If you were ever a theist...

[Old Baby]

Hi old baby, thank you sharing all of this. I've never really understood the concept of speaking in tongues. I always took it to mean that everyone was speaking in different languages and understood each other lol I'm sorry you went through all of that. In my view, the idea of God just can't be contained in a religion etc...in a neat little box. The way I view it is faith should be a positive, freeing experience, and for many, it is far from that, largely, because people want to control others through it. It's a personal experience for me, now.

Your story is interesting to me, and resonates. Again, thank you.

Well, I always thought the bible agreed with you on speaking in tongues.  The original appearance of tongues was miraculously speaking in existing languages so that those from distant lands could hear and believe the gospel.  I never quite understood how this got morphed into "prayer language" or speaking a jibberish non-existent language and then waiting for someone else in the church to come up with an interpretation.

Ah, the holy rollin' memories. 

I attended Pentecostal services most of my churchgoing life, and I credit that as the source of some (not all) of my doubts towards religion. When I was baptized, I felt absolutely nothing. I sensed that everyone expected a nice show afterwards, but I didn't come through; no falling out, no tears, no elation. Nothing. For a  fleeting moment, I thought maybe I felt nothing, because there was nothing...but I quickly dismissed it. Should've ran with it, but I just chalked it up to being a result of my reserved nature.

I never attempted to speak in tongues myself, because I was never able to be convince myself that it was more than made-up gibberish. I made the mistake of sharing that with my mother once, who immediately asked if I thought she was making it up when she did it. When I told her "I believe that you believe you're speaking in tongues" she hit the roof. 

I got pressured into going up to the alter once, for extra special prayer with a side of olive oil, and finally felt something at long last: full blown panic. After getting slapped in the head with Extra Virgin, ten prayer warriors swarmed me like SWAT and proceeded to lay hands on me. They commenced with general hooting, hollering, and insane jibber-jabbering for several minutes, as my pastor invited/yelled for the Holy Spirit to do it's thing in me. I remember I felt hot. I felt nauseous. And I'm almost certain I felt my pastor trying to force me to fall to backwards.

But I never felt any Holy Spirit. Go figure.

My father is a Pentecostal minister, and for a long time I thought that he spoke in tongues even if no one else did.  Just to listen, my father has a very developed "language" while most others I heard just pretty much repeated the same phrase over and over. 

I remember a woman who was trying to get into the church about 10 years ago coming into one of our bible studies and claiming she wanted to be baptized in the Holy Ghost.  The service was spent praying for her.  They prayed and prayed but nothing happened.  Finally, after about 20 minutes, most of them started getting a little burned out and stopped praying.  At that point they started counseling her with their theories about why it wasn't happening.  One said there was sin in her life that she was hiding.  Another said she had not been broken enough.  The third said we needed to "bind the strong man".  The fourth recommended we rebuke demons.  At the end of the night, she never did speak in tongues and there were probably 10 competing theories for why it didn't happen. 

I had another friend who tried for months to receive the Holy Ghost Baptism under pressure from the pastor.  With each passing week, she felt more and more dejected and depressed.  She was told that she needed to just "keep trying" and that for some people it's just harder than others.  Finally, she stayed after church one morning with some other women in the church to pray.  One was my grandmother, whose practice was to scream in people's face things like "Just open your mouth and let him talk, babe!  Just let him have your tongue, babe!"  Finally, my friend consciously made some jibberish sounds thinking that God would take over but nothing happened.  Afterward, the women all assured her that she had spoken in tongues and she should thank God, but she was honest enough with herself to know nothing happened.

Not that far-removed from my own experience, and my own reasoning.

Basically my 'Eureka' moment was when it occurred to me that Religion and God are not the same thing.

Religion tells you what they believe is the "Truth" about God.

That doesn't mean it REALLY IS the Truth.

And if it turns out that there really is a God,
and He really is synonymous with the Truth,
and that I failed to question the "Truth" that Religion was teaching, which was actually a pack of Lies,
then God/Truth is going to be pissed with me,
for not using the perfectly good brain that He gave me to use
to figure that shit out,
and that I chose instead to take the word of fallible human idiots.

Totally agreed.  That's why I could no longer justify hiding from reality and pretending I believed things that I didn't.  I concluded that either God is Truth and seeking Truth would ultimately lead to God, or something like Calvinism is true and I'm just not one of the lucky few that God has chosen to give saving faith.