The surge in untruth from the McCain campaign this week may have its roots in the Pentacostal faith that Sarah Palin practiced all her adult life until she entered politics six years ago.
"When the spirit comes on you," a fellow Assembly of God member discloses, "you utter things that nobody else can understand ... only God can understand what is coming out of our mouths."
That might explain what unbelievers are seeing as Palin's lies about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere, soliciting pork for Wasila, her Troopergate involvement and the growing list of fast-and-loose statements on the campaign trail.
Palin's former pastor, Tim McGraw, says some of his members speak in tongues, although he says he's never seen Palin do so, and believe in "faith healing" and the "end times," a violent upheaval that will herald Jesus Christ's second coming, both iffy propositions for placing someone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.
Some Democrats, such as Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former Hillary Clinton supporter, are starting to speak out about "the big lie strategy" by the McCain-Palin campaign, but they may just not be sufficiently tuned in to the phenomenon of speaking in tongues.
Showing posts with label speaking in tongues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speaking in tongues. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Friday, October 12, 2007
Ann Coulter's Glossolalia
She has been speaking in tongues again. This time Ann Coulter tells a cable TV host of Hebrew origin that it would be better for America if Jews “perfected” themselves and became Christians.
The woman is clearly in the grip of “glossolalia,” defined as “the vocalizing of fluent speech-like but unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice.”
Until recently, such behavior was a mystery. But now neuroscientists have taken brain images of women speaking in tongues and found that their frontal lobes--the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do--were relatively quiet. (Spoiler alert: Several of the researchers had Jewish-sounding names.)
In the grip of such religious ecstasy, Coulter can’t be held responsible for what she says, as would a normal person who was just plugging a book on cable TV.
Previously, she had seemed to be a victim of Reverse Attention Deficit Disorder, a pathological need to be noticed that afflicts politicians and show business people. But Coulter’s self-destructive streak of disinhibited pronouncements suggests something deeper.
Politicians and performers set limits to what they say by the need to be liked. Not Coulter. After calling John Edwards a “faggot” and then being publicly rebuked by his wife, she replied, “If I say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
The Edwards campaign turned Coulter’s attacks into a fund-raising tool, so yet another conspiratorial possibility arises: Is Coulter secretly acting as a Zionist agent to arouse sympathy for American Jews?
In any case, medical attention is needed. Is there an exorcist in the house?
The woman is clearly in the grip of “glossolalia,” defined as “the vocalizing of fluent speech-like but unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice.”
Until recently, such behavior was a mystery. But now neuroscientists have taken brain images of women speaking in tongues and found that their frontal lobes--the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do--were relatively quiet. (Spoiler alert: Several of the researchers had Jewish-sounding names.)
In the grip of such religious ecstasy, Coulter can’t be held responsible for what she says, as would a normal person who was just plugging a book on cable TV.
Previously, she had seemed to be a victim of Reverse Attention Deficit Disorder, a pathological need to be noticed that afflicts politicians and show business people. But Coulter’s self-destructive streak of disinhibited pronouncements suggests something deeper.
Politicians and performers set limits to what they say by the need to be liked. Not Coulter. After calling John Edwards a “faggot” and then being publicly rebuked by his wife, she replied, “If I say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
The Edwards campaign turned Coulter’s attacks into a fund-raising tool, so yet another conspiratorial possibility arises: Is Coulter secretly acting as a Zionist agent to arouse sympathy for American Jews?
In any case, medical attention is needed. Is there an exorcist in the house?
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