On the subject of Pentecostals and "Tongues", I have some peripheral experience , but that has caused me to form pretty strong opinions. I believe, personally, that Pentecostals have mis-read and mis-interpreted the use of "Tongues" in the book of Acts.
In Acts, The preachers were preaching to a cosmopolitan crowd, and each listener heard the preaching in his own native tongue. Probably made it a lot easier for them to understand, I reckon, so it had a useful purpose. Note well that the preachers wasn't speaking in gibberish, but instead that each person HEARD their own language.
Now, when I was 14 years old, I ran away from home, hitchhiked my way "across the USA"... not really, but I made it a good 500 miles or so. Anyhow, one of the rides I caught was a fella who turned out to be a Pentecostal. Real nice guy, fed me a meal at his dad's restaurant, but the price of the meal was listening to some preaching, of which "Tongues" was a part. He actually taught me how to "speak in tongues" on purpose and at will, but I couldn't figure out a good use for it. According to him, it was "your soul speaking directly to God in a language that demons couldn't understand or interfere with". Didn't make a lot of sense to me, but that was his rationale.
Flash forward a few years, and I was a DJ at a radio station. Being low man on the totem pole, it was me and one other who ran the place on weekends, from about 4 PM Friday until sundown Sunday, when the station closed down for the night. it was a "sunup to sundown" station. I had an air-shift weekday evenings from 4 PM to sign off through the week. In the winter time that meant a shift about an hour or hour and a half long, and in the summers it could go for upwards of 4 hours an evening.
Sundays were pretty easy going. We'd run a couple of radio shows that were pre-recorded to get the day started, and run a reel-to-reel tape machine on a dedicated line to a local church to record their sermon, then play the tape back on the air after the sermon was over, and then we had several live radio shows of preaching usually running about a half hour each until the afternoon.
Some of those folks were Pentecostals, and I mean to tell you they'd get pretty lively in that tiny broadcast booth. Lots of hollering, dancing, and flinging arms and hands about, right along with live music. Sometimes, they'd get to hollering in "tongues" right there in the booth, and on the air. It always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because had no damned idea what they were saying, or why they couldn't say in in plain English. There was usually someone around that they'd get to "interpret" the mess, but there was never any real way of knowing whether that "interpretation" was factual, or just some more made up BS. Just had to take their word for it... and never any explanation of why English wouldn't do, seeing as how their entire audience were English speakers.
Some of that same bunch were "snake handlers". You ever tossed a preacher out of an establishment? I have, when they brought a wooden box of live rattle snakes in one fine Sunday! The preacher said "well we wasn't gonna turn 'em loose in here!" and I replied "I know damned well you ain't, because you and your box both is fixin' to hit that door, pronto! The only question at this point is whether yer gonna carry it out under yer own power, or whether it's gonna fly out on top of you."
A few years after that, when I was married to my first wife, was the last time I encountered the "Tongues".
On Sunday mornings, we'd go to an Independent Baptist church which leaned pretty hard to the Calvinism, but they were a pretty calm and stuffy crowd, so for a little excitement in religion, we'd go to a Pentecostal church on Sunday evenings... because, as I mentioned, those Pentecostals are a pretty lively bunch!
So one night at the Pentecostal church, there I was, just minding my own business, when the crowd started heating up. Directly, one young lady jumped right up, started shaking and waving her arms around, and speaking in "Tongues". The difference was, this particular time in contrast to all the other times, I could UNDERSTAND what she was saying, and I have no idea to this day how that happened.
It chilled me to the bone.
That gal was speaking ancient Sumerian - which is NOT a language I speak, although in later years I did pick up a few words of it, but nothing like fluency - and the things she was saying ought NEVER to be uttered in a House of God. I'm not going to go into any detail of what it was, other than to say that it creeped me right out, the entire experience. I stood up, gathered my missus at the time up, and walked right out of there without another word. Never went back.
So, I'm not a big fan of "Tongues". if you've got something to say to me, then spit it right out, but do it in English. If it's Gibberish, it might get you smacked before I can get past you to leave.
As far as I'm concerned, Catholics chanting their masses in Latin are speaking Tongues, because I can't understand it. I do read ancient Greek, but I never speak it, because I'm pretty iffy on my pronunciation. Never had a reason to try learning Latin, though.
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On the subject of witching, there are all sorts of witches around these days. Some very few adhere to old traditions passed down in their families for centuries, but most of your modern day witches are "wiccans", a made up religion originally started by Gerald Gardener in the early 20th century. From there they've branched out, and some of the more entertaining branches have been heavily influenced by the "Women's Lib" movement of the late 1960's and 1970's. They seem to be all about destroying the patriarchy and replacing it with a matriarchy. I had a run-in once with one of those who claimed to be a "4th generation hereditary priestess" of one of those Matriarchy branches, but she was blowing smoke up my ass... just don't know if she even knew she was blowing smoke up my ass, though.
I traced whichever branch of "wicca" that she said it was back, and found that it was started by some man-hating old hussy in the 1970's, so I don't even know if there had been enough time to generate any "fourth generation" anythings in it. As "traditions" go, I still have cammie BDU's older than her religion hanging in my closet.
Anyhow, she threatened to fling a hex on me over some trifling bullshit. I just told her to give it her best shot, but not to be surprised if life started going poorly for her thereafter. I don't know if she ever did it or not - it wasn't so strong as I noticed anything hexy going on. if she did.
But, yeah, there are all kinds of witches around these days, mostly what I call "Barnes and Noble" witches, and some of them can be downright entertaining!
.
In Acts, The preachers were preaching to a cosmopolitan crowd, and each listener heard the preaching in his own native tongue. Probably made it a lot easier for them to understand, I reckon, so it had a useful purpose. Note well that the preachers wasn't speaking in gibberish, but instead that each person HEARD their own language.
Now, when I was 14 years old, I ran away from home, hitchhiked my way "across the USA"... not really, but I made it a good 500 miles or so. Anyhow, one of the rides I caught was a fella who turned out to be a Pentecostal. Real nice guy, fed me a meal at his dad's restaurant, but the price of the meal was listening to some preaching, of which "Tongues" was a part. He actually taught me how to "speak in tongues" on purpose and at will, but I couldn't figure out a good use for it. According to him, it was "your soul speaking directly to God in a language that demons couldn't understand or interfere with". Didn't make a lot of sense to me, but that was his rationale.
Flash forward a few years, and I was a DJ at a radio station. Being low man on the totem pole, it was me and one other who ran the place on weekends, from about 4 PM Friday until sundown Sunday, when the station closed down for the night. it was a "sunup to sundown" station. I had an air-shift weekday evenings from 4 PM to sign off through the week. In the winter time that meant a shift about an hour or hour and a half long, and in the summers it could go for upwards of 4 hours an evening.
Sundays were pretty easy going. We'd run a couple of radio shows that were pre-recorded to get the day started, and run a reel-to-reel tape machine on a dedicated line to a local church to record their sermon, then play the tape back on the air after the sermon was over, and then we had several live radio shows of preaching usually running about a half hour each until the afternoon.
Some of those folks were Pentecostals, and I mean to tell you they'd get pretty lively in that tiny broadcast booth. Lots of hollering, dancing, and flinging arms and hands about, right along with live music. Sometimes, they'd get to hollering in "tongues" right there in the booth, and on the air. It always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because had no damned idea what they were saying, or why they couldn't say in in plain English. There was usually someone around that they'd get to "interpret" the mess, but there was never any real way of knowing whether that "interpretation" was factual, or just some more made up BS. Just had to take their word for it... and never any explanation of why English wouldn't do, seeing as how their entire audience were English speakers.
Some of that same bunch were "snake handlers". You ever tossed a preacher out of an establishment? I have, when they brought a wooden box of live rattle snakes in one fine Sunday! The preacher said "well we wasn't gonna turn 'em loose in here!" and I replied "I know damned well you ain't, because you and your box both is fixin' to hit that door, pronto! The only question at this point is whether yer gonna carry it out under yer own power, or whether it's gonna fly out on top of you."
A few years after that, when I was married to my first wife, was the last time I encountered the "Tongues".
On Sunday mornings, we'd go to an Independent Baptist church which leaned pretty hard to the Calvinism, but they were a pretty calm and stuffy crowd, so for a little excitement in religion, we'd go to a Pentecostal church on Sunday evenings... because, as I mentioned, those Pentecostals are a pretty lively bunch!
So one night at the Pentecostal church, there I was, just minding my own business, when the crowd started heating up. Directly, one young lady jumped right up, started shaking and waving her arms around, and speaking in "Tongues". The difference was, this particular time in contrast to all the other times, I could UNDERSTAND what she was saying, and I have no idea to this day how that happened.
It chilled me to the bone.
That gal was speaking ancient Sumerian - which is NOT a language I speak, although in later years I did pick up a few words of it, but nothing like fluency - and the things she was saying ought NEVER to be uttered in a House of God. I'm not going to go into any detail of what it was, other than to say that it creeped me right out, the entire experience. I stood up, gathered my missus at the time up, and walked right out of there without another word. Never went back.
So, I'm not a big fan of "Tongues". if you've got something to say to me, then spit it right out, but do it in English. If it's Gibberish, it might get you smacked before I can get past you to leave.
As far as I'm concerned, Catholics chanting their masses in Latin are speaking Tongues, because I can't understand it. I do read ancient Greek, but I never speak it, because I'm pretty iffy on my pronunciation. Never had a reason to try learning Latin, though.
======================
On the subject of witching, there are all sorts of witches around these days. Some very few adhere to old traditions passed down in their families for centuries, but most of your modern day witches are "wiccans", a made up religion originally started by Gerald Gardener in the early 20th century. From there they've branched out, and some of the more entertaining branches have been heavily influenced by the "Women's Lib" movement of the late 1960's and 1970's. They seem to be all about destroying the patriarchy and replacing it with a matriarchy. I had a run-in once with one of those who claimed to be a "4th generation hereditary priestess" of one of those Matriarchy branches, but she was blowing smoke up my ass... just don't know if she even knew she was blowing smoke up my ass, though.
I traced whichever branch of "wicca" that she said it was back, and found that it was started by some man-hating old hussy in the 1970's, so I don't even know if there had been enough time to generate any "fourth generation" anythings in it. As "traditions" go, I still have cammie BDU's older than her religion hanging in my closet.
Anyhow, she threatened to fling a hex on me over some trifling bullshit. I just told her to give it her best shot, but not to be surprised if life started going poorly for her thereafter. I don't know if she ever did it or not - it wasn't so strong as I noticed anything hexy going on. if she did.
But, yeah, there are all kinds of witches around these days, mostly what I call "Barnes and Noble" witches, and some of them can be downright entertaining!
.