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First time at a pentacostal church

Mr_Wilford

Mr_Wilford

Member
arg-fallbackName="Mr_Wilford"/>
Okay, so everyone here knows I'm a Christian I'm sure. So obviously I regularly attend chruch in some form. Well, tonight was a hectic night for me. I got invited by a friend to come with him to church. I thought it would be cool. Dead wrong.

It was a pentecostal church

I'm used to Mass or some Baptist service, which are usually pretty serious but mellow. Not this place. People were jumping up randomly, screeching in "tongues". It was insane. I left my friend there and noped the fuck out, came home, and watched some How the Earth Was Made to calm my mind.

I'm fairly certain I heard the pastor scream "Give ME praise!" Not "Give Him Praise!"

If I accepted demonic possession as something legit, I'm fairly certain I'd have left thinking the room was full of demons.

Shit was creepy. I don't intend on going back.

Anyone else ever been to a pentecostal service??
 
arg-fallbackName="TVUPirateBM"/>
The Pentecostals are really an "interesting" group to be polite. The way some of them act, however, seems to like up with Matthew 7:21-23, especially concerning their "exorcisms".

For reference, Matt 7:21-23 [NABRE]: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’"
 
arg-fallbackName="Visaki"/>
Nope. I've only been to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (a church as liberal as one can imagine) services. Still do actually, I go a short christmas service with my father every year since I don't want him to go to it, and later to the graves, alone. But even the normal services are pretty much as vanilla as you can get in a christian church.

And no, I have no interest to visit a performance of collective insanity. Even more so because the people there actually want to be insane.
 
arg-fallbackName="Mr_Wilford"/>
I've also heard some of these people handle vipers and drink poison thinking God will protect them. They tend to end up in the hospital a lot :lol:
 
arg-fallbackName="Collecemall"/>
I've been a couple of times. Like you I was familiar with Baptist services. When people started running laps around the room and screaming nonsense I started people watching instead of paying attention to the service. People would be standing there singing and just drop like a sack of rocks. No concern for where or what they landed on. As soon as the music stopped everyone was back to their feet in their own spot acting normal like they hadn't just looked like a scene from the exorcist. I think those two services were my first steps away from faith. It started to be clear that we do whatever we're conditioned to find acceptable not that there is something that is true and right and correct. It's certainly an entertaining evening if you aren't freaked out too bad.
 
arg-fallbackName="Collecemall"/>
itsdemtitans said:
I've also heard some of these people handle vipers and drink poison thinking God will protect them. They tend to end up in the hospital a lot :lol:
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken they do this based on the verses in Mark that are considered to have been added later. They weren't part of the original text. So they've been killing themselves over a forgery. Whoops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_handling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16
 
arg-fallbackName="Prolescum"/>
I find it all very alien. I am a third generation atheist so outside of funerals and weddings (of course I know several religious people) haven't had much direct experience of this world. In this case, I feel somewhat left out :(

Regarding the snakes sometimes used, do they ever come into conflict with animal right activists and/or legislation?


Edit: the people using them, not the snakes...
 
arg-fallbackName="Collecemall"/>
Prolescum said:
I find it all very alien. I am a third generation atheist so outside of funerals and weddings (of course I know several religious people) haven't had much direct experience of this world. In this case, I feel somewhat left out :(

Regarding the snakes sometimes used, do they ever come into conflict with animal right activists and/or legislation?


Edit: the people using them, not the snakes...
Click to expand...


Yes. It is illegal in most if not all areas here in the states. This doesn't stop the people who are stupid enough to play with snakes though. I think the wiki article I linked goes into more detail about it.
 
arg-fallbackName="Dustnite"/>
I was married to a Pentecostal once..... we're divorced now many years.

Suffice it to say, I got to see first hand the amount of crazy those people generate and I got to see the ugliness of it when the lies they told themselves started to crack and implode under their own pressure...
 
arg-fallbackName="Prolescum"/>
I'm glad it's policed. I'm not that much of an animal lover (despite the chihuahua by feet), but I am from an otherwise an empathetic species... Might be a silly question and seem somewhat tangential, but is there a not-required-but-asked-anyway option on the U.S. census regarding one's denomination/religion?
 
arg-fallbackName="lilmarome"/>
If I had gone to such a church while I still believed I think it would be a very traumatic experience:S
 
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