Talking in tongues

[Rob4Hope]

OK....anyone out there want to share experiences where people talked in tongues?

We got the 'babblers' I'm sure. But anyone heard someone work into it where they weren't so sure it was gibberish?

[jfro18]

It's amazing how this has never happened since we've had ways to actually record it.

I'll leave it at that, combined with Joseph Smith's "Adamic" language that they claimed Brigham would bust out from time to time. What utter nonsense.

[wtfluff]

The church has pretty much morphed the "speaking in tongues" into: Missionaries learning a foreign language. No gibberish, no blabbering, no rolling on the floor... Nothing. (Boring!)

I'd bet that pretty much any young person who goes through 3 months of intense training, and then moves to a foreign country and immerses themselves in the language can learn a language pretty well. There ain't no ghosts blessing mormon missionaries, they're basically forced to learn a language.


Myself: I've never witnessed speaking in tongues. I did attend a few Pentecostal congregations during my 2-year indentured sales gig, hoping to witness some tongue speaking, but it never happened.

I think I'm going to have to agree with jfro18.

[Reuben]

Hey, you doubters, glossolalia is real!

Just make sure that if you do it, you have someone with you that can interpret for you and tell you what you said, because you won't have a clue. And no, this isn't the religious equivalent of handing them a blank check. God will keep them in line.

It's also not equivalent to having them shout bullsh*t over the top of your incoherent babbling, because reasons.

[Culper Jr.]

I was reading in, I think it was, Brigham Young Frontier Prophet where early on in the church, the priesthood would get together, drink "sacramental" wine and speak in tongues. One quote commented on how drunk they would get. So essentially this gift of the spirit was a bunch of guys getting drunk and talking crazy. Amazing how miraculous occurrences decreased at the same rate alcohol use decreased in the church.

[RubinHighlander]

I was reading in, I think it was, Brigham Young Frontier Prophet where early on in the church, the priesthood would get together, drink "sacramental" wine and speak in tongues. One quote commented on how drunk they would get. So essentially this gift of the spirit was a bunch of guys getting drunk and talking crazy. Amazing how miraculous occurrences decreased at the same rate alcohol use decreased in the church.

Which may also have been wine laced with other spirit invoking psychedelic elixirs that were commonly used at the time.

[RubinHighlander]

I'll leave it at that, combined with Joseph Smith's "Adamic" language that they claimed Brigham would bust out from time to time. What utter nonsense.

I wonder how many of Joseph's wives thought he had a superior tongue? I'm having flashbacks to the thread about polygamy and sexual repression!

[alas]

As Reuben said glossolalia is a real thing. It isn’t just faking gibberish but the person saying it is sure it makes sense when they are doing it. But later, they can’t tell you what they meant, let alone reproduce the speech. In fact, the person doing it can get real frustrated that people don’t understand.

There are several ways you can get there, by drugs, by hypnosis, by self induced trance, by serious mental illness, and sometimes children do it for no apparent reason. It is something psychologists know about and is a real thing, but not in the sense that it is a real language. It often happens when people get worked up as a religious group. Like the placebo effect, mass hallucinations, St Midas dance, and other emotional/hysteria induced behavior, psychologists do not understand how the brain does this sort of thing, but mass seizures were part of what triggered the Salem witch trials.

It would be the person who “interprets” that would be the one making stuff up.

Now, there are some things that may seem similar, like under hypnosis someone actually speaks fluent German, that they heard as an infant but never “learned”. Well, they learned it better than they know. This has sometimes been taken as “past life regression” but, eh, believe what you want.

Also, with children, when they do it, it has been taken as them speaking the language of heaven that they remember from being with God. It SOUNDS like real language, but is different in that there really isn’t meaning behind it. So, a person faking it tends to repeat the same sounds too often.

Personally, I think BY faked it because he seemed to be able to speak “Adamic” on command, rather than after hours of intense worship, and he would then stop and tell his audience what he said. So, he was not in any kind of trance or under drugs, but seemed in control of what he was saying. Not the same.

[Just This Guy]

From a scriptural standpoint, what exactly is talking in Tongues?

From what I remember off hand, the Day of Pentacost, they say that they were talking in tongues and every man was able to hear their native language. So that to me sounds like it is meant as direct, highly understandable, communication across language barriers. Everyone agreed upon what was being said even if they heard it in different languages.

In other biblical references to speaking in tongues, they say that it exists, by don't give any details on what it actually is or what its practical use it.

Many Christian faiths take it as spontaneously speaking in 'divine' (aka gibberish) language, but no one is ever able to provide reliable translation.

So what is the 'gift of tongues'?

[Rob4Hope]

One had a companion get into an argument with a Pentacostal who used tongue speaking as a sign of spiritual approval. My companion responded:

"FRUCKER WHOO".....and then said: "That is 'bless you' in an ancient Egyptian dialect."

Nuff said.

(true story)

[Azrael]

There is no intelligence to be derived of it.

Of evil.

Confusion is tool of Adversary.

More proof ‘prophets’ aren’t infallible and not everything they taught should be trusted explicitly.

Do I trust the prophets, or trust that I shouldn’t trust them?


So cornfused.

[Hagoth]

I was reading in, I think it was, Brigham Young Frontier Prophet where early on in the church, the priesthood would get together, drink "sacramental" wine and speak in tongues. One quote commented on how drunk they would get. So essentially this gift of the spirit was a bunch of guys getting drunk and talking crazy. Amazing how miraculous occurrences decreased at the same rate alcohol use decreased in the church.

I wish more Mormons today understood what a big deal speaking in tongues was in the early church. If you go back to early documents you can't avoid it because it was, afterall, one of the essential gifts of the spirit described in the D&C, and it pops up everywhere in descriptions of Mormon meetings whenever someone "feels the spirit."

The Book of Mormon translation essay has a footnote (footnote 32: Deseret Evening News, Dec. 13, 1881, 4) That they use to show that people knew about something called the Urim and Thummim before th 1880s, as if anyone questioned that. It was really a bad choice because the article to which it refers does say that the U&T was mentioned in a meeting, but it puts more emphasis on the fact that someone was speaking in tongues at the meeting, which was taken as the real evidence that the church is true.

(momentary derailing warning) The DN article also gives another great example of what a wacky character Martin Harris was. He claims he almost didn't make it to Utah because a demon-possessed blackberry bush attacked and nearly killed him. Whew.

[Rob4Hope]

Like Zina, Presendia sang and spoke prophetically, practicing weird ululations of ecstatic tongue-speech. Once a non-Mormon cousin visited the Huntingtons in Kirtland and wanted to hear glossolalia, expecting “to have a hearty laugh,” wrote Presendia. So they took the cousin to a meeting. A Brother McCarter rose “and sang a song of Zion in tongues.” Then, to the cousin’s surprise, Presendia stood up: “I … sang simultaneously with him the same tune and words, beginning and ending each verse in perfect unison, without varying a word. It was just as though we had sung it together a thousand times.” After the meeting the cousin observed, “Instead of laughing, I never felt so solemn in my life.”

Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Kindle Locations 3057-3059). Signature Books. Kindle Edition.

Anyone know anything about this? This would seem to imply there really was some power operating in these people at this time.

Thoughts?

I've heard people harmonize on the spot in incredible ways. It happens. But matching the weird words?

[alas]

This sounds like exaggeration after the fact. Like a lot of Mormon stories about confounding doubters, if you had a chance to hear the doubter’s perspective, they were not near as convinced as the people telling the story make it out that they were. Sort of like the stories the apostles tell about meeting some famous person on the airplane and they are so amazed and impressed by the testimony born. But did the famous person join the church. Nope. They were probably too polite not to laugh out loud at how the person actually believes this stuff. So, rather than continue the conversation, they act impressed to shut the evangelizing old man up.

So, I think the reality was that she picked up the tune and sang babbled that with him.

See, the miracle of the day of Pentecost was that everyone understood in their own language. Not that no one understood some foreign language. The speaking in tongues done in the early church was mostly where nobody understood or one person who arready knew the script “translated”.

But, that is just my cynical opinion.

[Hagoth]

Like Zina, Presendia sang and spoke prophetically, practicing weird ululations of ecstatic tongue-speech. Once a non-Mormon cousin visited the Huntingtons in Kirtland and wanted to hear glossolalia, expecting “to have a hearty laugh,” wrote Presendia. So they took the cousin to a meeting. A Brother McCarter rose “and sang a song of Zion in tongues.” Then, to the cousin’s surprise, Presendia stood up: “I … sang simultaneously with him the same tune and words, beginning and ending each verse in perfect unison, without varying a word. It was just as though we had sung it together a thousand times.” After the meeting the cousin observed, “Instead of laughing, I never felt so solemn in my life.”

Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Kindle Locations 3057-3059). Signature Books. Kindle Edition.

Anyone know anything about this? This would seem to imply there really was some power operating in these people at this time.

Thoughts?

I've heard people harmonize on the spot in incredible ways. It happens. But matching the weird words?

https://youtu.be/zaCNscXD9GU?t=60

[Rob4Hope]

Like Zina, Presendia sang and spoke prophetically, practicing weird ululations of ecstatic tongue-speech. Once a non-Mormon cousin visited the Huntingtons in Kirtland and wanted to hear glossolalia, expecting “to have a hearty laugh,” wrote Presendia. So they took the cousin to a meeting. A Brother McCarter rose “and sang a song of Zion in tongues.” Then, to the cousin’s surprise, Presendia stood up: “I … sang simultaneously with him the same tune and words, beginning and ending each verse in perfect unison, without varying a word. It was just as though we had sung it together a thousand times.” After the meeting the cousin observed, “Instead of laughing, I never felt so solemn in my life.”

Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Kindle Locations 3057-3059). Signature Books. Kindle Edition.

Anyone know anything about this? This would seem to imply there really was some power operating in these people at this time.

Thoughts?

I've heard people harmonize on the spot in incredible ways. It happens. But matching the weird words?

https://youtu.be/zaCNscXD9GU?t=60

Oh gees.....ROFL!

[wtfluff]

This sounds like exaggeration after the fact.

Yep. Isn't it interesting that none of the old-school "religious miracles" like speaking in tongues happen now that everyone carries a video recorder with them 7X24?

[Palerider]

From a scriptural standpoint, what exactly is talking in Tongues?

In other biblical references to speaking in tongues, they say that it exists, by don't give any details on what it actually is or what its practical use it.


So what is the 'gift of tongues'?

I'd suggest a quick read of 1 Corinthians 14 for Paul's treatise on speaking in tongues and its use.

To my understanding the tongue being spoken is a legitimate language. Idiotic gibberish doesn't count. Even if the one speaking it says he/she is giving a translation afterwords. Obviously the "Adamic" language is hogwash. A carry over from mystical gnosticism.

As Paul indicates:

"27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.

28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God."

The purpose of the gift of tongues was to interpret for someone who was unable to speak the local language. Paul says specifically that it was a sign for non- believers to help them understand the local language being spoken. It was not a sign for believers to show that they are in the right church. (See verse 22 in particular)

[Hagoth]

The purpose of the gift of tongues was to interpret for someone who was unable to speak the local language. Paul says specifically that it was a sign for non- believers to help them understand the local language being spoken. It was not a sign for believers to show that they are in the right church. (See verse 22 in particular)

You're right, Palerider, Corinthians makes it pretty clear. I think the reason for gibbering in nonsensical tongues is that anyone can do it to create the impression that God is working through them. You can't refute it as long it's some sort of non-earthly spiritual language. It can also be done either sincerely or deceptively and there's no way of disputing it. If fact it can be made to look even more genuine if another believer or accomplice claims to understand the gibberish.

[Palerider]

It can also be done either sincerely or deceptively and there's no way of disputing it. In fact it can be made to look even more genuine if another believer or accomplice claims to understand the gibberish.

Which leads us to the Kirkland(?) temple vision where Joseph describes what he is seeing and Sidney Rigdon states, "I see the same." Then iirc, Sidney describes the vision he is seeing and then Joseph says, "I see the same."

Well isn't that just a classic setup for an unverifiable phenomenon that would reel in a trusting but gullible audience?

I say, take the two of them into two separate rooms where they can have the vision on a day when they don't know it's happening and have them pray to receive the same vision, you know like Nephi and his father, Lehi, and then describe the vision to another church member in the room with them. Then those two church members can come out of the rooms and tell the visions to see if they match.

I know, sounds complex and picayune but how gullible must one be to believe it the way they did do it?