Speaking in tongues edifies me and is an important part of my daily prayer life and just a great way to give God thanks for all the neat things He does for me that there are just not words in my vocabulary to express (and I have a reasonably extensive vocabulary).

So .. if you think SIT, interpretation, and prophecy are fake, don't do them. I, on the other hand, choose to.

Personally, I haven't decided to NEVER use it-

I'm just candid with myself, if I use it, as to exactly what I'm doing (and not doing).

If your private prayer life edifies you, it's your private prayer life and it's working.

God Almighty is aware of your heart and knows the limits of communication.

He can read your heart more easily than you can read my typed words.

[WordWolf]

Not wanting to be awful but a lot of man's wisdom appears to be offered here !

(snip)

Once it gets down to the main objections to something being

"it's man's wisdom",

I know the opposing side REALLY had nothing to say to oppose it.

"How dare you think sensibly and logically here while I'm being religious!" is really

a cop-out, an attempt to DUCK A SUBJECT, than anything else.

We actually HAVE a book written in words meant to be understood.

The thing at Pentecost, the Speaking In Languages, that was done then,

that was miraculous and made perfect sense as languages.

Those speaking spoke, in clear languages "the wonderful works of God"

despite not knowing the languages in which they were speaking.

The other incidents in Acts likewise had those who Spoke In Languages

actually do exactly that- they SPOKE IN LANGUAGES.

The thing you're claiming is the same is not demonstrating to be any such thing.

And the entire justification seems a misunderstanding of a few words in I Corinthians 13.

I Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB)

13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

This section is to contrast love with all the dramatic displays of things of every kind.

In each instance, it uses hyperbole, a legitimate figure of speech which is not literally true to fact,

to make that point.

Without love, it's nothing even if I know ALL The Answers and have ALL The Knowledge.

(Is it possible to LITERALLY know ALL The Answers and have ALL The Knowledge? Obviously not.)

Without love, it's nothing even if I have a faith or believing that can move mountains at will.

(Is it possible to LITERALLY have faith to move an entire mountain? Obviously not-

through all the centuries where someone's claimed that was LITERALLY possible,

none of the billions of people have LITERALLY done it.

And many people would have loved to-and it would have made a fantastic commercial for

God Almighty to see it demonstrated. It certainly would have closed a lot of discussions

on the subject of God.)

Giving 100% my possessions to feed others and my physical body (the one thing left me)

for burning-is it LITERALLY going to happen? Not by any SANE Christian, so OBVIOUSLY

Paul wasn't trying to start you off on a project or give you a goal to shoot for.

Each instance included actions-and took them to an absurd level to make a point about

how love was much more important no matter what.

So, we started with the example of languages.

All accounts before this showed a demonstration of languages that someone recognized,

and someone present understood- which made them not only human languages,

but CURRENT languages spoken LOCALLY by SOMEONE if not many people.

So, speaking in languages of men and angels- was Paul saying it was possible

to speak in languages OF ANGELS?

Look at the construction of the sentences- in each case, there was an absurd

exaggeration. In I Corinthians 13:1, the absurd exaggeration was someone who was

able to Speak In Languages to the degree they could communicate beyond all

human language and Speak In Angelese.

[Allan]

I'm surprised you'd 'use it ' (tongues) wordwolf, given that you don't appear to count it for much more than mumbo jumbo ! Also, let's not be pedantic again eh ? Cook Islands...Cook Island language...I think I know 'by experience' as I have lived on a couple of the Islands and my wife is from another of them k? I don't think I discounted dialect as I'm FROM New Zealand and the native tongue has numerous dialects...also have many friends from Scotland so really, in a nutshell, you and Raf have displayed rather a misguided, smug, conceited and VERY IGNORANT attitude/understanding/argument...IMHO

[WordWolf]

Think for a moment about the practice sessions (excellor sessions) we had. Not only do they not have Biblical basis, they just plain don't make sense. Why would we need to practice something that is supposed to be perfect already?

Practicing to further perfect something that arrived perfect

is senseless. If we were practicing something IMperfect, some

construct of humans, like free vocalization, well, then it makes plenty

of sense. Practice would make it easier and improve our ability to

do it and string together the sounds as if they were languages. It

would increase our "fluency"-which is something we were told to work

on in excellor's sessions.

If it's God that gives the utterance, why would we need to insist the words start with a specific letter or need to practice enunciation or strive for dramatic presentation?

If God gives the utterance, then TRYING to start with specific

sounds is DEFYING GOD ALMIGHTY. It is either trying to FORCE GOD to

give the utterance in conformity with OUR wills ("My will be done"),

or deciding to do utterances with the letter whether or not God

Almighty wants to provide it.

It's that simple- once you look at it.

Why would we have to insist that the tongue portion be equal in length to the interpretation portion?

As we discussed long ago, translations between languages OFTEN

are quite different in size. Anyone can test this by comparing

written instructions for a device or appliance- in all the languages

the instructions manual includes. One episode of "I Love Lucy"

demonstrated it in detail-translating from French to German to

Spanish to English and back, back and forth in quick succession.

It was obvious the French was a LOT longer than the German, for

example, for the same phrases, which stretched out again in Spanish.

I think the reason Wierwille insisted we never speak in tongues just to demonstrate it to outsiders was because he didn't want it to be scrutinized too closely.

vpw was big on outsiders NOT experiencing twi stuff. Considering

how much of vpw's stuff was ripped off from other people, I think

part of it was so he wouldn't be caught plagiarizing. Another reason,

of course, was so that outsiders couldn't examine twi practices and

expose them to a cold, rational light. What little outsiders heard

was error-ridden and incomplete, which is why they complained about

petty, inaccurate things when there were much bigger things to complain

about.

[WordWolf]

I'm surprised you'd 'use it ' (tongues) wordwolf, given that you don't appear to count it for much more than mumbo jumbo !

Try to view things outside the straitjacket of the vpw/twi system.

I never called it mumbo-jumbo. It's pretty clear it's different from

the speaking in languages of Acts. It's pretty clear to me that

humans can choose to do it without anything supernatural. That means

it's not what we were told- but it doesn't mean it is useless for

EVERYTHING. If someone was convinced they bought a car and they

had bought a bicycle, finding out what it really was wouldn't mean

it was useless AS A BICYCLE just because it wasn't a car.

Also, let's not be pedantic again eh ? Cook Islands...Cook Island language...I think I know 'by experience' as I have lived on a couple of the Islands and my wife is from another of them k?

You made some really fundamental errors about that language,

despite supposedly having had considerable exposure to it.

I would NOT brag about that if I were you, and it really doesn't

speak well of your comprehension of what you "know by experience."

I don't think I discounted dialect as I'm FROM New Zealand and the native tongue has numerous dialects...also have many friends from Scotland

Well, you discounted it accidentally despite all that,

You said the language was "Cook Island"-which, as we both agree now,

is neither the name of the place- the "Cook Islands", nor the name

of a SPECIFIC language since it's a multilingual group of islands.

Since you're aware that there's dialects there plus the full

languages, that's a pretty egregious mistake YOU'RE REFUSING TO

ADMIT YOU MADE.

so really, in a nutshell, you and Raf have displayed rather a misguided, smug, conceited and VERY IGNORANT attitude/understanding/argument...IMHO :biglaugh:/>

Hey- I didn't make a mistake and refuse to admit it.

I didn't respond to being caught at it by mudslinging and calling

names to those who caught it.

Since you brought them up, let's review the various words you just used:

1) misguided- trying to hold to contra-Biblical methods of viewing

Biblical things because you're used to them is misguided,

comparing Biblical beliefs to the Bible is not misguided

2) smug 3) conceited- Once we had examined this subject, I changed

my position to one approximately opposite that which I originally

held. I did so RATHER PUBLICLY because all the evidence pointed

one-way, rather dramatically. If I was smug and conceited, I would

have been UNABLE to do so, especially publicly.

3) VERY IGNORANT- uninformed, uneducated? By examining what others

said on a subject, and what experts said in their areas of expertise?

Aren't you the same guy who objected to "world wisdom" about a day

ago and now you're claiming I wasn't doing it enough?

You're all over the map again. A few days ago, you were doing that

with your position on tongues with Raf- when you were telling Raf

both that it would be impossible to be understood while telling him

that you recognized the (understandable) languages used at least once.

I'm sure you're feeling better by calling us all sorts of things,

but, really, that's not reflecting reality or what's happened on this

thread. If you want others to think we're in error, then provide some

SUBSTANCE rather than INSULTS. The complete INability of anybody

with your position to do that- and RELIANCE on fogging issues and

using insults- is why I abandoned that position. Frankly, you're

probably convincing other people you're wrong about this with each

new post on this thread.

So, in other words, keep it up, you're making my side of the discussion

look better by contrast. :)

[Raf]

I love how the person who claims to be tapping into the power of the Almighty Creator of the universe, Who is personally concerned with his inability to articulate a prayer request so He intervenes by personally performing an otherwise impossible feat, getting the person to speak in a language so secret that no one can detect it (even though the whole POINT of the feat is to demonstrate a power that could only be attributed to God)...

Thinks I'm conceited.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Raf

[Allan]

:lol:

[waysider]

Back when we used to have practice sessions, there were sometimes students who would question the Biblical veracity of what we were doing.(It was usually in an inquisitive vein rather than skepticism.) The answer would usually be along the lines of, "Well, "Dr." Wierwille thinks it's a good idea and he knows more about this stuff than we do."..... That was a big red flag waving in front of us and we chose to ignore it.

By the way, everyone knows his "doctorate" was phony, don't they?

[Allan]

Have you figured out why it says to 'interpret tongues' if the 'biblical tongues' are already known to the group present ?

[waysider]

Have you figured out why it says to 'interpret tongues' if the 'biblical tongues' are already known to the group present ?

Do tell.

[Raf]

No one said the tongues were understood by the people present in every instance. It was so in Acts 2. But that just proves they were languages, not bits and pieces of a mishmash of several languages you heard once while flipping channels in Indonesia.

Employing a straw man is a sign of lack of confidence in your argument. Or lack of intelligence. I will assume A

[Raf]

Here's a better question: ever wonder why it says "languages" even though what you're doing doesn't produce one?

[WordWolf]

No one said the tongues were understood by the people present in every instance. It was so in Acts 2. But that just proves they were languages, not bits and pieces of a mishmash of several languages you heard once while flipping channels in Indonesia.

Employing a straw man is a sign of lack of confidence in your argument. Or lack of intelligence. I will assume A

I think part of this is just the idea of even EXAMINING this stuff is either

heretical or simply ALIEN to a lot of people. Thus, you get people who have

no practice nor experience trying to articulate what they're feeling rather

than examining what they're thinking.

I think that's why we're getting claims that contradict each other

(It can't be understood ever-except when I understood it that time)

and complaints that contradict each other

(you shouldn't be using outside sources to research at all,

and you're not doing enough of it, how dare you).

On top of that, lots of insults.

It's not a healthy process of discussion, it's an attempt to silence the

opposition by throwing everything against the wall and seeing if

anything sticks. However, in the case of this subject, that backfired

horrendously before, because that's when we really began to break

down the process of "free vocalization" and how it would account for

all the occurrences in the twi/vpw system of practices. You wouldn't

have found the phrase AT ALL, and if not for weeks of that sort of

"fog the issue" thinking, I wouldn't have seen the contrast so sharply,

and I might have remained undecided on the issue rather than concluding

that I WANTED one side to be right but there was no way they COULD be.

I'm not the only one who changed their mind during the discussion, for that

natter.

[WordWolf]

Have you figured out why it says to 'interpret tongues' if the 'biblical tongues' are already known to the group present ?

Raf answered you on this already.

I am curious, however, if the question ever occurred to you in all the decades since you first

took pfal.

After all, in Acts, we had MULTIPLE accounts of Speaking in Languages where the observers understood

the languages. In I Corinthians, we SUPPOSEDLY had an explanation that the observers would

NEVER understand the languages.

So, how did you resolve the "apparent Bible contradiction" before this thread?

Did it even occur to you, before now, that there was one?

[Allan]

I think any perceived insults are no more than what you and raf imply in your comments ? ...I'd say that stating that people are lying( re: not admitting faking their tongues etc...) is insulting ?! As for interpretation of tongues I don't believe there is a need to do the usual and analyse it to death when the Bible is pretty clear that at times it will be UNKNOWN, certainly to the one speaking, hence tongues for private prayer life etc... K.I.S.S. method !

[Raf]

You can lie to yourself about what you do all you want. But you can't lie about what the Bible says. Your interpretation was analyzed, dissected and debunked pages and pages ago. Go on and continue lying about what it says. But you're fooling no one. Not even yourself.

[Raf]

To clarify, there is nothing in I Corinthians to support the notion that SIT will result in something undetectable as a language. The Bible is clear in every instance of SIT that a language is produced. While it was common for no one to understand the language uttered (hence the need for interpretation) nothing in the verses indicate that God works supernaturally to have speakers produce utterances that will defy human attempts to verify that languages are, in fact, being produced. It is not something Paul would have anticipated or addressed. Frankly, it's an excuse for why linguistics never picks up a language.

Want to talk about K.I.S.S.? Ok, let's.

The simple reason linguistics never picks up a language is that languages are not being produced. No supernatural explanation required. Simple, stupid. Occam's Razor 1, Apologetic Excuse Making 0.