One other point I want to make on this thread entitled "Questioning Faith".
I have encountered no other Christian church, organization, ministry that produces this kind of deep level rejection of basic common tenets people all had when joining the organization. The Way ministry is anti-Christ just looking at the fruit of it on these 2 threads about questioning faith and prayer.
When people leave the Way, many times they reject all Christianity. And the Bible. I have encountered no other Christian church that has this effect on people.
To the Way ministry and JY de Loser. This is your legacy. And it extends to the bema.
I've mentioned repeatedly that I'm waiting for publication of research on SIT and phonemic inventory. Didn't want anyone to think I had forgotten about it since it still hasn't been published four years later.
I didn't resurrect this thread, and I did need to be reminded about certain vocabulary terms -- a handy thing to do when you're engaging in a discussion about language
Hey with this and your "fair enough" comment I think I am going to peace out on this discussion for a bit.
I do agree with you when researchers take the catalog of audio files of purported recordings of SIT and organize them into language constructs somehow that more can be learned at that time.
What I learned from this discussion and the previous 86 page one is that VPW made a claim in one of his classes "nobody can fake SIT". I've found that statement to be totally and absolutely wrong. And before this discussion I would probably have believed that VP statement without questioning it.
Whether a testable claim is being made is not a matter of personal feelings. It is a matter of what the Bible claims is produced in SIT.
Because we disagree about THAT, debating it is pointless for us. We identified that impasse years ago. I have elsewhere stated my case for why I believe the Biblical claim is consistent with how I present it (move over to the main doctrinal area for Word Wolf's most recent thread on it, which has links to the prior threads). Nothing I see in the counterargument impresses me to alter what I believe to be the Biblical case for SIT.
Ok, this is going to sound strange coming from me, but I'm going to defend VPW on a point. Yes, I know who I'm going to sound like for you GSC old-timers, but bear with me. I do think we have a case here of our memories of what VPW said being in conflict with what he actually said.
Now, I'm going by my own memory here, and my VPW books are somewhere in a dump in southern Florida, or hopefully have been recycled into something useful, like an egg carton, but...
I don't recall Wierwille ever saying that no one can fake SIT per se.
What he said about SIT, in my memory, was that it could not be counterfeited.
That is, if a person speaks in tongues, it IS of God.
Our debate here has been whether anyone is speaking in tongues. My contention is we did not and you are not. If you were, you'd be producing a language. I believe Wierwille would agree with that definition. Namely, if you say you SIT and you produce a language, that's God at work, because the devil cannot counterfeit it. That's why when Peter saw the household of Cornelius speak in tongues, he knew right away that they were saved. Because the devil cannot counterfeit it. How did he know they weren't faking it? Doesn't say, but why would they? It's not like he tried to lead them into tongues. It's not like he said, ok, here's how it works... It was spontaneous. They just did it. And just watching them do it was enough for Peter to conclude this was genuine. And since the devil can't counterfeit it, then that makes it of God, which makes them saved. Voila!
So, yes, Wierwille said it can't be counterfeited. But I honestly don't remember him saying it can't be faked. He himself admitted to faking it once, but that was a little different.
That's my memory. Yours may differ. If anyone has a RTHST or Green Book handy, let me know.
[I know what you're thinking. If the household of Cornelius speaking in tongues was good enough for Peter, why isn't it good enough for me? Simple. George Washington convinced his father of his personal integrity by confessing to chopping down the cherry tree, but that's not enough to convince me of George Washington's personal integrity. If you know why in the latter case, you know why in the former].
I have encountered no other Christian church, organization, ministry that produces this kind of deep level rejection of basic common tenets people all had when joining the organization.
Pending some double-blind studies, I've noticed that twi survivors who leave Christianity later often (but not always) have a certain...vehemence...about Christianity- and I think they have a legitimate point. It could be observer bias, but I expect it's more the combination of the TYPE of emotions allowed in twi and the type of emotions felt once leaving.
twi allowed people-only higher-ups but it was allowed- to express anger and outrage. Other emotions seemed forbidden. When someone leaves twi, often there's anger and other emotions that have to be dealt with, preferably soonest- although that depends on the specifics of the exit since not everybody left with anger-Raf and I did not seem to. Then when going further, there's lots of experience with anger and outrage, more than other emotions, to fall back on. So, things might come out that way for a number of reasons. I mean, look at ex-twi'ers (and alleged never-twi'ers) who show up here, find calm posts and calm posters- and immediately pronounce everyone as full of anger. They're used to people bottling up anger and expressing it passive-aggressively because they're not high enough to be allowed to rant and rave. As long as they don't deal with their own issues, they'll look around like that the rest of their lives. (We've seen posters here do that for decades and who are likely to carry that to the grave.)
Then again, that's just my thinking. I haven't even done INformal studies on this.
In the ex-twi "fold," I see plenty of people who try to hold onto the good of what they left behind while discarding the bad.
I see plenty of people redefine for themselves what it means to be Christian and choose for themselves a more excellent way.
I see a few who choose other, non-Christian religions.
And I see a few who reject religion entirely.
This is a discussion forum about TWI. By its very nature, it's going to lead us all to an inflated sense of the ex-twi experience.
But I suspect if we think TWI's result is any different than those who leave other organizations, we'd be in for a polite awakening. Plenty, PLENTY of books and websites for former members of other Christian groups will show similar breakdowns. We're not alone. We're not unique.
WordWolf and I concur on this: I speak without having conducted even an INformal survey. :)
And just to be abundantly clear, I CAN be right about SIT but wrong about God.
I do not see how I can be wrong about SIT but right about God. I mean, I suppose it's possible, but I don't see it.
If modern SIT produces actual languages because it's produced by a supernatural entity, you're wrong about SIT.
If that's the case but some OTHER supernatural entity provides the utterance and not YHWH, then you're not disproven about God, as such. (Maybe the related answers would disprove you, but those would be other issues and technically not this one.
Because if you're actually producing languages now, then you're doing something that cannot be explained naturally, thus confirming the supernatural.
But if you're doing something any schmoe in an acting class can do regardless of religious belief, then you're not doing anything that cannot be explained naturally, so the question reverts to you: Why are you impressed at your ability to do what anyone can do?
What practical difference do you honestly think said confirmation (or proof) of the supernatural would make?
(short answer to your question is, I don't believe that what I do is with my own ability, and I'm not impressed with it as if it were.)
That's nice, but there is no evidence, not even the tiniest scrap, that you're doing anything that you cannot do with your own ability. You can credit God if you want. You can credit Stan Lee or Siegel and Schuster for all I care. But until you produce something that cannot be explained naturally, then the fact that it impresses you only shows that you're easily impressed.
You are not doing anything I didn't do when I faked it. Because you're faking it too. If you weren't, you'd be producing a language. You're not. So you're not.
It's almost impossible to believe this is an honest question.
What good would it do to objectively prove the supernatural?
He seriously asked that question.
First off, it would win the person who proved it a million bucks. Secondly, it would in all likelihood end atheism for good.
Other than that, can't think of a thing.
How can anyone take this question seriously? "What practical difference" would it make. Sheesh.
It's as serious and straightforward as it gets, as it typically helps to identify and understand motive.
Does a million bucks make someone into a better, more loving, or more godly person?
If the signs, miracles, and wonders that were given weren't proof enough to persuade Israel to believe, then neither would any "proof" of the supernatural now suddenly end atheism.
No, a million bucks does not make you a better person.
Sheesh, it's like you deliberately miss the point of the significance of objectively proving the supernatural. Like that's some small, insignificant feat.
There were no signs, miracles and wonders given to Israel. Those are made up stories, as reality-based as the myths of Perseus, Pandora, Hercules and Icarus. To call them miracles is to call them history, and they are not history. The evidence that would be there if they WERE history doesn't exist, and it is not merely an absence of evidence, but evidence of absence.
And, uh, yeah, proof of the supernatural -- objective, indisputable proof -- would actually "end" atheism, since lack of belief in the supernatural based on lack of evidence for it is a major reason people are atheist.
It all boils down to this: You are making a claim, Speaking in Tongues.
All I'm asking you to do is prove your claim, and all you're doing is coming up with one excuse after another why you can't.
You can't prove your claim because your claim is false. You're faking it. You KNOW you're faking it at this point. But for some reason it makes you feel better to act as if the burden of proving you're faking it is mine and what difference does it make anyway. It makes all the difference between having confidence that you are doing what God promised you can do (which has Biblical definitions and logical repercussions) or you knowing full well that you're faking it as surely as I was.
I'm done arguing with nonsensical arguments. Document your language or STFU already.
Some people see a sunset and see God. Other people see a sunset and ponder Raleigh scattering.
"Proving" SIT might change atheism for you. It won't for me. Perhaps my reasons are different.
It is noteworthy the refusal to use the word "lying".
SIT is a small point. "I'm speaking in tongues" . . . "no you are not, because I am not" . . . "you are not, but I am" . . . "no you are not, you are just claiming to be" . . . "that's just you're perspective, you don't know me" . . . "well I'll leave you to your fantasy, peace"
Kind of a bigger deal with say, disease.
"I'm healed by my faith!" . . . "no you are not, go see a doctor" . . . "you can't make me"
Or you know, how government works. That's politics. We don't talk about that.
Bolshevik, I don't disagree with you, but I submit that different conversations are taking place here. Yours is honest and intellectual. TLC's is trolling. So I'm hesitant to explain myself to you because I'm tired of the way comments are taken out of context by other participants (TLC) to deflect from the main point of this thread.
Proving the supernatural does not prove God. But it's a significant step. So if I oversimplified it, mea culpa. The point remains the same. Biblical SIT would prove the supernatural. Because it fails to do so, people feel the need to redefine Biblical SIT. Oh, it's not a known language (yes it is). It's tongues of angels (no, it's not). It has been proven numerous times (no, it hasn't). It hasn't been disproven (it doesn't have to be. It has to be proven). Blah blah blah.
I think there's a big difference between ... wanting to believe something, taking a step, getting encouraged by a bunch of people who want the same and best for you, you believe God, you want to please him, and folks are telling you that your doubts are of the devil, so you believe it and it gets easier and easier and easier and you're constantly reinforced by people who love God and love each other that it's a real and beautiful thing ... and lying.
I agree with you on the SIT argument. Disease? "I'm a faith healer." (No, you're not). "The Bible says I am." (Ok, fine, let's head to the hospital and take care of some folks). "It doesn't work that way." (Oh for Pete's sake...)
If you knew for a FACT that God parted the Red Sea FOR YOU, and YOU walked across it, seeing the sea on both sides of you failing to crash down on you as you walked across on dry land, would you EVER doubt God again?
Yet they did. This is not logical. It's just not.
If the signs, miracles and wonders God performed for Israel weren't enough to get them to believe, what makes anyone think they actually happened? Their failure to believe in the face of such overwhelming confirmation is a characteristic of fiction, not history. Israel failed to believe because the plot required them to.
Do yourself a favor. Go read Judges, particularly the section on Samson. Read it slowly, as history. Remember these are real people in a story that actually happened. When you're done, ask yourself... What kind of UTTER MORON is Samson? I mean, just how stupid do you have to be?
This whole "if Israel didn't believe after signs and wonders, Raf won't believe if SIT is confirmed with an actually produced language verified by an independent third party" is based on a false premise -- that the experience of Israel being cited is true. It's not. It's no more true than Perseus beheading the Gorgon. It's no more true than Joseph Smith translating the golden plates. It's no more true than Muhammad mounting a flying horse and taking off for heaven. Citing the example of these stories as if they are history to prove that I would not accept the result of the objective testing of a testable claim is just a way of chickening out of testing the claim.
If you had real faith in the claim, you wouldn't hesitate to test it. Instead you redefine the claim to make it untestable.
1. So werewolf you believe that christians who claim to speak in tongues are doing nothing more than what actors do when they act like they are speaking a language? I guess the question becomes do those actors experience the effects that christians experience when they speak in tongues. For instance when I speak in tongues I get spiritual insights(by this I mean certain questions involving angels or other spiritual questions i have i get insights on whether its an actual thought or image etc its in a form that is understandable to me in my mind that clears up some confusion i have had about a spiritual matter), chills(good relaxing ones), increased peace, my mind feels at rest and calmer than before doing it etc.
2. There has been a study showing the brains of people who speak in tongues compared to those who meditate, but there hasnt been any studies to show the brains of people who speak free vocalization or any other people who speak in a language that no one understands compared to christians who claim to speak in tongues. That would be helpful to see if theres a difference. Its definitely doubtful that there would be but theres no way to know. Because while some other religions practice free vocalization as you call it, do these people also experience the things I said I do when I do it? What about those who aren't religious like the actors you posted clips of doing it.
3. When paul for instance said he spoke in tongues more than anyone else, who was he speaking these tongues to? Other people or by himself privately to god? If he did it privately then its possible what the modern speaking in tongue people are doing is still biblical.
4. Now of course my experience when I speak in tongues is subjective and not all people experience what I experience, but I think there's some reasons to believe that what I am doing is biblical because why would paul wish we would all do it?
I was going over the original posts that resurrected this thread after two years of dormancy, and I wanted to address this one. The numbers were not included in the post being quoted. I added them for convenience of reference.
Ok, so here we go:
1. The feelings you experience during SIT are subjective, and you experience because you want to. The Bible doesn't promise "chills," good or bad, when you SIT. The presence of chills is a psychological result of the fact that you believe you are doing something that connects you to God. That you feel it doesn't prove or disprove it. That someone practicing free vocalization DOESN'T experience those things is a result of the fact that such a person is not expecting or even desiring such things. You can get "spiritual insights" walking your doggie. That doesn't make dog-walking a manifestation of the spirit.
2. I doubt anyone would do a brain scan of people practicing free vocalization because ... why? I know we talked at length about the brain studies in the original thread where we hashed these things out, but the bottom line is this: When you are practicing free vocalization, you are not pre-thinking the sounds you will make. You don't really have to. You just go and let the syllables fly. The brain scans of people speaking in tongues show they are not using the language centers of the brain. No kidding. You would only do that if you were pre-thinking the sounds. You're not pre-thinking the sounds in SIT. So the result SOUNDS like "they're not making it up," but that's an incorrect extrapolation. They ARE just making it up. They're just not pre-thinking the sounds. I agree with you: I would expect the brain scans of people practicing free vocalization to be identical to those professing to speak in tongues. As for whether actors or practitioners of other religions experiencing the same effects you feel... I think I answered that in point 1. There is no reason, none, to believe that the effects you describe are anything but psychosomatic.
3. Most of this is doctrinal, except that last line. If Paul spoke in tongues privately, then it's possible that people speaking in tongues today are still practicing Biblical SIT. I agree. It's possible. If they're producing a language. If they are not producing a language, it is not Biblical SIT. Biblical SIT was always a language. Whether it was identified or not, it was always a language. Tongues are languages. You cannot speak in tongues without producing a language. So the fact that people do it privately doesn't invalidate it. The fact that they're not producing languages invalidates it. I know, I know, no one has proved these are not languages. Fine. But the failure to ever identify an actual language in any sample of SIT argues against the notion that languages are routinely being produced but disinterested observers are NEVER able to spot them, ever (except, of course, for anonymous people who are conveniently now half a world away).
4. A doctrinal question, but briefly: Have you given ANY consideration to the idea that you might maybe be misinterpreting Paul? That he was not writing to Christians who would be living 2000 years after he wrote but to the actual recipients of his letters? Or is it possible that he wishes you would all speak in tongues, but he somehow forgot to tell anyone HOW, and we were all taught a counterfeit method we embraced because we wanted it to be true?
On a separate note, you asked in a related post for an example of how someone can fake doing something without realizing they were faking it. I don't know if you realize it, but PFAL taught us exactly how to do that. Here are the ingredients:
A - Sincere and intense desire to do it.
B - Indoctrination into its availability.
C - Tearing down of inhibitions that would block you from faking it (a group setting was REAL handy for this).
D - Social reinforcement. We're all with ya!
E - (and this one is crucial) Dispel doubt at the beginning, or BEFORE the beginning, by equating doubt with unbelief and devilishness.
VOILA!
For those of us who shared a similar experience, we probably DID know from the very first moment that we were faking it. But we were told repeatedly beforehand that doubt, worry and fear issue from unbelief and were of the devil. We were told immediately that the thoughts we were having (that we were faking it) was the devil trying to talk us out of it. You wouldn't want the devil to win, would you? Besides, no one gets left out. You wouldn't want to be the one who got left out, would you?
I don't know how you started SIT, but regardless, if you're not producing a language, you're not speaking in tongues. No matter how it makes you feel.
[Yes, I am aware that not everyone had the same "first SIT" experience. My post answers a question of how people could fake it without knowing it. That anyone had a different first SIT experience is beside the point in answering that question].
Edited by Raf Adding the last paragraph in parenthesis to clarify a point.
I do, but not in front of me. Which do you need? Both? I can get back to you on this Friday. (Time-constraints are on me until then, and are not on me Fri, AFAIK.)
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Bolshevik
The purpose of Speaking in Tongues is to loosen people minds, or, reduce critical thinking enough that they will accept TWI doctrine and direction. It aids in building non-coherency. It is a sig
Bolshevik
I had thought for a time people who'd never heard SIT would be impressed. Isn't that why we're trying to get them to TWIG? To be wowed by what we take for granted? . . . what? . . . THAT didn'
Raf
It's almost impossible to believe this is an honest question. What good would it do to objectively prove the supernatural? He seriously asked that question. First off, it would win the
chockfull
One other point I want to make on this thread entitled "Questioning Faith".
I have encountered no other Christian church, organization, ministry that produces this kind of deep level rejection of basic common tenets people all had when joining the organization. The Way ministry is anti-Christ just looking at the fruit of it on these 2 threads about questioning faith and prayer.
When people leave the Way, many times they reject all Christianity. And the Bible. I have encountered no other Christian church that has this effect on people.
To the Way ministry and JY de Loser. This is your legacy. And it extends to the bema.
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chockfull
Hey with this and your "fair enough" comment I think I am going to peace out on this discussion for a bit.
I do agree with you when researchers take the catalog of audio files of purported recordings of SIT and organize them into language constructs somehow that more can be learned at that time.
What I learned from this discussion and the previous 86 page one is that VPW made a claim in one of his classes "nobody can fake SIT". I've found that statement to be totally and absolutely wrong. And before this discussion I would probably have believed that VP statement without questioning it.
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Raf
Whether a testable claim is being made is not a matter of personal feelings. It is a matter of what the Bible claims is produced in SIT.
Because we disagree about THAT, debating it is pointless for us. We identified that impasse years ago. I have elsewhere stated my case for why I believe the Biblical claim is consistent with how I present it (move over to the main doctrinal area for Word Wolf's most recent thread on it, which has links to the prior threads). Nothing I see in the counterargument impresses me to alter what I believe to be the Biblical case for SIT.
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Raf
Ok, we cross-posted. I see your peace-out and raise you a best wishes!
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Raf
Ok, this is going to sound strange coming from me, but I'm going to defend VPW on a point. Yes, I know who I'm going to sound like for you GSC old-timers, but bear with me. I do think we have a case here of our memories of what VPW said being in conflict with what he actually said.
Now, I'm going by my own memory here, and my VPW books are somewhere in a dump in southern Florida, or hopefully have been recycled into something useful, like an egg carton, but...
I don't recall Wierwille ever saying that no one can fake SIT per se.
What he said about SIT, in my memory, was that it could not be counterfeited.
That is, if a person speaks in tongues, it IS of God.
Our debate here has been whether anyone is speaking in tongues. My contention is we did not and you are not. If you were, you'd be producing a language. I believe Wierwille would agree with that definition. Namely, if you say you SIT and you produce a language, that's God at work, because the devil cannot counterfeit it. That's why when Peter saw the household of Cornelius speak in tongues, he knew right away that they were saved. Because the devil cannot counterfeit it. How did he know they weren't faking it? Doesn't say, but why would they? It's not like he tried to lead them into tongues. It's not like he said, ok, here's how it works... It was spontaneous. They just did it. And just watching them do it was enough for Peter to conclude this was genuine. And since the devil can't counterfeit it, then that makes it of God, which makes them saved. Voila!
So, yes, Wierwille said it can't be counterfeited. But I honestly don't remember him saying it can't be faked. He himself admitted to faking it once, but that was a little different.
That's my memory. Yours may differ. If anyone has a RTHST or Green Book handy, let me know.
[I know what you're thinking. If the household of Cornelius speaking in tongues was good enough for Peter, why isn't it good enough for me? Simple. George Washington convinced his father of his personal integrity by confessing to chopping down the cherry tree, but that's not enough to convince me of George Washington's personal integrity. If you know why in the latter case, you know why in the former].
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Raf
You need to get out more. :)
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WordWolf
Pending some double-blind studies, I've noticed that twi survivors who leave Christianity later often (but not always) have a certain...vehemence...about Christianity- and I think they have a legitimate point. It could be observer bias, but I expect it's more the combination of the TYPE of emotions allowed in twi and the type of emotions felt once leaving.
twi allowed people-only higher-ups but it was allowed- to express anger and outrage. Other emotions seemed forbidden. When someone leaves twi, often there's anger and other emotions that have to be dealt with, preferably soonest- although that depends on the specifics of the exit since not everybody left with anger-Raf and I did not seem to. Then when going further, there's lots of experience with anger and outrage, more than other emotions, to fall back on. So, things might come out that way for a number of reasons. I mean, look at ex-twi'ers (and alleged never-twi'ers) who show up here, find calm posts and calm posters- and immediately pronounce everyone as full of anger. They're used to people bottling up anger and expressing it passive-aggressively because they're not high enough to be allowed to rant and rave. As long as they don't deal with their own issues, they'll look around like that the rest of their lives. (We've seen posters here do that for decades and who are likely to carry that to the grave.)
Then again, that's just my thinking. I haven't even done INformal studies on this.
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Raf
In the ex-twi "fold," I see plenty of people who try to hold onto the good of what they left behind while discarding the bad.
I see plenty of people redefine for themselves what it means to be Christian and choose for themselves a more excellent way.
I see a few who choose other, non-Christian religions.
And I see a few who reject religion entirely.
This is a discussion forum about TWI. By its very nature, it's going to lead us all to an inflated sense of the ex-twi experience.
But I suspect if we think TWI's result is any different than those who leave other organizations, we'd be in for a polite awakening. Plenty, PLENTY of books and websites for former members of other Christian groups will show similar breakdowns. We're not alone. We're not unique.
WordWolf and I concur on this: I speak without having conducted even an INformal survey. :)
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WordWolf
If modern SIT produces actual languages because it's produced by a supernatural entity, you're wrong about SIT.
If that's the case but some OTHER supernatural entity provides the utterance and not YHWH, then you're not disproven about God, as such. (Maybe the related answers would disprove you, but those would be other issues and technically not this one.
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Raf
I didn't say I would be wrong about YHWH. Just about God. ;)
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TLC
What practical difference do you honestly think said confirmation (or proof) of the supernatural would make?
(short answer to your question is, I don't believe that what I do is with my own ability, and I'm not impressed with it as if it were.)
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Raf
That's nice, but there is no evidence, not even the tiniest scrap, that you're doing anything that you cannot do with your own ability. You can credit God if you want. You can credit Stan Lee or Siegel and Schuster for all I care. But until you produce something that cannot be explained naturally, then the fact that it impresses you only shows that you're easily impressed.
You are not doing anything I didn't do when I faked it. Because you're faking it too. If you weren't, you'd be producing a language. You're not. So you're not.
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Bolshevik
It can't be explained naturally. Nobody understands the mind that well.
God of the Gaps
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Raf
It's almost impossible to believe this is an honest question.
What good would it do to objectively prove the supernatural?
He seriously asked that question.
First off, it would win the person who proved it a million bucks. Secondly, it would in all likelihood end atheism for good.
Other than that, can't think of a thing.
How can anyone take this question seriously? "What practical difference" would it make. Sheesh.
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Bolshevik
Proving the supernatural would not end atheism.
It would move the boundary between natural and supernatural.
Discussion would continue. Practically speaking.
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TLC
It's as serious and straightforward as it gets, as it typically helps to identify and understand motive.
Does a million bucks make someone into a better, more loving, or more godly person?
Edited by TLCIf the signs, miracles, and wonders that were given weren't proof enough to persuade Israel to believe, then neither would any "proof" of the supernatural now suddenly end atheism.
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Raf
No, a million bucks does not make you a better person.
Sheesh, it's like you deliberately miss the point of the significance of objectively proving the supernatural. Like that's some small, insignificant feat.
There were no signs, miracles and wonders given to Israel. Those are made up stories, as reality-based as the myths of Perseus, Pandora, Hercules and Icarus. To call them miracles is to call them history, and they are not history. The evidence that would be there if they WERE history doesn't exist, and it is not merely an absence of evidence, but evidence of absence.
And, uh, yeah, proof of the supernatural -- objective, indisputable proof -- would actually "end" atheism, since lack of belief in the supernatural based on lack of evidence for it is a major reason people are atheist.
It all boils down to this: You are making a claim, Speaking in Tongues.
All I'm asking you to do is prove your claim, and all you're doing is coming up with one excuse after another why you can't.
You can't prove your claim because your claim is false. You're faking it. You KNOW you're faking it at this point. But for some reason it makes you feel better to act as if the burden of proving you're faking it is mine and what difference does it make anyway. It makes all the difference between having confidence that you are doing what God promised you can do (which has Biblical definitions and logical repercussions) or you knowing full well that you're faking it as surely as I was.
I'm done arguing with nonsensical arguments. Document your language or STFU already.
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Bolshevik
Some people see a sunset and see God. Other people see a sunset and ponder Raleigh scattering.
"Proving" SIT might change atheism for you. It won't for me. Perhaps my reasons are different.
It is noteworthy the refusal to use the word "lying".
SIT is a small point. "I'm speaking in tongues" . . . "no you are not, because I am not" . . . "you are not, but I am" . . . "no you are not, you are just claiming to be" . . . "that's just you're perspective, you don't know me" . . . "well I'll leave you to your fantasy, peace"
Kind of a bigger deal with say, disease.
"I'm healed by my faith!" . . . "no you are not, go see a doctor" . . . "you can't make me"
Or you know, how government works. That's politics. We don't talk about that.
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Raf
Bolshevik, I don't disagree with you, but I submit that different conversations are taking place here. Yours is honest and intellectual. TLC's is trolling. So I'm hesitant to explain myself to you because I'm tired of the way comments are taken out of context by other participants (TLC) to deflect from the main point of this thread.
Proving the supernatural does not prove God. But it's a significant step. So if I oversimplified it, mea culpa. The point remains the same. Biblical SIT would prove the supernatural. Because it fails to do so, people feel the need to redefine Biblical SIT. Oh, it's not a known language (yes it is). It's tongues of angels (no, it's not). It has been proven numerous times (no, it hasn't). It hasn't been disproven (it doesn't have to be. It has to be proven). Blah blah blah.
I think there's a big difference between ... wanting to believe something, taking a step, getting encouraged by a bunch of people who want the same and best for you, you believe God, you want to please him, and folks are telling you that your doubts are of the devil, so you believe it and it gets easier and easier and easier and you're constantly reinforced by people who love God and love each other that it's a real and beautiful thing ... and lying.
I agree with you on the SIT argument. Disease? "I'm a faith healer." (No, you're not). "The Bible says I am." (Ok, fine, let's head to the hospital and take care of some folks). "It doesn't work that way." (Oh for Pete's sake...)
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T-Bone
edited - sorry off topic
Edited by T-Boneexcuse please...off topic
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Raf
Really, really think about this logically.
If you knew for a FACT that God parted the Red Sea FOR YOU, and YOU walked across it, seeing the sea on both sides of you failing to crash down on you as you walked across on dry land, would you EVER doubt God again?
Yet they did. This is not logical. It's just not.
If the signs, miracles and wonders God performed for Israel weren't enough to get them to believe, what makes anyone think they actually happened? Their failure to believe in the face of such overwhelming confirmation is a characteristic of fiction, not history. Israel failed to believe because the plot required them to.
Do yourself a favor. Go read Judges, particularly the section on Samson. Read it slowly, as history. Remember these are real people in a story that actually happened. When you're done, ask yourself... What kind of UTTER MORON is Samson? I mean, just how stupid do you have to be?
This whole "if Israel didn't believe after signs and wonders, Raf won't believe if SIT is confirmed with an actually produced language verified by an independent third party" is based on a false premise -- that the experience of Israel being cited is true. It's not. It's no more true than Perseus beheading the Gorgon. It's no more true than Joseph Smith translating the golden plates. It's no more true than Muhammad mounting a flying horse and taking off for heaven. Citing the example of these stories as if they are history to prove that I would not accept the result of the objective testing of a testable claim is just a way of chickening out of testing the claim.
If you had real faith in the claim, you wouldn't hesitate to test it. Instead you redefine the claim to make it untestable.
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Raf
I was going over the original posts that resurrected this thread after two years of dormancy, and I wanted to address this one. The numbers were not included in the post being quoted. I added them for convenience of reference.
Ok, so here we go:
1. The feelings you experience during SIT are subjective, and you experience because you want to. The Bible doesn't promise "chills," good or bad, when you SIT. The presence of chills is a psychological result of the fact that you believe you are doing something that connects you to God. That you feel it doesn't prove or disprove it. That someone practicing free vocalization DOESN'T experience those things is a result of the fact that such a person is not expecting or even desiring such things. You can get "spiritual insights" walking your doggie. That doesn't make dog-walking a manifestation of the spirit.
2. I doubt anyone would do a brain scan of people practicing free vocalization because ... why? I know we talked at length about the brain studies in the original thread where we hashed these things out, but the bottom line is this: When you are practicing free vocalization, you are not pre-thinking the sounds you will make. You don't really have to. You just go and let the syllables fly. The brain scans of people speaking in tongues show they are not using the language centers of the brain. No kidding. You would only do that if you were pre-thinking the sounds. You're not pre-thinking the sounds in SIT. So the result SOUNDS like "they're not making it up," but that's an incorrect extrapolation. They ARE just making it up. They're just not pre-thinking the sounds. I agree with you: I would expect the brain scans of people practicing free vocalization to be identical to those professing to speak in tongues. As for whether actors or practitioners of other religions experiencing the same effects you feel... I think I answered that in point 1. There is no reason, none, to believe that the effects you describe are anything but psychosomatic.
3. Most of this is doctrinal, except that last line. If Paul spoke in tongues privately, then it's possible that people speaking in tongues today are still practicing Biblical SIT. I agree. It's possible. If they're producing a language. If they are not producing a language, it is not Biblical SIT. Biblical SIT was always a language. Whether it was identified or not, it was always a language. Tongues are languages. You cannot speak in tongues without producing a language. So the fact that people do it privately doesn't invalidate it. The fact that they're not producing languages invalidates it. I know, I know, no one has proved these are not languages. Fine. But the failure to ever identify an actual language in any sample of SIT argues against the notion that languages are routinely being produced but disinterested observers are NEVER able to spot them, ever (except, of course, for anonymous people who are conveniently now half a world away).
4. A doctrinal question, but briefly: Have you given ANY consideration to the idea that you might maybe be misinterpreting Paul? That he was not writing to Christians who would be living 2000 years after he wrote but to the actual recipients of his letters? Or is it possible that he wishes you would all speak in tongues, but he somehow forgot to tell anyone HOW, and we were all taught a counterfeit method we embraced because we wanted it to be true?
On a separate note, you asked in a related post for an example of how someone can fake doing something without realizing they were faking it. I don't know if you realize it, but PFAL taught us exactly how to do that. Here are the ingredients:
A - Sincere and intense desire to do it.
B - Indoctrination into its availability.
C - Tearing down of inhibitions that would block you from faking it (a group setting was REAL handy for this).
D - Social reinforcement. We're all with ya!
E - (and this one is crucial) Dispel doubt at the beginning, or BEFORE the beginning, by equating doubt with unbelief and devilishness.
VOILA!
For those of us who shared a similar experience, we probably DID know from the very first moment that we were faking it. But we were told repeatedly beforehand that doubt, worry and fear issue from unbelief and were of the devil. We were told immediately that the thoughts we were having (that we were faking it) was the devil trying to talk us out of it. You wouldn't want the devil to win, would you? Besides, no one gets left out. You wouldn't want to be the one who got left out, would you?
I don't know how you started SIT, but regardless, if you're not producing a language, you're not speaking in tongues. No matter how it makes you feel.
[Yes, I am aware that not everyone had the same "first SIT" experience. My post answers a question of how people could fake it without knowing it. That anyone had a different first SIT experience is beside the point in answering that question].
Edited by RafAdding the last paragraph in parenthesis to clarify a point.
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Raf
T-Bone, you were not off topic, to the best of my knowledge.
By the way, does anyone still have a copy of RTHST or the Green Book? I'm interested in reviewing the "How to Speak in Tongues"
Edited by Rafchapters.
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WordWolf
I do, but not in front of me. Which do you need? Both? I can get back to you on this Friday. (Time-constraints are on me until then, and are not on me Fri, AFAIK.)
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