In my life, I've met two people who have lost control of themselves and spoke in other languages in what is considered a super-natural gift. The act itself is called speaking in tounges, and is considered a gift from God. Their is a small bible passage on this act (i think its in one of Saint Paul's letters i belive, not sure). My aunt is one of these people, during a bible study/chat she lost control of herself in front of a couple of my cousins and spoke in something that according to a few family members sounded like chinese. She said during the incident she couldn't have stopped if she tried. I don't know of anything on earth that would cause me to lash out and lose speak in another language. My aunt also did not have to prove her faith in anyway after being a practical catholic for her entire life.
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Love the high levels of skepticism and scrutiny they subject such "super-natural gifts" to. I mean, come on, what other explanation could there be for someone speaking in something that "sounds like chinese"? Surely, it could be nothing but Jesus himself, communicating to other people who have no idea what the hell that person is saying.
Your Aunt could have a variety of Tourettes, or maybe epilepsy, but with the stigma about those disease, chooses to disguise it as 'speaking in tongues'.
Your mum was lucky it was a bible study class. When *I* dozed off and started mumbling incoherently, I was in a law tutorial. Worst part was I was fading into sexual reverie before it happened.
I speak in tongues, too. But it's usually after an obscene amount of beer. And, instead of "amen", I say raaaawwwwlfffff! (Check your aunt's breath.)
Helt enig, faen ta dem alle! Fundamentalistpakk hele jævla gjengen!
Wops, there I went off on a tongue-speaking-rant again. Oh boy, the lawd really speaks through me today, and he told me that all you fundie-nutsacks are nuttier than a sack full of brazil-nuts.
Yeah, I lost control once, too, but the "speaking in tongues"-part came next morning from that.
And I think I liked the "losing control"-part better than the "speaking in tongues"-part, not that I'd have too much memories about it... wouldn't consider it as a gift tho.
same thing happened to one of the presidential hopeful's wife. (I think it was john mccain's wife, but I'm not entirely sure.) She started babbling jibberish. But then she went to the hospital, because she knew it wasn't right and found out it was caused by a stroke.
I haven't counted the languages I speak, so now may be a good time to do so. I can get easily by in about 6 (Hebrew, Egyptian Arabic, Romanian, Norwegian, German, Scots Gàidhlig) and I am totally fluent in Irish Gaelic, French, English, Spanish, Italian. On top of this I have studied Old English (Anglo Saxon) and Middle Egyptian. And at present I am engaging with Catalan. I must be possessed by the Demon of Language.
So what's the big deal about your aunt's glossolalia? It's not speaking another language. It's burbling and babbling, probably drooling too, and means nothing except that someone has yet again cut loose from reality.
Well, as both a Catholic and a linguist(and the daughter of an Irish man and a Spanish woman married to a half-Irish Half-Greek man), I speak tongues. However, it's not what you are thinking.
Considering that you surely don't speak anything but English(and the latter not particularly well, judging your spelling), I will say that your aunt had a kind of mental illness such as epylepsy and you, in a massive attack of stupidity, thought it was Chinese.
One morning my father was speaking in tongues at the breakfast table. Since he's an atheist, we took him to the hospital. Turns out he had a massive sinus infection that had eaten through his skull and reached his brain. By evening he was having seizures and had lost all his English, while his Spanish was hopelessly garbled.
Today he's fine, but strangely enough, that experience didn't prompt any religious conversion. He's still an atheist.
Probably not chinese as most studied cases have proven to be known language, and most likely no real lanquage.
It's crap that some Christians use to appear special in God's way.
It would be interesting if one of your bible-belt whitebreads walked into a chinese resterant and spoke fluent Mandarin to the owner. This of coursewon't happen because it's crap
The only times "speaking in tongues" is mentioned in the Bible, it is to allow the Gospel to be spread. The only time we see it at work, everyone heard it in their own language. Xenoglossia has no biblical support.
Funny how Christians say that meditation(i.e. Buddhism, Taoism, and traditional martial arts) is 'demonic', because it opens up your mind for influence or possession by 'demonic forces or beings', yet want us to believe there's nothing wrong with a 'holy spirit' possessing you and making you spout gibberish.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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