What is your opinion on people who "speak in tongues"?

It does sort of make me uncomfortable lol. Although I believe in to each their own and I try to be open to seeing people be religious freely the speaking in tongues thing is like right there on that line of too much for me.

I try to accept everyone, but that one gets to me too.

I’ve seen it in films like “Jesus Camp”, and I have family members whom I’ve never met who do it. I think it takes willful self-delusion to a whole other level.

My introduction to this concept was from Jesus Camp (warning: video clip is nightmare material). Before that, I thought it was just a Talking Heads album.

My opinion on those who do it is they feel very close to Christ and that they are amazed and thrilled that they can do it since usually they couldnt do it when they were little. It began , if genuine suddenly when they “found God” , not beforehand, so I am sure they think there’s a connection . What gets me are the people who go “da da da da” and try to pass that off as tongues. I guess they have their own motives but it weirds me out.
I am not so sure tongues should be used except privately. It is very wrong to show it off .

I’ve only seen it in video clips.

You know how some people can go out on the dance floor and abandon themselves to the music, so that there’s no conscious effort at all to control the movements? The body is just allowed to operate on muscle memory alone. For all practical purposes no one is really there directing the body; the body and the music merge and the dance just happens.

I think “speaking in tongues” is the verbal analog to this. It appears to me to be a relinquishment of conscious control of the speech apparatus so that it just rifs on whatever repertoire of phonemes spontaneously arise. To the person doing this, it undoubtedly feels like something else (the Holy Spirit) is in charge, since their conscious self certainly isn’t.

It’s a flow phenomenon, and so, like losing yourself in dance, it feels free and joyous. It’s what happens anytime you move beyond yourself through absorption in an activity. We find that perfectly normal in the context of sport and art, but I think this is really that same thing. What creeps people out, I think, is the claim of a supernatural cause.

From a secular point of view, I regard such behaviour as a result of a temporary fugue state elicited by intense emotion and disinhibited by their own experience observing such behaviour in religious services they have experienced. Anthropologists have noted comparable behaviours in other cultures where one shamans go into dissociative states and speak in “ancient languages of the gods,”

The Bible says anyone speaking in tongues must have an interpreter or it’s of the Devil.

That being said, I’ve heard it in AOG churches quite a bit, and seems benign, even without interpreters.

It also creeps me out a little bit, but I feel guilty for saying that since it’s supposed to be a God-given blessing of sorts.

When you are on the outside looking in I suppose it looks very strange.

People often ask me what I am talking about, I assume this is equivalent but yet I always understand everything I say the first time, in my house it’s called mumbo jumbo or talking with your mouth full, usually it just causes annoyance I have yet to creep anyone the f*#k out. =O

@tom_g Whoa, buddy, that’s pretty wild.

Oooh shalamama rockoco, aaah hekitae momoro shotomahe. Uuuh gebitaah mabaco hifan ti shococo, eh hepitapa momoto tipa shemale trololo.

In other words, we have managed to decode the speech of dolphins and complex wartime codes with state of the art software, but all attempts to decode speaking in tongues, always show it comes up as gibberish.

That Jesus Camp video is something else. Who knew “sha-la-la-la-la” was the language of the Holy Spirit. If speaking in tongues is God speaking through you, wouldn’t it all sound like the same language? It sounded like a bunch of English-speakers mocking various real languages.

I think speaking in tongues is…for the lack of a better word, stupid. I’m all for religious freedom, but that’s nothing but gibberish.

I was asked to go to church with a woman I used to work with, and I was going to until she told me it was a Pentacostal church. She said people speak in tongues quietly to themselves. No thanks, I’ll pass. My husband went to one of those churches as a kid and described it as “a bunch of crazy people running into pews and screaming nonsense like they were possessed.” Whaaaat?!

In my opinion if you are truly speaking in tongues, someone would understand you.

The original speaking in tongues was when the apostles spoke at epiphany. They couldn’t understand themselves, but everyone there could clearly understand not only what was said in their own language but often their specific dialect as well.

If no one can understand it, it isn’t speaking in tongues.

I’ve been around it many times. Creeped me out at first.
My only real problem with it is when people get sanctimonious about it and think that you “don’t have the Holy Spirit” if you don’t speak in tongues or act all exclusive about it.
Otherwise I try not to judge.
@WestRiverrat, that was Pentecost not Epiphany. Epiphany was when the wise men showed up.

Well, coincidentally, this is the perfect time of year for this little gem (a tad dated so the names are different now, but sports fans will still recognize them). Enjoy.

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http://www.holyobserver.com/detail.php?isu=v02i06&art=nba

@nofurbelowsbatgirl I think it bothered me so much because she didn’t “get caught up in the spirit and lose herself” which is how I’ve been told it usually happens. She walked over, took Nanny’s hand, and deliberately began her prayer in that bizarre manner. It felt like she was showboating.

To me, speaking in tongues is akin to playing with a oija board. If you’re not really, really careful with a lot of that shit, you have no idea what’s actually coming out.

@Buttonstc, Hillarious!
And I’m not even a sports fan.

I have heard speaking in tongues from many, all over the U.S. Number one: it always sorta sounded like Native American. Number two: it always impressed me as an emotional/neurological discharge. (Sometimes, you just gotta shake it off.) Number three: I have never heard anyone ‘really’ speak in tongues. In the Biblical account, they were speaking actual other languages, like Greek.

My response has usually been one of embarrassment, as if someone suddenly wet them self, and I very much didn’t want to be caught noticing—‘oh, is that a spider up in the corner by the ceiling’?

What really scares me in a wild meeting is when they bolt and run for each other. The Pastor has called for everyone to hug his brother, and folding chairs are no obstacle.

But, I love all of them, and hope they find their way.

In my opinion they are either psychotic or faking it, for reasons I could probably never really understand.
You asked…

@WillWorkForChocolate I think you have that spot on! That’s exactley what it sounds like to me. That is probably why it was creepy to you because it does not seem the place to be showing off and maybe it felt disrespectful. I personally feel like when someone is sick the higest level of respect, bedside manner and sincerity are the utmost important at that time because emotions are raised and even the smallest dishonest emotion can be felt. I have found only honest emotions at a moment like this are the most important otherwise they can affect someone who is in such a fragile emotional state. So to that person if it was dishonest I say shame on her. :(

Just wanted to add, If it sounded something like this then maybe the aunt wasn’t using tomfoolery.

Btw, hopefully you understood my first answer was lighthearted :)

@KNOWITALL

You’ve stated that ” The Bible says anyone speaking in tongues must have an interpreter or it’s of the Devil.”

Could you please provide a chapter and verse for where it specifically says that, or is it possible that this is just something you heard a preacher or somebody say.

I can’t recall ever reading that in any version of the Bible which I’ve encountered. In 1Cor 14:27 it gives some guidelines and mentions interpretation, but no reference to the devil at all.

27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 For God is notthe author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

@WillWorkForChocolate

Perhaps your husbands Aunt needs a little refresher course on Corinthians 14 (which i partially quoted above) since the biblical guidelines are pretty clear :)

Maybe you can drop her a hint :)

There’s a time and a place for everything. I suspect that those who are oblivious to this is what has people creeped out.

People speak in tongues for the same reason the glass moves whilst playing weegee board (sorry if that’s an incorrect spelling).

As for the video posted. Those kids are only speaking in tongues because all the other kids are. If i was a kid there I’d start making stuff up, cos i wouldn’t want to be the kid who ‘couldn’t do it’.

I didn’t really disagree with that video. Children will belive what they are told to believe.
They should be taught about the concept of religion and the facts of science and left to make thier own minds up as adults.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl Haha, yes I understood.

My husband says it didn’t bother him, because Nanny used to go to a church where they spoke in tongues, so maybe it was comforting to her. I still don’t like it, it seriously just felt creepy. The kind of creepy where the little hairs on your neck stand up and you feel queasy. I’ve felt that kind of creeped out a few other times, including one time, when my oldest daughter was only two and called us in to her room because a scary man had just walked through her wall, looked at her, then walked through the other wall.

I’ve never seen or heard a person speaking in tongues apart from in films. I always thought it was gobbledegook.

A woman in the church my mother attends speaks in tongues.

I think it’s weird and embarrassing. I just can’t imagine that she’s actually experiencing the “Holy Spirit”. And it was always the same lady…nobody else.

She would even get on the floor and start shaking sometimes or run around the church and yell (in tongues) at people whilst they yelled back, “Yes, Lord! I hear you, Lord!”

I think it’s a joke. I was always choking back laughs.

Personally, I have not spoken in tongues myself. Faking it is not okay.

I most definitely think that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is for the Church today. However, not every Christian has been grated that particular gift. I have been involved in many prayer meetings and church services where people spoke in tongues.

They are possessed by demons and are in need of exorcism.
“speaking in tongues” IS an official symptom of demonic possession according to the Church.

@ragingloli Can you back up your statement about speaking in tongues being an official symptom of demonic possession according to the Church? If you happen to be referring to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not a demon.

@genjgal
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/currenterrors/pentcsl.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonic_possession#Christianity

@WillWorkForChocolate I think I understand the creepy feeling.

It must be like the creepy feeling I felt when I saw a tupperware container fly off the kitchen counter :/ and my MIL said that “the children” were not happy I was there! There was no children there. =O Then one morning while I was in the house my MIL had been in the hospital for breast cancer I was feeding and looking after the pets for that time I walked in and on the floor a lego sign right there as I opened the door that said “get out”..no one was in the house but me that entire time I know because I had the only key and I know that lego sign was not there before, I did’nt even know there was lego until we found a box in the basement with some childrens toys and there was some lego peices in it. The house itself was creepy and my MIL acted possessed while she was there.

Maybe that’s the kind of creepy you are talking about? Because I have had my share of that!

I’ve been to churches were it was expected of the congregation. Most people seemed to be endlessly repeating “Ah-babble, ah-babble, oh-babble-ah…”

In Acts 2 the Bible describes a room full of people from many lands speaking in tongues, and it says “every man heard them speak in his own language” and wondered “how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? If I ever run into that sort of glossolalia I will be duly impressed. “Ah-babble, ah-babble, oh-babble-ah…” I’m not impressed with anything but the stupendous credulity of those practicing it.

Funnily enough my colleaugue recently told me about her Grandmother who started speaking in tongues one day in church when my colleague was a young child. It scared the shit out of her! She said she couldn’t understand a word her Grandmother was saying and her Grandmother had no recollection of the language after but she cried a lot apparently. This is a West Indian family and, from what I could gather, it is a fairly regular occurence in West Indian churches.

Do you want to know what astounds me? It is when somebody doesn’t even believe in unicorns but then they get up on a horse in a Zeus costume gluing a tusk shape on the front of his horses head and parade around the town while telling people that they are in fact the descendant of Zeus and that their horse is in fact a descendant of a unicorn. Isn’t it kind of like taking the Word of God and spreading that around when you in fact do not believe in the Word of God but yet you use that as your factual evidence because if you don’t believe in God so why are you using his word to prove anything? So one must ask one self is auntie being sincere or is auntie in fact not? In todays society it is something I struggle with myself, not even all of the religious people are sincere, I mean people do not always use religion or the word of God for the purposes of good.

Speaking in tongues reminds me of this and the time I had an out of body experience, no I didn’t speak in tongues but I heard my fathers voice who was on his death bed. At first I really believed I was transported to some where spiritual for a greater purpose but after examining this myself and the situation I realize that I believe I experienced an OBE. I wonder if many of these people speaking in tongues and so on are actually experiencing some sort of hightened delusions, of course you can’t place everyone in this spectrum because there have been mass hallucinations so that part is unclear.

But if @WillWorkForChocolate‘s husband says that the auntie is being sincere she probably is sincere but the creep factor is probably still a creep factor with causation due to the unknown, sometimes the unknown or unexplainable is creepy at least that’s what I have thought.

Poking my head in for this one.

I was raised in an Apostolic Pentecostal church. We were “Holy Rollers”. The really ape-shit-crazy-for-Jaysus types. We took the Bible literally. Yes, literally. Not the “sorta-literally, but not really” way, but the “we only don’t kill witches and rape victims because Jesus said to follow Caesar’s law” way.

Apostolic Pentecostals believe in baptism of the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in tongues as the initial sign. Without “receiving the Holy Ghost”, one is not actually saved. (Mark 16:17, Acts 2:9, 2:38–39)

There are several forms of Speaking in Tongues, according to my former church (hereafter the UPCI). UPCI doctrine states there is “Tongues and Interpretation” – which is where a person speaks a language they do not know, and another person interprets it. There is the non-prophetic Tongues – which is direct communication between the speaker and God, meant to edify God. This can be done in private (as encouraged by Paul in I Cor 14) but it is not forbidden to be done in public (same epistle, little later in the chapter).

In the book of Acts, onlookers were astonished at seeing both Jews and Gentiles worshipping together and speaking in tongues. This encouraged the onlookers to join them, and thus the UPCI considers it a positive thing to openly encourage speaking in tongues as a sign of God’s presence.

Some Charismatic churches I’m aware actually teach tongue-talking. This is not done in UPCI sects. One must find their own voice.

On the outside, you can pretty easily judge a person’s creative aptitude by their “Tongues”. The denser among us had a repetitive strand of single-syllable sounds like “O ko no po ko no see!” that would repeat ad infinitum. My husband and I somehow managed to sound quite a bit like languages we were interested in outside of church.

For example, I watched a lot of anime as a teenager. My tongues sounded like a bastardised version of Japanese. This wasn’t at all obvious to anyone, including myself, and was never questioned. My husband sounded like something out of The Mummy. He is SERIOUSLY into Egyptian history.

Looking back, I recognize that speaking in tongues is a psychosomatic reaction to an intensely emotional experience. You, along with a few, or a hundred, or a few thousands of other people, are all sharing in this prayer meeting, with building fervor, until eventually your brain snaps into whatever gibberish it can spout out. Eventually you find a comfortable rhythm. If you never think any deeper into it than “This is what God wants”, you’ll happily go on speaking in tongues forever.

Once you start doubting god, though, you can’t even FAKE the same tongues you used to say. The mental connection is just not there. I can sort of half-hear them if I try to remember it, but I don’t think I could repeat the words.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl You know what astounds me? The fact that you deny being Christian yet want to rule out any form of discourse that might possibly be used to challenge Christian beliefs. Anything outside the Bible is off limits because it isn’t Biblical, and thus lacks the true inspiration of God. And anything in the Bible is off limits unless the atheist believes it is the truth. For someone who denies faith, you are doing an ever more convincing job of spouting the illogical arguments the faith-based community uses as their stock and trade.

@ETpro I am not even sure why you are bringing that up here? Did I say something to offend you? Because if I did I am sorry my answers have been directed only towards the aunt and people who speak in tongues I was questioning the honesty of them and possible false prophets who make honest people believe they are what they are not…are you a false prophet? If you are I am sorry because that is who my comment was meant for.

@Buttonstc This is all I can find: Paul takes the last part of chapter 14 to tell believers that the gift of tongues must always be used in an orderly manner (v. 27). There must be an interpreter present if a public display of tongues is used (v. 27). If there is no interpreter present, then the person with the gift of tongues needs to remain silent in the church, speaking only to themselves and God (v. 28).

I no longer attend every week as I did growing up. At the time, I was going to other churches with friends to see what their churches were like, and the AOG freaked me out because I had always been told that an interpreter was mandatory, or it was of the Devil. Either a preacher or my mom probably. Peace.

@KNOWITALL Finish the chapter. Verse 39: Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues. He encourages prophecy, but recognizes that unbelievers can be brought to God by hearing tongues spoken.

If you look back on verse 22: ” Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.”

@Seek_Kolinahr There you are, I was starting to wonder about you! :)

I don’t necessarily have a problem with speaking in tongues, whatever works.

I’m sort-of taking a break. This place has gotten pretty emotionally straining lately.

@Seek_Kolinahr I feel ya on that sister. :) Glad to see you though.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl Rereading your comment I see that I misinterpreted it and I apologize for my comeback. I in fact completely agree with what you were actually saying there, I just took exception to what I thought you were saying that you weren’t saying at all. Mea culpa.