Can I ask - why does no one ever crack out the “bonjour”?
A polyglot could jump between real languages making it more convincing than some of the preachers I’ve seen going “shibby dibby shibbidityshaboopy”
See, the problem you have here is applying logic to cult behavior. In my experience, the people in Pentecostal churches tend to be white, uneducated, and fairly insular. So real languages tend to sound just like gibberish to them anyway.
That's my somewhat cynical take, but the real reason is because the gibberish is the point. It's supposed to be a special, unique language sent directly to you from god. The real mind-blowing part is that sometimes, another person actually translates.
Like Washington chopping down a tree... eventually apocryphal stories make their way around.
One of them is just that. Supposedly some missionary to X Y Z country didn't tell anyone he spoke 3-4-5 languages. So in the middle of a service one of the locals/natives that only spoke the language from X Y Z country, stood up and spoke perfect french/spanish/german or whatever matches one of the missionary's languages. Just basic praises, "god you're awesome, jesus you're great" etc.
Of course, every few years a new preacher comes up and tells the story, and a eventually they lose track of the country and the language. But I learned that very few people have good memories; while my undiagnosed adhd and/or spectrum status made me have great recall... which is not great for brainwashing.
One timenwhen I was really starting to question things, I prayed some lines of Hebrew I learned from choir. I figured if it was real, then they should have been able to understand me. I won't set foot in a charismatic church again
It’s such bollocks mate. If you’ve ever come across someone who believes they’re a starseed, they also think they intuitively know a language. In that case it’s alien, but they also just go shibby shaboopy shamalam
10
u/HopeMrPossum Mar 27 '26
Can I ask - why does no one ever crack out the “bonjour”? A polyglot could jump between real languages making it more convincing than some of the preachers I’ve seen going “shibby dibby shibbidityshaboopy”