Making some random, unsupported comment isn't evidence for your belief. Not within a million miles. And the fact you think it is evidence shows a serious lack of critical thinking skills, quite frankly.
MattTooFor,
A page or two back, I noticed the link at the bottom of your post and saw that you'd put out that post on Michael W. Smith. I looked around your site a bit. Because whoever designed his album used some letters that resembled runic alphabet and his arms in one video was in a certain video and he was standing on a chair, which looked a bit like runic alphabet letters, you questioned whether he was involved with the occult. And runes were a valid alphabet, used for regular purposes. That's supposed to be logical reasoning?
A cheerful, noncontraversial, as far as I know, evangelical radio personality who offers brief words of encouragement on the radio, appears in a picture with either an arch-shaped bridge or a picture of one behind her. Because it resembles an eye, you are suspicious that this might be an occultic symbol, even though you have an eye or two right on your own head. Your ancestors had eyes. Other people have eyes. Animals have eyes. But an image in the background has eyes, and it's worth putting someone's name and face on a webpage so people can be suspicious of them because a bridge in the background has eyes.
I haven't offered complete evidence for others to examine for these things, but I have mention some of the types of evidence I know exists. I did point out some of the kinds of evidence that exist. An honest inquirer who respects privacy could PM me for the rest.
When the Bible makes you responsible to "give a reason" for your beliefs...the above bare assertion isn't even close to fulfilling your responsibility.
It's just bizarre you think this is "evidence"...to simply make unsupported, bare assertions.
Why wouldn't "presuppositions" be YOUR problem? Why are you the only one here with objectivity? You haven't presented any evidence. Besides that...there is no credible evidence to be seen anywhere. And if you go to YouTube and type in "tongues speaking", the videos that come up are a horror show. A disgrace. Where's the evidence for ongoing "tongues-speaking"? Nowhere.
I haven't spent a lot of time on YouTube looking up speaking in tongues videos. If one out of a thousand people who claimed to speak in tongues had the real gift, using your method, you'd reject all speaking in tongues. The issue here is speaking against what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that the Spirit gives divers tongues as He wills. When it comes to miracles and healing, there is no prooftext that you can try to interpret in such a to do away with them.
As far as objectivity goes, the problems show up in your posts and webpages. An arch bridge shaped vaguely like an eye is not evidence of occult activity. You accuse people of lying and being con artists without real evidence.
In other words, "tongues" might be going on but we just don't realize it - LOL. Good grief.
A sociology professor I had in college told a story about a Jewish man who was kept in a mental hospital in a city in the south the early part of the 20th century. He was put in the hospital because of some behavior they thought indicated mental problems. Before he ate, he would put on a little hat and ramble these nonsense words. It turns out, he was an Orthodox Jew and he was praying. Not only did the hospital staff not realize that he was praying a language, he was also committed for it.
That isn't providing proof and reasoning for your belief in modern-day tongues speaking. It's just saying tongues might exist...but we just don't realize it. Mama mia. Again, this shows a lack of understanding of what sound logic and reason actually is.
The first two sentences were logical. If you haven't seen speaking in tongues, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now that's common sense. If you go to 10 grocery stores and don't find saur kraut, that doesn't mean that no stores sell saur kraut. If you look under 10 or 100 rocks and don't find worms, that doesn't mean there are no worms under rocks.
The only reason we are discussing speaking in tongues is because it is in the Bible in the first place. Pentecostals wouldn't have believed in it or probably recognized it as a gift in the late 1800's and early 20th century if it weren't in the Bible.
Oh brother. Here we go again. You have repeatedly tried to suggest you're 'very smart'...but apparently not smart enough to figure out this is an anonymous discussion board. For all we know, you work at a burger joint. You need to let your reasoning and proof stand on their own merits.
Why is it that you like to assume other people are lying or up to no good? One theory is that if someone suspects other people of being liars all the time, it might indicate that he isn't that honest of a person, since he thinks other people are like himself. Do you have a problem with lying?
We are having a conversation. A few other people might be watching. You aren't going to convince me I work in a hamburger restaurant. I work at a university. I know where I work and what I do.
The attitude you have toward others and this tendancy to point fingers and accuse may be related to some of the problems you've been having recently. Someone PMed me after that question in a previous post. Anyway, this is something to pray about. You could ask the Lord why you have this urge to accuse people of lying? Why do you see some letters on an album that use a runic alphabet looking font and jump to the conclusion that just maybe the singer could have something to do with the occult? Why would you see a picture of an arch-shaped bridge that looks vaguely like an eye and suggest that it might refer to an occultic symbol? The Bible teaches that slander is a sin. Trying to stir up suspicion toward other brethren for no good reason isn't a good thing either. This sort of disposition can effect you negatively mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. That's really something to pray about. I'm not saying this to be mean. I really do want to see you free of this stuff.
I didn't tell people I had a degree in Linguistics and I studied languages so people would say, "Oh he's smart." Instead of jumping to that conclusion, you should have considered I was saying those things to back up the fact that I might have a reasonably good ear for recognizing foreign languages, since I've heard speaking in tongues that at least sounds like foreign languages to my ears.
Consider the golden rule. Are you treating others the way you want to be treated? I don't know what you do/have done for a living. If you told people you were an engineer, would you want people to say, "Oh, he thinks he's so smart. He's wants everyone to know he's an engineer." If you told someone you were a plumber, would you want him to say, "Hey, everyone, he's bragging about being a plumber. He probably just works as someone who carries buckets of sewage on his head to clean out the ditches in New Delhi"? Usually people who act like that get called unsavory names, like names of certain body parts. I'm sure you wouldn't like it if I commented on your posts like that, randomly accusing you of dishonesty and unreasonably attributing bad motives for why you post things.
I'm curious. Do you interact with people like this in real life? Have you ever had conversations, since you were an adult, that ended in fist fights or someone calling you names... in real life, offline?
Paul didn't have to. He regularly provided proof for the practice of tongues-speaking.
I'll respond to this in your own words, "Another bare assertion which you think is an argument/evidence in your favor. "
You do not know what context Paul spoke in tongues, and he may not have presented any more evidence than what you've seen. If you don't know the language, it may seem like gibberish. Like Paul points out, if someone speaks something you don't understand person speaking seems like a barbarian, who says 'bar bar bar.' (That's the theoretical origin of the word barbarian, that the Greeks thought foreigners sounded like they were saying 'bar bar bar.')
As has already been explained to you, there was ZERO controversy regarding tongues-speaking in those early days...because proof was in abundance. It was coming from every corner.
Pure speculation, at least if you are talking about the kind of evidence you are talking about. We only have one account of individuals speaking in the same tongue others present understood. Paul wrote of the one who speaks in tongues in I Corinthians that 'no man understandeth him.'