Prayer In Tongues On Floor Before Abortion Ruling.
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The science on speaking in tongues:
• People don’t tend to use sounds that aren’t in their native language. (citation) So if you’re an English speaker, you’re not going to bust out some Norwegian vowels. This rather lets the air out of the theory that individuals engaged in glossolalia are actually speaking another language. It is more like playing alphabet soup with the sounds you already know. (Although not always all the sounds you know. My instinct is that glossolalia is made up predominately of the sounds that are the most common in the person’s language.)
• It lacks the structure of language. (citation) So one of the core ideas of linguistics, which has been supported again and again by hundreds of years of inquiry, is that there are systems and patterns underlying language use: sentences are usually constructed of some sort of verb-like thing and some sort of noun-like thing or things, and it’s usually something on the verb that tells you when and it’s usually something on the noun that tells you things like who possessed what. But these patterns don’t appear in glossolalia. Plus, of course, there’s not really any meaningful content being transmitted. (In fact, the “language” being unintelligible to others present is one of the markers that’s often used to identify glossolalia.) It may sort of smell like a duck, but it doesn’t have any feathers, won’t quack and when we tried to put it in water it just sort of dissolved, so we’ve come to conclusion that it is no, in fact, a duck.
• It’s associated with a dissociative psychological state. (citation) Basically, this means that speakers are aware of what they’re doing, but don’t really feel like they’re the ones doing it. In glossolalia, the state seems to come and then pass on, leaving speakers relatively psychologically unaffected. Disassociation can be problematic, though; if it’s particularly extreme and long-term it can be characterized as multiple personality disorder.
• It’s a learned behaviour. (citation) Basically, you only see glossolalia in cultures where it’s culturally expected and only in situations where it’s culturally appropriate. In fact, during her fieldwork, Dr. Goodman (see the citation) actually observed new initiates into a religious group being explicitly instructed in how to enter a dissociative state and engage in glossolalia.
Professor of Linguistics William J Samarin concluded:
• While speaking in tongues does appear at first to resemble human language, that was only on the surface.[3]:73, 104, 120-1, 121-127
• The actual stream of speech was not organized and there was no existing relationship between units of speech and concepts.[3]:73, 120, 127, 128
• The speakers might believe it to be a real language, but it was totally meaningless.[3]:121, 127
Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman compared it with rituals from Japan and Indonesia as well as Africa and Borneo and concluded that there was no distinction. It truly is universal and quite easily crosses religious divides.[8]
Very good summary. I’ve never seen anyone do it outside of YouTube but someone added me to a snake handling church Facebook group for the laughs and they have some videos of them doing it.
I’m not saying it isn’t silly, but it comes from a specific passage in Mark 16-
16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
So Big J, who’s also Big G, says that if you believe, you’ll be able to walk around with snakes and drink poison and survive.
They’re not so big on the poison drinking, admittedly.
I grew up in a branch of the Pentecostal Church (not the snake handlers). Even as a kid I thought it was fucking wild that people did that.
My favorite times were when people were “overcome by the spirit” or whatever and they’d stand up to get attention and speak in tongues (same people every fucking week) and this crazy old woman would stand up and “interpret” what those folks were saying. Listen, Birdie, I’m pretty sure that if there is a god he doesn’t speak solely in King James English.
I tried to speak in tongues when I was young. Somebody told me to just babble, so I did. Then I stopped because I knew I was just faking it. Some lady gushed, “what a beautiful prayer language!”
And then I knew they couldn’t tell the difference. Thats how I began questioning what I was taught. Wish it still didn’t take me so long after that.
You got lucky then. I think most of the ones doing it either want to sound important or don’t want to feel left out so they’re faking, but a bunch of folks get swept up in something like mass hysteria and really think they did it. You see that a bunch in things like teen conferences where there’s just a load of kids swept up in a feeling.
Those folks are the true believers. They may fake it later but they really feel like they did something that first time and they would do anything trying to get that feeling back.
The “interpretations,” based on what my wife (who grew up in an Assembly of God church) has told me always seem to be things you would normally hear in church anyway- Jesus loves you, have faith in God, pray hard and good things will happen, etc.
Mostly, yeah. That whole “Good things will happen” was a LOT of it where I grew up. It was vague prophecies akin to what a fortune teller would tell you as long as you kept the faith or whatever.
Sometimes there was some hellfire and brimstone mixed into the “prophecy”, but I think that’s just because I was in an area where that was popular.
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The science on speaking in tongues:
https://makingnoiseandhearingthings.com/2013/11/07/the-science-of-speaking-in-tongues/
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https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues
Very good summary. I’ve never seen anyone do it outside of YouTube but someone added me to a snake handling church Facebook group for the laughs and they have some videos of them doing it.
Those insane snake handling churches that routinely have people bitten?
Yeah the group is a riot. Lots of them have died of snakebite and yet they persist.
There’s a great book about it called Salvation on Sand Mountain that I highly recommend.
I’d say that’s to their credit.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re completely nuts, but at least they’re consistent. Anyone who gets bitten doesn’t have enough faith. Period.
I have this great photo of some chubby kid with a tie that says JESUS holding a box of snakes someplace.
Wait so if I never bother to test myself because I’m not a pond-drinking moron, does that mean I have enough faith?
I’m not saying it isn’t silly, but it comes from a specific passage in Mark 16-
So Big J, who’s also Big G, says that if you believe, you’ll be able to walk around with snakes and drink poison and survive.
They’re not so big on the poison drinking, admittedly.
I grew up in a branch of the Pentecostal Church (not the snake handlers). Even as a kid I thought it was fucking wild that people did that.
My favorite times were when people were “overcome by the spirit” or whatever and they’d stand up to get attention and speak in tongues (same people every fucking week) and this crazy old woman would stand up and “interpret” what those folks were saying. Listen, Birdie, I’m pretty sure that if there is a god he doesn’t speak solely in King James English.
I tried to speak in tongues when I was young. Somebody told me to just babble, so I did. Then I stopped because I knew I was just faking it. Some lady gushed, “what a beautiful prayer language!”
And then I knew they couldn’t tell the difference. Thats how I began questioning what I was taught. Wish it still didn’t take me so long after that.
You got lucky then. I think most of the ones doing it either want to sound important or don’t want to feel left out so they’re faking, but a bunch of folks get swept up in something like mass hysteria and really think they did it. You see that a bunch in things like teen conferences where there’s just a load of kids swept up in a feeling.
Those folks are the true believers. They may fake it later but they really feel like they did something that first time and they would do anything trying to get that feeling back.
Lucky I got out, yes. But it took another 12 years and no shortage of heartbreak. Childhood indoctrination doesn’t leave easily.
Nope, it doesn’t, but I want you to know that we’re glad to have you.
Well these are people who think Jesus was white, so their perceptions aren’t exactly accurate lol.
The “interpretations,” based on what my wife (who grew up in an Assembly of God church) has told me always seem to be things you would normally hear in church anyway- Jesus loves you, have faith in God, pray hard and good things will happen, etc.
Mostly, yeah. That whole “Good things will happen” was a LOT of it where I grew up. It was vague prophecies akin to what a fortune teller would tell you as long as you kept the faith or whatever.
Sometimes there was some hellfire and brimstone mixed into the “prophecy”, but I think that’s just because I was in an area where that was popular.
Why are you such an anti-religious bigot? /s
It’s interesting people actually analysed this. Though the conclusion is far from shocking.