There are people who can look at a photograph of a face and divine the subject's soul. Why not deity-sanctioned prognostication?

why?

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

I would comment that, to me, Pentecostals tend to be highly emotional and "feelings" based. Their study of the Bible follows the same emotional line. I do not see great expository works from the AoG.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

can anyone explain the "speaking in tongues" business?

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

As a off shore fisherman I can tell you without hesitation:
it's bad luck to be superstitious.

It's a long story. It begins with an account in the NT book of Acts in which Jesus' disciples speak in unknown languages (to them) on the Day of Pentecost and a number of people hear those languages as their native tongue. There are other references in the NT to people speaking in tongues.
Shortly afterwards, the practice disappears in Christianity. Jump forward to the beginning of the 20th century and a number of working class people in various places in industrialized countries begin making sounds that appear to have syllables and sentence structure yet the sounds have no meaning to the speakers. They say they have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and begin speaking in tongues routinely under a variety of different conditions as a central religious experience. These practices began a variety of Pentecostal denominations in (mostly) English speaking countries which then spread the Word (or Unword if we want to think of it that way) to lots of countries around the world and into traditional Protestant denominations, Catholicism and even Orthodox Christianity (I think).
Since they believe that the most central religious experience in their lives is irrational (incapable of being comprehended by the rational mind) there is a general tendency for this irrationality to spread out into their lives in general resulting in lots of 'miracles' and magic in their daily lives.
The most well known political figures who practice this are Pat Robertson whose TV network was instrumental in spreading the message, and John Ashcroft, Bush's attorney general who was raised in the AoG. Palin is (?) also AoG.
Pentecostals typically will speak in tongues in private as they pray, in large groups in public when they worship, and also will 'prophecy' in tongues. If a prophecy occurs in tongues, a listener in the vicinity will be inspired to translate the message into English or whatever language the group uses. Since prophecies also occur in native languages quite often, it appears that once in a while God just can't be bothered to speak to someone in English or Spanish or whatever, so just invents this unique language for a minute or two which the prophesier just repeats verbatim to the listeners.
There's at least one other small religious group in the world besides Pentecostals who have been known to practice similar nonsense languages in its religion. Many Pentecostals find the experience of speaking in tongues quite liberating and do it for a kind of spiritual high.
One interesting fact to me is that the practice began in social groups that had the least control of their lives (poor working class people, some of whom were minorities) but by the late 60's and early 70's had spread up into the upper middle classes and the denominations of the upper classes. This movement seems in some ways to contradict the thesis in the original piece posted in this thread. I think it could be that speaking in tongues was discovered by a group who needed diversion from a pretty dismal daily life, but once practiced was found pleasing on its own terms even to people to don't have as much of a need to divert from everyday life.
In my view, one primary value of speaking in tongues is that it empties the mind of thoughts associated with language. For instance, I cannot follow a syllogism when speaking in tongues but I can imagine visual images. I suppose it's possible to think that speaking in tongues returns homo sapiens to an earlier evolutionary period of the brain, before language had come into existence.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

In Bernhardt's philosophy of religion it was deep sea fishing that created the most elaborate religious rituals because it was the most dangerous kind of fishing the people being studied engaged in. Fishing in the lagoon required only a couple of Hail Marys, metaphorically speaking, whereas deep sea fishing required the sacrifice of a virgin.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Or to bring bananas on a boat! lol

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1993 300E 2.8 185k miles
2006 Mustang Convertible 4.0 Eaton Supercharged