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Aint fake, people really get drunk, they really pass out, they really get the shakes, it just aint from God in my opinion.
But imagine you are standing there and you really believe it and you actually get drunk and fall down, you might think it was God.
It happens, it's not fake, it's just cause they believe in it so much.
It is indeed mostly a real phenomenon known as "mass hysteria". Some, though, is faked. Inherently to deliver a prophecy or alleged interpretation of tongues you have to actively make stuff up. To gin up the crowd atmosphere necessary for people to be "slain in the spirit" you have to be calculatedly manipulative, though you may rationalize much of that.
The hysteria part is much of the speaking in tongues, the various forms of falling down or having "holy seizures" or whatever, the ecstatic feelings during praise anthems, etc. But someone has to set it up and perpetuate it.
I want to address a few things. First, the reason I'm forced to attend is because my family goes and I am currently both employed doing landscaping and residing with my parents since graduating from college this Dec. I've been looking for a job (taking way longer than I thought) but it looks like I'll have some options soon. Until then though, if I'm living there, I'm going to church.
For Vizio and 1insider, it's neither a show nor a productive tool. If it were a show, they wouldn't be doing it 4 times a week and when no one is watching. If it were a productive tool, they would use the spirit situationally, when the circumstance arose. And they would be doing it to achieve a defined goal. Instead, they go to church and pray just for the sake of doing it routinely and in expectation to go do it. They do it because they like to get lost, talk in tongues, convulse, and wail all night long. The reason they wail is because they want revival so more people will come and wail together with them. It's not a means to get something, because their only explanation of heaven is like eternal church. It's the end they work towards.
It's not a cult of personality. Sure the pastors have incredibly strong personalities and the Pentecostal churches I know worship the pastor as well as the spirit, but if one were to be removed, the church and the attendants would continue living like they are. They require 10% dues (tithes) and about 5% more in offerings, which is a decent amount, but it's not quite extortion and the ministers don't live lavishly.
... the reason I'm forced to attend is because my family goes and I am currently both employed doing landscaping and residing with my parents since graduating from college this Dec. I've been looking for a job (taking way longer than I thought) but it looks like I'll have some options soon. Until then though, if I'm living there, I'm going to church.
You are being a really good sport, and respectful to your parents. I commend you for that. So long as you aren't traumatized for some reason, and it appears you aren't, it's the Right Thing to do even though I suspect a root canal might be at least marginally more appealing ;-)
If nothing else I can't think of a better motivation to find a job and get out on your own!
Speaking in tongues hit the front page of a California Newspaper in 1901. An African women who had practiced voodoo all her life began speaking in tongues like she had always done.
This was a new thing and it was not seen in Judaism, and it was not seen in Christianity till 1901, but it is an ancient practice in voodoo and other religions especially in Africa. I spoke in tongues for 40 years and then I stopped when I began studying what tongues really were.
No, Voodoo ["Spiritualism"] is an ancient religion of north central Africa. Their tradition holds that they always spoke in tongues and prophecies to witness of the spirits [immaterial existence]. Paul [in NT times] is very clear that there is a practice of blathering incoherently in the early church, because God grants some people the ability to speak languages they never learned (ancient or modern) and also the language of angels (incoherent to humans), but he says it is best to show such useless "gifts" from God by having someone with the "gift" of prophecy there to translate it's meaning and thus make them useful.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 05-09-2016 at 08:10 PM..
People being slain in the spirit and becoming drunk is a real thing, it is a human thing but it does happen.
You literally feel drunk like you can't stand up, and while people may think it is of God, I would debate that it is a human phenomena where you believe something so much, that your body makes it true.
Actually psychological studies have demonstrated this, you convince people they are drinking alcohol when they are actually drinking a non-intoxicating drink made to taste like alcohol and they feel and act drunk out of the pure and gullible innocence of their own expectation/imagination.
Maybe I remembered it wrong or what I had read a decade ago flipped around in my head, but in was in Topeka.
I suppose I read something somebody took from it being an African Methodist church and got voodoo somewhere from that. I still come to the same conclusion, it was unheard of until it began in Topeka, and they tell no good tales of those events, but it took 40 years of my life to get it.
Maybe they meant unheard of in the U.S.A. because most of the denominations back before then had been scared of spiritual expression (by witch-craft persecutions) and then of looking like fools culturally in an era of great Enlightenment influence. Furthermore, a lot of the Bibliolatrists read the O.T. passages about the parents of a "prophet" having to stab him for his crime in the "end of days" since prophecy would no longer be allowed, but then that would mean no one to interpret babbling in xenoglossia, and thus no use to xenoglossia according to Paul for Bibliolatrists using the modern canons available to them.
It is indeed mostly a real phenomenon known as "mass hysteria". Some, though, is faked. Inherently to deliver a prophecy or alleged interpretation of tongues you have to actively make stuff up. To gin up the crowd atmosphere necessary for people to be "slain in the spirit" you have to be calculatedly manipulative, though you may rationalize much of that.
The hysteria part is much of the speaking in tongues, the various forms of falling down or having "holy seizures" or whatever, the ecstatic feelings during praise anthems, etc. But someone has to set it up and perpetuate it.
I don't think Paul talks about a "gift" of seizures in his venerated letters included in Christian Bibliolatrist practice, but I think he does talk about his "disease" being a glory to himself and his God, rather than a dishonor. Some people suppose his disease might have been epilepsy or some other form of seizing; especially since you can sometimes receive emotional hallucinations during such attacks.
It's all fake. They do it because they want to appear spiritual.
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I don't see much of difference between these actors who deceive masses by abusing the name of religion, and many politicians. Both are the same thing in different roles.
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1. It's a scam.
2. Lots of people are easily suckered...and will even go along with the scam and swear it isn't a con-game.
3. There will never be a shortage of those that will run a scam the easily suckered.
And in this corner.............
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Convulsing in the spirit is the unknown tongues of travailing in the spirit which is out of their bellies will flow living waters , which is the scripture from Galatians 4:19 .....Apostle Paul said ``My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you ``............. See believers who engage in laboring in the spirit will break strongholds from the spirit of this world , grow faster in the Spirit of Christ and the percent of people who will never fall away from the church and never fall from Christ and these will endure to the end of their lives .............See churches can ignore these gifts will still have salvations to Jesus , but those who develop in these gifts will be stronger in the spirit and develop greater works which Jesus does through all His children
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The OP has hardened his heart but that doesn't mean the ones he is mocking aren't truly taken by the Spirit. Oh ye of little faith.
I want to see a no holds barred, bare knuckle bible verse fist fight!!!
Last edited by eddie gein; 05-09-2016 at 08:29 PM..
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It's not a cult of personality. Sure the pastors have incredibly strong personalities and the Pentecostal churches I know worship the pastor as well as the spirit, but if one were to be removed, the church and the attendants would continue living like they are. They require 10% dues (tithes) and about 5% more in offerings, which is a decent amount, but it's not quite extortion and the ministers don't live lavishly.
Lol. It's sounding like more and more of a scam to me. They require tithes AND atleast half more of that in free-will offering... All on top of free propaganda and marketing? This CEO group's ultimate focus is very clear: money from the invisible hand of the market, Hades Pluto (Hidden Wealth).
For one thing, Paul talks about Temple tithes not being required from non-Jews, and that free-will offerings are better. And for another thing, free-will offering aren't supposed to be slyly coerced like that (but I understand that most Churches put a lot of emphasis on wanting more money always "because we're so poor" even Catholic Churches have done this). Although I guess they could focus on that Jesus says give up all your money, so if your heart really truly "loves" God, you should give at least 60% of your income ever week to Church in order to get an passing grade. And on top of that God gave you everything, and everything you have is his and he is just asking for some of his money back. Give onto God what is God's and onto Caesar give nothing.
I'm not even sure Samaritan Jews even payed Temple taxes, since they rejected Bibliolatry and the Temple at Jerusalem and worshiped in tents as described in the books venerated by Bibliolaters.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 05-09-2016 at 09:49 PM..
It is indeed mostly a real phenomenon known as "mass hysteria". Some, though, is faked. Inherently to deliver a prophecy or alleged interpretation of tongues you have to actively make stuff up. To gin up the crowd atmosphere necessary for people to be "slain in the spirit" you have to be calculatedly manipulative, though you may rationalize much of that.
The hysteria part is much of the speaking in tongues, the various forms of falling down or having "holy seizures" or whatever, the ecstatic feelings during praise anthems, etc. But someone has to set it up and perpetuate it.
I think in most cases it is usually genuine, I mean yeah, it could be done but most of what I see is just people really believing in it. People fall down slain in the spirit when my mother walks into a church and she is convinced that she has the spirit, it isn't something planned, it is sincere.
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