# Speaking In Tongues **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 25, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152 "2006-04-25T16:07:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/22 "2006-04-26T07:48:52Z")
I grew up with an extended family who were intimately involved in a Pentecostal Church here in Melbourne in the 1960’s and 70’s. I attended services (twice on a weeknight, and twice on a Sunday) throughout my childhood, and got the freaky heeby-jeebies every time I heard someone ‘speaking in tongues’…which happened at least three times at every service!! It spooked me more though when they were having the full-immersion baptismal…not only did they DROWN, but they came up blabbering as well!! HOWEVER, when I was in my teens, I re-admitted myself to the church voluntarily. After some pre-service counselling, I went for the full hog, and ended up ‘speaking in tongues’ myself. Once. It freaked me out. I never went back. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![mrald](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@mrald](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrald)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/23 "2006-04-26T10:52:33Z")
I went to a Pentecostal church as a child, but I and my family is souhern baptist. I think that speaking in tounges is real, but mostly it is a crock. People that do it again and again at every service either want attention or just truly think that is is happning because they want it to so bad. I used to visit many churches, I was looking for one I felt at home in. In two different churches (neither of which I call home now) a visiting evengalist and his wife preached. The wife did the exact same speaking in tounges display both times. I mean it was like she was reading a script. On top of that she creeped me out. She came over and touched me on the shoulder and started her lines and I wanted t run out of the building. I felt my skin crawl. I don’t think that tounges are always of God either. For further information on tounges read 1 Corinthians 14:2-28. IMHO God would much rather have one man preaching so that the congregation can understand and follow than twenty speaking in tounges. There should always be an interpreter if tounges is being spoke anyway. **Snakescatlady** Yep, in my southern baptist church, gotta be old to yell amen. But mine is a cool church, if you are young and yell amen you can get away with it, just as long as it isn’t in tounges. 😃 They never even said anyhting about my eyebrow ring. (unusual in my little town). I did raise eyebrows when I wore a mini skirt, fishnets and knee boots once. But they still love me! ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/24 "2006-04-26T12:10:39Z")
> [@mrald](#): > > For further information on tounges read 1 Corinthians 14:2-28. That’s not information, that’s faith. **astro** ’s link above is information. His link, however, is much more respectful of the phenomenon than [url=“[glossolalia - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com](http://skepdic.com/glossol.html)”]what I’d reference. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/25 "2006-04-26T14:25:31Z")
Fascinating stuff. Thanks everyone! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/27 "2006-04-26T16:21:46Z")
I don’t get it: the Gospel story of pentecost says that the apostles started speaking, and everyone understood what was said, in their own language. This ‘glossolalia’ stuff is just gibberish-it means nothing to anyone except the person uttering it. Shouldn’t it e classed as demonic, instead? ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/28 "2006-04-26T16:30:07Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I grew up with an extended family who were intimately involved in a Pentecostal Church here in Melbourne in the 1960’s and 70’s. > > I attended services (twice on a weeknight, and twice on a Sunday) throughout my childhood, and got the freaky heeby-jeebies every time I heard someone ‘speaking in tongues’…which happened at least three times at every service!! It spooked me more though when they were having the full-immersion baptismal…not only did they DROWN, but they came up blabbering as well!! > > HOWEVER, when I was in my teens, I re-admitted myself to the church voluntarily. After some pre-service counselling, I went for the full hog, and ended up ‘speaking in tongues’ myself. Once. It freaked me out. I never went back. > > :eek: Okay…what do you attribute the “speaking in tongues” thing to? Just a group excitement kind of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/29 "2006-04-26T16:31:10Z")
I’ve got to admit, I’m an Episcopalian and a former translator. As such, I’ve got very little use for speaking in tongues. Someone’s already cited Paul’s letter to the Corinthians; **ralph124c** makes a good point about the original Pentecost and one I’ve made a few times myself. A friend of mine who used to be a Pentecostal Christian can still speak in tongues at will, even though he’s now a Wiccan. He’s tried to explain what it’s like to me and at the time, he did feel filled with the Holy Spirit. I’m afraid, though, to me it’s rather pretentious, aka “Look at how holy I am!” and not of much use. What does it matter what praises I sing or what Truths I reveal if no one can understand them? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/30 "2006-04-26T16:42:05Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Wrong! > God speaks Latin. And expects that when “Speaking in Tongues”. Always possible. 🙂 As Sophia once said on the Golden Girls, “Mass should always be done in latin, the language Jesus spoke!” ---
**Author:** ![Mrs\_O\_Malley\_s\_Cow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Mrs\_O\_Malley\_s\_Cow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs_O_Malley_s_Cow)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/31 "2006-04-26T19:35:13Z")
[QUOTE=Homebrew] That’s not information, that’s faith. **astro** ’s link above is information. His link, however, is much more respectful of the phenomenon than [url=“[glossolalia - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com](http://skepdic.com/glossol.html)”]what I’d reference. [/QUOTE] Well that is your opinion. I and probably most other Christians would not go to a source like Wikipedia or the like for information on church life or how to run it. That would not make any sense. Oh and about “Fakin it”. You can. I would speak Greek if I wanted to fake it. Aramaic, oh yeah. But I haven’t gotten though Hebrew yet. But basically any language that is not widely know will do it. The only people who would know what you are up to would be someone like me but I would probably laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/32 "2006-04-26T20:38:59Z")
Actually, a friend of mine who’s a devout Catholic suggested we go to a Pentecostal type church and I should start reciting the Lord’s Prayer or some other part of the Gospels in Japanese. When someone started to interpret what I said, he’d stand up and say, “No. This is what she was really saying.” I told him only if we had a car parked outside with the engine running. More realistically, while I may have a problem with speaking in tongues, I wouldn’t be that disrespectful of others’ beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/33 "2006-04-26T21:46:33Z")
[QUOTE=Mrs O’Malley’s Cow] Well that is your opinion. I and probably most other Christians would not go to a source like Wikipedia or the like for information on church life or how to run it. That would not make any sense. [/QUOTE] Of course it is. I’m trying to be nice about it but I’m really contemptuous of the whole fundamentalist movement in general and Pentecostalism in particular. I grew up in it and really believed the whole load of it until I escaped the mindset. Read Karen Armstrong’s _The Battle for God_ for real information. Speaking in tongues is an ecstatic religious experience and nothing more. Period. It’s virtually unknown after Paul’s time for most of Christian history until the fundamentalist movement of the 20th century. It seem absurd to me that this unlearned, informal movement started in the backwaters of rural America and England would tap into some mystical spritual source that has eluded theologians for centuries. > [@excerpt from the book](#): > > Introduction > > One of the most startling developments of the late twentieth century has been the emergence within every major religious tradition of a militant piety popularly known as “fundamentalism.” Its manifestations are sometimes shocking. Fundamentalists have gunned down worshippers in a mosque, have killed doctors and nurses who work in abortion clinics, have shot their presidents, and have even toppled a powerful government. It is only a small minority of fundamentalists who commit such acts of terror, but even the most peaceful and law-abiding are perplexing, because they seem so adamantly opposed to many of the most positive values of modern society. Fundamentalists have no time for democracy, pluralism, religious toleration, peacekeeping, free speech, or the separation of church and state. Christian fundamentalists reject the discoveries of biology and physics about the origins of life and insist that the Book of Genesis is scientifically sound \ in every detail. At a time when many are throwing off the shackles of the past, Jewish fundamentalists observe their revealed Law more stringently than ever before, and Muslim women, repudiating the freedoms of Western women, shroud themselves in veils and chadors. Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists both interpret the Arab-Israeli conflict, which began as defiantly secularist, in an exclusively religious way. Fundamentalism, moreover, is not confined to the great monotheisms. There are Buddhist, Hindu, and even Confucian fundamentalisms, which also cast aside many of the painfully acquired insights of liberal culture, which fight and kill in the name of religion and strive to bring the sacred into the realm of politics and national struggle. > > This religious resurgence has taken many observers by surprise. In the middle years of the twentieth century, it was generally taken for granted that secularism was an irreversible trend and that faith would never again play a major part in world events. It was assumed that as human beings became more rational, they either would have no further need for religion or would be content to confine it to the immediately personal and private areas of their lives. But in the late 1970s, fundamentalists began to rebel against this secularist hegemony and started to wrest religion out of its marginal position and back to center stage. In this, at least, they have enjoyed remarkable success. Religion has once again become a force that no government can safely ignore. Fundamentalism has suffered defeats, but it is by no means quiescent. It is now an essential part of the modern scene and will certainly play an important role in the domestic and international affairs of the future. It is crucial, therefore, that we try to understand what this type of religiosity means, how and for what reasons it has developed, what it can tell us about our culture, and how best we should deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/34 "2006-04-26T21:49:14Z")
[QUOTE=Siege] More realistically, while I may have a problem with speaking in tongues, I wouldn’t be that disrespectful of others’ beliefs. [/QUOTE] Debunking bullshit is not disprespectful. Truth is good and sunlight is the best disinfectant. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/35 "2006-04-26T22:37:38Z")
True, but in the context it was brought up, it would be mockery, not debunking, and my religious beliefs outlaw mockery. Over Christmas, I had a discussion with an acquaintance who does speak in tongues and who was determined to convince me it was a good thing. I, in turn, tried to convince her why I find it anathema, although I stopped short of phrasing it that strongly (diplomacy was required under the circumstances). She didn’t convince me, and, while I hope I made an impact on her, I’m afraid I doubt I did. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/36 "2006-04-27T01:05:10Z")
[QUOTE=Homebrew] Debunking bullshit is not disprespectful. [/QUOTE] Debunking something is not necessarilly disrespecful. Calling it bovine excrement is. > [@](#): > > Truth is good. None of the posters here will disagree with you. But, some have a very different idea of what the truth is. IMO, how speaking in tongues effects believers is more important than whether it’s a miracle or just a sociological phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/37 "2006-04-27T01:10:02Z")
[QUOTE=Siege] Over Christmas, I had a discussion with an acquaintance who does speak in tongues and who was determined to convince me it was a good thing. I, in turn, tried to convince her why I find it anathema. [/QUOTE] Why anethema? Isn’t her speaking tongues, regardless of it’s origin or content, an expression of a love of G-d, a sincere attempt to move closer to Him, and live according to His will? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/38 "2006-04-27T01:11:22Z")
Blast! Please ignore the appostrophe in its in the above post. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/39 "2006-04-27T01:26:10Z")
I’m copying this from a post I made in a previous thread on the subject: > [@](#): > > I grew up going to a church that had frequent incidents of “speaking in tongues”. Then, somebody would becomes “touched by the Lord” and start translating. Funny thing, one time somebody was translating and was supposed to be speaking for Jesus, and said _something_ that was clearly in contradiction with the Bible. Something like Him saying that He committed sins in moments of weakness too, or whatever. The pastor then had to say a week or two later that it was obviously not a real “translation”, and although the person who did it had good intentions, please nobody fake any more Holy messages… I feel for this poor shmuck to this day, he or she was just as “touched by the Holy spirit” as anybody, but just hadn’t studied the Bible as well as the others. It’s my firm belief the whole deal is a power of suggestion thing. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/40 "2006-04-27T01:30:58Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] Why anethema? Isn’t her speaking tongues, regardless of it’s origin or content, an expression of a love of G-d, a sincere attempt to move closer to Him, and live according to His will? [/QUOTE] This entire board is dedicated to debunking people’s beliefs. Personally, I don’t feel that religious beliefs deserve any special respect or delicacy. We’re perfectly comfortable with mocking people who swear by urban legends, but we have to be gentle and considerate when it comes to matters of faith? Secondly, anyone can call their acts “expression of love for God.” Suicide bombers do it all the time, and believe that they are doing God’s will when they blow up a bunch of unsuspecting people. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/41 "2006-04-27T01:57:57Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] Secondly, anyone can call their acts “expression of love for God.” Suicide bombers do it all the time, and believe that they are doing God’s will when they blow up a bunch of unsuspecting people. [/QUOTE] Which is why I said earlier that the important thing is how a religious belief or practice effects people. If a particular belief cause adherents to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and watch Monty Python, then that belief is a good thing. If a particular belief causes adherents to start an Inquisition, become suicide bombers, or forward e-mails promising that Bill Gates will give us money, then that belief is a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152/42 "2006-04-27T02:29:41Z")
I was in a dinner theater production once where the dressing room backed up to a separate section of the complex where the theater was. There was a Pentacostal meeting going on on the other side of the wall, and I could hear people talking, more like shouting, in tongues. To me it sounded like bedlam. I didn’t hear any “thees” or “thous,” nor any other intelligible word. When I later saw the participants filing out of the room they were using, their eyes were as bright as if they were on some kind of powerful drug. In a way, I guess they were. At any rate, they were one scary bunch. Different strokes, of course, but it sure wasn’t for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-tongues/354152.md?page=3)