chockfull

I think Poythress is a theologian and not a linguist, and Samarin is a linguist and not a theologian. I'm starting to pick up on a distinction in Samarin. I think his conclusions are saying glossa is "not a language" because like the 16 criteria everything in the linguistics field is set up to look at language from a perspective of how it works in the context of a sociological sense. Meaining that he would likely rule it out as being a language simply due to the fact it is not understood natively in most cases. So in that respect I think when Samarin says "it's not a language" this is quite different than your position. Your position is more "it's not a language because people are faking it and lying to themselves it means something when it is just basically gibberish super-imposed by the human brain dressing up the fakery to sound more like a language". Samarin's position is more "it's not a language because it's not really communicating with other humans and forming societal and sociological bonds, and that's basically what my field of linguistics says a language is". yes we are both coming up to speed on this field and the resources in it in the midst of discussing it and debating.

In many ways AA has done a work that TWI was and is too lazy to ever do anything close to. They have taken a specific category of people with special needs and dedicated resources to helping them. This includes work evaluating that category of people medically, psychologically, sociologically, setting up an infrastructure of meetings and mentorships, and packaging it into a simple enough program to implement that you see groups operating under their banner almost anywhere you go. TWI has a McDonald's approach - one size fits all. If someone shows themselves to have special needs, rather than doing any work at all towards adapting to meet those needs, TWI basically will isolate them, attack them, and eventually cast them out. Oh, and they will do this while vehemently denying they do anything like this with their mouths. In many ways, AA meets what society's expectations are for a non-profit. Help the community in tangible ways. TWI does not.

Well, sorry excy. This discussion has helped me to dig through the topic, even if it hasn't helped others (which I think it probably has - at least to stimulate thought and evaluation of TWI's teachings). I've heard a couple comments that people were more bored than the INT class (so some of our back and forth probably gets tedious to read). For you and I it's been a good exercise (to me) in critical thinking, logic, research, and how to approach scriptural studies and Christian topics in a post TWI state. I will probably continue to try to post content on this thread related to the topic such as when I finish new resource reading material, but will probably de-escalate the debate side of it. I know your beliefs and stance on the evidence well enough so going over it again and again would just be tedious. We are on the outlying opinion side of the debate and the poll is pretty evenly divided so I postulate that our two viewpoints probably represent the spectrum of what people's beliefs are on the topic. There are other little things or phrases that come up in the discussions that help me too. For example, geisha brought up "vain repetitions" in prayer. I hadn't considered that as applied to tongues in prayer, but that struck my interest in streamlining things. I mean if I'm sitting around with a mind picture and SIT over and over and over again, that's kind of a waste of brain matter. I'm sure God doesn't need to hear me repeat myself, regardless of what language its in. So you know, housecleaning some of that is good. If I know about something I'm praying about, it makes more sense to have the conversation with God in a language that I understand too so it helps my head. If I don't know, or if I'm just praying for someone's overall well being, then maybe just a focus on the person or situation and SIT seems a better fit. I like to improve things where I can.

I mean there is the distinct possibility that all our 50+ pages on the topic is a completely futile endeavor. But to me it's common sense to look at what you can to help your viewpoints / beliefs be the most fact and reality based you can. Your point on people faking it without knowing it is a possibility too. I mean if the people recorded aren't supposed to be and God subsequently shuts down that side of the spiritual energizing, then they are doing the same thing they always have been it just doesn't have the "magic sauce" in it. These are all things I would list in a study or paper in a "Caveat" section - probably all in bullet points. That way you obviate all of the potential roadblocks in your tests to reaching your findings. I find that Poythress does this a little better than Samarin. Poythress I think you described as "stops short of reaching conclusions". Now I don't know his logic but with a number of things up in the air about the feasibility of performing such a study, that approach to me seems a little better - share what you did find and leave the conclusions to the readers.

Do you do business plans for universities too? I mean you could make a TON of money - there have been what, 40 years of people paying you tuition WITHOUT EVER HAVING ONE ACCREDITED PhD in charge of the program. And also, your alumni program should be patented. Nowhere else, when people attend a college, does the end result come out that now they owe you everything and you owe them nothing.

Maybe I've missed it but outside of the language of the poll entry I haven't seen a lot of people supporting how TWI handled and taught that topic. I have asked a couple questions related to if the Bible says you can but somehow today you can only fake it what changed and how can you trust the Bible on other pointS then. I don't believe it is a doctrine that has a bearing on salvation. And yes, in TWI there was a lot of fake everything, this topic included.

Post #587 on this page is Socks story - and he answers once about after. I'm sure you've ruled out the normal causes. Teething could be another. We had one with colic, nothing worked with that one except putting him in a car seat and driving him around...

empirical - adjective 1. derived from or guided by experience or experiment. 2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, especially as in medicine. 3. provable or verifiable by experience or experiment Which definition are you trying to tie to SIT? I guess if you mean #3 definition - we are investigating the topic to see the extent of which there can be found empirical evidence related to SIT.

Where did you get the convoluted notion that SIT was some kind of "empirical claim"????? I am not saying that if you reject modern SIT you can't embrace Christ. I've seen plenty of real life examples where people do exactly that and have a strong Christian life.

And if you do this, I propose that you are no longer investigating SIT. You are investigating another phenomenon - that of a human to make mouth noises. You are investigating people faking SIT or doing something else altogether.

To argue about the numbers of UFO abductions reported in conjunction with this discussion is completely irrelevant. Here's the problem. First, it's an ad hominem attack, as you are placing a correlation between people reporting UFO abductions and tongues simply for the purpose that it's widely accepted that those reporting UFO abductions are commonly viewed as crackpots and you are drawing a parallel there. Second, you provide no substantiating evidence there are more claims of UFO sightings. Third, we are discussing spiritual matters to do with God and the gift/manifestations, not UFO's. This is very, very tired logic. It's tedious to deal with, but I'm going to do so because outside of me there is nobody challenging it. Honestly, your arguments would have more weight with me if they were logical, thought through, and dealing with the facts at hand, as opposed to labeling, and constantly stating your opinion on the matter. Does it bother me you are doing this? Not at all - it's not my life or logical choices. I have NEVER asked anyone on this thread to take my word for it that it is real. I am simply digging into information we have and presenting logic regarding the information. You, on the other hand, state over and over your opinion as fact. In reality, you sound far more like the used car salesman here. Of course the spiritual matter of SIT compares to the resurrection and the new birth - in that they are ALL SPIRITUAL MATTERS. As spiritual matters, there are elements of them that cannot be detected by the 5 senses. But in your viewpoint, you really want to get away from looking at SIT as a spiritual matter. You want to look at it as a senses experience where everyone is faking it. It is your viewpoint that has the flaw, not the SIT we are studying. This I support you in. All of those people who were / are acting like that John Lynn video, whose life is a fake, all of those people that made something up to please somebody in TWI - they are wrong. It will help them to admit they were faking. But to those that have that doubt enter in, just because you doubt your experience in TWI because of the putrid fruit that has shown itself in the leadership of TWI, because of the Nazi-like excellor sessions and man's manipulation presented in the intermediate class, or because of other reasons connected with the cult, that does not mean you faked it. So search the scriptures, search your own soul, pray a lot, and look for God's direction.

No, bringing up logical conclusions about other spiritual matters to highlight the difficulties in PROVING spiritual matters is simple common sense. It is not fear mongering or any other label you want to attach to it. You are trying to prove something that cannot be detected by your 5 senses - spiritual energizing. You want to focus on all of the 5 senses aspects about SIT. That's your choice, and if you want to become afraid because you do this about SIT that it will transfer over into other areas of your faith that's your business and your problem. But it is not the problem of someone pointing out that spiritual gifts are spiritual in nature. It almost amazes me that I have to keep highlighting basic elemental things like this.

Then by this logic, your assessment of Samarin should be he has no accounts of non-Christian free vocalization. He used 2 mediums as one example, and 2 personal accounts as his other examples. But it's not. Illogical. The people involved with the incidents absolutely knew who the other people were. The fact that you don't know them is somewhat irrelevant. It is nobody's burden of proof to demonstrate this to you. I have heard about a half a dozen accounts similar to this, and have known a few of these accounts where people were in them in the same fellowship. So I know at least one of the stories I heard the facts were corroborated by two separate people. I'm sure the people making the claims on this thread could track down some information, or maybe they couldn't. Either way, they don't seem to feel motivated or compelled to have to do that for YOU. I'm sure you'll take this to mean it's not proven. That is a very egocentric definition of proof. It has been proven TO OTHERS. The fact it has not been proven TO YOU is not really relevant to everyone else. They determine on their own whether or not they will believe the accounts. The only difference is that most will not state their beliefs in terms of "absolutes" and "facts" assumed to be incontrovertible. You have done this page after page. You see this is where I start to divurge from the whole scientific proof thing. It's kind of like whether or not people want to believe Jesus was raised from the dead. There is no conclusive proof. There's no proof of the ascencion. There's no proof of the new birth. And you have sincere people vehemently arguing against each one of these things. Yet God leaves it up to each individual's freedom of will to prove it to themselves, to believe it for themselves, to pursue it for themselves.

Now that looks like a video illustration of Raf's counterfeit $2 bill example. This is the guy that changed what interpretation meant - and magically all followers of his little cult also changed there. No, this couldn't be an example of someone faking it? Everything about this guy is fake.

Actually one of the most problematic areas of designing a statistical experiment like a hypothesis test is the sample space. In other words, do the people or examples I decide to take a sample of and study accurately represent a statistical sample of the entire population that I am expecting my hypothesis to apply to? In that respect, tongues in a natural setting where the speaker was unaware they are being recorded are probably the cleanest. Depending on how you want to model the study, you might divide the samples into "church" settings where there also was interpretation / prophecy going on for all to hear, and possibly private prayer life examples too and run the statistics on both sets to see if they present any differences mathematically. I noted a couple problematic inclusions in Samarin's sample space - both of which were the recording of a medium's conversation with their spirit guide, where there was a different language involved. His inclusion of Christian and non-Christian groups is fine, especially as he is endeavoring to illustrate a non-detectable difference there. The mediums were in his non-Christian samples. I don't have access to his other resources to be able to vet other non-Christian samples. I understand what Samarin was doing there - simply collecting any available samples of known recordings of people speaking in a language they never learned. With the medium examples, though, there is never a claim of glossa going on there, simply a recorded conversation with a spirit guide. So they should be excluded from any hypothesis test. You talked to this author and confirmed this? Or is this just an ad-hominem attack?

Reposting from where I made this point previously: No, the conversation ends with you with "these are not known languages" plus "I do not believe the accounts presented where people experienced that they were known languages". And you two have the right to dismiss anything you want, including two firsthand accounts (yes Raf, someone who THEMSELF WAS THERE OBSERVING consists of a firsthand account whether or not they did the speaking despite your attempt to categorize it as something different). I'm sure I could call both of you some really nice names too. Let me so, so far we have that I'm bordering on the absurd, I have hubris, and a bunch of other nice little snide comments. Let me ask you this, in your emphasis in and continued magnification of the maturity in I Cor. 14, where exactly does your name-calling fit into this?

Either way is fine. The most expensive is $31. Do your suggestion first and we can do a book club exchange after a month or so when done reading.

That is all I'm pointing out - glaring inconsistencies. Like: 1) Ruling out glossa as a language based on 5 characteristics of a language that pertain to conversational communication when glossa is not conversational by design 2) Criticizing and rejecting some sources like firsthand accounts of tongues being understood because he wasn't there and couldn't question all the people involved, then in his paper using two personal firsthand accounts to illustrate his point. 3) Saying glossa bears NO resemblance to a language in his "defining terms" opening of his paper, then in the very next sentence saying it has phonetic resemblance. Also, discrediting me for pointing these out might be a little easier if we don't have other published papers out there pointing out some of the same things.

He found languages he did not know. He was evaluating whether or not he would consider them languages based upon 14 characteristics linguists agree on that constitute a language. He found 5 of those characteristics not present. My contention is that is simply because those 5 characteristics constitute the conversational aspect of language, of which tongues is not designed for conversation. No, where we found human languages that are known are on the two firsthand accounts given. You know, the ones you refuse to believe?

So I presented a series of posts where Samarin compares SIT to elements of known languages. He himself concedes that of the 14 presented, he finds differences on only 5. I presented in those posts a rebuttal of his 5 differences. This discussion and the facts surrounding it are key to Samarin's findings on whether or not SIT are languages. You refuse to discuss this, retreating back to repeating over and over again "SIT does not produce known languages. That's a fact, not my opinion". Who are you trying to convince here, yourself? In the second example, it is God's energizing of tongues that's being tested.

The other rationale would be that if tongues is designed for 2 purposes: 1) private prayer life 2) prayer meeting / meeting where interpreted Then using it outside of those purposes, for example, in a test to prove whether or not they are languages, is not using it according to how it is contractually promised. Thus that use may not involve God energizing it.

1) So Rosalie, in yours and Donna's relationship is it true that you wear the pants? 2) How is it exactly that you have a Biblical "Research, Teaching, and Fellowship" ministry with one part-time employee in the Research department? 3) Do you think that more accurately when you present that Corps graduation certificate, that it should be a "Doctorate of Micromanagement" rather than an Associate of Theology? 4) Why do all of you walk around looking like you have a stick up your butt and your nose in the clouds? 5) Has the experiment ever been repeated in the ministry where someone has a Drambuie-based hallucination of snow in summer? 6) Rosalie, how is it since you have taken sailing lessons that you still can't find your butt in the dark with both hands? 7) Are the artists still around that can do "Planet of the Apes" stick figures like the ones on your previous annual theme posters? I hear they are making a sequel to the movie and if you'd let them off-grounds or approve their vacation, they may be able to do some real good there.

The rationale would be that testing would be a form of tempting God. In Jesus temptations he was encouraged to throw himself off a cliff to prove that God would catch him.

I'm going to try and pick up a copy of his main book on the topic. That may take a while, as it's out of print and coming from used bookstores. If I can do that, I will read it first and then I would like to offer to mail it to you so you can read it. We have enough of a different viewpoint on Samarin I don't want to put you in the position of accepting my take on it on initial reading.

IMO where Paul is saying it is the least of the gifts that is because in the context he is encouraging the Corinthians to grow up and focus on others rather than being selfish. In that context, tongues does absolutely nothing for others, except for: 1) If it's a miracle like Pentecost and others understand in their own language - then that would be a sign, and the actual words would build them up 2) If it's in a prayer meeting where interpreted 3) If you are praying for someone else and do so while SIT, then that is not a selfish endeavor So any other of the gifts/manifestations all do things for others. I know in this response I am circling back and picking up a lot of geisha's point. However, she was using that to try and reach the conclusion that it was wrong to use it in private prayer or not available any more. My only conclusion is that it does less for others than many other things you could be doing. So although I believe it's available today, my conclusion is it's a whole lot less important than other things.