Fuck’s sake.

  • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    MATTHEW 6:5

    And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

    He’s a sinner.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    Prayer In Tongues On Floor Before Abortion Ruling.

    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.

    https://makingnoiseandhearingthings.com/2013/11/07/the-science-of-speaking-in-tongues/

    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]

    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      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.

        • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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          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.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            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.

            • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Wait so if I never bother to test myself because I’m not a pond-drinking moron, does that mean I have enough faith?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                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.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        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.

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          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.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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            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.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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            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.

    • _Cid_@lemmy.world
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      It’s interesting people actually analysed this. Though the conclusion is far from shocking.

  • ctkatz@lemmy.ml
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    if anyone thinks this is acceptable behavior in any house of legislation, substitute what is happening here with an islamic call to prayer and prayer session.

    did your opinion change? why is it okay that christians can do this and no one else?

    • SeabassDan@lemmy.world
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      You won’t really get to them that way. They’ll retort with something like, “Well, the Pledge of Allegiance says ‘One nation under God’, not under Allah” and they’ll high five and shoot some kids.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      why is it okay that christians can do this and no one else?

      Because they’re the correct ones. Duh. It wouldn’t be acceptable for Muslims to do it because it would be bringing demonic forces into our houses of government…

      Or something, I dunno, I haven’t been a Christian for 20+ years.

      • wick@lemm.ee
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        Well my version of Christianity isn’t like the thousands of others, or the one this senator belongs to, so it’s still demonic.

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    Wow. I just had to click on a link on an article to find the video (because why embed… that’s crazy talk) to be taken to a tweet that contained a tiktok video.

    This experience could only be improved if the tiktok video was a person summarizing a reddit post.

    What a world.

  • Zerlyna@lemmy.world
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    I went to a Pentacostal church many years ago and one time they had a group session to practice speaking in tongues. It’s absolute horseshit.

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        And the rest of us laugh at you guys who think a progressive church is any less batshit crazy than speaking in tongues.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            It must be reassuring to see the world in simple absolutes.

            Jesus sure did:

            Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

            – John 3:18

          • seth@lemmy.world
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            Most things aren’t absolute, but being able to recognize that some things are absolutely nuts and worth ridiculing because of the amount of harm and suffering they cause, is kind of reassuring.

    • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
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      You can tell it’s horseshit because if they were actually performing the miracle of Speaking in Tongues that they claim to be you would be able to understand whatever they’re babbling about regardless of what language you speak. If they were genuinely doing it you probably shouldn’t even be able to tell unless someone who speaks a completely different language comes along and says something like, “Wow, it’s crazy that this congregation prays in Swahili,” or whatever.

    • CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net
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      I grew up with two parents who are always engaging in glossolalia. They’ll swear black and blue it’s a language that connects them with god. To them it’s not complete horseshit. But it is.

  • DrDominate@lemmy.world
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    I certainly thought it had to be just some normal prayer or maybe a Latin chant, but no. Its all of them independently and incoherently muttering to their god while kneeling over the state seal. Separation of church and state is long dead it seems.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      Idk, if their God created people like that then I do kinda hate that God too.

      :P

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        If God is responsible for even a percent of what they all claim he has done, then God is a giant dick. And that’s the understatement of eternity.

        • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
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          How people can think the story of the great flood - very nearly the greatest possible act of genocide followed by an explicit instruction to commit multiple generations of obligate incest- is some kind of uplifting story that’s somehow appropriate for children is beyond me.

  • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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    Man walks into a psychiatrist office. He tells the doctor he speaks in an unknown dialect to a “god”. Is this person committed to an insane asylum? psychiatric institution? Why or why not??

    • ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social
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      Considering insane asylums don’t exist anymore that would be a no. But yes, they should probably be prescribed a mandatory stay at a psychiatric facility.

      • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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        So since insane asylum is not used anymore, you couldn’t go ahead fill it in with psychiatric facility? The pedantry never ends

        • ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social
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          They have different connotations. The words we use are important. We don’t refer to people as “retarded” anymore either for a similar reason.

    • HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      In the US, unless he’s a real direct threat to themselves or someone else’s safety, they would not be detained. People are allowed to be insane as long as they aren’t imminently a real direct threat to anyone’s safety.

      • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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        What if they’re running around nude? Or screaming threatening profanities or making offensive gestures? Many other symptoms could accompany psychotic dillusions which would lead to being involuntarily committed

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    We should do all republican laws in tongues!

    …yeah my wife needs an abortion…oh they are illegal? Can you show me on the law where it says that? No?

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      I’m Christian but I could not give the slightest shit about abortion. I worked for a gyne that performed them and saw the pathology reports all the time. It’s literally a little spongy hemorrhagic tissue they are removing. It’s such a nothing, and when you see the waiting room full of women you realize that EVERYONE across cultures and religions get abortions. I saw Mennonite women and women in full burqas out there, and Christian women praying on their knees.

      Have the procedure and get on with your life. Don’t let a few cells get in the way of your plans. It’s a decision between you and your doctor and nobody else.

      Incidentally I offered on Facebook to mail any American women the abortion pill, and Facebook immediately banned me for 30 days for selling illicit substances. I ended up being interviewed by Vice about it funnily enough.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      Honestly speaking, he’s just not a good Christian. If he’s condemning the actions of others, while praying in public for attention, he’s not following Jesus.

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        I don’t want to humor the fantasy of “good Christians” since they’re all terrible. jesus being good is just marketing. religion claims to be the source of morality but in reality they claim a monopoly over it and arbitrarily designate anyone outside their group as being evil

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          Maybe that’s true for the loud Christians that make the news, but I know several Christians that work food drives, do homeless coat runs, and volunteer in shelters that want to maintain separation of church and state. It’s just as ignorant to label a religion by the behavior of some of its members as it is a race.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            Yes, and those people are great. But the sane Christians in this country allowed the fundamentalist Christofascists to grow in power by quietly letting them be the loudest representation of Christianity here for decades. Silence is implied approval.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      Having people run around speaking in tongues isn’t really something that most Christian denominations do. It’s specific to a couple. IIRC the big one is the Pentecostals. Snow Crash had a plot that centered around that, kinda took some digs at the Pentecostal church.

      googles

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_tongues

      Yeah, sounds like it.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostalism

      With over 279 million classical Pentecostals worldwide, the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the Global South and Third World countries.[10][11][12][13][14]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

      Christianity (/krɪstʃiˈænɪti/ or /krɪstiˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. It is the world’s largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the world population.

      So you’re talking about a denomination that’s a little over 10% of Christianity. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not really representative.

  • badbrainstorm @lemmy.today
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    Man, all this speaking in tongues talk lately is giving me PTSD. Next they’ll be getting “drunk in the holy spirit”. Every time they pulled this shit at church, I wished my mom would have chosen abortion instead

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      Sounds more entertaining than growing up Mormon, every week it’s the same wonderbread suburbanites talking about the small quiet warm feeling the Holy Spirit brings. At least the southern baptists know how to get everyone on their feet and dancing around.

      • badbrainstorm @lemmy.today
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        Wasn’t fun loving, southern Baptist. It was crazy ass non denominational, fire and brimstone, revolations, scaring kids about hell. Kenneth Copeland visits, and the like always went this route. Nothing entertaining about it. It was scary as fuck! And if I didn’t act right, it was paddle board time when we got home

        • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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          Damn, sorry you had to go through that. Each flavor of religion harms people in different ways, the Mormons are more about socially ostracizing non members and grooming children into the cult to keep the business growing. They’re also just as bad in effect if not scale as the Catholics for abusing kids, they just make the one on one time with the local bishop/used car dealer a normal thing so it seems ok.

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          I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal of Copeland. The guy looks like a mix of a real life serial killer and “demon in human form” from movies, yet people still donate their whole paycheck to him so that he can buy private jets.