chockfull

Here's the last 6 lines quoted from Samarin p. 50 P2. word for word. This way we don't mix in your opinion and toilet paper. "In this clinical self-analysis we read that Le Baron had been getting messages from what he called his "psychic automaton" in English; then even carried on conversation. Then one Sunday morning, during one of these private conversations in his hotel room, another "language" replaced English. Because he wrote down many of the messages he got on subsequent occasions, along with their translations (from the same psychic automatism), we are able to compare Le Baron's glossolalia with samples from Americans today. They are, in my opinion, so much alike that we must accept all as manifestations of the same linguistic phenomenon". So here, we have a medium and his spirit guide talking to him in another language. And Samarin's conclusion? IT'S THE SAME AS SIT. I provided another quote of Le Baron's complete account, where he identified two non-Aryan languages in the message from his spirit guide. Samarin here doesn't mention anything about those languages. Did he check them out? We don't know. All we know is that Samarin states an opinion on it. Here, we can give Samarin so much more credit than we can his main proponents like Raf. When he is stating his opinion, mostly he uses the words "in my opinion". So in Samarin's opinion a conversation with a devil spirit in another language has to be the same thing as all the other phenomenon. Sorry Samarin. I DON'T ACCEPT YOUR OPINION ON IT. I think a conversation with a devil spirit is far different than SIT.

Waysider, here's a quote from early on in the thread where Raf is equating what happened to me with making up my own language in the 6th grade. Complete BS. Complete attack. Completely dishonest.

Raf, you have been producing rhetoric for 60 pages. And you say I am wasting your time? Look in the mirror. I have taken time out of my life because of your original name-calling and BS, telling me that I am lying to myself and faking my prayer life. I suspend disbelief, dig into every single article you present and discuss it with you. Some of them are hard to keep straight, as they reference the same studies. There are infinitely more problems, like linguist terms. Like theologian terms, which we did not learn in TWI. You and I for a while kept some of this straight, providing quotes and references. We have produced three accounts where people experienced SIT and others understood. Two in our small sample space of TWI meetings, from people with reputations that are sound. One from a Catholic account, where the detail shows spontaneity. You summarily reject these, basically saying "I don't believe it". And you keep repeating over and over "modern SIT doesn't produce a language". I don't believe you are approaching this in an honest fashion. If you were, you would not have repeated yourself over and over stating opinion as fact. I provided ample documentation in even the past 4 pages of you doing exactly that. You don't refute any of it, you just ignore where I point this out. You are doing exactly what was done to us in TWI. Take an opinion, act like it is the truth, and repeat it over and over again. After a certain period of time, you see people repeating your terms. Then you know you have them. Your tactics on this thread dishonestly couched as scientific investigation are no different than the tactics TWI used to repeat things they wanted us to believe over and over again until we believed them. Now you are acting just like those TWI leaders. Once your BS gets called, you stick your nose up in the air and try to communicate to the readers you are trying to convince that it is far beneath you to respond to criticism. I call that weak. When logic fails, name call and stop responding. That kind of weakness of character speaks for itself on this thread. You think people can't see that? Oh wait, yes you do think you can fool the people. All you need to do is repeat your mantra one more time, right? The topic of devil spirits in TWI was handled wrong. Yes, common maladies were called devil spirits. However, when I have a guy in a séance saying he is talking to a spirit guide, perhaps you might consider that as evidence? So you don't think Raf said "I'm lying and so is everyone else. Everyone who SIT in modern times is faking it". ??? Go read the first page of this thread again.

Yes TWI has doctrinal error. This is not much of a shock considering how much practical error we've observed. Well, the important thing to me in this sentence is you didn't fake it. But of course, now, you could be convinced that you did fake it. That would kind of suck. No, I don't believe that it is proof of everything. I've dealt with defense mechanisms too. In myself and others. In all honesty, the biggest defense mechanisms I see on this thread are Raf's. He summarily rejects accounts where people SIT and others understood. He repeats over and over again his opinion of "modern SIT doesn't produce a language". I call BS. Modern SIT, IN MY OPINION, may be faked, it may be referred to by scientists as a conversation that is psychic between a medium and their spirit guide, or it may be genuine. Why? There was no burden of proof on Paul at the house of Cornelius, or in other accounts of Biblical SIT, so why now automatically has modern SIT produced this need for proving it? There is a dichotomy on this topic in modern Christianity that has been there for a greater period of time than the existence of the Way ministry. And Jesus should have thrown himself from the pinnacle during Satan's temptation. After all, if God said He would bear him up, then if He wouldn't do it, then where is the integrity in believing that God would have taken care of him? God is true. What if the moon was made of green cheese and all I had to do to convince others of it was to repeat over and over "the moon is made of green cheese", then "this has been proven", and "it's undisputed the evidence in support of that". And I can say this over the course of a 60 page conversation, including those phrases as many times as possible in the same vicinity, then when someone calls me on that, get real upset, say that you never said exactly that and your words are being twisted, and refuse to discuss it logically any more? To me, if I can pray to God and get born again, and pray further and simply SIT without any further instruction, then if I become "willing to accept" that somehow my prayers are BS, and God didn't answer them, then how is the prayer in which I became born again any different?

I give you a fully sourced, fully quoted reference refuting your claim that the medium Albert Le Baron that these men are studying related to the xenoglossia term spoke in a language that was recognized, Samarin references this in his paper, and somehow you can still remain in denial about it? I read the report. Until you can provide something more than a one-liner and name-calling, you have no argument. Quote Samarin, do something. No, I explained the legitimate problem with the term that is being used. It is used indiscriminately between people talking with their spirit guides, people faking SIT, and potentially people genuinely SIT. If you can't have an honest conversation because someone doesn't like the fact that your pet term pretty much is the clearest argument for scientists not being able to distinguish between devil spirit and holy spirit, and that you want to call it an "innate human ability" then that's your problem.

Here's another account of languages spoken in a tongue understood by another, courtesy of our good Catholic friends: De Nile isn't just a river going through the Amazon. "Free vocalization" is a made up term. I'm finding that it causes confusion using it, as I'm not sure whether it is talking about people SIT, people faking it, or a medium talking to his spirit guide. So no all of those things to me don't represent an innate human ability.

Another example of Raf saying "Modern SIT does not produce languages". Or wait, he wasn't really saying it :blink: One more - Here's Raf saying in his own words of his own main source that Samarin never proves that modern SIT do not produce languages. I know - my alternate universe again. ======================================= All right - from my perspective I've gone back to p. 57 of this discussion, and already found numerous examples of where Raf is stating "modern SIT does not produce languages" as fact and not an opinion. That's in the last 4 pages. So until someone points out to me the difference in the alternate universe where I'm obtaining these quotes from a real universe, I'm going to go with Raf is stating opinion as fact when he says "modern SIT does not produce languages", and that this hasn't been proven.

Here's an example of stating opinion as fact. It is not proven that "neither are those who SIT". So why are you stating is as fact? Or is this another case that I'm reading in an alternate universe that although I have the quote, you didn't really say it? There is no testable evidence that agrees with you that those that are SIT are not producing human languages. Just that nobody understood what was spoken.

The burden of proof fallacy basically is "whoever said something first or loudest has to prove it". You are mixing up the A's and the B's here. Raf started the thread. He made claim A. I thought he was full of hot air speaking about my personal private prayer life in that fashion. I stated B. If there is a burden of proof here by the standard definition it's Raf's, as he made the big fat claim in the first 10 posts on this thread before I even entered it. However, in reviewing the history of this argument, who started the claim on one side or the other is harder to pinpoint, so I'm saying neither side has a burden that they have to prove. I'm just tired of hearing Claim A stated as fact over and over again. "No modern SIT produces a language". Now we have Raf saying he didn't say that over and over. So maybe I read it in an alternate universe.

They were understood in the medium's case. You just haven't read the account referenced by Samarin yet. I'll leave off the other name calling to you. On p. 56 of Samarin's article, paragraph 2, he references Albert Le Baron's personal record, which was submitted to the American Society for Psychical Research by William James. Below is Le Baron's account written in that article: So tell me again how the languages weren't understood? If they weren't understood, then how would it be possible to "pencil them down and subsequently trace them to primitive Dravidian or British Indian?"

Sure. It's not an unreasonable opinion. And we have a couple accounts of this even in our miniscule sample space on this forum. The "documented" part is called into question, and there are legitimate reasonable unanswered questions in the accounts that we would want to see as documentation. The studies bring up some of these, like the language background of the speaker, individual accounts from the person themselves who heard the tongue in their native language, answers to questions like 'was it just a random word here and there, or were there fully formulated phrases and sentences in your native language' etc. etc. ad nauseum. Basically to try and get more detail showing facts and stories that would lead an average person to conclude the person wasn't lying and the speaker didn't have the previous exposure to the language to fake it. One such account acknowledged as true proves it. It is difficult to impossible to disprove tongues are a currently or previously known language. So what is "proven and incontrovertible fact" concerning the matter? Very little indeed.

Yeah I know. There is a burden of proof dilemma - who's responsible to prove it. Then there's the actual proof dilemma, proving a negative. Both are dilemmas. And it is a TON of energy wasted because Raf keeps using the "proven fact and undisputed" line. The average reader can see the disputation of this in almost any page in this 60-page thread. I call this the "Iraq Minister of Defense" logical fallacy, where every sound bite you hear from the guy he was proclaiming how the Iraqi army was victorious over the invading Americans. Proving a negative is hard to impossible? Geez. I guess you think the reader can't read the 100+ times you've written "modern SIT is not a language", and "that is a proven fact and undisputed".

I read your accusation "your goal has been to defend it at any cost" to be projection. You don't know my inner heart thoughts, desires, and goals. So you must be talking about your goals here. You are so delusional about "factually true and undisputed" that you refuse to even acknowledge that the scientific method inherently acknowledges the difficulty of proving a negative. Proving SIT is not a language and never was a language such as the definition of it states even science says in general about that type of proof that it is difficult to impossible.

My goal is still to investigate SIT. And my opinion on the research changes the more I delve into the facts and the more I read. When my opinion changes, such as on the term "free vocalization", I explain the reasons why. Of course, that I keep stating it as my opinion makes it a whole lot easier to read than if I was trying to claim it as proven fact all the way down the line. You keep saying it is "factually true and undisputed" that modern SIT doesn't produce a language. Yet you even yourself admit that it cannot be proven that the languages are not "existing living or dead human languages" as the most basic definition of SIT states they are. Now yes, I have to phrase that in a different way for you to admit - prove they "are not languages spoken today on Earth or that were spoken sometime in the past". But the underlying truth is still there. It is not proven that modern SIT doesn't produce a language. And not disputed? Sheesh - there's been valid disputation going on for the bulk of this thread. It's completely dishonest to say undisputed.

And I acknowledge this as your admission that the things I am challenging you to either produce an incontrovertible fact on or stop stating it as fact when it is your opinion are things which you are unable to prove. And so rather than get honest about it you would rather call me names and leave.

Apparently, we have different objectives. Yours is "to make your point", and "to answer silly, ridiculous accusations". Mine is to investigate this phenomena we call SIT, see what is out there scientifically on it, read it and analyze it, look at the doctrine and verses taught us in TWI and formulate a reasonable "post-TWI" stance on it, all to get a better grasp on a part of my private prayer life that has seemed to serve all right for me over the last 3 decades and more, and to see whether or not the accusation of me faking it and lying to myself had any basis to it or not, or if it was just someone spouting off hot air.

And again, more opinion as fact. Please show me where there is incontrovertible proof that they are producing the same thing. The only thing observed SINCE NONE OF THE LANGUAGES WERE UNDERSTOOD (except in medium's cases), were that they phonetically sounded the same. Which you have already beat that point to death getting at your opinion that just because they were phonetically similar doesn't prove anything.

Find a fact that proves this. Not a study where the people involved didn't understand the language and thus concluded it was not a language. Not a medium talking to his spirit guide (which actually DID produce a human language). Not someone concluding that because it was "non-conversational" that it wasn't a language. A fact proving that it was not a currently used language or one that was used at some point on Earth. Until you do this, I guess all you've got is telling me to shut up. Pathetic. It seems all I ever do in an exchange like this is to get you to finally drop back to you calling it "your opinion" as opposed to stating it as fact one more time.

No, testable evidence does not agree with you. You have conceded that nobody has proven that the SIT samples reviewed by the study writers "never would have been understood by anyone on Earth at any time". Thus, testable evidence does not agree with you. I even pointed out the lack of thoroughness of people doing the studies where they did not offer up the samples they were using worldwide to see if ANYONE currently living understood the languages. The study writers simply noted that they themselves, and others involved did not understand what was being spoken. So in summary, no the evidence does not support your conclusion. Next on the quality of the samples, which we do not have access to. We cannot corroborate, verify, examine, question the subjects like the burden of proof you want to place on tom and scott. So to accept those samples and reject the accounts of tom and scott for those exact reasons is completely illogical.

The fact that those claims are the ones that are illustrated in the very works you are now ignoring except for the terms "universally discredited" you are using kind of shows something about the credibility you have when using the word "prove". The fact that the term xenoglossia comes from an "automatic writing" study in which nobody is speaking at all kind of suggests something different, but hey, don't let facts get in your way. Actually, I think one of the medium messages from his spirit guide was in Spanish, which the medium didn't understand, but others did. You know, sometimes it helps if you actually spend more time reading the studies than you do immediately knee-jerk posting your opinions as proof. When you keep doing this, post after post, stating your opinion as fact, it leaves me with little alternative. I can either post the opposite opinion as fact equally, like "Those who SIT absolutely are producing human languages" to try and get equal billing time. Or I can call you out on it. But at this point, I think you know there are problems with you stating your opinion as fact, and you just don't care. You just want to get the rhetoric out there as many times stated as possible. So I'll state my take on this whole thing. And I'm going to call you out on it again. Those in Acts were SIT and producing tongues. Those today who SIT are also producing tongues. Some today are upset with their previous experience, either because they were dishonest, or have become dissatisfied with the cultic practices of the group that taught them this, or someone taught them in an abusive fashion and environment, or they have changed their view on the trinity and now want to worship an ethereal third persona of the Godhead called the Holy Spirit and relinquish control to "Him", or various other reasons. So they want to distance themselves from their previous experience. A very easy way to do this is to project their dissatisfaction on others. This is a psychological term called "projection". That is what you are doing. You are "projecting" your distrust that the Bible works today like it did for those in Acts on others. You have no logical explanation for why this would change, only point to existing theology opinions that it "died with the Apostles". When we are discussing subject sources, you dismiss some out of hand with very weak logical reasoning. Then later you feel bad about offending one of these people and apologize to them on the same thread you are acting this way on. Somehow we end up with a medium and his conversation with what the medium himself calls "spirit guides, psychic automatons, etc." are used in studies on SIT. And they "prove" that non-Christians can "free vocalize", which to me is kind of a BS term that describes they could either be SIT or talking to a spirit guide but producing similar sounding things to scientists who don't speak the languages involved. So yes, by all means, please point out how "ridiculous" my arguments are. And in the process, please try to avoid looking more "ridiculous" yourself. Let's start with the term "free vocalization" as being BS. It's not Biblical, it's not scientific, it's a descriptive word trying to lump two things together that don't belong together in the first place.

I am commenting on others' terms and studies. I don't draw conclusions in an all-encompassing and knee-jerk fashion, and then proclaim my opinion as "truth" or "proven". That would be more like the fashion you are arguing, it's true, but that's not how I roll. If you want to consider it a "strawman" to point out that doing studies on mediums and their spirit guides and using them to "prove" conclusions about SIT and how it works is inherently problematic, then by all means label that a strawman and hack away at it there, Don Quixote.

I wanted to chip in here on my perception of test subjects, eyewitness accounts, etc. When I started delving into the samples that some of these people writing books and studies had, what started to surface to me was the huge variation in sources that were being accepted. I see Poythress talk about how "free vocalization" can be performed by those not claiming Christian background. I see references in Samarin to xenoglossia. Then I see the actual examples they are talking about - the written works of William James to the American Psychic Research center of the account of Albert Lee getting messages from his "psychic automatism", the definition of the term xenoglossia by Charles Richet involving the medium that showed evidence of automatic writing in two languages. These are the bulk of the cited samples I see in research work of "non-Christians" doing "free vocalization". I will say that two firsthand accounts of people experiencing the phenomenon where there was SIT in a fellowship and people understood what was said in the tongue is AT LEAST equal and probably A LOT MORE PERTINENT to the topic we are studying than the examples presented in research. Why so? As I stated before, it seems that scientists are completely unable to distinguish between holy spirit and devil spirit in these accounts. In these accounts, we know people that were involved. We have heard their stories and experiences with TWI, we know how they think, we know their base reputation as not being prone to lying, we have physical details of the accounts involved. We don't have all the people's names, or their firsthand testimony of them understanding the SIT. To me, for me to be honest in evaluating these, I have to rank the sources. I rank them according to detail, credibility, reliability. And honestly I have to put socks and Tom's accounts higher at proving SIT than I do those of mediums talking to their spirit guides are related to proving "non-Christian free vocalization". Then I read Samarin's expressions of how amazed he is at the innate linguistic ability of mankind, to so closely reproduce the phonetic elements of a language in SIT. His amazement is at the subconscious human mind, how it can in such a detailed fashion craft all of these things. My amazement is a little different. I'm amazed at first, why a man not born-again would have such an interest in investigating spiritual born-again related phenomena, and secondarily how inept science is at measuring anything spiritual and coming to a rational logical conclusion. To me it is nowhere near a rational logical conclusion to look at a medium's account of communicating with his spirit guide, that spirit guide speaking in two languages, and to conclude that "free vocalization can be performed by non-Christians", and thus take that as proof that all Christian phenomena in the category is fake.

In the accounts I read of this people were amazed and gave the glory to God. And remembered it decades later. And it was confirmed by everyone in the room. Oh, you mean "confirmed in a lab"??? The only thing confirmed in a lab is experiments on mice.

LOL. If you don't HAVE the knowledge, then you CAN'T DEMONSTRATE IT. SIT is not demonstrating the knowledge of a language, it is demonstrating the language itself. Oh, I don't know. I think the etymology of the word xenoglossia coming from mediums performing automatic writing is pretty useful. It certainly shows the scientists' absolute lack of ability to discern between Holy Spirit and devil spirit. "Modern SIT does not produce this". And there goes Raf with the opinion rhetoric train again. I contend that modern SIT DOES produce this, and that scientists with the demonstrated ability to not be able to discern between devil spirit and holy spirit are inept at measuring it. And that their sample space may very well be contaminated with fakers. And here comes my favorite strawman again. I'm just praying via the spirit and leaving the language part of it up to God and trusting Him to do what He says He will in scriptures. Is what is produced a human language? I DON'T KNOW OTHER THAN THE BIBLE I BELIEVE SAYS IT IS Is it the tongue of an angel? I DON'T KNOW - COULD BE THAT OR COULD BE ITS JUST FIGURATIVELY REFERRING TO ITS POWER AND HOLINESS. I'm just letting the Bible speak for itself and I'm walking out on its promises. I trust that as you state, glossa means languages and what is produced is a language. But I've never had a first-hand experience like socks to prove it to myself. LOL! So back to your fictional example, if you were SIT in understandable Swahili to Samarin, where do you think on the ACTFL language proficiency scale that would put your knowledge of Swahili? Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, or Superior?

I'm sure that it's highly likely we are going to mouth off to each other in this conversation, despite all our best human intentions. It is a detailed topic that involves specialties we never studied like linguistics, we are analyzing studies via the scientific method and discussing rules of logic, we are defining terms that have sketchy backgrounds and little agreed common ground, and we are discussing doctrinal topics including specific scriptures and their interpretation. We are doing this over an internet forum, which makes it more tedious than a normal conversation. And we are coming from an abusive cult. Suffice it to say that I have low expectations for both this discussion and our behavior. And I find myself consistently exceeding even the lowness of those expectations I suppose I can accept credit for exceeding low expectations!!!! LOL!!!!! Raf, I'm not taking the static personally, and don't you either. My disclaimer is that my mouthing off does not reflect my inner thoughts and innate value estimation of Raf or others on this thread. Raf's a pretty sharp guy, and it's been pretty fun in a manner of speaking worming through the muck with him on the topic. If you need me to apologize for each individual mouthing off, I will. Sorry for those.