Arrowman

Well said! On the same subject, I recently read this:

A speaker at a skeptics' meeting put forward the following for consideration: There are two men standing in a room. John is taller than Jim, and Jim is taller than John. Explain.

After the group spent some time coming up with creative explanations, the speaker interrupted and pointed out "There are two possibilities you have not raised: (1) I am mistaken, (2) I am lying."

A sort of Occam's Razor of skepticism, I suppose.

Matt, you are imho in for a great deal of difficulty in attempting to debunk these stories. Your friend, Kyle and Katie are deeply invested in them, and I doubt you can ever definitively show them how the stories do not (necessarily) require supernatural explanations.

I've had an otherwise rational person recite an urban legend to me, as though they were personally involved. wtf?! I've had another person recite a UL which supposedly happened to a "friend of a friend" and then, when I pointed out the UL in question, just said "oh, that particular story might be a UL but it could still havce happened to my friend..." Even when something as deeply important as religious belief isn't involved, people will cling to their beliefs.

But at least you can take some of the material from this thread to support your own position and perhaps convince your friend (but not Kyle and Katie) that your doubting position is at least valid, even if they won't accept outright that "you're right". Start from there, and work up!

abe smith

Warts DO that! they come & go w/o any rational relationship to anything; you can rub them w/ milkweed juice; you can touch them w/ your index finger & abjure them to go away; you can rub them w/ your own spit, repeatedly (perhaps a novena of saliva?} ; you can rub them w/ a cut raw onion...... the options are infinite; no, = very many. fascinating. Warts appear to be exempt from human governance or understanding. They may be self-limiting; or perhaps the body, that most magical of entities! may have a response system to them about wh/ we are so -far totally ignorant.

Koyaanisqatsi

The warts one is relatively easy, since time alone accounts for it.

As for the speaking in tongues thing, there will be no way for you to debunk it by asking Kyle. He believes it and will lie/exagerate to fill in any gaps or logical inconsistencies; not out of malice, just because that's the way the mind works.

Once you accept something as true, you defend it, even with lies that you don't even realize are lies or are simply justified as "lies for the greater good;" i.e, to convince you of the truth a small lie will push you off the fence.

There just is no way to verify to any degree of certainty an event for which you were not present, unless you really want to get into it and you do some investigation and interview the congregation to find someone else who remembers it or speaks German or knows for a fact that the woman is the Minister's girlfriend, etc., etc., and even then--even if you find it all totally legit--you still wouldn't be able to make any other conclusion than "these people believe it."

That means little to nothing.

Oolon Colluphid

And to repeat, because to my mind it is so damning:

Why might a god who chooses not to involve himself with the three million children under five who die every year of diarrhoeal diseases -- that's one every 10 seconds -- be bothered to intervene to remove someone's warts?

Oolon

Queen of Swords

Don't forget, it seems to take at least one specific condition to make him intervene.

One person praying = insufficient.
Two people praying = tips him over the edge into action!

Kind of like quorum sensing.

Matt Arnold

I guess the bottom line is that unexplained mysteries are just that: unexplained and mysterious. They are unexplained because they all have one thing in common: any explanation you could come up with for them sounds silly. If they didn't stretch credulity, they wouldn't be identified as miraclulous. To choose between a thousand unlikely explanations requires the believer to accept highly tenuous grounds.

That seems to be why every culture to observe them automatically credits whatever version of supernaturalism it is most familiar with.

The one tenet we are all taught is that if you expect to be someone's friend, don't call their intelligence or sincerity into question. Really, intelligent and sincere people believe every hogwash that was ever invented; it doesn't seem to have anything to do with those qualities, but the put-down is unintentionally implied. That is how such stories survive and spread: because to doubt them strains relationships. David Hume's statement in his essay "Of Miracles" comes off as a personal insult:

[The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior." When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.]
-David Hume, "Of Miracles"

In short, I have no confidence in anecdotal evidence. Since there are so many contradictory potential "morals of the stories" they do not even offer any guidance to accept or reject.

Veil of Fire

You'll have a hard time convincing anyone here that there's anything "unexplained" in the world. If nothing else, as a last resort, it could ALWAYS be the Placebo Effect.

He just THOUGHT she was speaking in German, it was actually the placebo effect because it's the language he was expecting to hear. **nodnod**

Mad Kally

My mother speaks in tongues. It sounds something like this. aba aba ka dab ra la la la mo jo mo jo el ki a ab ra ka dab ra repeat X 20..

Sure enough there is always someone in the congregation who says they can interpret her obvious glossolalia. The only difference between her church and a mental ward is that no one tries to figure out what the gibberish means in a psychiatric hospital.

echidna

Matt, a good friend of mine is not only a very liberal Church minister, but also prides himself on being an excellent conjuror & cold reader. He has entire shelf of books on his hobby & is very open about the entire subject. On a few occasions I’ve been asked to assist in the mischievous deception of some of my friends.

It is an extremely common ploy to find something out about one’s subject, but ensure that it is something which the subject would not expect. Even from a tiny detail, if skilled enough it’s quite possible to build an extremely convincing deception. There are countless books devoted to the subject. Never underestimate the willingness and ability of people to undertake this activity.

Does your friend also believe in little green men, the Loch Ness Monster, werewolves & leprechauns ? Because all these creatures have adamant eyewitnesses, but fail under scientific scrutiny. What is so different about speaking in tongues ?

Really I don’t find it very mysterious at all. Disappointing that some people do this to maliciously mislead, and that others will be there to believe, but not mysterious.

scombrid

Robert Tilton School of Tongues?

<a href="http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~ply9686/tilton/tilton.html" target="_blank">Tilton</a>

<a href="http://204.181.30.45/~weirdcrap/tilton/" target="_blank">If you have a fast connection go for the pastor Gas 2 clip 30+megs but worth it</a>

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: scombrid ]</p>