WordWolf

Ok, I think cman accidentally made a critical point that keeps getting lost in the shuffle. Remember how we studied "faith" vs "believing" and the critical differences in twi? And then how we discussed them at the GSC, and-no surprise!- with both being the same Greek word, the same concept is both words in English, and the differences were added by the doctrines and minds of people in English? "Well, if it was the same thing, it would be called the same thing." Right- it was called the same thing until translators to English took the same word and gave it multiple meanings, either justifying an existing doctrine or accidentally inventing a new doctrine. (I ran into a similar problem with 3 different KJV English words for 1 Greek word, where 2 of the words had denotations the first one did not. So, meanings were added by translators.) Well, we have "tongues" and we have "languages." In Greek, that's the same Greek word. The most sensible thing to do is to begin with one word in Greek being consistently translated as ONE word in English. In this case, we could go with "tongues" in both instances, but that would then make the term less common and more open to muddying the meanings. So, the obvious approach would be: translate it "language" each time. So, we'd end up with "If you understood languages, it's not languages any more. Of course it's a frigging language." We're discussing "speaking in languages."

Correct!

I've got a Golden Ticket!"

Unless, of course, my point stands. I'm curious. I'm going to post it again. Other than chockfull, can everyone else SEE my point? I'm not asking if you AGREE- just if you SEE it. You can see it and strongly disagree, of course. I just want to confirm my communication is effective. ===================== Here's the KJV of the verse. I Corinthians 14:2 For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. The phrase that's critical to chockfull's claim is "for no man understandeth him." The problem with this is that a cursory check of a Greek Interlinear will show the last word of the phrase was completely added. It should be in italics. That's why the NASB doesn't add the word. Here's the NASB of the verse. I Corinthians 14:2 For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. Does adding the word change the meaning? It might. If the meaning of the phrase is "One speaks in a tongue and nobody who hears him can understand the tongue", then the meaning is retained. Of course, if that meaning is retained, we have a rather obvious problem that now we have personal anecdotes we're supposed to believe that directly contradict Scripture- where someone spoke in a tongue and someone or some people understood. However, AND THIS IS MY POINT, if the meaning of the phrase is "One speaks in a tongue and can't understand the tongue" and that has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone else, then a translator added a word and completely changed the meaning. I Corinthians 14:2 (NASB) For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. One speaking in a tongue, inasmuch as it's to God and not men, cannot possibly understand what he himself is speaking-it's to God. However, it is mysteries in his spirit and directed to God. That's one way of looking at it. And it conflicts with personal theology of some, but doesn't produce a conflict with any instance in Scripture, nor does it conflict with personal anecdotes related so far, whether or not they happened exactly as believed. So, everyone else, whether or not you agree with me, can you see what I'm saying and how someone can get there, whether or not it's where you'd go?

In some places, this movie just left the theaters. With most people not having seen it on basic cable, and possibly not premium cable or DVD, few people have heard of it. I know which movie it is, but I don't know the name, myself.

Now, now, GENTLEMEN, please police yourselves and go take a brisk walk or something. You're both adults.

Could be "free" as in "speech" or as in "beer." In other news, this movie is, obviously for us, The Princess Bride.

You keep using that word. I don't thin' it means what you thin' it means.

Read it again, slower, without emotion. This isn't a matter of DISAGREEING with me, this is a matter of actually understanding what I wrote. Wait till you get what I wrote, THEN disagree with me. In the second case, we have one guy speaking, and one guy not understanding. Others aren't even mentioned. Again, you don't have to agree with me to understand my position. (Would be nice if you did, though- I began in this thread looking for someone to present a good reason to think Raf was in error in forming his position, and I would have been happy to have found one in your posts. I WANT your position to be correct. You keep missing that. (That or you're convinced I'm lying about it.)

So, you're comfortable living down to society's standards? Christian compassion calls us to do better that. Do you only do the right thing when everyone else does it, and only skip doing the wrong thing when consequences are invoked? How about being nice for its own sake? There's heathens and publicans who do that. And think about what it means to actually "hate." Nobody's coming at you with "hate." Nobody's screaming, spewing insults, and blowing things off because they're coming from you. Nobody's throwing out racial epithets or any other form of objectionable language- "hate speech." People are DISAGREEING with you. If you can't see that, you're putting WAY too much emotion into this, and need to stop reading "hate" into things. And apparently Raf is picking here and now to draw a line. It could have been any objectionable phrase, but this is the one you're using. Please confine comments to the other person's POV, not the other person. Any person can make a foolish statement- Steven Hawking and Albert Einstein included. (Well, when Einstein was alive.) However, that doesn't mean every person is a fool. There's a big difference with commenting on others and objecting to their posts or positions, and objecting to them.

If you spend a little less energy on the bombastic language and style (less sizzle) you might catch more information on the thread (more steak.) Either phrase does NOT mean the same thing, any more than "two of them on either side" and "two of them, on either side one" means the same thing. Raf already mentioned the answer, and for the sake of discussion, took the opposite position. I didn't have to enlighten him, he got what I said from one read, and I'd bet others did too. However, for you and any others who either skipped over it or just didn't get it, I'll answer. Here it is in the NASB. "2 For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries." Can be taken to mean 2 things, depending on the context. A) Nobody understands the man when he's speaking, he's speaking mysteries to God. B) Nobody speaking in tongues understands it- he's speaking mysteries. Then it's up to the rest of the verses and the rest of the Bible to show which of those grammatically-correct interpretations reflects what the verse is meant to convey. We had a similar problem when vpw built up an entire verse into a doctrine saying abortion was cool with God. It was centered entirely around one verse where the word "hagios" was translated "holy thing" and not "holy one" as it was translated everywhere else. The same chapter put the lie to it, showing the opposite of vpw's doctrine, which is why it's vitally important to read ALL the verses and not just isolate one verse, or even one chapter or one book. The whole conveys meanings, and it's easy to misunderstand a part in the search to understand the whole. I've done that in the past without meaning to. I'm confident I'm still doing it and hope to understand better in the future. But if I trust wholly in my understanding, I'll stagnate and stew in my own error. If I'd wanted to do that, I would have skipped becoming a Christian.

Actually, part of the problem is "trusting the KJV" and part of the problem is "not looking it up in a common interlinear." I've known this since the freaking 80s. The word "him" in the KJV in I Corinthians 14:2, the one your theology seems to be depending critically on, supposedly is translated from the Stephens Text. (The entire KJV is supposed to be translated from the Stephens Text.) Any Bible student with access to a US Barnes and Noble or the like, or a Christian bookstore, can buy a Greek-English Interlinear. The Gordon Ricker-Berry one (published by Zondervan) is entirely from the Stephens Text. It's what I did all my early studies with. Any Bible student should be able to look up I Corinthians 14:2 in it, look at the English word "him" in the verse, and see there is no corresponding English word. In other words, the KJV forgot to put it in italics. So, "him" completely changed the meaning of the verse, and was added by translators. I don't put my trust in the theology of the translators. Supposedly, you don't either. You might want to correct that. It's one of the reasons the NASB is a better study Bible. It has the italics, and doesn't make many of the same mistakes. The same verse in the NASB doesn't have "him" added to it. You're welcome. Actually, it's about translators adding to Scripture, and someone making up the whole argument from what the translators added. Focusing on one word that wasn't in the verse until translators added, and blowing it up out of proportion. I trust Scripture. I use logic. I don't trust the translators any farther than I have to-they make mistakes, they add things. (Mind you, even the worst-handled Bible, as the American Bible Society has pointed out, still clearly lays out God's Plan of Salvation. I keep trying to get as close to perfection as I can manage.) I don't need to be convinced to check the work of the translators. As anyone can see, they make mistakes. Go on, pull your Interlinear down off the shelf. You probably still have one, and either use it regularly or can dust it off and use it. If, after all this, you still insist on basing your theology on additions to the KJV, that's not my problem.

Jaws, besides the shark, was the name of a tall Bond villain. I doubt this is correct. "For Your Eyes Only"?

Star Wars Episode I: the Phantom Menace II Society.

That's it.

"Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers at night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the moon shines full and bright."

FERRIS BUEHLER, on his DAY OFF.

You'd kick out That Hope Business??? ;) =============================== For those of you playing along at home, I'll explain that one. Long ago, when I was a new twi'er, I would take notes at all meetings, especially verse references. I put the date, topic, announcements, verses, and critical notes for any teaching. So, if the speaker (for a home meeting) didn't give any indication of the topic name, I'd raise my hand and ask "Topic?" and I'd prepare a name for each I ever taught. Naturally, knowing I was going to ask, sometimes this tempted people to make up topic titles that had little or nothing to do with the actual topic. One time, I'd invited a friend along who elected to attend. One of the other people (not the usual person) had a teaching prepped. As always, I asked the topic. He answered, matter of factly, "Agammemnon's Revenge Against Perseus", which I wrote down. Raf, on the other hand, was sitting next to me and wrote down "This Hope Business." It was really what the thing was about, and the guy began with something like "I wanted to go into some of this hope business."

The False Dilemma hidden here is one made by a number of Christians, which is a shame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and/or-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between the two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be a completely different alternative. False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice (such as, in some contexts, the assertion that "if you are not with us, you are against us"). But the fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception. One of the legitimate things that was said in twi was "We don't even trust in our understanding of God's Word." (Would have been nice if this had been MEANT instead of only SAID, but that's another topic.) When there's 2 pieces of information which contradict, the answer is often that something is being overlooked- it's not always that one is completely right and one is completely wrong. Sometimes both are right-but in part and are overlooking facts that show the other is right in part. (The blind men describing the elephant is the easiest example, where one observes the trunk, another the leg, and describe different attributes.) So, when I find that there's a contradiction between science and Scripture, I CONSIDER ALL OPTIONS. It's possible the facts are not being observed correctly, and later will be. It's possible the facts are correct but preconceived notions are causing them to be misinterpreted. And so on. It's said that science is self-correcting, but sometimes it takes a while for corrections to be made, and I'm aware of that. Generally, it's not a problem and I'm not afraid of science. Also to be considered, however, is the other side of the problem. It's possible the verses were doctored-something was added or majorly changed. It's possible the verses were mangled in translation. It's possible the verses are translated correctly, but I'm bringing preconceived notions that mean I misunderstand what I'm reading. The Bible was not written as a science textbook, and attempting to make it so, to try to make the verses speak, say, with "a mathematical exactness" or "a scientific precision" is wishful thinking and leads to misunderstanding of what's actually being said. I'm well aware that coming to Scripture, I bring ideas and notions. Sometimes I need to change those because they're wrong and holding me back from really understanding the verses. Science VERSUS the Bible? No thanks, I'm in favor of BOTH. My faith isn't challenged by trying to keep up with the latest scientific developments. (My Evolution teacher was pleased at how well I understood the material we covered, and quite complimentary about it. Not being afraid of the subject meant I was able to read and find things like flaws in preconceived notions and factual errors when I came across them-both of which came later.) I'm humble enough to acknowledge I don't know it all and need to be ready to discard my thinking periodically-and often- to come to a fuller understanding. Even if I don't LIKE where the truth is leading me. In the case of this thread, it seems it's leading me in such a direction. I'd LIKE to think that we were practicing things that pleased God with our modern SIT, but my likes and dislikes can't change reality. The evidence all points in one direction. I trust in my Heavenly Father but I don't trust in my understanding of Him and think that's the final word on things. I sleep better with the idea that tomorrow I may learn something that brings me closer to Him in some way. I pursue that in a sort-of Zeno's Paradox kind of way, knowing I won't arrive while I walk the Earth.

If he saw another page on the thread by accident, I consider it unfortunate, but I don't consider it "cheating." He didn't look anything up. If he'd been on IMdB or something, I'd probably consider that cheating.

But, George, you didn't actually NAME any specific movie of the trilogy!

I'll save a minority of readers some time. The following is a quote from Marjoe Gortner. According to Wikipedia, he "is a former revivalist and actor who first gained attention during the late 1940s when, aged four, he became the youngest-known ordained preacher. He then gained notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in Marjoe, an Oscar-winning behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. " He did a movie about the experience. It can be seen in parts on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0B66318D2985FB0D Ok, here's where I was going. He gave some interviews and I'm going to quote one. Since it was to an atheist and is posted on an atheist website, some people will automatically dismiss it. Those people can just scroll past to the next post. =================================== "The hit song, however, is spiritual rebirth, the product of a time-tested recipe for religion to which the preacher and every member of the audience contribute some small but active ingredient. Then, according to Marjoe, the only fitting encore to the overwhelming moment of becoming saved is a personal demonstration of the power of that newfound faith. This is the motivating factor that prompts speaking in tongues, also known as the "receiving of the glossolalia." As Marjoe explained it, this well-known Evangelical tradition requires even greater audience participation on the part of the tongues recipient and the entire audience. "After you've been saved," Marjoe continued, "the next step is what they call 'the infilling of the Holy Spirit.' They say to the new convert, 'Well, now you're saved, but you've got to get the Holy Ghost.' So you come back to get the tongues experience. Some people will get it the same night; others will go for weeks or years before they can speak in tongues. You hear it, you hear everyone at night talking in it in the church, and they're all saying, 'We love you and we hope you're going to get it by tonight.' Then one night you go down there and they all try to get you to get it, and you go into very much of a trance -- not quite a frenzy, but it is an incredible experience. "During that moment the person forgets all about his problems. He is surrounded by people whom he trusts and they're all saying, 'We love you. It's okay. You're accepted in Christ. We're with you, let it go, relax.' And sooner or later, he starts to speak it out and go dut-dut-dut. Then everyone goes, 'That's it! You've got it!' and the button is pushed and he will in fact start to speak in tongues and just take off: dehan-dayelo-mosatay-leesaso ... and on and on." Marjoe paused. Flo was dumbfounded by his demonstration, although he hadn't gone into the jerking, trance-like ecstasy that is commonly associated with the tongues movement. I'd seen the classic version in his movie, yet even in this restrained demonstration, Marjoe appeared to be triggering some internal releasing or babbling mechanism. I asked him how he brought it about. "You'll never get with that attitude," he joked. Then he went on to explain the true nature of the experience. His perspective showed it to be a process that requires a great deal of effort to master. "Tongues is something you learn," he emphasized. "It is a releasing that you teach yourself. You are told by your peers, the church, and the Bible -- if you accept it literally -- that the Holy Ghost spake in another tongue; you become convinced that it is the ultimate expression of the spirit flowing through you. The first time maybe you'll just go dut-dut-dut-dut, and that's about all that will get out. Then you'll hear other people and next night you may go dut-dut-dut-UM-dut-DEET-dut-dut, and it gets a little better. The next thing you know, it's ela-hando-satelay-eek-condele-mosandrey-aseya ... and it's a new language you've got down." Except that, according to Marjoe, it's not a real language at all. Contrary to most religious understanding, speaking in tongues is by no means passive spiritual possession. It must be actively acquired and practiced. Although the "gift" of tongues is a product of human and not supernatural origin, Marjoe displayed tremendous respect for the experience as an expression of spirituality and fellowship. "I really don't put it down," he said. "I never have. It's just that I analyze it and look at it from a very rational point of view. I don't see it as coming from God and say that at a certain point the Holy Spirit zaps you with a super whammy on the head and you've 'gone for tongues' and there is it. Tongues is a process that people build up to. Then, as you start to do something, just as when you practice the scales on the piano, you get better at it." ==================================================== Me, I still insist God Almighty is still in Heaven, Jesus is my Lord, and people will lie to each other and themselves, whether they mean to or not. So, even if modern SIT is all a fraud, God is still as Awesome as He always was.

Too bad you missed the point, but really, if I could have placed a bet on it, that's where I would have placed it. The scientific method is used at lots of levels. Wearing a white coat and being in a lab does not guarantee one is using "the scientific method". Technobabble doesn't guarantee it, either. For that matter, one can use the scientific method without being anywhere NEAR a lab, and that's why the television show that most consistently uses the scientific method almost never uses a lab, and is known for explosives, ballistics gel, and so on. A simple example of a simple usage of the scientific method can be perfectly valid- and in this case, it was. It was also clear enough for all readers to understand, which is helpful when explaining science to a roomful of laymen. I'm no stranger to science, and I appreciate when a speaker can speak at the layman's level. So, most people could understand and follow when the differences were explained and an example was given. It's a shame you just found it funny, but there's an obvious disconnect there. BTW, if the explanation was in error or the example invalid, I would have called Raf on it because I expect better from him. He was NOT in error, and no professor I've studied under would have said he was wrong.

And it made me giggle for a moment. Mrs Wolf, she just said "If he's really WordWolf, then who have I been sleeping with all this time?" Honestly, if Raf was WordWolf, he'd keep my s/n correct without trying. I only split up the name when entering it somewhere that requires "First and last name." IIRC, Sudo did the same long before he posted here, when he used "Sudo Nym." Raf and I have certain similarities, and certain dramatic differences. We're both geeky, but usually about very different things.

Ok, I can accept that as a limit on the discussion. Would you and waysider participate if I did? I'm hoping from input from both of you, and cut-and-paste would be acceptable where it's relevant.