Speaking in tongues is one mind-boggling bitch, that serves as an excellent example of how our minds can be easily tricked & fooled. First time I encountered it I went with a friend to a Church of God (think neo-pentecostal) and he gave me no warning whatsoever. The first 30ish minutes of the service felt like it was a Southern Baptist church, & then the batshittery began. First I hear some woman start babbling incoherently, then spaz out, flopping on the floor like she was being electrocuted. Then more babblings began, mostly women, but I heard a couple of men’s voices too. First time I encountered it I went with a friend to a Church of God (think neo-pentecostal) and he gave me no warning whatsoever. The first 30ish minutes of the service felt like it was a Southern Baptist church, & then the batshittery began. First I hear some woman start babbling incoherently, then spaz out, flopping on the floor like she was being electrocuted. Then more babblings began, mostly women, but I heard a couple of men’s voices too.
I’m turning to my friend asking "what the hell is fuckin going on here, Nate!?!?! He’s got his arms up, head down, eyes closed, & mumbling at just over a whisper. Then some 70ish old lady startles the fuck out of me coming up babbling from behind & placing her hands on the back of my head. This is when I finally bailed outta there & walked home.
One thing I realized during my deconstruction journey is that people don’t go to church seeking a relationship with god, they’ve just been indoctrinated to think that’s what they’re looking for. What they’re actually looking for is relationships with other people, a sense of belonging & community. Religious people would have you believe that they have a monopoly on community, but they don’t. Community came before the concepts of church. I had this epiphany for myself, and realized it’s true for everyone that’s religious. They’ve just been programmed to think otherwise. That’s jumping ahead towards the end of my deconversion though, back to the tongues…
This time period in my life was pretty shitty for several reasons for several years, & had been mostly out of church for some time. My buddy Nate managed to convince me to give his church another try, saying god was what turned his life around. I was still weirded the fuck out my the batshitcraycray, but fuck, it seemed to work for Nate. 5-6 months down the road, my shitty life shat on me again in the form of my adoptive mother’s death. My relations with her were always troubled, and I had a bit of a mental break. The Sunday after her death, I went from my usual spot in the back down to the front, kneeled down, & started sobbing uncontrollably. It wasn’t long before I had a small mob damn near dogpiling me with their prayer hands & mumbling. At some point, rather quicky it seemed, my sobs & tears morphed into incoherent mumblings sounding much like those around me. That was when I backslid. Not the backsliding believers talk of, but I backslid into believing god & jeezus & holy ghosty were real after all. You see, I had doubts & questions about religion at an early age. Those D’s & Q’s always recieved B.S. nonsensical “answers” such as “god works in mysterious ways” or “who are we to question the lord (or pastor)”. I would then generally get told to go out and play, and being a child, that was enough to distract me from further questioning for some time. After high school, I was in & out of churches a bit, mostly out. Anyway, the shittyness of my life, and that mental break, caused me to sincerely seek god again, thinking he was real after all. There for some time after that, things did seem to improve a little, but I eventually realized it wasn’t god’s doing, it was help and support from fellow church members, and my own resilience. All in all, my Church of God experience just increased the time it took me to deconstruct & shed the chains of religious lies. My D’s & Q’s came back ever stronger and more numerous, and they STILL received B.S. nonsensical crap answers again. So, I couldn’t seem to get real, honest answers, let alone facts from leaders, so started looking for answers myself. I started by delving deeper into the bible, cross-referencing scriptures & such. The more I dug, the more contradictions & B.S. I found. Then I started researching other religions, learning how they came into being, how the newer religions were built upon older ones, adapting their customs into their own religious storyline, all in order to pacify and control those they were converting. Prime example… I’ll let Penn Jillette say it for me…
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