(06-13-2023, 06:41 AM)BodhisattvaStyle Wrote: This introduction is the most controversial topic, and exceeds the book of Revelation in controversy and misunderstanding. And that is the topic of speaking in tongues.
I can speak in "tongues". I was actually taught how to do it when I was 14, but I never do it any more.
When I was 14, I and a friend ran away from home. Along the way, on the road, a guy picked us up, fed us, and the price of the meal was getting preached at. That was the guy that taught us to speak in "tongues", and who explained what he believed to be the theory behind it.
Flash forward a bunch of years. In my late 20's, I used to go to a dry Baptist church on Sunday morning, and a much more lively Assemblies of God church on Sunday evening. I kept going to the Baptist church because it was the only place I had ever actually heard angels sing, and that had an effect on me. My sister was there, and heard them, too, so if it was a hallucination, it was one in mass. I went to the AoG church because those folks were LIVELY! It was like a party every Sunday evening, and folks in the age group I was in purely love their parties!
So anyhow, One Sunday evening I was sitting there, minding my own business, and things got rowdy as they often did at that church. one thing led to another, and directly a young lady stood up in the congregation and started yelling in "tongues". Now that was just a normal Sunday evening, but what happened next was not normal, not by any stretch. I realized that I could UNDERSTAND what she was saying, every word of it. I can even tell you the language she was speaking, but I won't, because this story is already unbelievable as it is. It has not been spoken on Earth for well over 2000 years, and no, it was not one of the languages the Bible was written in.
Like I said, I understood what she was saying, plain as day, and it chilled me all the way to my core. The words rolling off her tongue should never, EVER, be spoken in God's house... or anywhere else for that matter. Especially if you believe, as I do, that God is everywhere - that kinda makes everywhere "God's house" in my mind.
Shortly after she was done and had sat down, another fella popped up and commenced to "translating" what she had said... but what he said she said was NOT what I heard her say. It was some generalized flowery nonsense that had never tripped off her lips. What she said was very specific, and maybe the most evil things I've ever heard... and that covers a lot of ground!
So I quietly got up, gathered up my wife at that time, and we hauled it right on out of there. Never went back.
And, since that night, I have never even attempted to speak in tongues again.
But that's just my story. Your mileage may vary, and to each his own.
Quote:Here's where I'll lose most, and with every thing I know and have learned, this is argued more than anything I have come across, but at the same time is the least talked about.
Before I go any further I have to say that it was faith that brought me to the understanding I believe to have found, and to me is an absolute sign of a higher power. But, the way, and how I found all of this was in no traditional way. It was a hard-knock road of trial and error, and absolute faith in something greater than, not only myself, but this illusion of reality and "free-will" we live in. Not to say we have lost our free-will, but a lot of that free-will has been robbed from us due to the "TPTB" that we discuss so thoroughly, and their big bag of magic tricks they have been manipulating our lives through. So, I diligently searched for some truths buried in all the lies we've all been spoon fed throughout.
I do not believe in free will, and as it turns out, according to YouTube, there are actual physicists that agree with me. I believe that, because of the nature of God, the Universe, and Everything, free will is not a possibility. I don't think the nature of the universe and the way it is structured allows for it.
Quote:And yes, my faith, some instructions, my curiosity, some insight from one or two others stories, some discipline and action to my faith led me to what was written anywhere from 2000 to about 6000ish years ago, and then poof, I find the biggest truth I had ever encountered, and the first sign was me speaking in a foreign language as I was filled with a feeling of love, peace, bliss, excitement and shock, was all while me rambling off in another language. This was only the first sign. (to squash some of the rhetoric, this has happened hundreds of times by now, and it is always in a moment in which I am in private, and have chosen to participate((worship my God)) and is always when I am singing for God, or dancing in joy, or in deep sorrow, or in deep thankfulness. This never happens out of nowhere. I seek the Lord and He answers me). Many signs have followed. But this is not something that can be taught. or explained in any way that would influence someone who was doubtful. (I wouldn't doubt it if this costs me my first negative points. But I didn't come here for that. I came here to help tear down some of these lies). What I can say is, a little faith can go a long long way.
I'll do my best to answer any questions anyone may have after this...
That, I understand. I've been given the most absolute peace and calm when by rights it should not be, when everything around me was blowing up, and no sane rational person would be in any state other than an absolute mind melting panic. Yet I wasn't. I had that peace, and that calm, and it was enough for me to reason out my next moves calmly. It's not an experience I can explain, or even really figure out. it was just there, and now I am, too.
And that has happened more than once. Now afterwards, after the emergency is over and all is safe, I generally devolve into a blithering, blubbering, mind melted idiot, but in the storm, the calm comes, and gets me through to the other side of it so that I can have my well-deserved meltdown.
That ain't even kinda sorta sane, now is it?