chockfull

This is Doctrinal, where "a ton of scriptural references" actually BELONGS. Someone presenting an exegesis of I Cor. 14 that they have previously worked up certainly applies, and for you to discourage it by calling it "patronizing" and "barraging" is against the purpose of this subforum and the general guidelines of this site. I don't want to see this kind of post on this thread again. I would prefer to see that post removed, and anywhere I've quoted it I will remove the entire post and rebuttal also.

And this is one of the primary reasons it's been contentious. There are a number of studies we've read, and most of the authors are of the opinion that people are making up tongues. However, they don't really provide evidence. The most accomplished linguist of the lot presented some studies where he mapped consonants in a language to a glossa sample (we never saw detail on where those were obtained or who they involved for the most part). The evidence pointed to an inconclusive result. However, even that author drew a conclusion that there were no languages involved. So you have the negative side making absolute statements like this that something has been proven, or all the evidence supports another side. And that's absolutely a falsehood. That's the root of the contention. An accurate statement from the evidence seen to date would be that all the evidence is inconclusive trying to prove that SIT produces a language. This also is a problem handling this subject honestly. So many people have had negative and traumatic experiences in TWI that ANYTHING that could be perceived as TWI doctrine is very negative to them. Well, I would say that if the negative side of this argument can't come up with some patience to cover doctrine and studies that could run parallel or have similar points to a TWI teaching, then they should just zip it and suffer in silence. After all, the positive side of this argument has had to endure about 70+ pages of opinion stated as fact, just like the first paragraph of your post here. And people who want to be Christians in a modern world want to pattern their lives after scripture. So for naysayers to present that something changed magically to make that not available any longer, yet have no logical explanation of what that might be (other than one poster made a one-line comment saying check into cessationist theory) - that is just disingenuous. If you've heard the common description "dog in a manger", that is basically what they are doing with no logical basis to back them up. No, they are not getting the dialogue they want with the affirmative posters. Meaning having all their opinion received as fact unchallenged. I say post up your research and studies regardless of where they are positioned w/r to TWI. If knuckleheads want to hate on it, let them. I seriously doubt that. Anyone that could write the first paragraph of that post has their mind made up by the incessant rhetoric of opinion and will not let any fact get in their way.

No, that's not the case. However, we have equally well-intentioned people on the other side of the argument that have told us stories about being in meetings where the tongue that was spoken was understood. So for equity and balance on both sides of this argument, you don't get a free pass for saying that you lied and faked. That also has to be proven. My experience is different. So in the absence of any proof you provide for this, that is the extent of what we have. Different experiences around the worship manifestations, you say people can make up full 10 sentence messages on the fly, having them flow perfectly with scripture and make sense. I say that's highly questionable from what I have seen and what I personally could accomplish. I think they are not making them up, and the extent is that they get stuck and insert some words. So your use of the words "darn well" you are presenting as proof here of some sort? Of course we have all seen pages and pages of rhetoric, opinion stated as fact, and research that doesn't prove anything. I think the fact that I've seen all that is a joke, for sure, as opposed to proof and realistic conversation. But I can't do anything about that. I can see you seem honest about how things worked in your mind. When you say "no immediate revelation", my understanding of interpretation and prophecy in a worship setting is that it doesn't work via revelation. It works speaking it forth very similar to how you SIT. I would take issue with the phrase "I reached into my subconscious mind". If it's subconscious, then reaching into it is a conscious act, hence making it not the subconscious mind. Of course you may BELIEVE NOW that your subconscious mind is producing the interpretation or prophecy. But that is not proof or a guarantee that is actually what occurred. Your intentions and what actually happened are not necessarily tied together. You could not mean to lie or fake it, and actually be lying and faking it. You could also not mean to lie and fake, and NOT have any of that involved. So in other words whoever convinced you that you were lying and faking has made you less happy? You're losing me - I don't see a link to any study related to metacognition. I didn't find that at all. And that includes hearing messages on the teaching service hookups. That doesn't validate the teachings were any good. Messages were different, varied, and edifying. You know, interestingly enough there is a Charismatic Catholic movement. And as far as being inspirational, I would listen to manifestations at any meeting over listening to those clowns pray with their understanding. I felt like I needed a shower after that.

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

I think the literary world uses "metaphorically" in a broader sense than Bullinger does, basically meaning what you say - a synonym for "figuratively". I took your use of the word "metaphorically" to be in the literary sense. There could be more than one figure of speech applicable to that phrase.

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.

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?

Even further along these lines, the phrase "speaking in tongues" to me IMMEDIATELY signifies a figure of speech? Why? The phrase itself is a departure from normal usage. It is redundant. Simply using the word "speaking" (in either Greek or English, or Aramaiac - same in any language) IMMEDIATELY connotates the use of a language. The English common translation of that phrase uses the organ as what is defined. It COULD have been translated "speaking in languages". Do you see how redundant that sounds in English? I say from what I've noticed there is a FOS called metonymy in that phrase (metonymy is the Greek word for "change"). This figure is a changing or swapping out of words. In this case I can notice a metonymy. In other words, the word "tongues" is expressed for what it produces - "language". This calls attention to even deeper meaning possibilities. Like for example, you use your tongue literally, then God changes it to produce the language on the back end. To me the figure makes it clearer what is going on. This is an aspect of language we haven't dealt with yet. I'm thinking in English typing this. Yet not using any vocal sounds whatsoever to communicate.

Suffice it to say that the extent that languages have mathematical structures that can be charted and verified is debatable and questionable. The most we have seen on any published research to date is the practice of consonant mapping (taking the consonant letters of a language and trying to map sounds of an unknown segment of speech against it), and Hockett's 16 rules of language (what consists of a language). Language is like a code. If you understand the code and can speak it, it makes sense. If you do not, it does not make sense. One example of this is the movie "Wind Talkers". That movie is very interesting with respect to the topic on this thread and other similar ones. In that movie, WWII enemy code crackers were breaking the codes normally used in communications in the Army, and obtaining an advantage. So a code was constructed out of Navajo soldier's native language, and a figurative representation of certain words being code within the native language for troop configurations and movement. The code was not broken throughout the duration of the war. The men involved were honored as heros, and a movie was made out of it. To me this represents how easy it is to encode a message within a language and have it be undetected. Your understanding expressed in this paragraph to me just shows how effective one side of the argument has been here in convincing others to blindly accept the opinion of researchers without questioning their methods.

The angle on this that struck my mind reading through Raf's succinct detailing out of the scriptures with the word glossa in them was that of the three definitions, are we ABSOLUTELY SURE that glossa in I Cor. 14:2 means "languages" when used in the format "speaking in tongues" as opposed to a more figurative interpretation of metaphorically representing the physical organ itself? Could it be a "tongues like as of fire" reference? Could there be more to understanding the metonymy FOS with the tongue being stated for the language it produces? Could this metonymy be a clever play on words by God portraying that you take the action in the physical realm with the organ itself and God responds in the spiritual realm with a language? These are just thoughts, nothing proven, nothing cemented into belief, just considering the implications and reading scripture. Probably doesn't do anything for proof for either side of the argument either, but it's an interesting consideration.

Let the convo flow. I don't have time to police every post to nag people to stay very narrowly on a specific topic. Plus I'm working on what interests me on the topic so hopefully that's a better effort than policing anyway. If I need to find something in the midst of static I can use Search. I say if it's related doctrinally in your perception to the I Cor 12-14 section in any way it's fair game here, so feel free to bring it up. There's another interesting sidetrack here. You mention the ease of making up a new language. Well, computer science has hundreds of languages, and a new one is made up almost every year. Is that completely different? Or are there similarities? Ruling out possibilities related to this field is very, very hard.

TnO, this isn't the thread for Christ's love, peace, and long-suffering. If you want one of those, please feel free to make one and comment away on it to your heart's desire. :) I'm joking. But in all seriousness, TnO on this thread you have a low contribution rate and a high demand rate. Just to fill you in on what you're not understanding because you haven't been participating, this is somewhat of a challenging topic for many post TWI. Those of us who are way over emotional, negative, and a hindrance to others are also the ones doing about 98% of the work on this thread to dig out materials, evaluate research, learn linguistics as a science, and communicate with other Christians and experts in the community. At times all this extra work could wear us out to the point we are a little less than cordial. So my suggestion to you is to possibly lift a little of the load to spread to contribute and be a little more tolerant of those who are. As pertains to your suggestion of taking time off - I try and do that whenever things get heated or I perceive an imbalance in my life situations. It's not good to be mad on the internet, and I don't have a responsibility to correct people if they are wrong on the internet. But for you, Theodore Roosevelt has a great quote to consider starting with "it's not the critic that counts". It's one that you might enjoy reading when you are at the decision point of criticizing others or making valid substantive contribution to the topic yourself.

Yeah, I remember working that a while ago. I don't remember all the details but I remember the impression I had of Wierwille's "laleo" being suspect, and can confirm that trying to apply it across the board gets you quickly baffled. I don't know if "laleo" makes a difference or not, I've not yet re-evaluated that word study post-TWI. In I Cor. 14:9, I'm not sure if the utter by tongue is referring to SIT, or if the entire phrase "unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to understood" is a conditional clause that stands on its own describing a separate possible act of communication.

Whatever. I've been sick of your name-calling and snide comment BS for about 40 pages now, so you've brought it on yourself by your demeanor and words to others. And I call things how I see them, regardless of whether or not knuckleheads get offended. If you offer no position of belief, and avoid questioning along the lines of what you believe, but all you do is attack others who do offer positive positions of belief, then that is being a hater. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with seeking your approval or disapproval. You know, sometimes I read the adjectives in your posts and they are like so extreme that I have to wonder - "never accurate", "never appropriate", "beneath you", "vile and despicable act", "taunting and bullying", "reprehensible". I mean, that level of emotion is not normal in communication. It sounds like you're about to burst a blood vessel. I really hope it's just you being dramatic and not a genuine problem. It's not good to get mad on the internet.

Thanks for the analysis. And it does seem that your doctrinal position centers completely on the word tongue to carry the definition "languages" in I Cor. 14:2. To summarize, there are 3 definitions for glossa: 1) the organ 2) the organ used to represent something else metaphorically 3) languages (this use could be the figure of speech metonymy - or a substitution of the tongue for what it produces) The Corinthians uses could possibly also be either metaphoric or metonymy (just posing the question, not in my beliefs currently).

Adding that Raf posted up his complete doctrinal position in the analysis of the word tongues in the Doctrinal section. Or at least something that is close to his complete doctrinal position. He is laying out the case for what he feels means "languages" in I Cor. 14:2. So I withdraw my objection that Raf has not stated his beliefs doctrinally. He has as of now. And I will discuss those points in doctrinal. And as of now, I'll stop calling Raf a "hater". Because the behavior changed, that word is no longer accurate to me.

Another way of stating this extremely biased paragraph is to note that people in general were starting to be interested again in spiritual matters. Some of this interest was diverted into occult practices - the Ouija board was invented by wives of WWII veterans with this interest. The interest in spiritual matters also resulted in a new interest in the "gifts of the spirit", where that had not been considered for centuries. The Pentecostal movement developed in this timeframe. Along with genuine spiritual interest, the frauds developed cons to take advantage of this interest. Does the existence of con artists prove that the whole thing was a fraud? Or just that whenever the genuine power of God comes into view, the frauds will be there to counterfeit and take attention away from the power of the true God. When Moses and Aaron performed the miracles in front of the Pharoah of Egypt, immediately after the miracles Pharoah's spiritual advisors, the con artists, discounted the miracles and also performed huckster tricks to try and duplicate the miracles to convince Pharoah not to believe Moses and Aaron. Where did that lead for the hard-heads? Fraud is ALWAYS rampant. All you need is something genuine, then the frauds will be there to try and duplicate it. This is why money counterfeiters fake $20 bills, not $3 bills. As a history teacher, don't quit your day job. Of course at that time, just like today, there were misguided people. Misguided in scriptures, misguided in testing SIT, misguided in trying to dictate to God which language would be produced. There was no "switching gears and start calling it a spiritual language". Basically, like today, you had people trying to squeeze some EXTRA meaning out of verses trying to push them to say that you could PROVE that SIT is a language. To squeeze any of those verses there is a fraud and a con involved. What you have to do is IGNORE clear verses saying that when someone SIT, others do not understand. Then, once you've ignored that verse, you can't come up with another verse directly that says linguists can understand it. No, what you have to do is argue that when it says tongues, that implicitly means languages. Oh, and not "spiritual languages", no they have to be real human languages. That you can test God with, demanding that God ensure that the language spoken when you SIT is one that can be understood without interpretation by others, even though the Bible explicitly states that when you are SIT outside your private prayer life, you believe for an interpretation. In the day in which we live, after the return of Christ, I would NOT "demand evidence" in the case of healing. How obnoxious is that. I'm in a prayer meeting, someone prays for another person, they stand up and declare "I'm healed - praise be to God". I stand up and say "I don't believe it. I demand evidence". What a Debbie Downer it would be to do that in a meeting. Or I sit there like a lump with a skeptical look on my face. The context of I Cor. 14 is spiritual matters, and defining practices for them. This includes both in the context of a typical worship meeting as well as outside of the context of a worship meeting. It is clear it includes both, as there are certain phrases in I Cor. 14 that include the words "in the church" to distinguish that phrase as pertaining only to the context of the worship meeting as opposed to inclusive of other contexts. There is no "blanket prohibition against inquiry". There is a simple definition that people can choose to note or ignore. If you ignore what God says there is a world of foolishness out there awaiting you. God doesn't issue blanket prohibitions against banging your head against the wall either.

Samarin is the one study that I've seen that has linguistics terms and discussion in it. We've discussed this already on the thread - he goes into 16 characteristics of a language, and consonant mapping. Those were the two tools I saw where linguists were trying to get at kinds of knowledge of a language or utterance they couldn't understand. If people were honestly pursuing knowledge on this topic I would say save it, write a paragraph about your language background, and put it up on a file share site somewhere that you could later give someone access to. But I don't see any evidence of a lot of wanting to pursue knowledge on the topic. All I see is a continual bashing of beliefs that don't line up with what the thread starter has already decided, and the main goal of trying to convert people to admit they were lying and faking in TWI.

And one more time, Raf has NOT made his points on the doctrinal foundation of his point, either here OR in the doctrinal forum, and there are valid concerns with that which I have raised and that have NOT been answered. What are these concerns? 1) No scriptural verse backing what Raf says is a "promise" that "modern SIT will produce languages". 2) Rejecting that I Cor. 14:2 says "no man understands", yet using the same verse to try and prove SIT is guaranteed to produce a human language. 3) No response at all for "no man understands", yet that is CORE to the premise of his whole foundation.

OK, so for doctrinal position this is the first substantive post I see from Raf on this. To summarize, his position unless he wants to refute it is that God doesn't give a promise in scripture that "SIT is a language". My point is substantiated. Raf isn't interested in investigating this from a truth perspective, just to attack people's beliefs. Of course, I'm still left with the question of what exact Biblical standard he is referring to here, as it takes an act of God to even get him to admit ANY kind of Biblical position with scriptures AT ALL.

Get over yourself. You "may even respond"????? You've "entertained it long enough"???? Who died and made you king? You are not posting your doctrinal assertions on that doctrinal thread, and others aren't either. The only "doctrinal digression" going on here is you writing the word "NO" when asked for your doctrinal position on this topic. Condescending tone. Assumption you "own" the thread and the argument. Talking about fictional "digressions" when the topic of your main post HAS to include a doctrinal assumption. Of course any discussion challenging your assumptions on this topic is ON TOPIC. You are just dishonestly trying to frame the conversation in a way that interests only you. You aren't the only person on this website.

OK I'll take that criticism. To me its been interesting to dig into the broad scientific study to see what I can learn from language form and context (not language meaning as its not understood). I've learned more about the detail in linguistics than I ever knew before. I guess I still hold the viewpoint that if a scripture speaks clearly on a subject that it is going to outweigh man's observations about the subject. But I'm still interested to read the observations, if nothing more than to further my education on it. I thought I was posting up plenty of commentary on the substance of that broad field of study and all the research we are reading, even if I didn't agree with them. I thought that wasn't ignoring it. But since I'm arguing one side of an argument, I guess I'll take the "I'm ignoring the research" observation instead of the "I'm disagreeing with the research". But I really don't think I'm ignoring it.

I was still looking for a verse that backs up the position that modern SIT producing a language is a promise of God, like he states. Do you have one that you think he supports? I understand the roundabout reasoning of the word tongues being translated the same as language. However, I see that as a secondary thing in ANY of the verses. Maybe there is no clear verse stating that promise. I'm not thinking of all the verses, and OldSkool brought another one up about proving God that I hadn't thought about until he did. If so, then I'd like someone to state that. All Raf ever does is say "I've already refuted you" when he's never discussed the point of whether he feels there IS a clear verse on the subject stating the promise and where it is. Or that there is not a clear verse on the subject, and his position is that "glossa" should be translated "languages" everywhere, not the physical organ of the tongue, which it IS translated in certain places. I'm just looking for substance on the argument and coming up way short. And Raf is too emotionally involved at this stage to give me a straight answer. I don't know, I took offense at the snide comment most recently asking if I was just "making this stuff up and expecting everyone to believe it" when I stated a clear verse, a direct reading of the verse, and an applicable one of the 10 Commandments. And I take offense at all those similar comments. And if he is not going to cut that out, there are times where I am going to throw that cr@p back at him. I mean do you literally think that I made up one of the 10 Commandments? Or is that a BS statement and a snide comment? He is being rude. And I am complaining. But rather than waiting for another's resolution on it, I'm handling it myself by confronting him on it. And I am responding in kind. One thing I did way too often in TWI is not stand up for myself. People would attack, and I would just internalize and eat it, then it would build up. That's a great recipe for a lack of physical and mental well being. So I'm handling things as they come up. It has kind of fluctuated. Been worse and better. Usually gets better for a while after it gets confronted, then emerges later along with frustration at logical arguments.

Well, your post on J.E. Stiles and info from that site gives a lot of insight. He was a Pentecostal that split with his church and felt his mission was to lead many into SIT. So he did. I think Stiles writing in his book was groundbreaking and a clear distinction and break from mainstream Pentecostal teachings of his day. He could arguably have had a genuine ministry like BG Leonard that Wierwille glommed onto and plagiarized for himself. Hmmm. No makeup, long dresses, bowl haircuts for the guys, women can't speak in the church, a sound system that involves turning the minister's mic up to about 120 decibals, and a crappy band as backup. And all their repressed out of control behavior being expressed "in the spirit". Once you understand them, what's not to like?

OK. How do you account for the "nobody understands" in I Cor. 14:2 with the specific way you are supposed to prove it? Proving Him could carry many connotations, including proving Him by SIT yourself. Also, what's the explanation of the apparent contradiction in scripture between the commandment "thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" and "prove me now herewith" in your view? That's a little finer grained cut, but it must be doable if scripture doesn't put us in a non-winning predicament. And your opinion about Raf having "discredited my argument scripturally", and me "acting as if he had not"????