Speaking in Tongues

As an atheist since age 13, I never believed in a god or ridiculous Bible stories.

When I was 14, I stayed overnight with a girlfriend for the first time. After breakfast, her parents took me with them to church before taking me home.

During the church service, people were having fits, shaking violently, falling on the floor writhing and screaming, and speaking in tongues.

I felt shocked, horrified and scared. I had never seen this crazy behavior before.

"I'm going to wait outside," I quickly told the girl and fled. Never stayed overnight with her again.

Well, this isn't a church experience, really, but my high school prom date was a preachers daughter. Her mother was batshit fucking bonkers. She claimed that one time when she was praying, she went up to Heaven and "danced with Jesus,"

We were at Red Lobster when she said this.

I took her knife and fork away from her.

As a southern Baptist growing up in Odessa Tx in the 70's Sundays were torturous. My mom would wake ME up and demand I get dressed to ride the "Joy Bus" (her and the old man never went) and I'd listen to 4 hours of fire and brimstone 1x a week. I was a juvenile delinquent in trouble with the authorities often and this was their method to reform me. Church every sunday morning and the boys club throughout the week (where I was beaten up daily at 3:00) when school was out. It became especially haunting when I started to notice girls and every time I saw or thought of boobies I would immediately be reminded that I was going to HELL for such thoughts!! I'd lie in bed at night crying because I couldnt make it all stop and I didnt want to go to hell. It was terrifying and finally I just chucked it all and refused to engage anymore.

Not me but my wife, Annette. On mother's day in a fundamental church her boyfriend at that time insisted they attend. Preacher was sayin how women should bow down and obey their husbands. Well that did it for Annette, she stood up and shouted "this is a bunch of BS" The attendants (guards) at the door almost did not let her out but as mad as she was they did not want anymore of the incident so they allowed her to leave. They hounded her for months afterwards around town.

When I was a kid, I and my older brothers, along with one of their friends, went to a summer youth revival that was at a church just down the road from our house (it was close enough for us all to walk there).

We mostly went to Baptist churches, this was a Pentecostal church; and we were not used to the speaking in tongues garbage. When the pastor, started his gibberish, my second-oldest brother, who was about twelve, started audibly giggling.

The pastor left the stage and walked down to him. He started saying something like "hasunda-la-kaya, hasunda-la-koo, I cast this laughing demon out of you." Well, we were all scared shitless. And, when the preacher walked away, they stood up, and said we were going to leave. Which we all did.

As we were trying to leave, some huge man tried to stop us, telling us we couldn't go until it was over. My brothers didn't let that stop us and we kept walking.

When we got outside, the huge man was still after us telling us to go back inside. The mother of the friend just happened to be driving by. We all yelled at her to stop; and when she did, we told her that the huge man was trying to stop us from leaving. Well, she tore into him good, telling him that if we wanted to leave he had no right to stop us.

When we go home, we told our mom what had happened. We never again went to that church.

Ironically, the giggling brother turned out to be the most religious of all the kids. I am the only atheist.

I went to a tent revival. Crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Total fubar at 16. How, you may ask did I, an almost intelligent non christian end up there. Easy, I had gone to a friend's house to see him. He wasn't home, but his really cute, actually, pretty hot, cousin who i had never met was. My friend's folks invited me to a "church thing" at some camp an hours drive away. The girl asked me to go so she could have someone of age to speak with. I went. At first, the camp wasn't all too awful and we drifted off into the woods. Had to come back for the tent meeting a couple hours later. That sucked and the girl became one of the crying, sobbing masses. I was worried she might tell her uncle and aunt what we were up to.

This is not strange, just different. Back in the early 1980s, a girlfriend decided that she wanted her kids to have some form of religious learning. She drug me to several churches, all of them in the neighborhood. The last one we went to we arrived late, just before the sermon. The preacher started talking about the works of Satan and the fact that there was a Psychic Fair at the Coliseum. We looked at each other and immediately moved to go. That was the end of looking for a church. The fair was great and we would not have gone if we had not gone to the fair. This was back when the Rashnishes were in the State and they had a large booth. This was really strange as there was this guy dressed up in all the Indian (India) garb talking about enlightenment. I listened for about five minutes and he spoke but said nothing of interest.

Just the regular moronic practices of the Catholic Church are enough to make you laugh. Such as the priest reciting who knew what in Latin.I never had any idea what the hell he was saying .As a child the nuns would shove this little wicker basket on a long pole down each pew in front of your face and expect each child to put money in it .Many more as any former catholic would know .

I visited a church in rural Tennessee, where everyone spoke in a hillbilly accent. For example, "far tar" is how they pronounced "fire tower." Also, "tar arn" is how they pronounced "tire iron." In the sermon, the hillbilly pastor said, "Sum fokes theenk rahts av rahts." I asked the man next to me what he meant. He pronounced it in a way I could understand -- "Some folks think rats have rights." I nearly cracked up laughing.

In my opinion religions and churches are cults. I might add that political parties have become cults as well.

I have had several strange experiences sadly. From heaven and hell houses, people being offended and rude about the fact that I dated a boy of a different race (we were early teens and did nothing except sit next to each other and hold hands), and even guilting me into going to church after I repeatedly told members of the town that I just wasn't interested in going (all of these were different churches).

The most bizarre of these was one day during Sunday school of the church that I was pressured into going to I was told how 'black people were made'. I don't think I have ever been so mortified by a story in all my life. That was the last time I allowed them to guilt me into going back. It sadly was a long time later that I was finally able to admit to myself that I didn't believe in any god, but I'm thankful that I finally came to that conclusion.

I've found that this is the norm of many religious institutions. It's the way they are able to brain wash people into believing and stop their critical thinking. It is very cult like, because the techniques used are of those used by cults, the exception is that unlike cults where they are seen as cookie off shooters, the "proper" religious just have a high count of followers, hence they are seemed as "non-cults." But in practice both small off fringe cults and mainstream religions are exactly the same.

The physical Laws of Physics and the Evolutionary Principles are not Gods. We do not pray to them. We work very hard and diligently to understand how they operate and how they impact any system. But we do not pray to them. Gods are just anthropomorphic placebos

The last time I went to church, I walked into a random Pentecostal church. I'd escaped the brain care and was just sorry of "putting myself out there"to see if god could still convince me he existed. 2 things. During the festivities, the dudes in the church were doing this mumbling "tongues talk" (you know how the Pentecostals are....), And then a couple of these people get all "spirit high" and start running around the aisles swinging towels in a circle over their heads telling at people as they ran by. It was hilarious. Finally during the begging session at the end, as they were passing the alms plates around, the first officer pastor dude was saying stuff. And then he says "... Come on people. Give it up. I need something to pass on to my grand kids." I'm thinking "am I the only one who heard that? He's straight up telling these morons he's going to take their money for his own personal business. Nobody noticed this?!" I'll never forget that day. I've never been to church since.

When I was a kid, I went to a church where they would actually drag people from their seats upfront to the altar to get people saved. I saw a preacher preach for an hour straight without taking a breath it seemed and all I could understand was when he said And A. My mom went to a church where they would kick people out if women had short hair or didn’t wear long dresses. I also went to a church where people were slain in the spirit and fell down and people laid blankets on them. All of it was a bunch of bullshit. The crazy stuff I was visiting and didn’t have an idea it was like that.
My mother’s dad was a preacher and he started a church. When he died my mother was a teenager and the church ended up kicking them out of the house and they had to move in a little shack

The craziest would be pentecostal, they mumble to themselves, and go shaking and dancing, I saw a video recently where they go running through the isles, and one guy jumped up on the podium and another jumped in the babtismal water, some handle snakes also, yes cult like behavior through programming and repetition.

your story makes me glad i have never been christian. the strangest church experience i can cite is that a friend of my fiance's, knowing that we're jewish (i am an atheist but my guy still believes, sort of -- not in any organized, much less orthodox way, but that's another story) dragged us to a "tribute to israel" which turned out to be john hagee at a megachurch apologizing for having hated jews and begging us to join him now in hating muslims instead. ugh. it was horrific and offensive. some rabbis had been conned into attending and you should've seen their faces -- i wonder how they received their invitations and whether they knew hagee would be there? (i doubt it!)

anyway i don't even have any horror stories to tell about synagogues as i was raised secularly and every time i've gone to shul as an adult (once a year MAYBE, with my guy) it's been interesting, friendly and fun.

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Not church cuz I've avoided them like the covid-19 virus, but every fucking day when you see these wahoos on TV going to services just makes me want to puke!

You should try to find a way to hack into their system and replace the words on screen with death metal lyrics.

Or better yet, bible quotes that are in opposition to the teachings of their church.

Most of the services I have been to have been rather tame. In later years though, I find myself having less patience for the nonsense. I only go for special occasions such as funerals or weddings. Difficult to sit there and listen to some minister stand up and lie to people about how wonderful it will be when they meet their loved one in the next life.

In the Catholic church they make people repeat all together pre-established phrases and thoughts as part of the mass, as well as embracing people close to you. Can't say more, I was never a catholic, and I only go to churches for family or friends weddings

Everytime I go to a catholic service the priest says something crazy. I only go for family things.

Craziest church experience: Being "slane in the spirit" I think that's what it's called (help me out here, someone, if I'm saying it wrong) as a 9 year old. Attended a giant church in a wealthy town, all of us children were gathered together and the pastor was "speaking in tonges" and lightly pushing on our foreheads and proclaiming that if we prayed to god he would let us experience the "holy spririt" and we could "speak in tonges" or be "slane in the spirit" which was to fall down on the ground. I did fall back on the ground but I think that was nerves/peer pressure. Still...weirdest experience!

-Going to Passover in a Christian church and putting up with the horrific farts coming from the old ladies in front of me.
-Went to a Billy Graham crusade where, after the sermon, throngs surged to the stage to have their foreheads pushed. Scary to see so many deluded people in one place and time.
-A haunted hayride ended up in the loft of a barn where the lead wacko shook a gory leg bone at us to scare us into submission. Someone had a squirt gun that distracted the mood.
-Going to a Hillel social where a few young ladies knelt in prayer. They seemed so nice up to that point.
-Went to a cult meeting in midtown Long Beach where a psychic had built a following. The members dressed in uniforms closely resembling Star Trek uniforms. The leader gave quick readings to whoever lined up.
-I interviewed a priest for a paper. While there, I was bemused at the alcoves that held dolls dressed in finery that represented various South American saints. Some time later I went to an exhibit on Voudou in a museum north of New Orleans. The exhibit had a bunch of alters that were strongly reminiscent of the alcoves in the Church.